Kill?

Would you commit cold blooded murder if you thought someone deserved it for power?

Taking a deep breath to steady himself, Robert put the crosshairs right on the bastard’s head. Day after day, for a week, he’d practiced this shot at this range, but he’d never killed before, not even hunting. But Carter damn well deserved it, death, beyond a doubt. He’d made damn sure of that. As he let his breath out slowly, Carter turned his face toward him and the crosshairs were right above his nose. Everyone would be better off if he pulled that trigger. But if he pulled the trigger, it wouldn’t be the last time; of that he had no doubt. Could he become a killer, and was it going to be worth it if he did?

** Two months ago **

The blank laptop came to life as Robert approached the table. “Hello Robert. You said to people that you wanted the power to do things more than once. I can give it to you,” said a cartoon fox.

Taking that seat, feeling foolish answering a cartoon, he chuckled, “OK, I’ll bite. What kind of power are you talking about? Insider trading info?”

“The kind of power that got you here, sitting on a case of dynamite, wired with a Bluetooth detonator that the laptop you’re looking at can set off should I hit this button before me.” A big red button appeared before the fox.

Heart racing, ice ran down his spine as he looked down. The big chair could house an entire case.

“Go ahead, stand up, open it,” the fox said. “The lid isn’t booby-trapped. Only pushing the button here would set it off.”

Slowly, he got to his feet, turned, and with hands steady from years of handling explosives, pulled off the cushion, exposing a dynamite case lid of the same manufacturer who supplied him. With even more care than usual, he opened the lid. The same detonator he used blinked its red light at him, showing it was live and connected via Bluetooth. He flipped the switch off, and the light went out. To be sure, he disconnected it from the dynamite.

“All records show that this dynamite, the detonator, laptop and even this building belong to you,” the cartoon said. “If I had detonated it, it would just be written off as some kind of work accident.”

His eyes wandered around the small warehouse. “This isn’t my building or my stuff.”

“Actually, it is.” The cartoon fox morphed into a rat sitting at a desk pushing papers around. “I had it added to the purchase invoices for the work you are doing for Malcom Inc. and you signed the deed, not only buying it, but you also signed the purchase orders for the dynamite and other stuff to be delivered here, and billed Malcom for it. You own this, and I have been using it for months, and you never knew it. The power I’m offering is the ability to manipulate people and events so that they do what you want them to. Compared to that, insider trading is nothing. This is just the tip of the iceberg of what that kind of power can do.”

“And what do you want for that power? What are the strings?”

The fox became an angel, complete with halo. “There is nothing you can offer to the people who can do this that will get you this kind of power. No money, no favor, nothing at all will buy it for you. It is either to our advantage that you have it, or it isn’t. I’m here to find out if it is to our advantage to make that kind of power available to you.”

Robert could not help but ask, “And what would be to your advantage?”

“Just someone that fixes things, making the world a better place, but doesn’t try to impose their ideas of what is proper on things, having more power to do so. We’ve noticed you doing that on a small level, and it drew our attention. Then over the past year-and-a-half we tested you by making sure you were in a place to see things and watching what you did. When you saw a woman getting assaulted by two men, you stepped in. When thieves were in a liquor store robbing it, you disabled their car. We knew those were going to happen and put you there to see that and be in a position to act to see what you would do. There were other things we put in front of you that you chose to ignore. Some of them you were suppose to stay out of, some not. Not acting is often the right choice, so not acting on the things that needed fixing isn’t being held against you. But had you acted on one of the things you should have ignored, we would not be talking now.”

Curiosity peaked, he asked, “Which?”  

“Not saying. Saying undermines that caution on when not to act.”

The angel morphed into a turtle. “This kind of power destroys lives, companies and more, as an inevitable outcome. We need to make damn sure that the people using it only act if they think it is justified after considering all those effects.”

Roger nodded at the screen. “I can understand that.”

“Then there is just one more test. You are well aware that there are a lot of people in his city that removing them harms no one and helps a lot of people. You have to pick one and remove them, permanently. If and when you do, we will talk again.”

“Then how am I to tell you who I’ve picked?”

“If you can pick out and kill someone when we are watching and we don’t know about it, then you are powerful enough you don’t need the power we’re offering.”

The Mission Impossible theme started playing and the TV show wick burned across the screen, the images were of what he had done. Then the laptop began to smoke.