Death Wish (2 page)

.
The buildings contained within the black marble wall that surrounds the complex stretch high above us. The size of the area is impressive
—
it covers a few square miles of ground. The complex contains the headquarters of each subdivision of the Security Branch, including the headquarters of the Fairy Godparent Organization. Harrison and I take the back entrance that Godparents use when completing Wish assignments
—t
he front entrance is used by clients who submit their Wishes. I move ahead to an iron gate set in the black marble wall and press a button next to the intercom.
“Federal Security Branch, Fairy Godparent Division. Please state your name, rank, and purpose of visit.”
“Eliza Hayworth,” I respond, speaking into the intercom, “level five Godmother for F.G.D., and Harrison Berthold, level four Godfather. Returning from field mission.” I press my thumb to the fingerprint scanner next to the speaker. It glows bright green, acknowledging my identity, and I pull my hand back so Harrison can scan his thumb.
“Thank you for your hard work, Godmother Hayworth and Godfather Berthold.”
The intercom buzzes and the gate slides away, allowing us back into the compound that has been my home for the past six years.

Wish 2

After the gate slides shut behind us, it takes my eyes a moment to adjust. A long corridor stretches ahead of us, tan carpet lining the floor and light fixtures above giving off a harsh fluorescence. A few feet down the hall sits a plastic bin marked
Used Death Wish Props
. I toss in both of our wigs while Harrison throws in the prosthetic nose. They fall to the bottom of the bin to join the other discards, including a silver knife with dried blood on the blade.
“Is that a monocle?” Harrison laughs, glancing down at the contents of the bin. “What kind of Wish did we miss out on?”
I reach into the bin, pulling out the umbrella while Harrison presses the monocle to his eye. “Albert said one of his Wishes this week involved period costumes,” I answer, leaning down to inspect a lace-trimmed parasol. “He said the client was fascinated by eighteenth-century Victorian England.” I open the umbrella, twirl it behind my head and fan my face while imitating an Old World drawl. “And I
do
declare that it must have been quite the stirring performance!”
Harrison laughs and reaches forward, pulling the parasol from my grasp. “And
I
am pretty sure that you’re mixing up southern belles from the first Civil War with proper English ladies of the Victorian era.” He shuts the lacy umbrella before tossing it back into the bin.
I shrug, pulling a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from my purse. “Eh, anything from more than a few centuries ago all blurs together to me. Want one?” I offer him the pack with one hand while lighting the cigarette dangling from my lips with the other.
“Nah, I’m good.” He motions the pack away. “I always have to go to the Surgeons more often when I smoke.”
I nod and put them back in my purse. I do have more doctor’s appointments than other Godparents because of the habit, but hey, I like the smell and taste.
We continue walking down the hall while I light up. The comforting smell of the smoke wafts down the brightly lit corridor. I breathe in the scent and draw the smoke into my lungs with a smile. A cigarette after a successful Death Wish may be a small pleasure, but it’s one I love.
“Did you know,” says Harrison, reaching his hand over to grasp my free one, “that back in the old days, cigarettes were forbidden in public? The only places you could smoke were in your home, and even then people still would get annoyed with you.”
I smile. Harrison has studied the Old World extensively, and he loves telling me random facts about it.
“Well of course they did.” I send out a small puff of smoke with my words. “Because these things actually hurt them. But
we
are invincible.” I take a drag off of my cigarette and blow it in his face. He coughs, releasing his hand from mine to wave away the lingering fumes, but then he laughs and kisses my cheek.
“Yep. My lady and I, we’re made of pure iron.”

