Brief update, as reading is tearing my life into tiny shreds right now. I died in assassins, after effecting a fifth kill in Burton. Decided the first Aikido Broomball game was worth going to, even though I knew Kevin and his partner would probably be there. I wasn't killed at the game, but Henry Keiter waited in the trees outside the Libe for the whole game, tailed me home by running the long way around the Olin-Hulings-Mudd complex, and met up with me at the entrance to Nourse. I had time to block his 10-shot, but was exhausted from a hard game, so I was too slow. Henry went on to test his luck against Bendikson in a re-enactment of the Princess Bride iocaine powder scene, featuring two goblets of juice, one with tabasco sauce as a deadly poison. Man, those guys are winners at this game. :-D

Class has been interesting: quantum is tearing my brain to tiny little pieces, metaphysics is alternately interesting and infuriating, and psych of prejudice is absolutely fascinating. Lots of cool stuff about stereotype formation and metacontrast bias, but I won't write much right now--maybe a paper or two to come later.

Broomball has been absolutely awesome: Reid and I are on four teams each, this year, and that means 1-3 games per night, on top of 11-14 hours a week of Aikido training. I haven't been this sore in ages, and it feels great. The new liner gloves are holding up great and keeping my hands warm (thanks Dad!), and I even splurged and bought an Underarmour shirt as a base layer. The first game has convinced me it was worth the money: the fabric is warm (I was comfy with it and a fleece at -17 on the ice), breathable, and doesn't get snow and ice stuck in it. On the other hand, I think the fit is designed for people with much thicker pectorals than me. Ah well, another reason to keep up on those pushups! :-)

Justin's visiting this weekend, which means a packed schedule! My plan is to rush the philosophy reading tonight, finish up my REU application paper tomorrow morning, and then work through quantum HW until dinner time. Saturday is open mat, shopping (it'd be nice to get a second pair of shoes, cause these hiking boots are heavy), and then Ebony, which apparently half my floor is in! So yeah, here goes!

Dear Duchess of Destruction,

The last two days have seen the death of many assassins. On Saturday, after Open Mat, I saw Mr. Daft Hands himself pass by my table in Sayles. As he climbed the stairs into the computer lab, I quickly removed my jacket and wrapped it around my head: a suitable improvised mask. Moving as quietly as possible, I snuck into the lab and dispatched halla with two shots through the cervical vertibrae.

Figures nobody was there. A kill like that is too good to be true, and when the smoke cleared, and I saw nothing but a smashed iMac smoldering on the desk, I realized my mistake. I mean, I've got a condition. I get confused sometimes. And seeing Hall's ghost... just meant it was time to take my pills.

Turned out my partner, Grace, had taken out both Hall and his partner, Wakeham. Clever girl. Walked right into their unlocked Musser double, and shot them both. "I'm pretty sure you can't do that," one of them said. "Would you like to call my roommate, the guildmistress? We can validate the kills right now, if you'd like," she replied, cooler than a certain man in city politics who knows he's got every juror bought off.

But Grace got careless. "Stupid, stupid, stupid," she wrote in that beautiful 7-bit encoding that always made me smile. She was ambushed coming back from the restroom, only a few feet from her room door. "They're the men with the golden guns," her final e-mail said. Not much of a clue to go on.

Drag enough people along Division street, though, and you'll find some answers. Garrett Miller. A stalkernet photo was all I needed. Oh, and watching him sit down next to his recently eliminated partner at the LDC. I ducked down from the table, crawled over to the upper level of the dining hall, and put on my mask again. In a crowded environment like this, I couldn't take any chance of being recognized. I won't let you down, Grace.

Luckily, I found a spot where a concrete support beam blocked his view of me. I jumped over the dividing wall and landed in a crouch on the floor. Applause from half the dining hall. I waited for the attention to fade, and keeping low, made my way up to the pillars just ten feet from Garret's table. Only one chance to get this right. I rose up, jumped up onto the table, and dove for my target, pistol blazing in one hand, knife ready in the other. He didn't even have time to react, just gazed up at me, astonished. With that team out of the way, I knew Ross would be coming for me next, and left through the back way.

Grace... I wish you could have seen it.

