I lie alone in my bed, the sheets surrounding me on both sides like I’m being consumed by some vast ocean, beyond the comprehension of the human mind. Soothing me and comforting me, it won't last long but if only for a while I feel normal and I feel whole.

But then my happiness ends when my phone emits it's noise that haunts me, because I know what's coming. I push my body up slowly with my hands, my upper body now at an upwards position. I look to my left, seeing it. I extend my arm slowly not really wanting to pick up the phone, but I do it anyway not trying to fight what I know to be a losing battle. So I give in, grabbing the phone and push the button that establishes a connection between me and my employer Matthew Smith.

I hear his voice come through the phone lines, not melodically, but in a way that suggests that this is not a man I should I give any trust too. I know it's far too late to take it back. I hear his voice speaking (not that I really care what he has to say) but I know I have to listen. “Aaron we have your assignment" target I know he means, "a political dissident in England, named Oliver Powell”.

I sigh at the fact that now I'm going to have to kill someone, a stranger to me, even though I've been preparing for two years. I’m still not ready for this; my first mission as an international political assassin. I finally reply “okay I’m ready to be deployed. When do I go?”

“We already have a plane waiting for you, good bye”. He then hangs up and leaves me with the defining sound of a phone line with static silence on the other side. I've known from the beginning what I’m getting into, but I’m still a little on edge and a little frightened. I've never killed anyone before, but I knew this day would come eventually.

I walk over to my living room hearing the TV that I forgot to turn off last night. It's saying something about someone having been assassinated in Ireland, with no suspects. Kind of funny, considering what I'm about to do. I switch off the TV and then opening my hands, I pack my bags for England. Wrapping my fingers around the bag that holds my changes of clothes, a sniper rifle and my mind eraser that was on my nightstand. I can't remember why, but it must have made sense to put it there at the time. The sniper rifle is made of plastic so I can get through custom and my bullets are waiting at my hotel.

Now on to the most curious item on this list, the "mind eraser" even though that's not exactly what it is. It doesn't destroy mind, but memories. It was called the Sinn Wischen project and it was conceived by German scientist during World War II, to give their soldiers and spies the ultimate in what we now know, as "plausible deniability". So that they absolutely could not give away secret information. However, the war was over before the Nazis could implement it. During the 1960's the CIA tried to resurrect the program, but they were ultimately unsuccessful, due to miscalculations and unintended consequences. It caused all the subjects to either die or be put into a permanently vegetative state. However, then the I.A.A. (the International Assassins Agency) took the concept and finally perfected it, by fixing the equation's and creating a small box that would shoot a powerful electromagnetic charge into the side of one's head. This caused them to lose all recent memories, due to electrochemical imbalances in the brain. However, you can set the amount of the charge, so that you would lose memories dating back to a certain time. The reason they decided to use this tech was so that when a target was killed, the agent could never give away the details of the hit, even under hypnosis, torture, or lie detector. Brilliant really.

I walk outside and see a Limo pull up in front of me. I must say, it's rather frightening to know that these people know not only where I live, but the exact time that I will walk out the door to my house. I suppose that comes with the trade of being a paid murderer, or should I say potential paid murderer. Still, that’s what I signed up for and now I have to go and end the life of someone. A person I've never met or interacted with in my entire life and now I have to kill him? Now I can see why I need the eraser on a personal level.

Finally the wheels stop moving, as we reach the airport, bringing the car to a halt. I reach out slowly, opening the door, then before I try to exit the car, I'm handed a small document. A small book, about the size of a notebook. Very thin, only a few pages long with a navy blue leather cover and the United States code of arms emblazoned on it in gold. A passport as well. I look at the faceless, nameless, most likely corporate agent behind his mirror sunglasses who gave me this before slowly opening it. Separating the paper I see a name that is not my own. Aaron Collins is looking back at me, but strangely a man named Derek Archer also is. I slowly close it back up, then I grab my pack and slowly destroy the gap between the car and myself, very aware of the blank face impassively watching me. I turn and walk into the to the building known as Kennedy airport.

I hate these places. I always have. To me, these places sum up a lot of what is wrong with the human condition. Now before you shoot me down let me explain. Everybody is here for some self serving reason, including me. Some of them are here to go on some pointless vacation, when they could be spending however much money their throwing at it, on something with a use to someone other than themselves. Someone who needs it more- like the homeless and hungry. Then there's the people who try to sell us useless crap, like plastic flags. But then again how much better am I?

