[AgentZero]

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Orrin Pendlebrook hurried around a corner and into a dark alley. Towards the back of the alley, he came across an industrial grade incinerator bin. Such things weren't normally found in back alleys, they tended to make their homes in very secure areas of large industrial complexes, usually with a few friends and specially designed shutes leading into their business ends. To find one that could be accessed simply by lifting a lid and tossing in incriminating evidence was almost unheard of. And yet, somehow, most conveniently, such a rarity had found its way into the alleyway in which Orin now found himself. He hurried over to it, lifted the lid and tossed in his pistol, facial morphnet, gloves and overcoat, then let out a sigh of relief. He was safe. No one would be able to point to him as the trigger man, and any other evidence had quite recently been atomized.
It was a pity, he mused. The girl had been terribly pretty. It was a good thing, he decided, that she'd presented her back to him when time came to shoot. He'd studied her picture ever since the assignment had been given to him, and he'd rather fallen in love with her smiling face. Had he been forced to meet those lovely green eyes, he might have hesitated, and hesitations had a way of being fatal in a job like his.
It was a pity, too, that that Kagan character had to die as well. Orin remembered seeing vids of him at the end of the war, and wasn't very pleased with himself for having assassinated a war hero. Still, his instructions had stated that Kagan was 'optional' and knowing that he was dead gave Orin some measure of relief. Having an angry soldier out for his blood was the sort of thing that made it difficult to sleep at night. But with Kagan dead, he didn't have to worry about that, and with the startling amount of money he was being paid for the job, he would be sleeping very well indeed for some time to come.
It was about this time that Orin became he was not alone. A hooded figure emerged slowly from the inky darkness, walking towards him with great deliberation.
“Frack off!,” he shouted. “Another step and you'll end up dead!”
“No, Mr. Pendlebrook,” the figure replied, pulling back it's hood. “You know you don't pose any real threat to me, now don't you?”
The figure stepped into a pool of light and Orin tried to swallow, his throat suddenly very dry. A legend stood before him, a veritable angel of destruction, chaos and death. And Orin realized that he did indeed pose absolutely no threat to her whatsoever. In the darkness he couldn't make out her eyes, only two large black holes where they should be, and when she bared her teeth in a humorless smile, he could swear he was staring at a living skull rather than any living creature. Saraea Azen herself stood before him, contemplating him much as one might contemplate an insect scuttling across the floor, idly toying with notions of crushing it beneath ones foot.
“Deathchild,” he whispered breathlessly.
Saraea gave him a brief nod of acknowledgement.
“To.. to what do I owe this honour?” he asked nervously.
“Honour?” Saraea scoffed. “Try horror.” She paused then for a moment, muttered something under her breath, then continued, “You murdered two very close friends of mine today Mr. Pendlebrook, did you know that?”
“I don't know what you're talking about?” he said quickly. “I haven't murdered anyone. You don't have enough evidence- no jury in the galaxy would-”
Saraea interrupted him with a laugh, a truly evil sound. “Do you really think I'm going to put you on trial, Mr. Pendlebrook?” she asked harshly. “Since you're obviously of less than stellar intelligence, let me explain to you how this is going to work. I am going to ask you questions. You are going to answer them to my satisfaction, otherwise you will know pain, you will know fear, and then you will die. First: Who hired you?”
“I have no idea what you're-”
Saraea didn't move, didn't even twitch, but suddenly every nerve in Orin's body was on fire with the heat of a thousand suns. He screamed in agony and collapsed, writhing on the floor in a desperate, though vain attempt to escape the pain.
“Scream all you like,” she told him. “No one can hear you.”
The pain went on, washing over him in waves of agony, rising to the point where he thought he was about to slip away into merciful unconsciousness, then receding to the point of almost being bearable before building up again and crashing down on top of him. And then, just as suddenly as it had started, the pain was gone, and he found himself quivering on the ground, curled into a ball at Saraea's feet.
“Now then, Mr. Pendlebrook,” she said conversationally. “Are we feeling a little more talkative, or would you like to find out what level two feels like?”
“Anything,” he gasped. “I'll tell you anything, just don't, please don't do that again.”
“I'm glad to see you're being reasonable,” she said soothingly. “I'm really not asking for very much. Just the answers to a couple of questions, and then I'll be on my way. I've no real quarrel with you, it's those who hired you that I'm angry with.”
“I don't know much,” Orin gasped, still reeling from the agony that had somehow been inflicted upon him. “I was hired by a group calling themselves The Council.”
“Names?” she inquired, with just the right hint of menace to make him break out in a cold sweat.
“I don't know,” he admitted honestly, staggering to his feet and leaning against a wall. “They only ever referred to each other as numbers. A guy called Two did most of the talking, Three gave me the details of the job, and there was another one, Fourteen, who didn't say much except that it was vital that I complete the job and that Very Bad Things would happen to me if I failed.”
“Ironic, then,” Saraea said dryly. “That you succeeded so brilliantly, and yet Very Bad Things have still befallen you. Now, where can I find this Council?”
“I don't know,” he replied, shaking his head. “I never-”
Saraea sighed with disappointment. “It's a pity, really,” she said slowly. “That the memory of pain fades so quickly.”
Orin suddenly felt almost nostalgic for the pain she'd initially inflicted upon him as agony beyond comprehension ripped through his body. He opened his mouth to scream, but couldn't make a sound. His eyes bulged in their sockets, feeling like at any moment they'd burst out of his head. In an instinctive attempt to escape the cause of this agony, his body twitched and spasmed and he staggered about the alleyway, somehow managing to retain his footing. Somewhere through the mist of anguish, he heard the voice of Death murmur, “You know I'd grown terribly fond of Alice. She was a lovely girl, and you killed her. That makes you a bad man. And bad men deserve level three.”
The pain suddenly shot up to a form of such agony that Orin actually relaxed for a second, sure that unconsciousness would soon claim him. When it didn't, his mouth opened again, and his time a thin, whispered scream squeezed it's way out of his tormented throat, before slowly growing to a ear-shattering howl of pain and despair. His bowels and bladder released themselves, but he didn't even notice, all that existed for him was the pain. The alleyway, his tormentor, even his own body melted away and all that was left was an unending sea of pain. And then, once again, the pain was gone just as suddenly as it had come. He slumped against the wall, half sobbing, half gasping. Saraea stood watching him impassively, waiting until he'd regained some measure of composure before repeated her question.
“They took me to a building,” he wheezed in reply. “There was a large room at the top of it, where there were twenty one men seated. They spoke with me, told me that this was much more important then any normal whack job, how imperative it was for me to succeed. I don't know if that's where they're based, but it's all I know. Please-”
“Where is this building?” Saraea interrupted.
“Downtown,” he said shakily. “Across the road from the big MechaCorp building.”
“Thank you Mr. Pendlebrook,” she replied, sounding almost grateful. “That will be all. You do try to have a nice day now.”
And with that, she turned and walked out of the alley. Orin watched her go, a deep hatred beginning to seethe inside him. He pushed himself off the wall to stand upright and swore to himself that no matter how long it took, no matter how much it cost, or what had to be sacrificed, he would track Saraea down and kill her. He glanced down to check if him soiling himself had left any outward trace on his trousers, and only then noticed the large knife protruding from his chest.
“Oh,” he said with profound realization before he crumpled to the ground.