That night, I turned my attention to my new targets: Corey and Nathan. Formidable men on their own. Together, well... I just didn't want to think about that. Nathan was the only assassin to outrun me, and I knew I couldn't take him on in a straight-up fight. Corey's exploits are the stuff of legend. I heard that once, trapped in his room, he jumped out of the second story window, got some friends, and came back up the stairs to ambush his attackers from behind. Not one of them survived.

I found Nathan's roommate playing Assassins Creed in the 4th Watson lounge. He left the door unlocked. I left them a gift under their bed: .25 kg of cyclotrimethylene-trinitramine. As of 3:14 and 15 seconds this morning, Watson 410 was an oven rapidly preheated to "conflagration".

Nathan down, only Corey to go. As I rounded the stairs onto 2nd Musser, I walked straight into him. "Hi Corey!" I welcomed him cheerfully, and kept right on walking. I heard him bolt back into his room and lock the door, and silently cursed that I hadn't shot him then and there. Still, there might be some way to salvage this mess.

I ducked into the other hallway, and waited for a few minutes. Nothing. I figured I'd check the door and call it a day, but then I saw it--he was standing in the lounge, next to the sink, talking to his residents. Moving on blind reflex, I drew both pistols and emptied 8 rounds into the room. He didn't have time to bring his Nerf pistol up before I ducked behind the corner for cover. "Corey, you died!" His floormates were shocked.

Walk down the right hallway in Musser, and you can find anything.

Moving in the early hours of the dawn is not unfamiliar to the contract killer, especially when innocent lives (e.g., his own) are at stake. Carls are at their most vulnerable just after waking up, before the natural process of caffeine induction can enervate the senses and bring new alacrity to fuzzy neurons. Thus I found myself walking through the corridors of 3rd Nourse at 10:15 on a lazy Saturday morning, with a pair of rubber band pistols in my bathrobe's pockets.

I knew the girl had it out for me last night; she and her partner, Ross the Toss, had been stalking up and down my hallway all last night, weapons out. Who else on the floor could they be gunning for? Luckily, I'd had some dealings with this shady character before, and knew a few things about her.

Amy. Amy McGrew. Flinger of a Thousand Deadly Blades. Her nigh-inexhaustible supply of edged armaments made her a foe to be reckoned with. I heard she took down a man in Musser once. By the time the fight was over, Campus Security and all of NoPo's men couldn't put Humpty together again. She slices and dices so fast, you couldn't find her equal if you watched late-night infomercials for a month.

Lucky me, bullets are faster than knives.

I had two things going for me that morning: first, that Amy always sleeps with a weapon, meaning I had the right to defend myself and my partner without fear of enforcement, and second, that living in a triple meant more traffic in and out of the room. That was my in; a visitor last night had forgotten to lock the door, and so it was that I creaked the door open and softly padded to her bed. She was on the top bunk, wavy brown hair and unaware features a picture of innocent repose. It'd be a shame to take her life this way, but she knew what she was getting into when she decided to play the game.

I placed my hand on her shoulder, raised my pistol to her heart, and whispered softly "Good morning, Amy."

My introduction to Cara Chomski went something like this:

"Cara? She's frighteningly competent."

"At what? Classwork, sports, discussion..."

"Yes."

Two weeks later, I was assigned an enforcement contract for Assassins: track down and terminate one Cara Chomski, an assassin who had been inactive for 72 hours. Wearing my trenchcoat and borrowed sunglasses, I located down her room, found out she was practicing below the concert hall, and made my way to practice room 30. I'd never really been to the practice rooms before, and didn't realize that they had not one, but two doors. I knocked on one, waited, and spun around as Cara opened the second. Sprinted for the other door, but she slammed it closed and locked it. Defeated, I headed off to do some work.

An hour later I returned, armed with a cardboard sword in place of the knife. Heard her practicing the piano inside, waited until the song was finished, and slammed open the door. She sprung to her feet as I swung for her stomach, but she parried with her sheet music and produced a coat hanger from nowhere. I backed her into a corner, but she parried all of my blows. Just as I was about to make the final strike, she dodged in and stabbed me. With the coat hanger.

My hat is off to you, Cara, for defeating an enforcer with an improvised defensive mechanism (sheet music), and a plastic coat hanger. Frighteningly competent indeed. :-D