"Why did you kill her!?" I ask knowingly, but still my ears ring.

"Because she was hunting what you needed." He responds, very matter of factly.

Bang, Bang, Bang - those were the fireworks, he’d since holstered his gun, in some ways it’s great we have cover for the noise, but no matter how you look at it - we just killed our contact.

“So that’s what we’re doing now, shooting our own contacts, shoot first, questions after they’ve stopped breathing, what the fuck?” I said furiously, unpoetically, also unapologetically, I meant it, what just happened?

“Cough, Splutter, Gurgle”, the nasty sounds of the last her body had to give to the world, as she convulsed violently and exhaled with such force you could hear life being sucked forcefully out of her fragile body, into some dark void impatiently lurking right above her.

“Is she still breathing? Check her pulse, fuck man, check her pockets, grab the drive.” Knowing this was a rewardless endeavour, guilt had taken the reigns to my mouth, I was uncontrollably spouting off anything to distract my mind from the horror of being there to witness her final breaths. “We should never have accepted her contact, we’ve given them exactly what they wanted, they’ll never stop coming after us now, legitimate cause in the eyes of the authorities too.”

“Shut the fuck up, yes, she’s dead, she’s not breathing, and if we hadn’t stopped her, you know we’d be the ones leaking on the kitchen linoleum right now, you think she was just going to hear us out and share her data?” He says with relative calmness, he’s being pragmatic, I don’t want to see sense right now, I just wanted to lose it, maybe because I wasn’t the one who got to pull the trigger.

“Here, what’d I say, she was carrying, she was never our contact, she was their agent, possibly even a cop. One on the waist and one on the ankle, she’s tactical, and I can guarantee backup won’t be far, if not right next door, we need to get the fuck out, NOW”. He’s used to this, if he’s 007, I’m Jason Bourne, he worked his way into becoming an anonymous agent, with a licence to kill, I was extracted, indoctrinated, a failed experiment who was deposited a twelve hour flight away from anything I recognised and left to piece my life together with a puzzle that had disappearing pieces.

“The fire escape out the window, chuck the guns, her ID and the drive in here”, I held open the backpack and within what felt like 3 seconds the bag was zipped and we were climbing out the window and sprinting down the narrow steps, it’s only three floors but the reality of us having to flee agents with active shoot to kill orders dawned on me before I even unzipped the bag, I was sweating through the sweatshirt, pacing, heart thumping at 4am through a neon lit side street of notorious Yeongdeungpo district, to make matters worse it’s started snowing. I never thought I’d experience new year in Seoul, let alone be the cause of a death on the first of the year in 2030.

My mission that I initially chose not to accept, was to acquire a backdoor into the funds of the premier of this nation, a fourth generation heir to the Samsung empire. There’s a coup at play, the global North devolved into it’s pre WW1 rivalries and alliances, intense nationalism, impreialism, and growing class conflict, looking for way to destabilise the global south the soft target was South Korea.

Whistle, we flag down a old taxi, and take it to the far end of the city back to our apartment, we know we’ve got four to six hours before they’re on us. I’m booking flight to Chinggis Khaan airport, Mongolia is a safe zone for at least 48 hours, then we’ll disappear on one of the Stans.

“I’ve booked the transfers, in six hours we’ll be sitting in the same seats in another one of these, listening to some classical throat singing”. He says confidently, it’s not that I don’t believe him, it’s just that I always see the glass as half empty, because that’s what it will always be, where as for him the glass is always half-full as if one day it will be full.

“We planning on taking these with us?” I ask knowing he knows I’m referring to the guns.

“You start packing, I’m going to take a walk and grab us some coffees, there’s recycling containers onto the he way, they get picked up in three days, and they have a bakery so I’ll pick up some croissant tissue bread for breakfast”. We’re careful what we say, even though English isn’t too common, it’s safer not to say anything worth remembering.

As the taxi pulls up outside the hotel, we make electronic payment, thank the driver, and walk into the lobby, still talking about breakfast, “yoghurt with strawberry jam, no, strawberry jam and peanut butter sandwiches, the jam slice needs butter on it first through”, my attempt at sounding as mundanely tourist as possible, as we approach the lift and the open.

The moment they close, I say in low voice “We’re on the first flight out, it’s all business and mostly empty, we have no contact there and are isolated, two days to figure out our next move, or moves, this whole trip was a setup, it was meant to fail, and be used as a negotiation on trade.” I’m sure of it, this last decade has seen the beginning of the shift of economic power int he world, and quite frankly I’m here for it.

“Moves. Agreed. There’s no going back now”, he’s understands the score, but I did expect some resistance, given that he’s been an agent for a decade and half, you’d think he’d built some loyalties.

Ding, the elevator opens, we stroll through he corridor silently, open our door with our fob Beep, and walk in opposite directions dealing with two distinct issues, packing evidence of our existence into our bags, and clearing evidence to be disposed of, “yo, pass me her guns, and wallet, the last thing we need to to be stopped for having her photo ID”.

I throw the bag over, and remind him of my drink order “Can I get a mocha, and pick up a couple of those loaves, we can travel with them, the only part of South Korea I can say I’ve genuinely enjoyed”.

“I’m sure if it hadn’t been for the manslaughter, you’d have enjoyed it more. No for real, we had to do what we did, you understand that right? And I can tell you this now, there will be more, a lot more in the near future, they will catch-up with us, and they won’t take prisoners, so know that you’ll have to pull the trigger, you can do that can’t you? He’s asking sincerely, we haven’t had to question each other’s abilities before, and I understand where he’s coming from, as much as it knocks my ego, I get it.

“Yeah, I know, I just wasn’t expecting it so soon, but this is what we signed up for, no one makes it out of this alive. I knew that coming into this, but if we’re going down, we’re going down last.” The reality is we’re going up against governments, corporations, and the military industrial complex, we’re walking through an intricate web of deceptive politicians, greedy business people, disinfranchised factions, and gun for hire mercenaries. There’s little that can go right and almost everything will go wrong from this point on, but I’m here for it.

They’ve had their fill for far too long, chaos has reigned with little consequence or sense of justice, and now it’s time to bring their forever party to an end, the only way I know how, haphazardly and with finality. We’re coming for them, and I guarantee nothing will stop us but bullets to the head.