Thursday, February 4, 2010

Challenge 12: Chaos

Tom put his hand in the hat, fishing around for a moment while the others egged him on.

“Come on, man,” Luc said. “Pick one already.”

“Yeah, tell us who it’s gonna be!” Andy seemed overly excited, like a little kid shaking his presents on Christmas Eve. He was actually bouncing on the edge of the broken desk.

Tom took a deep breath, his fingers closing around a single slip of paper. Slowly, deliberately, he pulled it out.

“Well?” Andy almost squealed.

Tom just kept staring at the paper, his cheeks going a bit pink. Marian, who had been standing by the grimy window, keeping watch, now snatched the flimsy scrap from Tom’s hand. “Anna. That’s what it says.”

Andy burst into peels of laughter. Luc smirked, saying, “This is gonna be interesting.”

“I dunno, guys.” Tom folded his arms, leaning back against the bare cement wall. “Can’t we pick a different one?”

“No can do, brother.” Marian flicked a lighter from her sleeve and set fire to the now scrunched up ball of paper. “You know the rules.”

Tom shrugged, pretending he didn’t care, but he wouldn’t quite meet her eyes either.
“So how are we going to do this?” she said.

“I reckon we make the hit as she’s coming out of class tomorrow,” Luc said, his brow creasing as he scanned the map they had laid out earlier on the dusty floor. “If we set up on level three of the St. James Library, we’ll have pretty good line of sight for the cameras.”

“We definitely want to maximise publicity, so let’s say around lunchtime?” Marian agreed. “This will be our first hit for the year and if it goes down well, membership will skyrocket.”

“Oooh, can I do it?” Andy grinned like a maniac. “I could run in there, guns blazin’ and shoot her in the head.”

“No!” Tom said immediately. “That’s a stupid idea.”

Andy pouted, looking to Marian for support. She shook her head.

“Sorry,” she said. “I agree with Tom. We need something with a bit more intrigue, more style. Maybe a sniper?”

“Mmm… mass panic.” Luc gave a wide, charming grin. “Sounds brilliant, but I would argue for something a little more theatrical.”

“Oh?” Marian looked at him, hands on her hips.

“I say we give Tom this one. We all know his hits provide entertainment for the whole family.”

Andy snorted at that. “Whole family,” he repeated, looking like he might give Tom a big ‘Barney-the-Dinosaur’ hug or something.

Tom crouched down to get a closer look at the map and then shook his head. “You guys realize this is the worst possible hit we could have pulled from the bag, right? Anna is black-belt in my Karate club. If you send me after her, there is no guarantee I’ll be the one that walks away.”

Marian gave an ambiguous, toothy sort of grin as she said, “Either way, we’ll have a nice spectacle and if she wins, she can have your spot.”

“You’re so fucking sadistic.” Tom stood up and headed for the door.

“So you’ll do it?” Marian called after him.

He slammed the door behind him and they could just hear the echoes of his ‘Fuck you’ from the hallway beyond. Marian grinned at the other guys, saying, “He’ll do it.”

Luc sighed, carefully folding up the map and slipping it into a brown manila envelope marked K.A.O.S.

Wordcount: 570

4 comments:

  1. Hi guys, sorry I broke quite a few rules on this one, but i couldn't bring myself to take it seriously. I am not quite prepared to actually dive into the minds of people planning to kill someone for no good reason.
    If you are at all confused, KAOS stands for Killing As an Organized Sport - a club at university who goes around doing 'hits' on people with things like water pistols and paint guns.

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  2. In the UK unis it's usually called the Assassins' Guild :)

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  3. One of those things that creates interesting situations like coming out of your room only to find someone hiding in the corner of a corridor with a water pistol.

    Amusingly, or worryingly, till I read your comment it didn't occur to me that KAOS was your local equivalent, I thought you'd made up some seriously sadistic students. Felt a bit stupid after. LOL!

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