I twist the scope on the side of my rifle. The image I watch through it focuses to complete accuracy, every line and every curve crystal clear in the night. In the light of the nearby restaurant’s window I can see every detail, from the graying, well trimmed beard to the police badge pinned on his uniformed chest. Chief Wallace, like a father to me.

To be honest I don’t need the scope. I could just as easily go without it, it’s convenient but not essential. This brings me to rule number one: civilization improves through observing which elements stand the test of time and work together in perfect harmony and efficiency, like this rifle, and by observing which parts are obsolete or destructive and then removing said obsolete parts.

Allow me to make another gun metaphor, it’s a good night for those. The most important part of the gun, the part that it all works to put into action is the bullet. A bullet can change history but it gets a bad rap. So do I.

I’m not the perfect assassin but, like a bullet, I do my job. It’s a nasty job but I need to look out for myself, use the skills I have to further my own survival. I kill for money, usually. Tonight, however, is personal business.

I’m also a cop, which brings this unsuspected killer to the next lesson: power comes from moving up the food chain, however you do it, brains, brawns or, of course, guns. I’ve always believe this rule but I never really felt like acting on it until a bit over a year ago. I was just a cop then. I had taken apart my gun and was fine tuning each piece when I looked at my table and saw hundreds of parts and realized that I knew each part’s purpose and name. I had a bad childhood but that made me smart, I took an IQ test once back in the day and they told me I had cheated. 180, that’s pretty damn high, too high for a low ranking cop with no real promotion on the horizon. My first idea was just to expand my skills, make it obvious how clever I was.

That was when I got the rifle and a bunch of law books, I was near broke by the time I had finished that little phase. I learned quickly, within a month I was the best sniper in my precinct and knew more about the weaponry and police laws than the chief.

Dammit, Wallace, you bastard. He was like a father to me when I first entered the force. He knew my potential then and saw my improvement but he wouldn’t promote me, said he needed me where I was. Well that really bugged me, I guess that was when I went “bad” so to speak. A cousin of mine was deep into the underground and he helped me get my first few jobs. I was good, good enough to make a name for myself. Ghost, they call me. Before tonight I’ve only done two other personal jobs.

The first was this punk kid who had robbed me twice but got away with it for god knows what reason. There’s so much red tape these days in the bad parts. I followed him on the rooftops, waiting for an opening. He pulled a man into an alley and began to mug him. That’s when I did it, I used a scope, it was gratifying. I left like a ghost, the paper’s didn’t even mention his death.

The second was another cop, some guy I barely knew named Tompkins, I checked the roster and figured that if I took him out it would bring me a pretty hefty series of promotions. It did, I got away blame free because the detectives wrongly identified the bullet I put into his head.

Back to the present. Chief Wallace is a good man, which is part of the reason why he has to go. Under his command our division is very by the book, we even arrest other cops for foul play. With people like Wallace you can’t just slap them and expect them to understand that foul play is the now, who knows it may change but right now the city is a foul place and we need to respond thusly to keep our seat of power. Police need to be in charge and they can’t do that if they don’t know the game.

Chief turns to walk away from the crowd as it disperses. He’s alone now, in the direct sight of no one. Time to remove an obsolete piece and receive my just reward. Time to change history and get myself some power, once the chief is gone everyone gets promotions, I’ll be one step closer, maybe two. Sorry, Wallace, it’s over.

BLAM

He goes down, the bullet travels through his brain and exits the skull. I pick up the gun and walk back to the door. Times are changing and I want to be on top when the changing is done. No remorse.