Chapter Text
Most of the jobs were simple, really. Get in, get to stabbing, get out, then dispose the evidence and make sure it happens fast enough that you don’t have to dwell on it. If you asked her, she was pretty good at steps one through four. Therese Belivet really sucked at step five, but that’s just the optional step you take if you don’t want your guilt to eat you alive. Other than that? Smooth sailing, clear fuckin’ skies.
That wasn’t quite the case here.
Every once in a while, Therese gets a real tough job. For a little extra, she could take out your average joe from inside the Wall. Steal a precious heirloom if you bought her dinner too. Beat someone up, but dead’s usually what the clientele wanted. Children and expectant mothers were usually a no-go, but for the right price… Well. Those were the tough jobs.
What Therese didn’t sign up for? Absolute absurdity. Yet there she was anyways, really about to go through with this stupid fucking plan. She was really about to march straight into the Wall, get a job at FutureTech of all places, and kill Carol fucking Aird. The more that she thought about it, the less and less real it seemed.
The Wall was what kept the hoity-toity rich folk nice and safe. They were, coincidentally, what kept those who were less fortunate out, left with nothing but a knife in their hands and a dying glimmer of hope in their eyes. Therese’s glimmer had been snuffed right out when she was eight, with her father on the ground and her mother holding the gun. She’d been taken in by Dannie and Phil’s folk when she was nine, killed her first man at ten, and by the age of eleven? Ran her own hitman business, one that’d thrive all the way into her early twenties. Pretty damn impressive, if you asked her, but well… It was time to pay back the McElroys. In the form of taking out Carol.
… God, what a fucking mess.
Carol Aird was kind of like a cryptid, of sorts. The supposed woman in charge of the world’s leading robotics company… As well as the woman in charge of most of the functional walled-off cities. No one from outside the Wall has ever seen her face, but everyone just loved to blame her for their woes. Now, Therese would be a liar if she said she hadn’t also cursed out her name every once in a while, just because it was easy to shove blame in someone else’s face when life took a giant shit all over your things. But when faced with the possibility of having to talk to Carol and then get a knife in her stomach? Well, she wouldn’t be admitting shit to her.
“I don’t know, of all the people to be the face of the resistance, I feel like… Anointing a fucking hitman as your mascot is kind of redundant? And, well, maybe lends a little bit to the, uh, stereotypes about us.” Therese raised her hands defensively, to shield herself from Dannie’s piercing look. “I mean. Just saying.”
Therese had never been interested in the whole resistance op either. People inside the Wall had their own shit to deal with. Even as someone who killed for a living, her idea of resistance wasn’t exactly committing acts of mass genocide and terror. But the McElroys were in love with that drivel, and as an honorary member of the McElroy family, Therese was shoveled into this as well.
“The stereotypes won’t matter when she’s dead, kid!” Phil leaned over to ruffle her hair, and Therese, annoyed and rightly so, slapped his hand away. “That’s when we start to run the show.”
“Whatever, as long as this doesn’t change anything for my business.”
Dannie flashed a smile at her from where he sat. “It won’t.”
They were currently en-route inside the Wall. Dan had practically won the lottery, finding an inside man who was coincidentally a caravan driver. “God, look at you. All cute, proper-lookin’ and shit in your little Wall getup. You’d blend right in.” Phil crossed his legs, a cynical smile etched on his lips. “Remember your story?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Therese subconsciously went to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. She looked clean and felt cleaner. It was kind of unnatural, really? And she’d be living like this for the better part of a month until she could go in for the kill. Curse Aird and her ridiculously tight vetting system, she supposed. “I’m a recently-graduated student from up in Destiny who’s interested in working for the Airds. The caravan got jumped by a group of raiders along the way so I’m very frazzled and very desperate.” They’d even forged papers for her. This really was a go big or go home situation, one that Therese would do pretty well not to fuck up.
“God, you couldn’t make that sound more boring if you were a fucking textbook.” Phil corkscrewed his hand in the air, smiling all too smugly. “Let’s hope you’re a convincing actress, for all of our sakes.”
The caravan stopped at the peak of the walls. “God, they’re so fucking white. It’s kind of unnerving. Like, people paint these, hold them to the standards of a fuckin’... what? God? Probably.” Therese shook her head. “I can guarantee that I’m not gonna get used to this shit. And the moment she’s dead, I’m gonna get fuckin’ wasted.”
“You’re going to have to watch that tongue of yours, Terry. Walled-up folk don’t talk like that!” Dannie sniggered at her, and Therese stuck out her tongue. For all the times she’d been inside the Wall, she’d never be able to get used to it. The way the people spoke, the way they dressed. “But sign me the fuck up for alcohol poisoning.”
“I’m going to miss you assholes,” Therese said with a smile. “Alright, can’t keep Death waiting any longer. I’ll see you guys in a week, give you the whole update spiel. Mwah, mwah, all that. Bye.” She climbed out of the steel wagon and waved to the boys before watching the caravan leave. Therese watched, stared into the distance moments after it was out of sight. Well, looks like showtime.
She’d stolen a computer off of one of her other victims, back in her teenage years. She’d fiddled around with it a few times, figured out how to reprogram the name from its previous owners to her own. Therese had never thought that it would become anything of use, not until Phil was cussing up a storm about how everyone from in the Wall had one and that they’d need one for Therese. “You’ve got a map, riiiight… Oh Jesus fucking Christ this place is huge.”
The Aird sector took a bit of walking to get to, but Therese managed to survive and without some uppity cop deciding to thrust a gun up her ass too. The main building stood tall in front of her, a little intimidating. The guard eyed her somewhat suspiciously, which was Therese’s cue to go up and start asking questions. She wondered if people from within the Wall could smell fear, and honestly? Therese wouldn’t be surprised.
