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Kill stories

This is a long, stupid story.

Sam Klein came up with the plan. It would be a beautiful finale. About three hours before the official meeting time of the HRSFA Wing Commander outing, I hiked up Beacon Street from my Somerville safe house and pinched a shopping cart out of the Star Market parking lot. I dressed up in my worst clothes, put in my contacts, filled the cart with blankets and (underneath, for structural support) the box from the Corellian blockade runner that I'd bought at Toys R Us at Alewife earlier in the afternoon, and pushed the cart into the square to meet the others at Dudley House.

I was going to be the wino limping innocently down the block when ten dead HCS players and assorted hangers-on pulled out their guns at Johnston Gate and simultaneously called public assassinations on Owara and Neuenschwander. The rest of the plan should be clear. Lauren had dyed her hair red and dressed up as a pit kid. I was working on my palsy, and nobody really knows what Meghana looks like anyway.

When Hodge and I got to Dudley House, Epstein told us that it was an official HRSFA meeting after all. I was a bit put out. I was beginning to enjoy my career as a master of disguise, and had by most accounts been getting pretty good at it. Sam, though, had me beaten on the homeless guy front, and Aaron Mandel was making Molnar's red wig look more natural than it usually does. We stood around outside for five minutes, wondering why we were there, and then we figured, why not go to Lowell House and see if we can't get Shane. At the very least make him run to get to the meeting within five minutes.

At about 6:50 we were in front of Lowell. Somehow, I was assigned point and stationed next to the front door, with Hodge, who had little idea what was going on. Everyone else assumed stations ranging from "20 feet away, still dressed like a pit kid" to "what the hell happened to Chloe." Aaron and Sam were situated halfway down the street that runs in front of Lowell House with the shopping cart to provide a distraction.

I stood facing mostly away from the doorway, trying to look like I was waiting for someone, but not in a going-to-shoot-them kind of way. My gun was already in my hand, disguised inside a Kraft macaroni box. Within two minutes, Shane Owara stepped out the front door. On some level, I knew immediately that it was him. For about three seconds he stood still, with his back to me, looking out at the scene. I didn't shoot him, because I don't know what anybody in this fucking game looks like.

I watched his escorts take him away.

(Palmer didn't see a thing. umbrellas and eyelids, you know.)

this makes her dead.

I guess I should hang around Pierce more often.

Chloe Lopez's intimidating figure showed up at Lowell House during lunch. Fortunately, even she wasn't bold enough to mount an assault under ABST McAfee's watch, but the sighting rattled me, nonetheless. Then she and the undead Ben Dreyfus masterfully ambushed me in Sever, but I managed (through luck, pluck, and the graciousness of the Most Merciful Judges) to escape destruction.

Feeling twitchy and anxious about my near-fatal attack, I decided that maybe a killing would help calm my nerves. Word on the grapevine was that Brian Rosenthal had grown despondent and careless, and I knew his location. Some simple recon showed him to be returning to PfoHo sometime after 23:00. I chatted peacefully with his roommates and my accomplice, Igor Teper, for a while until Brian showed up down the hallway. He pleaded for his life, and I hesitated, allowing his roommates to come to his aid. Igor blocked off one while I rushed at Brian, firing and scoring a hit. Nolan Myers: "I saw that!" Then, believing the threat to be over, his roommates turned around to return to the room. I quickly reloaded and fired again, scoring another hit. Nolan: "I didn't see that."

Deadily and tenacious Josh VonKorff must have been tired from the earlier battles of this war, and from the stresses of the approaching midterm crunch. When word spread to me that he was diligently working in the Jefferson Physics Library late last night, my face began to flush and toes began to fidgit. I would have my long-sought kill.

But before I could plan any further, more fortunate news of VonKorff's waning attention span passed to me; he had abandonned his desk to fill the need of that horrible vice: email. And while he sat writing and stalking away, my accomplises and I steathily removed his jacket from the Library, and applied iocaine stickers in two inconspicuous places (and inner pocket and inside the jacket liner). Giddy with success, we rushed back to our stations.

Worries began to arise, however, when we realized we had little assurance that he would ever wear the jacket for 20 minutes. Soon a new plan was uncovered when VonKorff make the mistake of napping among the stacks. We would poison a scarf of Dave Alpert's, drape it across him, and then remove it after 20 minutes.

The plan was, of course, successful. Later adding to my assurance of success was news that VonKorff had switched sleeping positions and was using his poisoned jacket as a blanket -- obviously deadly. So now he was doubly dead; there was only one battle left to fight.

