Drew Karpyshyn: Ascension

The chilled condensation on the water bottle made his left palm cold and damp. The right was damp, too — hot and sweaty from being clenched too tightly around the handle of his weapon. He took a silent step forward so that he was standing only inches behind Keo, her bare neck exposed and vulnerable.

Pel would never have been able to get this close to her; not without raising suspicion and putting her on guard. Despite nearly six months working together as bodyguards for Menneau, she still didn't completely trust her partner. Pel was a former mercenary, a professional killer with a murky past. Keo always kept half an eye on him. That was why it had to be Grayson. She might not trust him — Keo didn't trust anybody — but she didn't watch his every move like she did with Pel.

He held the weapon poised to strike, took a deep breath, then stabbed forward with the blade, slashing at an upward angle toward the soft spot in the skull just behind Keo's ear. It should have been a quick, clean kill. But his momentary hesitation cost him; it gave Keo a chance to sense the attack before it came. Reacting with a survival instinct honed over countless missions, she leaped from her seat, spinning to face her attacker even as the blade plunged home. Her incredible reflexes saved her from instantaneous death; instead of sliding smoothly up into her brain the knife buried itself deep in the flesh of her neck, where it stuck fast.

Grayson felt the handle slide free from his sweaty palm as he stumbled backward, away from his would-be victim. He stopped when his back struck the wall near the small fridge; there was nowhere to go. Keo was on her feet now, staring at him from across the seat. He saw the cold certainty of his own imminent death in her eyes. Without the advantage of surprise, he was no match for her years of combat training. He didn't even have a weapon anymore: his knife still jutted awkwardly out from the side of Keo s neck, the handle quivering slightly.

Ignoring the pistol on her hip — she wasn't about to risk firing her weapon inside a passenger vessel during flight — she yanked a short, savage-looking knife from her belt and leaped over the seat separating her and Grayson.

It was a critical mistake. Grayson had botched what should have been a quick kill, showing his inexperience. That had led Keo to underestimate him; she came at him too aggressively, trying to end the fight quickly instead of holding her ground or coming cautiously around the seats. Her tactical error gave heropponent the split second he needed to take back the advantage.

The instant she left her feet Grayson lunged forward. Flying through the air Keo couldn't stop her momentum or change her direction, and their bodies crashed together in a tangled heap. Grayson felt her knife slicing across his left bicep, but in the close quarters the small woman couldn't get enough leverage, and the wound was superficial.

She kicked at him and tried to roll away, looking to disengage so she could take advantage of her speed and quickness. Grayson didn't try to stop her. Instead, he reached out and seized the handle of the knife still lodged in her neck. He yanked it out in one long, smooth pull as she scrambled back up to her feet.

As the blade slid free, a crimson geyser came gushing out of the wound. The serrated edge had torn open her carotid artery. Keo had just enough time to register a look of surprised disbelief before the sudden drop in blood pressure to her brain caused her to black out and collapse, her limp body falling to the floor beside Grayson.

A gout of warm, sticky fluid splashed across his face and hands, and he scampered to his feet with a grunt of disgust, backing quickly away from the body until he struck up against the wall by the fridge once again. The blood continued to pour from the hole in her throat, the intensity of the stream increasing and decreasing with each beat of her still pumping heart. When the muscle gave out a few seconds later, the pulsating flow was reduced to a slow but steady trickle.

Pel returned from the back room less than a minute later. He raised one eyebrow at the blood covering Grayson, but didn't speak. Moving calmly, he approached Keo's body on the floor and bent down to check for a pulse, stepping carefully over the expanding pool of blood so as not to stain his shoes. Satisfied, he stood up and settled back into the seat he'd been relaxing in earlier.

"Nice work, Killer," he said with a soft chuckle.

Grayson was still standing against the wall beside the fridge. He had watched Keo's life rapidly bleeding away without moving, transfixed by the gruesome scene.

"Menneau's dead?" he asked. A stupid question, but as the adrenaline rush of his first kill faded his mind felt dull and slow.

Pel nodded. "Not nearly as messy as this, though. I like to keep my bodies neat." He reached for the headphones still sitting on the seat beside him.

"Should we clean up the blood?"

"No point," Pel informed him, sliding the headphones over his ears. "Soon as we rendezvous with the pickup team, they're just going to dump this whole ship into the nearest sun.

"Don't forget to claim your trophy," the big man added as he closed his eyes, his body beginning to rock in time to the music's rhythm once again.

Grayson swallowed hard, then forced himself into motion. He pushed himself away from the wall and made his way over to Keo's body. She lay half on her side, the pistol on her hip easily within reach. He stretched out a trembling hand toward the weapon…

The dream always ended in exactly the same place. And each time it did, Grayson woke with his heart pounding, his muscles tensed, and his palms sweating, as if his body had been reliving the experience along with his subconscious mind.

He didn't know then — and he didn't know now— why Menneau had to die. He only knew that it served the greater good in some way. Yet that was enough. He was dedicated to the cause, completely loyal to Cerberus and its leader. The Illusive Man had given him an order, and he had followed it without question.

Apart from the mistake of allowing Keo to briefly survive his initial attack, Grayson's first mission had been an unqualified success. The pickup team had met with them at the designated rendezvous, and the ship, along with the bodies of Keo and Menneau, had been disposed of. There were suspicions and theories surrounding the disappearance of Menneau and his crew, but with no evidence to back them up they had amounted to nothing. And with his chief rival removed from the race, Charles Saracino had claimed the leadership of the Terra Firma party. . though how that played into the long-term plans of the Illusive Man was anyone's guess.

Grayson's performance had impressed his superiors within the Cerberus organization, leading to dozens of assignments over the next decade. But that all ended once Gillian was accepted into the Ascension Project.

He didn't like to think about Gillian. Not like this, alone in his apartment with the darkness pressing in. He pushed her face from his mind and rolled over, hoping to fall back asleep. He froze when he heard a noise coming from beyond the bedroom door. His ears pricked up intently, and he could just make out voices coming from the living room of his small apartment. It was possible he had simply left the vid screen on when he'd staggered into bed, too sandblasted to shut it off. Possible, but not likely.

Moving silently he rolled out of the bed, leaving a tangled mess of covers behind. Wearing only a pair of boxers, his thin body shivered in the chill air of the room as he carefully opened the drawer of the night-stand and pulled out his pistol. Keo's pistol, his mind corrected, dredging up her memory once again.