I had a name
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I was young, and I had a name that my friends called me by.
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When Liberty Security Forces officers came to the pub on Manhattan to arrest my lifelong friend, I had a name. I had a name, and my friend called it out.
So I fought.
In short order, one LSF officer lay dead across the table.
Another tried to scream through frothing blood, while he twisted on the floor.
The broken bottle in my hand dripped thier blood.
And then, a tide of blue uniforms.
Four officers strained to hold me while I was frogmarched out, in cuffs.
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I still had a name
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"Whats your name, punk?" he asked, puzzled.
The LSF officer had finished 'tuning me up'.
He was through breaking my nose, some teeth, a rib, and a vertebra in my neck.
Amazed I was still alive, he told me he might have a better use for me.
--- I still had a name. though I could hardly remember it.
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He told me I had 'a gift' that had saved my life.
"To kill, and not die." he mused, as he cleaned my blood from his hands.
This 'gift', he said, could be enhanced, carefully sharpened, and honed into a skill.
And he would stop, and let me live, if I pledged fealty.
If I did exactly as they told me.
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I did.
I was cleaned up and handed off to an officer dressed in black with no unit insignia.
She told me to listen, shut my mouth and listen, that I might learn.
And she proceeded to teach.
--- I had a name, and it was not on a headstone, so I learned.
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I had a new name
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I finished months of covert operative training, culminating in the assassination of a Rheinland-friendly BAF Admiral.
I took him in his home on Leeds, while he read fleet reports.
He froze as the barrel of the silencer touched the base of his skull.
His family never woke.
--- I had a new name, one carefully chosen for me, so I forgot the old one.
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And next, a Kusari shipper on vacation onboard The Hawaii.
Then a Liberty businessman who knew a man with ties in Rheinland.
Then the wife of a man who refused to testify.
Thier children.
And more like them.
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They all looked surprised at the last moment.
Thier eyes begged, but I did not give thier mouths time.
They were, to me, only names on a list.
Names of families, businessmen, politicians, whole corporate boards, children.
It stopped mattering.
--- I had a name, but it was not mine.
They have a name for people like me
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Names, actually.
Assasin - Killer - Spook.
Nightmare.
--- And when I come, you can bet I know your name.
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--- And my new name was known, for I was effective.
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You cannot have a name that people remember in this business.
Assassins don't retire, they dissapear.
Eventually the LSF reasoned that if allowed to continue, I could not be stopped.
They came for me, of course, to keep me quiet.
But they sent recruits.
Mere children.
--- And I taught them my name.
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This name no longer fits
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My name, my name - who knows my name?
I made a new list, and went to work on it.
And before the end, every time, I asked them the same question.
--- "Who knows my name?"
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The list grew at first.
Then, stained with blood, it began to tighten.
Backwards though my life I stalked, and death stalked with me.
Agents who had used me.
Pilots who had transported me.
Teachers who had trained me.
Just names on my list.
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When at last my list was empty, I wrote my own name upon it.
Which one no longer matters.
Sitting in the busy spaceport bar, I watched it burn in an ashtray.
The blue-grey smoke carrying it away gently.
Two names I had lived with.
Two names I let go.
I looked at the shuttle boarding pass between my fingers.
--- It was time to find a new name.
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Names are nuthin' but trouble
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A scout patrol found the shuttle as we launched from Freeport 2
The Rheinland Secret Service didn't have my name.
But no man is perfect.
They had a picture.
A picture of me ending the life of thier ambassador's aide - one of my tougher assignments.
One which put me face-to-face with one of thier own assassins.
He'd surprised me, at first.
Guess I forgot to look for all the surveilance.
No man is perfect.
Another two Rheinland war machines slid into range as the SS officer stalked the aisle, scanning the passengers.
--- They didn't need a name.
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Vierlande Prison.
The vast bulk of planet Hanover blocks the light of Hamburg's sun.
The always dark cells housed violent radicals, Red hessians, Unioners, and me.
It was a tough first few months, no lie.
The unwashed pukes who thought to show me who was 'boss' finally stopped trying.
