This one wasn’t an actual writing prompt, so much as my coworkers and I talking about how much this company name sounds like a mercenary group and then someone threw out “stillborn” so “stillborn mercenary” was born (no pun intended- truly). (there’s your trigger warning. I don’t know how this is going to turn out, but he origin of the character/s will likely be mentioned at least)

As usual, unedited, but this time I feel like there are more typos than usual. Sleep isn’t really a thing I do much lately. :p

 

 

The Stillwater looked at the image projected in front of his eye again. Amala Harpschi. There was some strange familiarity that pulled at him, jerking his brain one way whle his years of training pulled it the other. He’d trained as an assassin, a mercenary sniper for his entire life- which had ended before he was born. The Stillwaters were dead before they came into the world, taken from their mothers wrapped in tiny handmade blankets, and laid to rest before collectors came for those with the. The bodies were reanimated and in most cases fit with with parts from others- human, animal, or machine- to compensate for what was lost in death. They were trained as Stillwaters, their entire life and schooling was dedicatd to learning some element of war. He didn’t know his name before he was collected, he only went by Seven. Occasionally the others would call him Sever. His handwriting had never developed well, and his name, one of the few things he could spell, often looked wrong.

Wraith, his buddy, waved a hand in front of his face, rippling the image. “Seven? You have a new assignment? What is it? What did he do?”

“Yeah.” Seven tried to inspect the image, tried to place the face. “It’s not a he, it’s a she. And it doesn’t say.”

Wraith shrugged. “They usually don’t. What does she look like? Politician or what?”
Seven shook his head. “Not in this image. She looks like…” There, the pulling at his brain again. “She looks like someone from Arborea. But she desnt lok like a warrior. There’s something about her eyes.”

“Don’t fall in love with the target there, Seven. Let’s go get lunch.”

Seven shook his head. “I don’t get lunch today. I had a big breakfast, but I don’t need the extra energy.”

Wraith shrugged his bony thin shoulders. “I have a new target, too, so I have to eat a lot of calories.”

“Not all of us were fitted as Ghosts. I dont have the ability or energy requirements that come with it.” They went to the cafeteria where Wraith was given a buffet. The Stillwaters who had only a bowl of rice or porridge, or who only came to smell the food of those who needed it and ate nothing themslves, stared on in envy. 

“To be honest,” Wraith said, between mouthfulls, “I hate this. They need to figure out how to make energy use more efficient. They’ll put in my least favorite foods just to spite me, too. Like bacon. The smell of it turns my stomach and they put the shit on everything.”

After lunch, they went their separate ways, Wraith ready to ghost if he needed to, the double edged sword of his alterations being that after such a big meal, he WOULD need to. 

Sevens abilities were less flashy, but his included a higher level of brain function. He’d been “buried” under a pile of leaves and picked up quickly by the collector. His brain damage was minimal and he was well developed. One eye had succumbed to a crow before the noisy wheels of the collector scared it away. He’d gone through several replacements, boh animal and machine, and his current was the best so far, a combinaion of raptor and digital parts.  The tradeoff for him didn’t come from his alterations, but from his brain. He had more empathy than other assasins, even Wrath who, like him, had been collected quickly. He had only died after he was born, when his frail body couldn’t support his life. Seven was dead before he emerged,  

Seven went to the building where he would have to wait for the target to come into range of his scope. As assignments wen, it was an easy one. 

He saw a female figure and peered through the scope with his good eye. 

She was older than she looked in the image, old enough to be his mother, but it was the same woman. He wrapped his hand around the trigger, and stopped breathing the way only a Stillwater could. She was from Arborea, no doubt about it. She walked with the confident uprightness that other women didn’t have. She turned and faced him, and it looked to him like she was staring straight at him, despite the huge distance and impossibility of the idea.

He recognized what it was in her eyes that was so familiar. It was him. Those were his eyes- or what they should have looked like if he still had both. Her face was the same shape as his and they had the same slightly tweaked chin. Her smile revealed a twisted tooth, just like his, and she looked away. A litle girl jumped into her arms, and they squeezed each other.

It was impossible. Stillwaters were taken as far away from their parents as possible to avoid the possibility that a parent would recognize their unliving toddler. But she had been deliberately put in his path. By who? Why?
Something tapped his forearm and he was surprised to see that it was his own tears. The woman held the little girl with arms that were rightfully his, arms that should have held him and carried him, hugged him. She should have carried him and held his hands and kissed his wounds, fed him and clothed him and scolded him. She should have protected him but she’d never even gotten the chance. Did she remember him? Would she recognize him? Did she want him? Could she love him still? Did she ever?

The girl and the woman- his mother, he was sure of it- turned to look at something else. He searched with the scope and saw someone else- a young woman, his age. 

Electricity ran through his spine and something even less tangible flowed through his body when he saw her. She shivered and turned, looking, searching for him.  Her dark, curly hair was a longer version of his own, her face the perfect mirror of his, her eyes only slightly more upturned, her cheekbones only a little more pronounced. But her eyes…. she was missing one, too. It had been replaced with a cheap glass imitation. He knew her. Her long brown arms were arms that had held him. Her long fingers had reached to him for comfort- hers and his, until she was born and he was dead. 

He was going to lose the shot. He tapped the trigger guard, trying to work it out. The mystery was too much for his brain, too much for the seconds he had left before she rounded the corner and he would have wasted a day. 

He focused on the jet black hair on the back of his mother’s head and slipped his finger into the guard, onto the trigger.