Dark Realizations

                            By:

                         Fox Cutter

    Chapter 2

Walling down the hallway, Marn pulled a folder out of
someplace in his jacket, and passed it to me.

I took it, and looked down at it blankly. "What's this?" I
asked.

"The information on the target."

I nodded slightly and opened it. There was only a few sheets
of paper inside, covered in a writing I couldn't read, as
well as a picture. It was another ferret, mostly brown fur
with a streak of white in his fur. Dresses in what looked
like a suit of some kind.

He was the man Marn was going to kill.

The man Marn and _I_ were going to kill.

I started to shake, badly, very badly. I dropped the folder
and pulled out of Marn's grip. Leaning against the wall I
slid down it, wrapping my arms around my legs. I was shaking
even worse, my whole body shivering.

Marn bent down next to me and put his paw on my shoulder. He
didn't say anything, he just stayed right there. After a
minute I got back into some sort of control of my body and
the shaking finally stopping.

"Thyrn's eyes," I whispered, "I'm going to be part of a
murder."

Marn gripped me tighter, but more to cause pain, more to try
and reassure me. "It happens to all of us at some time or
another. Usually though we've chosen to do this, not made
to."

I glared at him.

"I won't tell you it will go away, or you'll get used to it.
It doesn't and you don't." He touched the side of my face.
"I hope this is the only time you have to face it."

I nodded.

He reached over and picked the folder up from where it had
landed. Standing up, he proffered me a paw. "Come on, we are
on a clock."

I took it and slowly stood, though a bit wobbly. I leaning
against the wall for a few seconds until my balance came
back, then we started back down the hallway.

"Did you get a chance to read any of this?" He asked,
motioning with the folder.

I shook my head. "Can't read the language."

That caused him to pause, then shook his head. "Yes, I
should have know that." It was more of a scolding to
himself.

He slipped the folder back into his jacket and stuffed his
paws into his pockets. "He's the head of a large
cooperation, and has one hell of a security system around
him. Most of the document details the security, and a few of
his stats."

I nodded slightly, keeping my eyes downcast. "Why do they
want him dead?"

"Maybe he's a chronic jaywalker. I don't know, people tell
the Guild, and the Guild sends them to who ever they think
can pull it off. I'm not told the why of it, just that it
needs to be done."

He stopped talking as the hallway dead ended. Pulling his
paws out of his pockets, he had a strange looking fold
controller. Punching a few buttons he opened the fold.
Putting the controller away, he pulled his needler out of
his jacket.

With a smile to me, he stepped through.

I stopped for a few seconds, considering just running away
right now, but from what Marn told me I didn't think I would
survive it.

Gulping, I stepped through after him.

I came out in a back alley someplace in a large city. The
sky was overcast and brownish grey with many large
skyscrapers right around us.

Marn smiled again as I came through. "Thank you."

"For?" I snapped.

He sighed. "Not forcing me to bring you through." Then
glancing around he started down the alley. I followed him
again, crossing my arms some.

We moved down the alley, and onto a main street. We started
down the, and keep walking for a few blocks. I was happy to
see the it was a multi-species universe, so we didn't get to
many looks as people passed us.

Finally I gave up trying not to talk. "Where exactly are we
going to?"

He chuckled. "Right here actually." Then entered into one of
the larger buildings. Glancing up, before I went it, I saw
that it was about thirty stories tall. Actually dwarfed by
all the other, larger, buildings around it.

Pushing through the doors, I found Marn talking to the
receptionist. I noticed that I couldn't understand what
either one of them were saying. I rubbed the back of my head
and walked over to stand next to him.

There conversation went back and fourth for a few minutes
until the receptionist pointed him towards a small hallway
off the lobby.

He smiled and started walking over to it, I was following.
"What was all that about?" I asked.

He glanced over at me then nodded for a second. "I had to
get her to tell me where security was." He said, turning
into the small hallway, which turned out to be lined with
elevators.

Walking past them Marn moved to a small unmarked door. He
gave a quick knock on it. There was a pause and the door was
opened. There was a quick conversation between Marn and the
man at the door. It ended when suddenly had his needler in
his paw, and shot the guy.