It doesn't matter anyway, because now that I have my prepaid ticket, I'm sitting in a chair waiting for my plane call...last chance to turn my back on this... knowing I'm not going to anyway. My plane is finally announced. I close my fingers around the strap of my bag and let it run along the conveyor belt into the maul of the machines, tagged and numbered. I walk over to the line and become devoured, hand searched, scanned and questioned on the purpose of my trip, have my new passport stamped, before I'm spat out the other side. I slowly approach the door to the plane and enter finding some generic seat. I'm not even 100% sure if it's the right one, but who honestly cares about seat numbers, except flight staff, the anal-retentive and (of course) people in business class?

I finally sit down and relax letting out a low, slow sigh as the plane takes off. I interlace my fingers and begin to think about what should happen. If I'm discovered and the mind wipe should not work...then I suppose it's a real bullet to my head instead of a "wipe". Not to mention the other possibilities...I have to let such thoughts go and trust in my training and the ultimate plan of my employers.

I'm jostled out of my thoughts as I feel the plane touch down, hours later. I don't know or care how I missed the decent of the plane, must of been dozing. When it finally lands, I know that by the end of this week, someone will be dead.

Once I've processed through the Heathrow airport (in the exact same way as last time - but in reverse) I finally leave that horrible place. Outside another black Limo pulls up in front of me. What the hell, how many of these things do these people have? And why always Limo's? Why not a Lamborghini or a Ferrari? Or even a goddamn Toyota? Still I decide to get in, against my better judgement, knowing full well that it's not really my choice any more.

The driver takes off, telling me where I'll be staying (reservation for 3 days, prepaid) at the hotel Astor. The driver passes back another envelope with more information. I try to convince myself this guy, the "subject" deserves it, but I know it won't work.

They drop me at my hotel and my legs take me to the building, in just the way they should. I present my passport, sign the register and carry my own pack to the room reserved for me on the third floor. Room 303. When I reach my room, my fingers uncurl on their own, letting my bag, hit the floor (that could damage my gun, I should make sure that doesn't happen again) then I fall forwards onto the bed and my face.

I roll over and watch the ceiling fan in this high end hotel, you could fit my entire house in this one room. A 52' television I won't ever use, along with an empty cabinet for movies, books and things of that nature, tables, chairs and generic paintings on the walls. The other thing I notice is the standard Gideon Bible on the bedside table, next to the lamp. Laughing slightly at the irony of seeing that, with what I'm going to do in a mere few days. When this stranger Oliver Powell, is talking about what he wants for England, just before he just dies.

Then it really hits me. I'm going to kill someone, I'm going to move my finger back slightly and then he's going to die. Does he have a wife, children? What the hell is special about this guy...why the $250 K bounty? I can't sleep tonight for obvious reasons. I'm still starring at the ceiling thinking about how wrong what i'm about to do really is. I could have backed out, but I didn't and now here I lie.

It's been a few hours. It's time, to prepare. I get up and begin to walk to over to my pack, slowly unzipping them seeing my sniper rifle (assembly required), a change of clothes should I need it and my mind wiper. I study maps, photo's. The man's predicted movements. Once I've memorized it all, I put it in the burn bag, seal it and pull the tab. As it gets hot I drop it in the toilet, let it shrink, then flush. I then assemble a basic appearance change, fake glasses, fake beard. Flesh colored gloves. Under my suit I have a new set of clothes, my weapon disassembled in a gym bag.This is everything I bought with me, having given my pack to a homeless guy in a doorway. I don't think I'll be coming back.

Within hours, here I am on top of a building watching through my scope, at an innocent man who just has an alternative political view. But this is how I pay the bills from now on. As disgusting as that fact is...

I can see him now, clearly. His photo's don't really do him justice, he seem's harmless looking. in a somewhat officious way.

I breath in letting the air fill my lungs temporarily, before I force it out. Then I grab the pieces and assemble the weapon, way slower than I could. Trouble is, I still have a lot on my mind right now. Finally the sight, the stock, the barrel, magazine. It's all assembled, yet I'm still holding it down by my waist, no where near my face. I watch him talking to his friends and his associates, he walks over to their shared desk. No doubt talking about ways to fix England's problems.