But how would I consummate the kill, with all assurances of success? The answer, of course, is persistance. Below follow the transcripts of time I stood towards each one of the eight compass points and repeated "Didn't your mother ever tell you about the Good Times Virus?":
5:01 am
6:33 am
7:12 am
8:59 am
10:05 am
10:55 am
11:35 am
2:30 pm
2:33 pm
2:59 pm
4:05 pm
6:00 pm
6:55 pm
8:10 pm
8:55 pm

I have been assured that during at least some of these time VonKorff was found to be in bounds.

And so ends my tale of murder and secrecy. We hope.

Four of us arrived at around 7. We started peering in the windows until we realized that no one there had any idea what either Bryn or Jenn looked like. We left again and got Alpert, who claimed he could ID both of them. Brought the little freak back with us. He picked out some chick in the back row as Doxtader, and said Bryn wasn't there. "Dave," we said, "that girl is playing french horn. The web page says Doxtader plays baritone sax." "It doesn't matter what she's playing," he said, "it's the same girl." Alpert then took off for some "meeting".

After the rehearsal was over, this supposed Doxtader went out and started hanging around near the cookies. I shot her. She turned around. "Are you Jenn Doxtader?" I asked. "No," she said, "she's still in there." I peered into her eyes. Was she lying? She started to laugh. I started to feel like an idiot. I wandered outside, cursing Alpert. As I left I heard her say, "Jenn, some guy was looking for you. He shot me with this... thing." She was right there! Unfortunately, I was too absorbed in my own suffering to wheel and attack.

DeSoto came and found me. "She's in there," he said. I decided that duty was more important than having all of wind ensemble think i was some kind of incompetent idiot, which is true enough anyway, and went back inside.

This new Doxtader escaped into the elevator with two escorts. Eyeing us warily, they went to put the instrument away. A few tense minutes later they appeared in the lobby. Quick as lightning, she caught a glimpse of Molnar's weapon and shot him. I jumped in, circled around and shot her in the ankle. The female escort said immediately "I saw it." This rang false with me, but I decided it would be easier to just shoot her again.

The posse went outside. We followed. Near the SC shuttle bus stop, the surprisingly animated Molnar jumped in front of them. "Can I help you?" Doxtader asked. At this point, her escorts made a strategic positioning error, and I found my opening and shot her in the back. Death was instantaneous.

I've got to stop drinking so much coffee.

So I go up, draw, and shoot him. He makes a move for his gun, but is too slow. Accepting death and saying nothing, he moves out the front door. This is when Chloe informs me that she saw the shot.

Oh. Foo. Guess I have to kill him again.

So I follow him out and kill him again, this time at close range, shielding the gun with jacket like a good little assassin. He turns around, a bit surprised,

"I'm already dead!"

at which point I have to explain to him the news that for a few minutes there, he was actually alive.

The deed done, we split.

"Today is a good day to die!"

Skip forward to 1:00pm. I leave cs281 and see HRSFAn's blocking the stairs up to cs161. With the help of Dmitry Sagalovsky I escape to the Science Center out of Pierce. I then walked to Pierce with Dylan and Allie. They escorted me to the third floor landing where the murderous posse awaited. They forced my rapid retreat to the mens room on the first floor of pierce. There I stood with one foot in, one foot out surrounded by a semicircle of HRSFAns. I had but one goal. Kill Matt.

"But how do you shoot the devil in the back, agent Couyan, what if you miss?"

I waited til Matt took his hand out of his jacket so even with his quick draw he would not be quick enough. Then guarding my gun with my sweater and blocking the shoot with my clipboard, I took the step out of the bathroom and successfully killed Matt.

Right after I was shoot by one of the posse but Allie witnessed the shot rendering it invalid. I went back to the bathroom stradling position. Unfortunately less than a minute later as I was trying to escape I was swarmed, blocked, and killed.

The key was to use Igor as a spotter for my prey. Using Igor to bring about the downfall of his killer would be true poetic justice. With this in mind, I staked out the fourth floor PfoHo hall at 18:17, where I was told (by Igor) that James would come down sooner or later for supper. Sure enough, he approached ... escorted. In addition, he spotted and recognized me before taking the elevator down to the first floor. When I reached the dining hall, his escort was watching for me, and while I was circling around them, they escaped through a hidden passage.

