Produced by Al Haines [Illustration: Cover art] Less Than Human A short story by Zoe Blade (C) 2008 Zoe Blade. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. From the roof of the legal bookstore, I have a clear shot at my target, Jon Russell. He's sitting down at a table outside a cafe where Chancery Lane meets Fleet Street, sipping a cardboard cup of coffee. I briefly ponder how ironic it seems that he's actually bought a drink; it must be for show, although there's no way that he can tell that right now he has a very specific audience. Even in the sunshine, the guiding beam of my tripod mounted rifle is brightly illuminating a thick circle of skin on his neck, just below his white beard, but even if any of the passersby can see infrared as well as I can, they won't have time to do anything even if they notice it. My eyes are already over two years old now, but they were expensive enough at the time to still be considered detailed even by today's standards. With their magnification, I can see the circle of light on his neck clearly, growing steadier with every passing second as a familiar cocktail of drugs calms my metabolism. I try not to let the laser's fan distract me. The guidance beam's one thing, but the main laser, the one that generates the lethal pulse, gives off heat like you wouldn't believe. With the midday sun shining straight down on me, the laser needs all the cooling it can get, and the fan sounds like someone's standing next to me, drying her hair. Once I can hold the laser still enough, I brace myself. For just a few precious seconds, I let myself ponder the consequences of what I'm about to do. I'm about to execute this guy, but although he's broken the law, I'm no sheriff. I think about the effect that what I'm about to do will have on people who look up to Jon Russell, and that makes me nervous. I have nothing against them; if anything, I actually sympathise with their cause. I put the thought out of my mind. It's unprofessional, a pause at best and a hindrance at worst. It's far too late to start developing emotions at this stage of my career, after months of training and almost three years of missions. I pull the trigger, just for half a second, my eyes momentarily shielding themselves from the visible end of the beam on his neck. There's no recoil on my weapon, giving it the eerie feel of a simulation. The only sign that it's firing is a loud popping noise like someone squashing a bag of crisps. It's over in an instant. I can almost convince myself that I haven't done anything wrong, but not quite. The bright circle is instantly replaced with a gushing stream of blood, pumping out in rhythmical bursts. His cardboard cup drops to the floor, and I unscrew the rifle from the tripod, duck below the top of the brick wall of the bookstore, fold up the tripod and put everything in my holdall, hidden beneath a pair of jogging bottoms.