In Service of the Duke

Chapter 2

Lazar asked the automated assistant in his mind to run a training simulation for what was at least the seventh time that night. He had been waiting for four days to be contacted again by Barbara who was still analyzing the little electronic chip. So to keep his mind distracted, he booted up yet another mental training module. All his consciousness went black while he waited for it to load.

As soon as he was able to see again, he frowned. He was in a blank white space with a laser rifle on a table. It was another marksmanship module. He wasn't at all surprised. The program tended to focus on his weaknesses, and his arms training had been lagging behind the other agents' for a long time. He had let his skills get rusty after the loss of his eyes. He grabbed the rifle, looked down the sights, and sighed.

Soon a city materialized. He found himself looking out of the window of a skyscraper at a street far below. He saw the target in the upper right corner of his vision. It was a man with glasses and a distinct scar above his left eyebrow. Lazar used his eyes' telescopic feature to zoom in and scan the crowd for minute details. Eventually, he spotted him coming out of an alley. The man was agitatedly walking across the street about four thousand yards away.

Lazar aimed carefully, going through a mental checklist. Turn on motor. Check. Accommodate for elevation. Check.  Flip safety switch. Check. That all done, he breathed in slowly, and on his out-breath, slowly squeezed the trigger.

One of the few advantages to laser weaponry in Lazar's opinion was that it was fairly quiet. The lack of recoil surprised him every time as he was used to conventional firearms and he found the ghostlike firing unnerving. This time was no different. With a strange feeling in his stomach, he zoomed in with his eyes to see what the yellow stream of supercharged lightwaves had hit.

Unsurprised, he saw the woman behind the target drop to the ground. He had a bad habit of aiming high. The module showed the mission failure screen and offered to let him try again. Lazar sighed and closed the program. He was tired and sweating, so he went and took a quick shower before changing into his street clothes. He was planning on taking a quick walk and sleeping for a few hours, but as he got out of the bathroom, Lazar saw a holographic icon of an envelope hovering above his LampHome. He walked over and waved his hand over it. It was a video message from Barbara.

"Hey Lazar, got over here! You're gonna want to see this. It makes all this time worth it."

Barbara was not one for exaggeration, so Lazar headed over as quickly as he could. When he got there, gum-snapping-waitress told him to go into the office at the back. When he arrived, Barbara was sitting at the desk with a couple of papers on her desk.

"Lazar! Good to see you in one piece, honey. Sit down over here by me."

Lazar pulled his chair over to her side of the desk. "You seem in awfully good spirits today. Must be a good haul."

She smiled. "Good is an understatement. Your timing is impeccable. Look at what you found."

Lazar looked at the papers in front of him. He saw three pages. On one of them was a set of directions with a lot of chemical names that he did not even pretend to recognize. The second was presumably the diagrams of said chemicals in various stages of bonding. He was beginning to get frustrated with Barbara until he saw the third document. This one he understood. It was a police report of a death, a poisoning. Apparently, the victim had grabbed a glass that was coated in the compound and had died a few minutes afterward. It seemed that he had also spent the downtime between poisoning and death talking about everything that he considered important to him, including vital military secrets about planetary defense.

"This sure is something, Barbara."

Barbara smirked at him. "You sound doubtful Lazar. What is it?"

"It's just that this all seems so convenient, you know. Intercepting this particular drop, the poison, just... everything."

Laughing, Barbara said, "So cynical. But it doesn't matter whether it's real or not. The Duke's chemists will be able to tell. And if this is a dummy drop, it means that you've at least inconvenienced their communication, but if not, you'd better get ready for a promotion."

Lazar smiled.

Suddenly the door to the office was busted in, and three men came in with guns leveled at Barbara and Lazar. A computer regulator in Lazar's brain dumped adrenaline in his system at abnormally high levels. Lazar quickly kicked over the desk and jumped over it toward the men. The distraction the desk provided gave him the opportunity that he needed.

Lazar kicked the man in front of him as hard as he could, loosening his hold on the gun in his hands. Lazar snatched it, turning to the man on his left. He quickly squeezed the trigger, not bothering to aim, releasing a quick burst of plasma fire, punching holes in the man's torso.

Lazar knew that he had taken too long, so he whirled around to face the man that he had turned his back on, only to see Barbara holding him in a headlock with a knife to his temple. The man quickly became submissive and dropped the gun.

Barbara tightened her grip on the man. "Hey, Lazar, why don't you go back to your motel in case the police come to investigate the noise. I'll call you after."

"Alright. Sounds good." Lazar left quickly. Barbara had once been known under the codename "Impaler" due to her 'alternative interrogation techniques' and Lazar had no wish to witness any of those employed today.

Arriving at his motel room, Lazar looked around. He had a distinct feeling that something was off but didn't quite know what it was. He thought that perhaps the events of the day had simply put him on edge, but this was a little more concrete, so he began an investigation.

It didn't take him long to find the aberration. His bed had been moved almost a full foot to farther away from the door. He stomped a few times on the floor around the bed and discovered that there was a more hollow, resonant sound around the side of the bed closest to the door.

Lazar mentally prepared himself for a long night and began to pry up a panel from the floor.