Chapter 5: First Blood
The kitchen door was unlocked.
I stood in the alley behind O'Malley's, back pressed against cold brick, listening. Dishes clanking. Someone humming a tune I didn't recognize. The smell of grease and old beer seeping through the gap under the door.
7:47 PM. Murphy's Mercedes had arrived twelve minutes ago.
[MISSION STATUS: ACTIVE]
[TARGETS IN BUILDING: 11 CONFIRMED]
[PRIMARY TARGET: PRESENT (SECOND FLOOR)]
The System's passive scanning had improved with proximity. Not perfect—it couldn't tell me where everyone stood—but enough to confirm I wasn't walking into an empty building.
"Eleven. Not twelve. Someone's out, or the count yesterday was wrong."
Didn't matter. I was committed.
I eased the door open. Kitchen. Cramped, dirty, the kind of space that would fail any health inspection. A Hispanic man stood at the sink, washing dishes, his back to me.
I crossed the distance in three steps. The pipe connected with the base of his skull—not full force, just enough to drop him. He crumpled without a sound. I caught him before he hit the floor, lowered him behind the prep counter.
"Civilian. Not a target. Out of the fight."
A swinging door led to the main room. I pressed my ear against it, listening.
Voices. Laughter. The clink of glasses. Music playing low—something Irish, traditional, the kind of thing that made Americans feel authentic.
I drew the revolver. Seven rounds. Eleven targets, minus the dishwasher.
"Make them count."
I pushed through the door.
The main room was bigger than I'd estimated. Bar along the left wall. Booths along the right. Tables scattered in the middle. Eight men visible—four at the bar, two in a booth, two standing near the stairs.
Everyone looked up.
For half a second, nobody moved.
Then the revolver barked twice, and the two men by the stairs went down.
The room exploded into chaos. Shouts, screams, someone diving behind the bar. I moved forward, using the tables as cover, firing controlled shots at anyone reaching for a weapon.
Three. Four. Click—a misfire, the tarnished round failing to ignite.
"Cheap ammunition."
I cleared the jam, lost precious seconds, took a bottle to the shoulder from someone I hadn't seen. The impact spun me sideways. I fired at the thrower—hit him in the hip—and kept moving.
Five rounds fired. One misfire. One round left.
Three men still standing, two wounded, one running for the back. Let him go. The others were reaching for guns now, past the panic, finding their training.
I dropped behind an overturned table as bullets punched through the wood above my head. Splinters rained down. My shoulder screamed where the bottle had connected.
"Last round. Make it count."
I waited for the shooting to pause—magazine change, probably—and came up firing.
The round took the closest shooter in the throat. He went down gurgling.
I threw the empty revolver at the second man and charged. The pipe caught him across the forearm as he tried to aim. Bone cracked. He screamed. I hit him again, temple, and he dropped.
Silence.
The bar smelled like cordite and blood and spilled beer. Bodies everywhere—some dead, some dying, some unconscious. The music was still playing, tinny speakers pumping out a jig that nobody would ever dance to again.
[GROUND FLOOR CLEARED]
[TARGETS REMAINING: 2]
[PRIMARY TARGET LOCATION: SECOND FLOOR]
The stairs.
I retrieved a pistol from one of the fallen enforcers—Glock 19, nearly full magazine—and started climbing.
The stairwell was narrow, walls pressing in on both sides. No room to dodge, nowhere to hide. If Murphy was waiting at the top with a gun, I was dead.
He wasn't waiting with a gun.
He was waiting with his fists.
Murphy came out of the shadows like a freight train, seventy-plus pounds of former boxer slamming into my chest. We went down together, tumbling back down the stairs, the Glock flying from my grip.
I hit the landing hard. Stars exploded across my vision. Murphy was on top of me, raining down punches with the kind of technical precision that came from years of professional training.
Left hook to the ribs. I felt something crack.
Right cross to the jaw. My head bounced off the floor.
"Who sent you?" Murphy's accent was thicker now, rage stripping away the American overlay. "Who the fuck sent you?"
I couldn't answer. Couldn't breathe. His weight pinned me down, and every punch drove the air from my lungs.
"Going to die here. Going to die in a stairwell, beaten to death by a middle-aged boxer."
My hand found the pipe. Still clutched in fingers that didn't want to work anymore.
Murphy reared back for another punch.
I swung.
The pipe caught him across the ear. Not hard enough to kill, but hard enough to stun. He reeled sideways. I bucked, throwing him off, scrambling for the Glock that had landed three steps up.
My fingers closed around the grip. I spun.
Murphy was already coming, blood streaming from his ear, hands reaching for my throat.
I put the gun under his chin and pulled the trigger.
The shot was deafening in the enclosed space. Murphy's body jerked once, then went limp, collapsing on top of me with all the dead weight of a man who'd never move again.
I lay there for a long moment, Murphy's blood soaking into my shirt, trying to remember how to breathe.
[PRIMARY TARGET ELIMINATED]
[AWAKENING MISSION: COMPLETE]
[SYSTEM LEVEL UP: 1 → 2]
[REWARD: 500 SP]
[NEW FUNCTION UNLOCKED: OPERATOR RECRUITMENT (BASIC)]
The System notifications scrolled past, but I couldn't focus on them. The ribs were bad. Every breath felt like knives sliding between the bones.
I pushed Murphy's body off me. Stood. Almost fell. Grabbed the railing and hauled myself upright.
The second floor was a single room—office, counting room, whatever they called it. A table covered in cash. Stacks of twenties, fifties, hundreds. More money than I'd ever seen in one place.
I stuffed it into a gym bag I found in the corner. Didn't count it. Didn't have time.
Sirens in the distance. Getting closer.
Murphy had a phone on his desk. I took it. Took his wallet. Took everything that might have intelligence value.
Then I limped down the stairs, through the carnage of the main room, out the back door, and into the alley.
The cold air hit me like a physical force. I doubled over, hands on knees, and vomited bile and adrenaline onto the dirty concrete.
My hands wouldn't stop shaking.
"Not fear. Adrenaline dump. Normal. Expected."
But knowing what it was didn't make it stop.
I sat behind a dumpster, hidden in shadows, and let the shaking run its course. The sirens grew louder, then stopped. Red and blue lights flickered at the mouth of the alley.
I couldn't stay here.
I stood. Forced my legs to move. Walked—didn't run, running attracted attention—toward the subway entrance two blocks north.
By the time I reached the platform, the shaking had stopped.
By the time I reached Brooklyn, I'd counted the money three times.
Twelve thousand, forty dollars.
More than I'd had in either life combined.
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