Launched into the gas giant as corpses, they had all started the same.
"Who do you think you are?"
Wrong move.
--- Prisoner 01176-Kj4 was my name.
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A name - taken, not given
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The guards had seen my handiwork leaving in bags.
They had a gambling ring going, it seems.
They shoved me, naked, into the scrub-room with a giant.
He pounded his fist into his hand, and mucles bunched on his chest.
"The Hanover Fist stalks another rookie! Place your bets!"
The guard on a bullhorn played announcer to answering cheers as the giant waded towards me.
---
His grin was at once familiar, and spoke an unholy glee at his work.
A bell rang.
I, also, grinned.
--- I wanted that name.
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Branded.
The cross on my forehead told all that I was an Einzelkämpfer, or lone fighter.
Seventeen wins - no losses.
Only two had lived, and wished they hadn't.
They started shipping me to other prisons to fight thier champions, guised as a 'typical transfer'.
Always, the announcer shouted; "The Hanover Fist!"
Always a bell rang.
--- I had taken my name, and I would teach it to all comers.
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This name is a bit tight in the neck
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The Warden was making a fortune.
And so he smiled.
The interview was quick.
My confession, taped, recorded a litany of deeds against mother Rhienland.
Deeds I had not done.
Admissions that would buy my freedom.
--- My name, again, was known.
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No other wardens would take a bet, or put thier best fighters in front of me.
It was time, he said, to go civilian. That's where the real money is.
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I would fight for him, and only him.
If I did not run, I could enjoy riches and fame.
Against this, he held my confession safely secret.
He signed the papers freeing me, and smiled at me like I were his pet dog.
---
The surgeons layed new skin over my brand.
I was uncuffed and shoved into a shuttle for New Berlin, a semi-pro fight waiting for it's challenger.
I sat in a richly padded seat, free for the first time in a year.
The pilot fired the cruise engines and Vierlande prison, in the shadow of Hanover, fell away behind us.
The Warden leafed through Der Bokser, checking the odds.
--- I had a name, but another man owned it.
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A name, by any other name
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I'd flown my share of ships, and this shuttle was no different.
Only in that it had a dead Warden and a dying pilot in it, did it differ from many others.
Time to dissapear.
Hamburg was still close.
I banked hard.
---
Hamburg's surface screamed past, sixty feet below.
The wind howled through the open hatch.
Making sure there was evidence of an 'accident' was first-week stuff.
The foil blanket tied to my ankles and wrists made a piss-poor parachute.
Getting off this thing without using a pod was going to hurt.
--- But it would buy my freedom and my name.
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When the cruise engines lit in atmosphere it was glorious.
Up, curving, then a long slide across the earth obliterated all traces of my work.
Nothing was left save the drive core.
I lay laughing on my back.
A broken arm was incosequential.
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The pilot's ID and papers would only serve me until the shuttle was reported missing on New Berlin.
I limped to the spaceport with the Warden's cash.
And from there came emergency vehicles, whistling overhead to investigate the crash.
They'd find nothing.
--- And I wore another man's name.
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This here is your name
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A few months on Curacao.
Alone on a beach with my thoughts.
Thoughts of blood leading to blood.
Leading to blood.
Living under rocks - and worse.
It must end somewhere.
I preferred to set the terms, rather than have it end me.
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That vacationing couple would be the last.
She was incidental, had come in from a walk on the beach.
Bad timing, darling.
--- He looked enough like me, I only needed his name.
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Now, I still have this 'gift'.
Everyone except me, until now, had profitted from it.
Noone ever got away, when I put my mind to it...
Bounty Hunters bring 'em back alive. And they live above ground.
I like the sunshine.
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The last of the Warden's cash bought a sleek Hunter craft.
A couple of punks dragged into Sheffield bought a refit.
A few more easy catches bought my entrance to the Guild.
And a ship, fast and deadly.
I've even got a rep now, a good one.
And if anyone asks, My name is Jack Spivey. Ha!
Poor Jack's fish food by now.
--- If you see me on your six, my name is the Hanover Fist.
And you can bet I already know yours.
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