“Hi,” she began, a pleasant little smile upon her lips. “This is FutureTech, isn’t it? Excuse my ignorance, I’m from Destiny. I was, uh, told that this was one of the best sites in Anex, and I’ve always been interested in seeing what the Airds are doing to help further the robotics and programming scene, y’know? I’m a, uh, graduated computing student. Oh, but look at me, monologuing on!”
The guard sized her up, and Therese could practically feel the sweatdrop dribbling down her temple. She kept the smile up, hoping she looked a little nervous and overly eager to please. He jerked his head towards the interest. “Yeah, you’re at the right place. Be careful about that eager tone, however. They say Carol isn’t a fan of loudmouths like you.” His tone was pretty venomous, and though Therese would have been more than happy to choke him out in broad daylight, that wouldn’t be the best move to make. So she thanked him and moved on.
Now, if Therese had thought that the survival center that the McElroys hailed from was impressive, it had absolutely nothing on FutureTech’s grandeur. She tried not to gape too much, but the attendant caught her dumb stare and waved her over. “Welcome to FutureTech! I don’t recognize you, and tours are only on Wednesdays. Is there any other way I can assist you?”
“Oh, I was actually looking to um, set up a meeting.” Best to keep that polite little smile on, though truth be told, Therese wanted to die then and there. “The meat of the matter is that I’m looking to apply. I don’t really know who I’d look to in order to help me with that.”
The attendant pouted. “Ah, you’re cute. Makes me feel a little bad that we’re not really hiring right now,” she said, apologetic look spread all over her face. Therese cursed inside of her head. This hadn’t been part of the plan at all, but all that meant was that the whole process would just take a little longer. “I would be more than happy to get your email and let you know when we are hiring again, however.”
“Not necessary,” Therese said, shaking her head regretfully. God knows it’d take anywhere from a half a year to who-knows-when for an opening to appear. No, no. She could figure something else out. “I’ll look elsewhere, but thank you so much!”
“But what if you didn't have to?” The voice that sounded out came from somewhere behind her, and it took Therese a moment to wonder if it had been aimed at her. The sound of heels clicking stopped close to her, and that’s when she turned.
Blonde, tall, and eyes made of fucking steel. Therese immediately turned away, even though she knew very well that she shouldn’t have done that. “Oh, Miss Aird.” That’s when her eyes widened. Carol? In the fucking flesh? She had expected some spindly demure-looking woman who was unfuckable. Not the kind of woman who laid in front of her, looking impossibly sexy. Therese repressed a groan of frustration.
“Hello, Genevieve,” Carol greeted with an amused smile. Therese wondered if her amusement was derived from Therese’s sudden mouseish behaviour. “It turns out that Cyr was unreliable. Not to get into specifics, because I’d hate to gossip about the workers here, but she has been… terminated. I’d been hoping to check in with you to find a potential replacement, but it seems as though we’ve already found one.”
“I’m sorry to intrude, but Cyr, you say? Like, Robin? Not to mistrust your judgement or anything of the sort, but this… Well, I’ll be frank; she just doesn’t look like bodyguard material.”
Carol waved her off. “Oh, don’t apologize. The fact you have the audacity to question me in the first place is one of the reasons I’ve kept you for so long. Of course I want you looking for other candidates, but if she’s right here and willing to look for it… You, look up at me. And tell me your name while you’re at it.” Her tone was harsh, and it made Therese jump. She met with Carol’s gaze, and though she wanted to rip it away (because really, if Therese kept looking, she felt as though Carol would have been able to find out everything that she was thinking), she didn’t.
“Therese Belivet,” she managed to choke out, but only barely.
“Therese. A lovely name.” Was that a hint of smug on her lips? If Therese hadn’t been interested in dying before, she was willing to stick her own head on a pike for them. “If you’re willing, I would love to see you here… Say in two days.”
“I… Well, I suppose I can make that work.” Therese was the killer here. Was she really going to be played for a fool like this, all speechless because some pretty girl made her appearances? Well, she supposed it was amplified because said pretty girl was the one she was supposed to have murdered, but still. She was Therese fucking Belivet. The kind of woman who stirred up genuine fear in grown men because if someone called her on you, you had really fucked up.
“Excellent. I’ll have Gen work out all the little stuff with you, and we’ll go from there.” Carol’s voice had that kind of low, grainy quality that made Therese feel weak. God, she was acting so fucking unprofessional. She felt like she hadn’t the least bit of control, and that was something that she felt she was supposed to have at every moment. That was surely the kind of thing that Carol wanted in her workers as well. Aside from the embarrassment eating her from the inside out, this felt almost too good to be true. “I’ll see you then, Miss Belivet.”
“Yeah. See you then. Nice meeting you.”
They stared after the woman moments after her leave. “I know I said you were cute, but you’re not that cute. No offense.”
“Absolutely none taken.”
“It’s just that, like, in all of my years that I’ve worked here, I have never seen Carol look that way at anyone. Aside from perhaps Gerhard, but I don’t see her anymore and I’ve yet to decide if that’s a good thing or not.” Genevieve whistled, hand placed at her hip. “I’ll get your email, let you know what time Carol wants to see you, I suppose.”
Therese nodded somewhat apprehensively. “Of course, of course.” She set up some fake bullshit email with the McElroys a while back, and she tried to fish up the username so she could write it down on the slip of paper that had been passed in front of her. She wondered if the wriggling little voice in the back of her mind had been right and that Carol could figure out everything about her in just a single glance. That she was an outsider looking to assassinate her, basically. “This is all so ridiculous.”
Genevieve snorted, shaking her head. “Oh, don’t you have that right.”