"You're early," he says. I briefly wonder how much effort he's putting into keeping his voice steady, trying his best not to give away how scared he is, but that brief glance has already betrayed his fear. He knows the doctor's dead. I figure I should have taken him up on his offer a few months back to join in his poker games. I'd have made a fortune off him. "I didn't get much sleep." I figure I can trust him not to try to kill me yet because I haven't revealed my intentions. He's far too trusting like that. The right move would have been to kill me as soon as he saw me in the room. But he can't do that. He needs me. So I turn my back to him, walking up to the window. "Bad night?" asks Mike, feigning ignorance. "You could say that. When I got home, I found an intruder waiting for me." "My god!" says Mike. "What happened?" "I dispatched her, naturally." The first rule in my line of work is never trust anybody, not even somebody pretending to be your friend. "_Her_?" asks Mike, pretending to be shocked by her gender, knowing full well how rare human assassins are, let alone women. I nod silently. "Did she say anything?" asks Mike. "No, nothing. She didn't have a chance to." "Wow," says Mike. "I guess that's too bad, in a way." I shrug. "We all get what's coming to us, eventually. She just wasn't smart enough to quit while she was ahead." Mike sighs. "I'm not an idiot, you know. You have to understand, it's business, nothing personal." He's sweating now. I watch a little bead of perspiration make its way down his forehead. "How much do you know?" I make my way to the shelf and pour a shot of whiskey. "It's a bit early for that, isn't it?" "Special occasion," I insist. It always helps to inebriate your opponent, to give yourself any edge over him that you can when it comes to reflexes. "I know how attached people can get to certain ways of doing things. The comfort of the familiar." I look at my glass thoughtfully. "I think it's time to make a clean break." I get another glass, pour another shot, and hand it to him. Raising my glass, I declare a toast. "To the future." Mike has a dubious look in his eye like he knows I'm up to _something_, just not what. For a manager, he sure lacks vision. He looks out the window at the ant-like people all those floors below, oblivious to the woman pointing a high powered laser rifle straight at him from the next block along, and raises his glass. "To--" Despite giving my new business partner the order to fire, the laser burst still somehow makes me jump. I've never seen it up close before. On the receiving end, it's deadly silent, the only sound being the sloshed gurgles of the target. The smell, on the other hand, is overwhelming--searing flesh with a hint of burnt cotton from his shirt.