Petyr crammed himself in a shadowed alcove, shrinking his presence until the only trace of his existence was a fiercely beating heart. Adrenaline coursed through his veins and tensed his bones. His eyes twitched with anxiety; he hoped the distraction he had planned would conceal him from the panicked eyes of his enemies. He ground his teeth together and prayed to the almighty unknown while he braced for endless waves of alarms to begin. Deep down, in the nebulous heart of his being, he prayed that all his problems would work themselves out.
Fate. Kismet. Karma. Destiny. There were endless names he could give to an intangible source of courage. Most normal people had a crutch to keep themselves off the ground, but long ago Petyr had decided he would never bend his knee to a god. The highest power he worshipped was his own ability, but this dire situation was making his faith waver.
Sweat drenched his palms, suddenly as slick as a rainy curb. Petyr readjusted his grip on his prize; if he accidentally dropped the briefcase, the crash would echo throughout the facility and alert every slimy guard to his exact position. Certainly, if he were discovered he would be slaughtered on the spot; no quarter was granted in his line of work. If he managed to escape detection, he would probably lose himself in an attempt to escape. The mission had been a miserably planned clusterbomb; it was either a miracle or blind luck that Petyr had acquired his target and survived to this long. If, through some grand twist of the universe, the rest of his plan were to succeed, Petyr hoped he would earn enough points for his boss to give him a long deserved vacation.
The game was known as Anonymous and playing it was Petyr’s true calling. The lead players, royalty of the underworld, were unknown to one another and scattered across all seven continents. The game’s goal was to ignite the most chaos by committing crimes, inspiring mass debauchery, or exciting general entropy without being caught or having one’s identity discovered. Either of those predicaments had the consequence of disqualification.
A panel of judges scored these acts; they were known collectively as The Figments. No soul had ever met or seen a Figment; nobody knew how many entities were involved with the group. As far as Petyr was concerned, the Figments didn’t really need to exist. As long as he had a job, he could be working for a syndicate full of ghosts. The invisible judges were offering an incredible grand prize: the office of Hegemon of the known world. This blessing would be granted to the player who most quickly accrued one million chaos points. Nobody ever bothered to ask how the Figments would make it happen; the dream of such incredible power was more than enough motivation for most modern narcissists and new age sociopaths.
The prize lured all types of players from all lots of life to the game. As such, all tactics and any deeds were fair game. Rape, treason, arson, murder, burglary, graffiti, and extortion were a few of the more common acts, but no limit was imposed on what was considered truly chaotic. In fact, the only written rules referred to the execution of the acts themselves.
Each player was required to announce his intent to commit a crime before the actual occurrence. This served to weed out the simple criminals from the true megalomaniac masterminds; crimes of passion were considered especially urbane. The nature of the entropic operation itself could remain a mystery, although bolder players might give some clues to their plans. These declarations acted as additional proof that the player was worthy of special credit for his chaotic conduct and often resulted in higher scores from the judges. It also gave other players an opportunity to stop the crime from happening and determine the player’s identity. Given the devious nature of most players, having one’s identity discovered resulted in not only disqualification, but an unfortunate demise.
At one time, Peter had been a Russian special agent; his training had prepared him well for the role he would play in the game. Disenfranchised from country and family, Petyr had quit his country’s secret service two years ago and sold his skills to an aristocratic game player claiming to be from Crete. He called himself the Minotaur; he was slowly building an army of agents using a seemingly bottomless wallet to cover all expenses. Petyr was hired as a knight of chaos, committed to furthering the destruction of all orderly action. The Minotaur envisioned himself as some sort of destructive savior, claiming to have a grand manifesto, a great plan to reinvent the world after his ascension to the Hegemony. Petyr didn’t care much for that aspect of Anonymous. As long as the gold was flowing into his coffers, his boss could pass an edict killing all puppies and stripping angels of their wings; the money was all that mattered.
Petyr continued waiting as the seconds drifted into minutes, melted into hours. The alarms he expected never sounded. Suddenly, the briefcase felt especially heavy. It only contained six syringes, snugly secured in foam bedding. Petyr was unsure as to the syringes’ contents, but thought that was just fine. Not knowing every detail often made completing missions a lot simpler. This particular endeavor had already wound up several levels more complicated than expected. The guards had been all too aware of his movements through the complex, despite his ingenious disguise and fleet feet; it was as though some third party had been setting the odds against him.
Something felt amiss, as if the facility’s air had been stagnant over thousands of years. Petyr briefly hallucinated that he was hiding in a tomb, trapped with his master pharaoh’s treasure, six golden syringes. Shaking off the visions, Petyr convinced himself that whatever was in those needles wasn’t worth dying over; also, he decided he wasn’t getting paid nearly enough for this job. Though it wasn’t specifically included in his orders, Petyr was determined to survive the day; dying was not his forte. He quickly decided that, if he was forced to meet his maker, being slain while investigating the eerie calm was a much more appealing option than rotting in a corner.
Petyr took a deep breath and starting moving away from his safe alcove. He crept from shadow to shadow, retracing his steps back to the laboratory where he had found the vials. The facility was a complex, cold maze designed to trap research scientists for endless ages. Unable to find freedom, they would work hours upon hours to invent demented weapons and frivolous devices. Petyr had placed a timed explosive in the primary research lab, but someone had likely found it and disarmed it. If the scientists had discovered it, they were smart enough to understand that he hadn’t been able to leave the premises. Utmost stealth would be required for him to escape intact.
Petyr’s muffled footsteps seemed to upset the heavy air, adding to the illusion that he was walking under a Great Pyramid. Something had unraveled his plan much worse than he had planned, as it often goes. A nasty tumor of worry knotted itself over and over in his stomach. He slowed his travel as he neared his destination, finally sidling up to the great, glass window-wall of the research department. Flourescent lights strobed erratically from the lab, casting spider-like shadows on the outer corridor wall. Petyr peered in, using his peak sneaking technique to avoid notice.
It wouldn’t have mattered if he was carrying a bullhorn and singing Souza, no one was left who could sing along. A scene of carnage flickered before his tired eyes. Scientists were strewn throughout the room like litter, white lab coats stained red as cardinals. Great gashes lined many of the corpses’ faces; often, the wounds were still leaking scarlet juices onto the floor. Petyr couldn’t make out any facial features; the scientists’ heads seemed to have gone through a mighty vise. Some vicious monster had violated this space, crushing all life beyond recognition. The flashing fluorescents illuminated two small sparkles on a stark laboratory bench. One was a silver tern, left by Petyr as an artist’s signature after he stole the vials. Petyr squinted, trying to gleam what the other sparkling speck might be.
He couldn’t think fast enough; a pair of strong hands lifted him up and threw him through the laboratory window. His body turned to putty and his skin split from the force of the impact. Shards of glass cut him in hundreds of places, creating a jagged, ruby grid all along his torso; blood began to flow freely. Time began to slow as Petyr gliding through the air; he imagined himself looking like the mutilated scientists, an unidentifiable pulpy mass of flesh. Sliding along the ground in a puddle of mixed, crimson fluids, his mind spun, his heart raced, and he tried of think of a survival plan. His body crashed into the wall with a heavy thud. Peter couldn’t lift his head, let alone his fists; something vital had ruptured inside him. Heavy footsteps padded to his side. Two great hamfists pried the briefcase out of Petyr’s petrified grip. As his fingers loosened, his mind began to fade into black.
A deep voice echoed through his fracturing mind. “Thank ya for helping the Hippo, sir. If ya wake’n up tomorrow, tell the Minotaur The Epitaph send his regards.”
