Average enough, in the looks department, I guess. I had nothing to do but watch, so I might as well ponder about the things I saw. Brown hair, fair eyes, blotchy skin, and lines already worn into her face from smiling, although she looked rather young. She wore no make-up, which I was sure would change with time. Then again, that skin looked like cosmetics would do more harm then good. There was evidence of a fading rash on her cheekbones, right about where blush is usually applied. 

She looked tired. It was more than the lack of makeup, or the bags under her eyes though. It was in the way her smile looked like she was struggling to lift weights hooked to the corners of her mouth. It was in the way that her eyes were tired, in their depths. It was also in the cup of coffee by her side. In the way her body was collapsed inwards, as though she was a piece of paper crumpled in frustration. 

She was tall, thin as a paper-cut, and carrying a backpack. That might explain the fatigue. I was willing to bet that she was also unsure of where her life would take her, and afraid of her future. She had the look of a poetic soul who had been coerced by her family into a degree stream she didn't want. I wondered what it was that she actually wanted out of life.

The bus pulled up to my stop, and I got up to leave, and watched the stranger mirror my moves exactly. Then, I hopped off the bus, and watched my reflection slide across the bus' windows as it pulled away. It disappeared in a puff of diesel smoke.

My misery loves friendship

My kindred are all around

For all we know is hardship

And still we never make a sound

I never stop my wishing

Until I while the night away

And I will keep on fishing

Though the friends I wish for never stay

Yet still I carry on

Though I spend my midnight's sleepless

For there always was a dawn

That was worth my going dreamless

Well, this is a shock,

Not even American,

Free healthcare for all!

-With love, Canada

There is something in a name, isn’t there, that has the power to turn the air in mundane places magical? That was the crux of her problem it seemed. Creating names, titles of importance, something that would make books fly off the shelves, something suggestive or depressive or impressive. She used to be able to do it. That used to be her job. Names for children, titles for those who earned the favor of the Queen, christenings for ships, and descriptors for books. She was a Wordsmith.

She had lost the knack. It faded away like the blooms of the Wintercursed flowers she had named. The court began to grumble and complain about the quality of her newest names. There was something missing, they said. The words didn’t fit right. Soon she was brought before the Blinded Judges that she had labelled, and judged before the seven women that she had seen named by her master when she was only an apprentice. They stripped her of her name before she could even make her case. The person they placed it on, a new favorite poet of the Queen, had exactly the temperament for Wordsmithing, though none of the expertise. She would have ceded to him without resistance, but they did not give her the chance. They sent her from the court, disgraced and bereft of her title. She was to go into exile, was the verdict delivered to the Queen. There are plenty of jobs for writers of cheap fictions in the New World. She would not be starved, degraded into a beggar.

She almost would have preferred to be a beggar. The stories they told on corners for spare change held something special that the newer stories lacked. The New World stories were written by formula, she had heard, with no room for deviation. A sorry place for an inventor such as a former Wordsmith to end up.

"Why have you stopped?"

"Oh, I- there have been five murders in the past week alone. The serial killer's MO is still a mystery to police. I've spent far more time than I've wanted to in this morgue."

"Um, okay?"

"There have been five murders, Eddie."

"Yes, and?"

"Why are there only four bodies?"

After all the appeals, all the claims of innocence, I am still here. People took one look at my sobbing, screaming face and thought yes, she deserves to die.

And for what? To make amends for another death. An eye for an eye and the entire world is blind to the fact that I didn't do it!

I didn't eat my last meal. I, a person who has never been religious in my life, I prayed. I prayed for some divine being to stop the proceedings, to swear this was all some terrible mistake. If life is fated, then somewhere out there someone has decided that I have lost the right to live. What minor deity did I manage to piss off so much that everything I said could be and was used against me? Why was this even happening?

They are coming to take me away. Several people that, though they wore uniforms and not robes, seemed skeletal reapers all the same. 

Last words, they are asking for last words. I try to think up something beautiful, something that could be quoted. Nothing. I try a fact instead.

Did you know that five percent of all those on death row are innocent? They did not. The needle goes in. 

I am the five percent, I tell them. Then I die, I suppose, or cease to exist. 

What was her crime? One guard asks another. 

Don't know, is the reply, must have been right terrible, though, to deserve this.

The mortician takes the body, and all is done.

The exoneration is given to the corpse five months too late. 

"You don't look so pleased to see me." Agent Bronze crooned. Of course, she thought, it would be him.

"Somebody must want you dead very badly, if they came to me for help." She replied, ignoring his taunt. 

"So that's what you've been doing these days," Bronze mused. "How does it feel to betray a country you've bled for, for over ten years?"

"Why? Are you considering it?" In a moment of weakness, her eyes darted towards the gun in his hand, and then quickly up to his face to see if he had noticed. He had. 