I swallow my last ounce of humanity and lift the sight to my eye, watch as the cross-hairs cover his face. I give one more silent internalized prayer, to a god I don't even believe in.

Then I pull the trigger.

His head jerks violently and seem's to disappear entirely in a red mist. I look away, hoping I didn't see what I just did, but it was in vain. I just caught what happened to him and I'd rather not say what it was, let's leave it at the fact that he will not see his family again. I hear screams from the survivors, all the way across the street. I'm already moving, I recover the spent cartridge shell. Then I hear something else, within minutes.

Police sirens.

I am running for the stairs that bought me to this rooftop, using the cars in the park as cover. I know they didn't see my face thankfully. I disassemble the rifle as I run, keeping low, putting it back into the bag but keeping it open.

I stop running. I walk through a door, then into a another door leading to a bath room. I hurriedly change from my black suit, leather shoes, white shirt and red tie, that stopped me standing out in this building. Off comes the beard and glasses. On comes a cap with a corporate team logo on it, a green tee shirt again with the logo of this building, black track pants with a black hod-die tied around my waste and a pair of blue sneakers. On with a false wig and dark sporty looking sun glasses. I'm now a corporate businessman, off to the gym for a work out.

It worked. I managed to slip right past the police without question, straight into another black Limo. I hand the bag with the weapon to the driver, all but the mind wipe; and we're off. A mere 37 minutes later, I'm back at the airport waiting for my return flight back to America. As soon as I'm on the plane I see visions of what I did to that poor man. The images of his surprisingly gruesome demise torturing me, as they play out in my head again and again for hours-it's unbearable. It's horrifying. My hands are shaking and I go to the toilet and can't stop myself from vomiting. I look in the mirror, I look a bit pale, but can't look myself in the eye.

Finally I walk through the doors of the airport and into one last Limo. They tell me I did good, but I ignore them. Not with the images of a man, I didn't even know, swirling through my mind. Killed by me and I didn't even have the respect to look him in the eye.

As soon as the car stops moving, I get out and walk over to the doors of my apartment building. I'm looking down at my feet, as they take me to my room. I don't greet the receptionist or a single one of my neighbors.

I unlock the door and walk in, closing it behind me. I walk into my living room and pushing the button on the Television. I see a story about what I did just a few hours ago, all the visions are flowing back to me again. I can't take this. I walk into my bedroom, opening the bag again and reaching in pulling out the mind eraser.

I charge it then put it down on my nightstand, then I get everything ready. I don't want to remember anything, they say one sleep and you never remember a thing the next morning.

I curl up in my bed then put the small black looking object to the side of my head, press the button and feel the surge enter my brain and things start to spin. My hand flies to my head in confusion, as I put the mind eraser on my night stand, because it's the closet thing to me. Then I black out.

I lie alone in my bed, the sheets surrounding me on both sides like I’m being consumed by some vast ocean beyond the comprehension of the human mind. Soothing me and comforting me, it won't last long, but if only for a while I feel normal and I feel whole.

But then my happiness ends when my phone emits it's noise that haunts me, because I know what's coming. I push my body up slowly with my hands, my upper body now at an upwards position. I look to my left seeing it. I extend my arm slowly, not really wanting to pick up. I do anyway not trying to fight what I know to be a losing battle, so I give in. Grabbing the phone and push the button that establishes a connection between me and my employer Matthew Smith.

I hear his voice come through the phone lines, not melodically, but in a way that suggests that this is not a man I should I give any trust too. However, it's far too late to take it back. I hear his voice speaking (not that I really care what he has to say) but I know I have to listen “Aaron we have your target, a political dissident in India, named Shivay Millar”. I sigh at the fact that now I'm going to have to kill someone, even though I've been preparing for two years, I’m still not ready for this. My first mission as an international political assassin. I finally reply “okay I’m ready to be deployed, when do I go?”

“We already have a plane waiting for you, good bye” he then hangs up and leaves me with the defining sound of a phone line with static on the other side. I know what I’m getting into and I’m still a little on edge and a little frightened. I've never killed anyone before, but I knew this day would come eventually.

I walk over to my living room hearing the TV, that I forgot to turn off, saying something about someone having been assassinated in England, with no suspects. Kind of funny, considering what I'm about to do. I switch off the TV and then I begin to pack my bags for India.