*

My name is Eliza Hayworth, and I am a Fairy Godmother.
A long time ago, longer than anyone in our world has lived, medical science reached the pinnacle of success. Not only had cloning techniques been perfected, but researchers had successfully created a series of devices called “Life Chips”. No one except the Engineers who develop them knows exactly how the Chips operate, but we do know what they do:
The Life Chips have granted people eternal life.
No more murder. No more death by disease. Serious injuries are unheard of, because the Life Chips rejuvenate the human body at incredible rates. In the Old World, a serious laceration would take a week or so to completely heal. But now, no matter the depth or severity of the cut, the wound heals in a matter of moments.
The natural death of old age that was prevalent in the past has been eliminated. Depending on which region of the world you lived in, the average human life span used to be somewhere around seventy years. But thanks to the miracles our scientists have performed, the current expected life span is now limitless. People can live for as long as they want. Before I became a Godparent, I lived a few doors down from a man who was three hundred years old.
But there are still people who want to die. And that’s where Harrison, myself, and the rest of the Fairy Godparent Organization come in.
Our organization is a subdivision of the Federal Security Branch of the government, and our job is simple. As Fairy Godparents, we grant wishes—Death Wishes.
The only way people in our world can die is by submitting a Death Wish. They come to our headquarters and submit a form outlining when, where, and how they want to die. Sometimes we get people who don’t want to fill in a date for their death, because they’d be too scared if they saw it coming. Most people ask for a quiet death in their sleep, a large percentage ask that they die while saving someone, and there countless varieties of death scenarios in between.
After a person submits a Death Wish, we Godparents enact whatever situation they request. There is only one restriction: a client’s death cannot result in someone else dying. Other than that one rule, there is no limit to what they can ask for.
None of the Godparents know how it works, but we have been taught that once we remove a Life Chip, located under the skin at the base of the skull, the person’s body completely shuts down and they die. Of course, to prevent accidental death due to impact around the area of the Life Chip, the skin has been reinforced so that only the Godparents’ special knives can remove the Chip.
No more murder. No more debilitating injury. No more deadly disease. In this amazing world we have created, you—and only you—have the power to choose when you die.