"I privatized, big deal." She sneered, trying to regain the upper-hand. "You're American, I thought you would be pleased. Capitalism at work, the free-market economy and the all mighty dollar deciding who live and who dies."

"And whose all-mighty dollar made you decide to kill me?"

"Client confidentiality, I'm afraid." She raised her chin and dared him to try coercion on her. They both knew it was pointless.He knew what she was capable of back when she was still learning the ropes. He had been in training with her, back when she was Agent Red, and he Agent Orange. The Scarlet and Bronze came later.

"So I suppose you're going to kill me?" 

He laughed, and tossed the gun aside. It was hardly a reassuring move, given his specialty.

"Luckily for you, the almighty dollar has decided otherwise. My people want to offer you a consulting position. I'm authorized to negotiate a deal with you, one that your little assassination stunt now tilts heavily in my favor."

"Darling," She said, suddenly coy, "You only need ask nicely."

She wasn't ever going to be free again. That era of her life must die. But for the price of her actual life, Scarlet could hardly mourn the loss. There also was the little matter of working with him again. That might make it all worth while.

My first thought: This must be how Hamlet felt.

Not the angst-y teenage Hamlet. Hamlet Sr. The guy who was poisoned by his brother so that he could get with his wife. His own brother, a guy who was everything rotten in the state of Denmark. That guy, screwing his wife while he floated, a noble man in all respects, robbed by trash. Now I am that man. Or, woman. Or disembodied, gender-less entity. 

It's hard to tell at this point. It doesn't feel like I have control over that kind of thing anymore. If I did, I wouldn't be here. Watching my fiance bang my worst enemy so hard she was probably seeing stars. He had killed me to get with her. The injustice of it all.

Hamlet Sr. had turned to his son for revenge. I didn't have any off-spring. Hamlet Jr. had managed to get eight or more people killed inadvertently in his quest for revenge. Good thing I didn't have any off-spring. 

Still, the police were asking questions. They were asking questions to him. The man who was my Gertrude turned Claude. 

It would be a shame if several items that he owned were stained by a suspicious looking liquid. It would be a shame if the blood I had been dripping since my unfortunate revival became noticeable to the living. It would be a shame if I had been practicing this trick for weeks. It would be a shame if I managed an impressive trail of it. It would be a shame if the police found my body. Most of all it would be a shame if this had all been discovered in the late hours of this night. It would be a shame if a search of his house was carried out while he was saying "I do" to the worst person ever. It would be a shame if the arrest warrant were obtained for this night. It would be a shame if the sounds outside were something other than room service.  

I stared impassively at the moving forms on the wedding bed. Hamlet Sr. had wanted to spare his love, but not his murderer. For that I call him weak, because Gertrude's betrayal was clearly worse. Still. Hamlet Jr. had the right idea. Let those who do the wrongful screwing end up themselves royally screwed. 

"So how does this usually go?" She asked, tentatively. It was her first day on the job, and she was shadowing the boss. She didn't want to sound clueless and make them second guess their decision.

"It's quite simple," The other woman replied. She had a grace and poise that were enviable. "And completely humane."

The new girl blinked, trying to convey her confusion in a look. The older woman sighed, "We wait for the call, accept or decline it, wait for the wire, secure the payment, and then go to our given address and do whatever our client wishes."

"Anything?" She hadn't meant to sound so scared.

"You'll see." The older woman said. "We've just had a wire come through. I'll handle this one, and you can watch. Next time, it will be more hands on."

It was, for once, the exact opposite of how she'd thought it would be. There was no passion, no horror. Her mentor acted mechanically. Humanely. The client had ordered evisceration. She carried it out after an untraceable lethal injection. There was no pain, in the end. Perhaps the client would get some feeling after they heard the news. To her, it seemed oddly clinical.

It was a few months after she'd been approved to work solo that she was called in the boss's office. The woman's mouth was pressed in a hard line, as ever, and her eyes were dead. Her face was a blank mask waiting for an expression to be painted on. It was the same kind of face echoed all around the offices. They were, in fact, liars by trade. Well, killers by trade, liars by extension.

"Client expressly wanted to speak with you." Her boss tells her, handing her the phone. She was in trouble. Good assassins hardly got recommendations. She was sure to get a talking to for not being discreet enough for the job after this phone call was over. 

She squeezed, past her boss, behind the desk to get a receiver.

"Hello, Miss Lacey's Telephone Hotline, how can I help you?"

"Bye bye, darling."

She had expected an unknown voice. This one had been close, and there was only one thing that could mean. 

Her boss's computer showed a verified wire transfer. There was a prick in her neck and almost immediately her eyesight went so blurry she couldn't see what this job had cost. Oh well. In the end, isn't it always thirty pieces of silver?

It was the job of the newest girl to dispose of the body.