Taslin was walking down the roads of Woodling. He was dressed in a black suit. The air was cool, the sun brilliant in the sky. He paced and observed his peripheral vision. It has been three days since he left Elzar for his mission, he wasn't rich so he had taken up a freelance job that involved taking out targets for clients he kept on rotation. He had never met the men or women who deposited large amounts of Reolan coins into his buffer dynamic bank account. Taslin did not care. He only concerned himself with the when not the why. Life was precious. But not all lives, most times people had a good reason for others to die. If it wasn't him another would execute the contract. His fee was set high because he trusted his abilities. Taslin crossed a side street and went into a restaurant. Inside he greeted a couple and passed into the inner room to the cyber cafe and sat at the cubicle facing the entrance to watch who came in. Taslin had only a week to see the contract through and wanted to look at the dossier his client sent him. He preferred to use a separate device when accessing his numerous emails, he used to collect intelligence from his employers. Tobass Iro had just arrived at Margrave with his security detail and was in the Belion hotel, he cycled through pictures of Tobass to his wife and then children. The man was no saint although he empathised with his family. A man could either choose the easy path or the right path. Well it didn't matter, he and the target were on the same path at the moment. Who was he to judge?
He absorbed the material and then deleted it along with the email after which he went to a web browser and typed in a very long website URL and downloaded an installation file and started it. The program had been coded by him to override and encrypt recent history and processes the Kosokon computer had performed and then delete information on its hardware and software relating to his visit at the cubicle. Taslin waited for the program to finish its processes then left the restaurant through the back. He walked quickly and with his face angled away from surveillance cameras. He wore his prosthetic mask that altered his appearance but he couldn't risk his false identity being captured. Taslin couldn't avoid all the cameras, but he could minimize exposure. Equivalent exchange was key, be unassuming and be uninteresting. Keep moving. Keep flowing. Leave nothing for the elves with their swab collectors and DNA trace assemblers. He had countered leaving fingerprints by rubbing a silicone solution on his hands thoroughly as everything that had been handled would be free from fingerprints.
Taslin crossed the street and thought of home, his father and mother. He loved them, but he needed money and there was something he was good at. Money for what? For his hobbies and for the access it bought him. Therefore Taslin knew a lot was not accessible to the average citizen, money allowed him entry into places, it freed him to be his truest self, the person he was now. Every one in the history of the Reolan Empire who achieved greatness without an invisible guide of family heritage, upbringing and close grooming from infancy was driven by some form of obsession. Taslin passed a group of children playing at a park with their mothers supervising them while in conversation. He looked around, it was getting late. Taslin looked at his watch and continued walking. He walked to the hotel he was staying but didn't enter, then he crossed the road and took a side street and walked away from the hotel and into a roadside supermarket. His senses spiking as he walked through the market and crowd.
The shadow was never far behind.