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Science Fiction and Fantasy
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| Hard to Live | |
| By andybyers | ||||
| 02 August 2007 | ||||
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Just an idea about a group of spies whose personalities are preserved and 'reborn' in new bodies when they die, enabling them to take on incredible, otherwise impossible tasks... The name of the story, and its initial inspiration, is from a song by Burton Cummings. Bad move, icing the target without a silencer, I know; but the important thing was to get the job done. But Jesus, the guards were everywhere. I was out the door but they were already on me. Hit the stairwell. I could hear them below me. Nothing to do but go up. Hope for a niche; someplace small enough to escape notice but big enough not to wind up either suffocated or, worse, crippled. Suffocated I could live with. No luck, though. About what I expected. We were on the roof in no time. Jesus, what a gorgeous day. Acapulco, July. The cloudless sky darker than the sea; like the glimpse below the tan line of some gorgeous azure lady. Don’t ask me what the sand symbolizes; I didn’t have enough time to think of how to labour the simile. Shots barked into the air behind me. Not at me, over me. They wanted me alive. Of course they did. Not a fucking chance. I can usually tell when the game’s over. No way was I going to make their job easy for them. Assholes. No, I was going to leave them with a big, soggy, sloppy mystery on their hands. A real mess. It’s always fun to see the shift. They always make the wrong assumptions. It’s when you do something like climb onto the lip of the retaining wall 27 stories up that they suddenly realize they’re not holding the trump cards. The guns are lifted. The hands are conciliatory. Pleading. Even in Spanish, the meaning is clear. Tough luck, fellahs. I got more important things to do than spend my time growing old with you. I waved, smiled, and jumped. I could feel their eyes on my back all the way down. I spread out like an eagle — a dying eagle, I guess — and for several seconds, just watched the parking lot rush up at me. I braced for impact, though I can’t remember ever having felt it when it happened. There was a brief, still, nothing moment. A sudden readjustment. In the tank, my eyes opened.
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