by Conner Allen

Conner skidded across the abandoned lot, his boots granting little traction to the chilled cement beneath him. He held his arms out to either side in a vain attempt at balance, all muscles tensed against the cooled air. Clunk, slide, clunk. The heel of his right boot sunk into a snow bank and he heaved a small sigh of relief, latching onto the now nearby fence and pulling himself into its embrace.

He surveyed the expansion that he'd just crossed. An empty lot of land filled to odds and ends of contraptions and trash, coated with snow and ice. But then again, wasn't everything here on Pluto? His eyes settled on the far end of the lot, thirty feet in the direction he'd just come from across the slippery terrain. Balanced on the fence posts in a line were several soda cans, three beer bottles, and a solitary teddy bear.

The scary eyes and crooked mouths he had doodled on their frozen exteriors stared at him with child-like, moster-eske expressions. Con stared back, trying to call a bit of seriousness into his face. He called the expression that he mustered his "battle face", though a poor representative of the thing. Half grinning despite himself, he drew a gun from its holster within his thick jacket.

He raised it, trying to line up the sight to the objects on the other side of the lot. He'd been practicing things like this a lot lately. Areas he felt he was weak in. Even now, as he held the gun out in front of him, he felt exposed--unprotected. It was hard to believe that this light piece of metal could possibly prove more efficient than the confident weight of a sword in his hands. But he'd give it a try. What if they were asked to do a more public mission? He couldn't just walk around carrying a sword on his back. No, he'd have to give this a chance.

Conner pulled at the trigger feebly. A stray bullet flew from the gun before him and out of the lot, leaving the cans to glower at him in triumph. Another shot whizzed by a soda, a little too high this time. In his mind, he could almost hear these things laughing at him, egging him on. With a forced sternness in his face, he continued to fire mercilessly into their midst.

Hitting them was only half the battle. The other half was actually getting himself to fire. Not only did the gun feel like a highly breakable toy in his hands, but the cans were significant of something. People. Places. Things he was yet to see. Bang, Bang. Metal hurled through the air and nicked two of the cans. Con winced as they spun strangely on their base and then fell to the ground with a clatter. Their arrogant grins remained as they rolled for a moment after their death, then ceased.

He pressed on with a hardened face. If he couldn't shoot a can with a funny face, how could he ever shoot a real person? A man? A woman? The gun's recoil began to familiarize with the muscles in his arms and hands, and the shots began to come more naturally to him. Shooting evenly, each of the cans fell within minutes. Then one by one, the bottles. Pop, pop, clatter, clank. The faces shattered into a hundred pieces and flew to the ground with little glory.

Con held out his arms in front of himself, satisfied with what the exercise was doing for him. He lined the sight up with the last item on the fence, and suddenly faltered. It was a tattered old thing, dirty, with cotton exposed and missing one eye. The confidence fell from his face as his eyes met with the teddy bear's remaining one. It seemed to beg, to plead, for his mercy--for the last couple bullets to stay in Conner's pocket.

Arms falling to the side, he was forced to come to terms with the true test at hand. What was most important to him? A complete stranger--a man, a woman....maybe even a child. He could be asked to take the life anyone on the planet, regardless of age, gender, or creed. What was more important? These people to whom he owed nothing....or he and Ryan's lives?

The answer, he thought, staring into the glazed over button eye of the bear, should have been simple. Ryan had been his friend since childhood and was the only family he'd really ever had. And yet, something inside told him that it was wrong, selfish even, to only think of him. They were only two men who no one would miss. The people he may be asked to take care of in the future, however, might be grieved by parents, brothers, sisters, families, and communities.

He might be forced to tear the seams out of someone's world and send it crashing down on them.

The gun came up in front of him shakily. There had to be another way to do these things. Another path for he and Ryan. Another chance for everyone to be happy. Maybe they could set up a system to smuggle away those who they were supposed to have killed. (Narrowed eyes met with the bear's.) Or perhaps they could leave the planet--but how far could they get? (Fingers shaking from cold or undevoted nerves, he couldn't be sure.) The gang they'd been lured into ran deeply into the veins of crime throughout the planets. No, they could run away from this problem. It was too large....

This was it.

He took his shot.

Con stood in place for several moments afterwards, recapturing a breath that he didn't remember holding. He let the gun fall to the snowbank at his side as he stared wide-eyed and frustrated at the bear, unscathed and still perched comfortably on the fence.

"I just...I can't--arghhhh." He slicked his fingers back through his black hair, his thoughts falling on the missions that were certainly to come in the future. How his life and his friend�s may just depend upon this action. Can't wasn't good enough. Could he do it? When the time came, could he force this action? For Ryan? For himself?

For the fourth time that day, Con set off into the lot, picking up an assortment of cans and bottles to place on the fence and test his will. This time, he promised himself again, he would do it. He could shoot the bear.

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