Our main character’s name is Zachary LeChance. At least, that’s the name signed on the bottom of his current lease agreement. The one on his bank card, signed on his last exit from hospital, and printed in bold on his birth certificate (which unfortunately was burnt many years ago), are completely different. Sometimes he’s Izac Bolton. Others he’s Mitchell Montgomery. Others, he’s Charley Bright. On one very rare occasion, he signed himself in at a quite grandiose hotel under the name of Duke Smitty S. Smith (the S. also standing for Smith), but we don’t talk about that one.

He works out, but he’s not one of those protein-freaks that gets around naked for the kicks. He looks just don’t-fuck-with-me enough to keep people from asking directions, or grandmas from expecting him to help them cross the street. Another thing we don’t talk about, is that if someone were to ask him directions, or a grandma needed help with her bags, he’d provide both. He’s actually quite a nice guy. Just because you’ve got a few kills under your belt doesn’t mean you’re not a nice guy. People in the army even get awards for it.

Zachary is an assassin, as you probably know by now. He carries his gun in a Styrofoam-lined guitar case and tries his best to avoid metal detectors. What separates him from other assassins in this genre of narrative, though, is that he doesn’t get paid for it. He doesn’t knock off the head of one overly sweaty politician, go back to his Beverly Hills (or this universe’s version of Beverly Hills, whatever that may be) apartment and bathe in a solid gold bathtub filled to the brim with hundred-dollar notes. What he does do, is go home to his studio apartment in a derelict red-brick building downtown, scrape up his pennies and quarters and other miscellaneous currency, hoping for there to be enough stuffed down the side of the couch to afford a microwave meal. He doesn’t have a bath, and his shower’s hot water system turned suicidal months ago.

His microwave has probably cured the whole apartment block’s cancer by now.

Now, Zachary isn’t as much as a psychotic sadist as ‘not getting paid to be an assassin’ would have you believe. He actually goes home and cries a little, beats up his punching bag until the stuffing bursts out and he has to get the landlady to stitch it up again for him. He wields his gun for a reason different than money, or fun. See, Zachary was trained and hired in the abstract art of murder by people that we are going to refer to as Them. Because They’re here, and They’re always watching, whoever They may be. Zachary knows who They are.

And Zachary doesn’t want to die.

So he became Their ‘errand boy’ of sorts. When a big enough threat shows up, for example, unplanned nuclear detonation by a rogue politician, They’ll deal with it Themselves. They’ll show up, from the dark, from the unseen, unknowable depths, from the spaces in corners where dust gathers and spiders crawl, from the corners of your eyes. Just a glimpse. That’s enough.

A glimpse of unimaginable things.

However, smaller threats (aka, the ones not resulting in the possible extinction of all mankind or the revealing of Themselves), are dealt with by slightly more human operatives. Operatives like Zachary.

Zachary saw Them, once. His eyes bled. His eardrums burst from that infernal sound, a language but reminiscent of radio static. His brain hemorrhaged just trying to comprehend Them and his limbs twisted in on themselves, his skin reversed. He woke up fine, like nothing at all had ever happened. They decided he was useful.

One day he won’t be useful anymore. He doesn’t want that day to be anytime soon.