*

“I hope Rhonda doesn’t get mad at me,” I grimace, holding up the ruined pair of shoes from my costume. The broken-off heel lies at the bottom of the damaged purse. I swing the useless pumps from my fingers. “I seem to have a habit of destroying everything she makes.”
Harrison chuckles. “Don’t worry, sweetie. Everyone in the Costuming Department
knows
that their creations are going to get busted up one way or another. Yours just get ruined more...
extravagantly.
Remember the ball gown she spent a week on?”
I groan at the memory. Rhonda, the head designer of the Costuming Department, had hand-stitched hundreds of ruby-red sequins into elaborate swirling patterns across the floor-length dress. By the time I returned it to her, it would have been impressive if she could salvage a few cloth napkins from the tattered remains.
“Hey, how was I supposed to know she hadn’t read the file thoroughly? If she
had
, she never would have spent so much time on a costume that was designed for a Wish involving a shipwreck and a shark attack.”
I’m still amazed we were able to pull that one off. Not for the first time, I wonder where the Prop Department is able to acquire all the necessary items for elaborate Wish submissions. I take another drag off my cigarette, relishing the gentle burn of smoke in my lungs.
Harrison and I continue our walk down the corridor, passing the hallways connecting to the lobby and the Godparent offices. Our destination is the Godparent locker room, where Godparents coming back from assignment can change out of their soiled costumes before leaving work. But when we walk inside the concrete lined room, we find that we aren’t alone in the expanse of benches and metal lockers.
Theodore Wilson and Trixie Henderson, a Godparent team who joined our group a year after Harrison, are in the process of undressing when we walk in. Dark patches of bruises cover Theo’s bare shoulders, while Trixie’s pale legs are riddled with the evidence of recent lacerations. The duo must have just finished an assignment, otherwise any trace of their injuries would be long-gone.
“Evening, you two,” greets Harrison, giving a friendly wave. I copy his gesture, but the two don’t give a warm reception. They transferred to our branch from an office out east, and have never treated any of the other Godparents with anything other than thinly veiled contempt. I rarely see them around the office so I don’t have much of an opinion on the pair, but their dislike of others without reason does bother me. Theodore just nods gruffly at Harrison before pulling his shirt over the long expanse of his dark torso. Trixie looks me up and down and smirks.
“Nice dress, Hayworth,” she mocks, her hazel eyes sparkling with laughter. I sigh and roll my eyes. I’ve never gotten along with Trixie and Theodore, but not for a lack of trying. When they first arrived I did my best to befriend the new recruits, but after a few interactions it became clear that we weren’t going to become friendly. Harrison said that it was a clash of personalities, but I think it’s more than that. I joined the Godparents in order to help people. But from what I’ve heard about Trixie and Theodore’s behavior on assignment, they joined because they relish the experience of ending life. I try to avoid them as much as I can.
I turn to my own locker while doing my best to ignore them. It works for the most part. The taller male mutters something to his partner in a deep rumble. She laughs at the comment, a high-pitched tinkling sound, and they finally move away, their footsteps growing fainter with each step. The metal door slams shut behind them when they leave the building, and I let out a breath in relief. I’m not afraid of them, but I definitely feel uncomfortable around them.
“Oh thank
God
,” Harrison says. He shudders dramatically. “Those two are
creepy
.” I smile and nod, pulling the soiled costume dress over my head and dropping it onto the bench between our lockers. I stand there in my camisole and underwear, opening my locker to look for my pants. Harrison strips down to his boxers behind me, also rummaging around for a change of clothes. Our locker room has always been co-ed. Questions of modesty and embarrassment don’t really come up between Godparents. When you have to deal with as many taxing issues as we do for our jobs, getting worked up about seeing each other in our underwear seems a bit silly.
I slide my pair of dark blue jeans over my legs, throw a black vest over my cream camisole, and grab my black ballet flats. I slam my locker shut with a metallic
ping
before turning around and moving over to the center of the aisle. I sit down on the plastic bench to tug my shoes on while Harrison debates about which cardigan to wear.
“Hey Elly,” he asks, “Which one do you like better? The green or the navy?”
I finish putting on my shoes and spin myself around to face his side of the locker aisle. I press my fingers to my lips and furrow my brow, pretending to be deep in thought. I look away from the cardigans to the boyfriend holding them and wink.
“Come closer and I’ll tell you.”
Harrison smirks and bends down, closing his eyes and puffing his lips out in a goofy pucker. I grin and reach forward, cupping my hand around the back of his neck to pull him down. My lips meet his and I feel him smile as he kisses me back.
Harrison and I have been partners for three years, but it wasn’t until two years ago that we became romantically involved. This isn’t unusual. Godparents live such unique lives and are so separated from the general populace that it’s very common for us to develop feelings for one another. The higher-ups have no problem with the budding relationships. As long as Wishes are still completed and the paperwork gets done, they couldn’t care less about our personal lives. But I had still been nervous when I started developing feelings for my handsome partner. What if the relationship didn’t work out? But here we are, two years later, and I can’t imagine any part of my life that doesn’t have him in it.
We break off our kiss and Harrison sighs happily He leans back and offers his hand to pull me up. “The green one,” I say, planting one more kiss on the top of his head. He gives me a thumbs-up, one of the many Old World gestures he’s so fond of, and pulls the cardigan on before shutting his locker. We drop our used costumes in a bin by the door marked
Used Death Wish Costumes
and walk out of the building hand-in-hand.
The size of the complex is surprising. Cobblestone pathways connect the various buildings that the complex houses, and a variety of sculptures and trees adorn the grounds. The Engineering building sits directly next to the Godparent building. The people who build and maintain the Life Chips work there. On the other side of the Godparent headquarters is a small grocery store. One of the perks of being a Godparent is free food and board, so as long as you stay within the complex you never have to pay for your meals. I still pay for my coffee though, due to my love of a nearby cafe and my slight addiction to caffeine. There is also a domed-roof concrete building connected to the Godparent building, where we train our bodies in the workout studio. The main medical station is also inside the grounds, which is where the Surgeons work, but I’ve never had cause to go inside beyond my mandatory doctor’s appointments. A few more structures cover the grounds, including some restaurants and cafes, giving the entire area the feel of a small town.
And finally, at the far side of the complex, rest the Godparent apartments. Each agent is assigned a small one-bedroom apartment when they are initiated into the Organization. Married couples, however, are given larger apartments. Harrison once asked jokingly what type of decorations I would like in our future apartment, and my stomach warmed with pleasure at the thought of us getting married.
Because we finished our Wish assignment at a late hour, we don’t come across any other Godparents while we cross the grounds. I see a few Engineers eating at one of the cafes, wearing their signature white lab coats. It’s funny; even though the Godparents, Engineers, and Surgeons all work in the same area, none of the groups really interact. Our worlds are just too different.
Harrison pushes open the gate to the apartment grounds and I follow behind him. “Want to go watch a movie?”
I nod. Even though we work almost every assignment together, we still don’t feel like we’ve gotten our “together” time until we’re alone. I look at him with a grin. I always feel a ball of pent-up energy in my stomach after a successful Wish completion, and I know exactly how to burn off that energy.
“Race you!” With a laugh I sprint off to the iron-wrought staircase that leads to the fifth floor where Harrison lives. He shouts behind me, but I’m practically flying over the stairs, taking them two at a time. His pounding footsteps echo behind me as he chases, the music of his laughter mixing with the sound of my own. I finally hit the fifth floor and dart down the balcony, stopping outside the fourth door. I brace my hands on my knees and breathe heavily, my heart racing. But I recover quickly and Harrison joins me as I straighten up.
“You need to give me a better warning next time,” he heaves, but he’s laughing too. He moves around me and presses his thumb against the scanner by on the wall. The scanners glows green, beeps, and unlocks Harrison’s front door. We walk inside and I take his hand, pulling him over to the couch by the television.
“Yeah, but this way I beat you every time,” I tease. Harrison stands on his toes to give me another kiss with a smile on his face.