🎪🗡️ Circusassin
First Draft Created: 2024-05-20 18:45
Last Updated: 1 month, 3 weeks ago
The circus was indeed in town. Striker winced at the cliche in his mind as much as at the bright floodlights illuminating the darkened theme-park-decorated field. There were far, far too many people around for his taste.
Just a simple assassination mission. Nothing more. Nothing less.
But why did it have to take place at a circus? There were kids around, for Christ's sake!
His nickname was "Striker" of course, for stupid reasons. It had been his idea back then, as a 14-year-old edgelord crawling what he thought of as the dark web (basically some forums where censorship was a bit lax, but rebelliously far from the cutesy veneer of wholesomeness typical of certain family-friendly social media. Family-friendly at least back then, anyway), and when asked for an alias in his new profession, his mind had blanked on which identity he had not overused and had since scrubbed clean from the web.
In a moment of panic, lest he be assigned an uncool nickname based on some gaffe or awkward distinguishing feature, he had blurted out "Striker", before anyone had time to think. And thus, he had the kind of childishly dark, edgy and unsubtle-bordering-on-the-grandiose nickname never given to real-life covert operatives, but only to their foolishly romanticised depictions in books.
He sighed, and settled down on the side of the only familiar part of this now circus-revamped field - a large ornamental fake-rock pond with a waterfall at one side of it. The familiarity, at least, was comforting, and implausible though it may seem, this was one of the more boringly discrete areas in the crowded theme park of a place.
Or maybe he just needed to get away from the crowd, which could be wise or unwise depending on the strategy one was going for. Right now his strategy was simply avoiding overwhelm. His job as a slaughterer of men brought him far too close to working with people. He grimaced at that description on a cover letter for his resume.
He had never really been a fan of fantasy, so the flying lion mascott of the circus, belching fire on a miniature stage in front of onlookers, was nothing more than an eye-roll. As was the unicorn mascott, handing out ice creams to children and their parents.
He cursed his naivete in joining this profession in the first place, but the money was good. He prided himself in only taking on the unusual and interesting cases. This was his speciality. He was something of an artist, a strategist. This was how his contorted mind rationalised he could justify killing. It wasn't bad to end a life if some skill was involved. He was no common mercenary for hire. He had class, prestige.
It was time for the show. He headed over towards the nearby portaloo in dark, though he was not going there. It was just a cover, in case he was watched. It was not too far from the fire pit, set up for the dancers to begin their outdoor performance. This circus preferred to be outdoors. No walls, at night, among milling crowds. The perfect opportunity to assassinate one of their lead performers in the middle of his performance, and make it look like an accident.
As he made as if to pass by the fire pit, he made as if he had changed his mind about heading towards the bathroom, and stopped to warm his hands, to casually lean on one of the nearby posts around the pit, to fence off the lower section from small children who might wander too close. Casually, he felt behind him at the post and found a ticket lodged inside a small crack at hip height, carefully placed by his buyer earlier during the daylight, to avoid having to show his face unnecessarily to anyone at the front ticket office who might later be able to identify and recognise him as a suspect. Curse these ancient circuses and their in-person ticket offices!
The show had begun long ago - the easy open outdoor access had also mitigated the need to stay boxed into a seat, or to sit through the whole performance, risking further exposure. Striker, keeping his face carefully but casually turned away, handed in his ticket and took up his vantage point at the back of the crowd, where a semi-natural slant formed a perfect amphitheatre for the audience, and watched the classic tomfoolery and whimsey of the clowns, who were the final act before his target would take the stage.
He was stationed near the edge of the field - close, in fact, to the only actual permanent building on the premises, which he would duck behind, scale and hide should the need arise, as the least expected getaway, IF his covert assassination were suspected to be foul play.
The building had an elevator, but of course, he would not be going inside and risking cameras, or late shift office employees catching a glance of him in the mirror as they sat, still typing at their desks. Better to take the risk of scaling the building himself, to hide out where the slanted roof formed a natural crawlspace shielding him against even the search beams of overhead helicopters.
He had scoped this place out beforehand, and done all of the equations in his mind. His gloved hand now fingered the knife in his coat pocket. The coat was warm and deceptively large in order to be obscuring, yet could be easily folded away for his climbing exploits, being made of a synthetic and easily compactible material with a surprising amount of give to it. It also would not hamper his movements when it came time to use the knife.
And now, it was time. The knife thrower came out, proudly. Besides his Lucadore mask and bright, tight leotard, he had the classically overstyled mustacchios and arrogance that Striker was unsure whether to consider real or part of the act. His beautiful assistant in matching outfit carried in her arms his collection of ornamental knives.
Striker's grip tightened around the knife. From this obscured and shadowy angle, out of sight of the majority of the audience and undetected by the stage lights, which were all trained on the performers, few if any would see the knife fly through the air. The knife identical to the costume-jewelled ones the thrower himself would be using. Careful and discreet networking with circus prop suppliers by his weaponsman - a man whose life and insurance counted on him not making a mistake - had seen to that.
It was unlikely that anyone would make the connection that he himself had thrown the knife, that it was not in fact an unfortunate accident from the knife-thrower's juggling which would result in a slashed jugular.
But what was this?
They were bringing out ... they were raising ... the tightrope!
Striker watched in disbelief. Knife juggling on a tightrope? He had never even practised throwing this far upward! This was insane!
He sighed, cursing his informant for not telling him that the circus had changed the act.
This job was a circus indeed, and specialised even for him.
Mission aborted, he sighed, as he watched the knife-thrower scaling the tower to where the end of the tightrope was now firmly in place, his assistant scaling the opposite tower supporting the other end.
Perhaps they'd need to hire a circus knife thrower for this one.
As the knife-thrower rode his unicycle to the centre of the tightrope, the drumroll started up and his assistant prepared to throw him her first knife, he turned his face out towards the crowd.
Still on his unicycle, the man faced Striker's direction in the crowd.
He saluted, twirled his hand with a theatrical waist-up bow, and finally blew a sweeping kiss.
He turned to face his assistant, who threw him the first knife, end over end patterning gracefully through the air, which he reached out a lazy hand to catch, delicately.
By the time that knife was in the thrower's hand, Striker had vanished.
Thanks for reading!
You can 💬 comment feedback on this story on my draft blog!