Story Notes



Syndicate: Part II

By the time Hikaru was seventeen his face was scarred permanently after an incident when they had underestimated the number of bodyguards one of his targets would have had. He had taken a very deliberate pleasure in exacting punishments from the informant who had passed on the faulty information.

One fingertip for each of the four extra guards and the entire thumb for the scar that now ran from his forehead, over his left eye to the top of his cheekbone.

It was the first time that he'd enjoyed it.

His cousin came to speak to him afterwards.

He was playing with his stars rippling them over his fingers, skipping them across and over his nails when Kenji came calling. He let them fly as his cousin entered, landing them centimetres from the man's face into the wall.

'You missed,' said Kenji.

'No,' said Hikaru. 'I didn't.'

Kenji had a very interesting proposal.

'Starfleet?' asked Hikaru. 'Are you kidding me?'

'You've got a clean record. You’ve got all your fingers. Your English is pretty much flawless and you do the best American accent that I've heard.'

Hikaru scowled. 'I like it here,' he said. 'I like my job. What's in it for me if I go and do this?'

'Are you an idiot?' snapped Kenji. 'It's only because your mother was the wakagashira's favourite niece that you were even taken in. You're almost a fucking gaijin. Do you want to be an assassin for the rest of your life?'

Hikaru said nothing but let his stars spin faster. He didn't like to be reminded of his heritage. Kenji looked at him nervously. Anyone who had known Hikaru for any length of time knew the danger signs.

'All I'm saying,' Kenji said a bit more gently, 'Is we need someone on the inside. You're perfect. It'll take three or four years to get you trained. Five years after that and you've proved your commitment. You could be leading a whole bunch of gangs by the time you're thirty.'

Hikaru considered this. To be honest he could do with a change of scene. This thing was getting old anyway. He let the stars drop one by on into his palm and heard Kenji heave a sigh of relief.

'Alright,' said Hikaru. 'So tell me more about America. Is it true you can legally own a gun there? I've never shot anyone before.'


***


Pavel had just turned fourteen when he was almost kidnapped.

The kidnappers probably had no idea who they had just abducted, and in truth they would not have believed it if they had been told. Pavel was small, unthreatening and had a head full of bouncing brown curls. He was the last person you would expect to be the Adreievich's best sniper.

The Bratva had taken to calling him 'The Cherub of Vengeance'. Pavel didn't much care for the name but it amused his grandfather, and there wasn't much Pavel wouldn't do for the old man.

He had been watching some of the men trying to extract some information out of a traitor who had been passing information to the Poliakoffs, a rival Bratva.

They were wasting time, he thought as he left for ballet practise. Minimum pressure, Maximum force. It was all about finding the right angle, not just rushing in there with a mallet. Dead men told no tales.

His driver lay dead in the snow when he got to the car. He hadn't had a bodyguard since he was twelve so he had no warning as he was grabbed from behind.

He was aware that he looked younger than he was, so he made his eyes as wide and terrified as possible and screamed for his mother.

If you were too quiet then they got suspicious.

The man holding him clapped a hand over his mouth, one of the others looked uncomfortable.

'I don't like this,' he said. 'He's only a child.'

The man holding him started to argue back, but with one hand around Pavel and another clapped round his mouth he had nothing guarding his gun. It made it absurdly easy for Pavel to sneak it out of its holster and to put three bullets into the man's gut.

If the men had never seen him shoot, they'd obviously never seen him dance either. He hadn't spent seven years in the ballet for nothing. He used the momentary distraction of the shock to slide away gracefully, pirouette neatly and shot two bullets apiece into the remaining men's skulls.

He skipped back to the man who had been holding him who was now writhing in pain on the ground. He smiled angelically. 'Do Svidaniya, Motherfucker,' he said, put the man out of his misery, flipped on his toes and bowed to his grandfather's horrified henchmen with a flourish.

'You're late,' he said.

His grandfather wasn't taking any more chances after that and despite all of his protests he found himself shipped off to America before the month was out.

He hated it.

Two weeks after being bored out of his mind at school, fed up of the teachers treating him like an idiot just because his English - well, left a lot to be desired - he snapped. He walked to the board out of his turn, finished all the equations and just for fun disproved the first three laws of intergalactic planetary magnetism.

That night his parents got a call from Starfleet.

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