Fortunately, there was a backup plan. James had a box of cookies in his room, which I had dosed with Iocaine outside of James's room. Igor was to keep tabs on James and inform me when he ate the tainted food.

It didn't take long for this to happen, and at 23:13, Igor sent me a missive informing me that this was the case. I rushed to PfoHo from Lowell, confident that I could consummate the assassination. I foolishly believed that James could be somehow tricked out of his room. I waited for the better part of an hour, but James refused to leave his safe haven, even in the presence of witnesses.

What further compounded the dilemma was the fact that I was leaving the city the next morning. As long as James neutralized the Iocaine by being out of bounds, I could not finish the job. I felt Justice slipping from my grasp.

Upon close examination of V.E.4.d, however, my spirits brightened. Igor and I agreed, after consultation, that James need not be in earshot when I spoke the words that would send him to his Just Reward. Taking my compass with me on the flight, and accounting for the Coriolis Effect, I could perform the ritual regularly during the day, counting on Igor's surveillance to match up my proclaimation of the punishment with James's location in-bounds.

I faced East and spoke the words throughout Wednesday at the following times (EST):

• 7:17 -- While waiting at airport (James was asleep)
• 7:42 -- On way to board the plane (James was asleep)
• 8:15 -- Waiting for everyone to board tha plane (James was awake but in his room)
• 12:02 -- On the plane, receiving lots of stares from other passengers (James was asleep)
• 13:46 -- Before landing in San Francisco, in plane restroom (James was asleep)
• 15:14 -- At the rental car agency (James was asleep)
• 16:36 -- While checking into hotel (James was asleep)
• 17:13 -- After having settled into hotel room (James was asleep)
• 18:43 -- In hotel room (James was asleep)
• 19:53 -- At Sun Microsystems (James was watching The Simpsons in Pfoho JCR -- kill complete!)
• 21:00 -- After dinner
• 2:15 -- In hotel, while talking to Igor on the phone

At 2:15 AM Boston time on Thursday, I called Igor and told him the times that I had said the phrase. It turned out that James had been asleep in his room for most of the day. However, he was playing Ping-pong when I called Igor, so I said the words one last time just to be sure. Igor then confirmed that James had, in fact, been assassinated when he stepped in bounds at 7:53 PM. Justice had been served. Glory to HRSFA and its cause, and may all who stand in its way suffer the same Dark Fate.

But two hours later I went back. And waited. I had forgotten my ID so I waited in the foyer. The library guard got suspicious, and started watching me. After what seemed like an eternity, the IRC people started to file out. I got up in anticipation of his arrival. I figured he'd be among the last out if he was being elected to anything. But to my chagrin, the library guard followed me out, and it was clear that we wasn't going to let me in, and that he would witness anything that transpired. I ran down the path to the kiosk in front of Widener. And waited. Still no sign. I headed back up the path. Then a clot of people filed out of Lamont and headed towards Wigg, trailed by my accomplices. Were the people HRSFAn protectors or IRC kids? I circled quickly all the way around Widener, out to Mass Ave, so that I was now in front of them, walking towards them. As they passed I shot him point blank in the arm. My accomplices almost forgot not to look.

And if I imagine this -- what do I do; what do I say to myself; how do I look at the people? Perhaps I look at one and think : "It must be difficult to hug when you are about to die," and much else of the same kind.

"Where the hell is he?" Then I recall someone else saying "I believe I saw Steve Huff enter a certain lecture hall to attend a certain class..." ("I believe Steve Huff has an earring.")

This leads to something.

With the bodyguard distracted (quick thinking, not on my part), I tailed Steve Huff and shot him in the back as he left lecture, using my coat to shield the gun. He turned around, but to no avail; the bullet had already bounced right off, but by this I mean "penetrated deep into his body."

I had tried to get him earlier, before class, by hiding in the projector room and shooting him as he walked in. Unfortunately, it was 11:05, and I hit him just as he was on the verge of stepping through the door. I could not decide whether he had been partly in the room or not, and he hadn't heard the gun shot, so we agreed to flip for it. Two out of three.

First heads (I won) then I called tails and lost. Then I called heads, but he didn't catch it, and it rolled on the floor. Before it landed, I foolishly said "doesn't count," and it was heads. Finally we flipped again, and I lost. Josh Slater was still alive.

He later noted that one might count the whole entrance to SC E as part of the room anyways, so in that case he would have been alive regardless. (There are two double doors to the room.)