The guy slumped down into Marn's arm, as Marn pushed inside.
After a few seconds he stuck his paw out, and motioned for
me to come inside.

I stepped into the room. It was cramped and filled with
monitors and computer equipment. The two people that had
been in the room where piled in the corner. I could see
though that they where both breathing.

Marn closed the door, then sat down at one of the two chairs
and started typing away at the keyboard.

I sat down next to him. "What are you doing now?"

He glanced over at me, and gave me a small smile. "If you
keep asking questions like these, I may start to think that
you want to join the Guild."

I scoffed. "Hardly Marn."

He shrugged. "I know, it was a bad joke. What I'm doing is
disabling the security system so we can go up to the top
floor. The target is already there, so there isn't going to
be to much of a hunt on this one."

He punched the last few buttons. Then pulling a knife out
from inside of his jacket, he stabbed it down into the
keyboard.

There was sparks for a few seconds, then the computer shut
down. Marn smiled, returning the knife from where he got it
at, then picking up a set of keys from next to the destroyed
system he stood. "That was the easy part." He said.

Walking over to the door, he opened it and motioned for me
to go out. He followed me, locking the door behind himself.
"There, that should give us about half an hour to take care
of this."

I nodded as he hit the call button for the elevator. When
one finally arrived we stepped inside of it. Marn used the
keys he had grab to do something on the control panel. Then
hit the button for what looked like the top floor.

He bounced the keys in his paw as the doors closed and we
started to rise. He threw the keys to me. "I set it for
express, no interruptions until we reach the top floor."

I nodded again, watching as the numbers clicked by. "Then?"

He shrugged. "I go first, neutralize any guards, find the
target and kill him. Then you come in, we get the picture,
and then go home."

I crossed my arms, smiling a bit. "If Fox was here he would
say that it was way to easy."

Marn chuckled. "Maybe so, and the security was a bit easier
to take out then I expected. But this is actually just going
well."

The elevator started to slow down, this puzzled me for a
second. "What's the top floor?"

"Thirty."

I blinked, that didn't match what I though the floor was. "I
think we're coming up to twenty-three."

He looked at me, furrowing his brow a bit, then up at the
counter for the current floor. His ears instantly went flat.
"How in the hell, it's set to express, it shouldn't be
stopping early..." he trailed off as the elevator lurched to
a stop.

He looked at me, then grabbing me around my shoulders yanked
me back against the side of the elevator car. Just as he did
the doors slide open and gunshots started.

Bullets pounded into the back of the car, digging into the
metal. Marn started pounding on the controls hitting buttons
at random until the doors closed.

The pounding from the gunfire echoed as it his the elevator
door. It faded a bit as we started up again, but still rang
out.

Marn counted off under his breath, then smashed the stop for
the elevator.

Leaning against the wall he let out a deep breath. "Fuck!"
he yelled, "they could _not_ have found us so damn soon!"

He looked at me, then back at the back of the car. "Unless
they knew that we were coming. Which means that this is a
setup against the Guild."

I rolled my eyes. "So we do what?"

He smiled a bit, looking over the ceiling. "What we always
do, take out the target."

"But if it's a setup," I protested, "wouldn't that be what
they want?"

He nodded, jumping up and pulling on the grid that held the
lights. It popped and swung down, lights and all, showing
the trapdoor above us. "Yes, that's exactly what they want.
What they don't count on is that we plan for this type of
crap."

He tilted his head, looking up at trapdoor. Then reaching
into his jacket and pulled out a small disk. "This will make
sure that this little setup doesn't work." He then stuck it
back inside. I was starting to wonder how much he had
stuffed inside of the jacket.

"So how do we get to him?" I asked, then winched at how I
said it. I sounded like I wanted to kill this guy, and I
didn't like it.

Marn smiled at me. "Simple, I set it up while I was in
security so that it doesn't report when the elevator has
used the emergency stop. There going to be up and down the
building looking for us."

"We're cheating then."

He nodded. "It's in Guild's membership charter." He said,
reaching up and swung the trapdoor open.