I came back, though, a few minutes before his class was over. With a watch, to make sure that when I got him the class was officially done. When the professor finished, and people were filing out of the room, I stood at the doorway and yelled the mystic words of power: "Behold the fury of the magic clowns, Josh Slater -- for they shall strike you down for your crimes, real and imagined!"

He had nowhere to go. It was over quickly.

Long live kill -9.

It was dark. He thinks he missed. I think he hit. Lucy draws, but as her gun refuses to fire, I see the gleam of electric yellow. Running forward, fuelled by blind fury, screaming "You shall pay for your bad science and bad fiction! Read Dostoevsky for a change!", doing a cartweel followed by triple lutz, I iced her.

No one tries to kill a HRSFAn in my presence.

Knowing that my poor roommate has been sick and that he has a fondness for tea with lemons when he feels ill, I poisoned the lemon supply in the Pforzheimer dining hall when I went to lunch at 1:30. However, as 2:30 approached and the dining hall kitchen threated to close, I began to worry that Igor would never come down to lunch. My fear was further fueled by the fact that my lunch companions were departing, leaving me defenseless in the dining hall.

So I hurried back to the room, where I found Igor still in bed. By an amazing coincidence, he asked me for a favor... to go and get some tea bags and lemons for him from the dining hall! Unfortunately, I was still unclear about what would happen if he ate poisoned food in his own room. I also feared deception on his part. He continued to try to convince me to go, until finally we struck upon the deal that we would go down together, promising that if other people came with guns we would *not* avert our eyes.

Thus, the stressful journey began. Together we slowly and carefully made our way to the dining hall. Once there, I watched him gather his ingredients for tea. When he motioned for us to leave, I suggested that he brew a cup there. He agreed that it made sense while we were there, but became skeptical, and commenced to check the cups he was using for Iocaine. It never occured to him to check the lemons...

Once he had brewed a cup, we proceeded to return to our room. Tension filled the elevator, and he began to become very afraid. I waited for him to sip the tea, so I could finish the kill, but I suspect he was on to me by that point and was waiting to return to the room and safety. Finally, as we neared our room, he asked me flat out if I was hunting him. I responded only with a shrug of the shoulders. I could see the fear fill his eyes, and I knew he might never drink that tea... Only a few feet from our door, he asked if I had my gun and threatened to douse me with the hot tea if I was armed. Unsure of the rules about consuming poison in his room, and thinking he might never drink the Iocaine, I answered by drawing my weapon. Per our agreement, I made sure to watch very carefully as my dart left my gun, flew past the poisoned tea in his left hand, and struck him squarely in the chest.

Kill occurred at approximately 2:47pm.

Time passed. Jenn left for class. I stayed. And met *more* Canaday inhabitants.

Until one guy came down the stairs, took one look at me, swore, and ran back up as fast as he could. And thus I discovered that either the third floor of Canaday was conspiring with dmolnar to give a uniform but false description of him, or nobody in his entryway knows anybody else and they were describing somebody else on his floor (entirely possible, from what I've heard).

So I left. And plotted the demise of dmolnar for tomorrow. Until this evening. When a clump of HRSFA's brave warriors congregated momentarily in the Science Center to discuss strategies for the morrow, Erin Leonard spotted dmolnar and proceeded to chat quite merrily with him until I was notified of his presence.

The poor fool had his back to the ramp wall.

It was quite simple. I circled around, came at him from behind his line of sight, keeping a pillar between us for most of the time -- then leapt behind him, pulled the trigger, swore at the malfunctioning gun, pulled it again, and shot dmolnar. In the Science Center. With a, er, call it a revolver. :) It was beautiful. Thanks to the ramp wall, not even Erin saw the gun until dmolnar himself said, quite pithily, "I'm dead, aren't I?"

As I was walking into the greenhouse for a drink I noticed Chris Hall standing with his back to me, calmly getting a soda. No one else was around who was looking, so I took out my gun and shot him in the back of the neck...painless and quick.

I'm happy to say he had no idea who I was.

The moral of this story is "Always make sure your target is really really dead."

My unfortunate blockmate had to leave his room to "go to class."

He paid in blood for his folly.

The kill occurred at 2:24 PM in Leverett B-Entry.

Then, still giddy from success, I cavalierly walked out the front of Emerson and got hit by JOn Miller. Oops.

There were no witnesses.

Assassination took place on Dunster street at approx. 10:05am. There were no witnesses; the death blow was delivered with a gun.