Neighbourhood Watch Ch. 01

She kicked the back of his knee, forcing to him to the floor as he clawed at the plastic cable that was securely wrapped around his neck, rapidly cutting off his airway. His momentum carried him to the floor, Abbie riding his body down like a lethal parody of a surfer. She placed her knee into his back and pulled hard, his arms and legs now flopping around. It always reminded Abbie of watching a fish that was out of the water watching someone die like this.

Abbie maintained the pressure for a few minutes, her face twisted into a forceful grimace until his body ceased resisting. She took a second to check his pulse. As she expected there was none.

Now for the main act.

The sound of the door to his office being kicked open startled Norman Stevens. He was even more surprised to see a woman dressed from head to toe in black standing at the door. He stood up, gaining his composure.

"Who are you?" Abbie looked at him as she moved into the office, gauging his reactions. He had the advantage behind the desk, so Abbie sought to neutralise it by walking around to the side of it. "Look, whatever they're paying you, I'll double it..." he stammered. "Treble it even."

"Oh, Mr Stevens," Abbie cooed. "The money is only fifty percent of why I do this," she said as she saw his hand reach towards a draw. Abbie reacted faster – driving her foot into the drawer and trapping his hand. "The other fifty percent is my love of the job." She whispered as she pushed Stevens back into his chair, clutching his hand. Abbie smiled at him before she pivoted on her back foot, spinning her other foot around and smashing it into his temple. The force of the blow twisted his head at an unnatural angle, breaking critical bones in his neck as his now lifeless body collided with the desk, slumping out of the chair.

Abbie smiled as she left the office and looked at her watch: 11:30 pm. Hopefully Mark would still be awake by the time she got back to Beckbury.

****

"How many times do I have to tell you Abbie," Mark said as he disabled the screaming siren of the security system. "There's no way you can break into my house without tripping something."

"Bullshit," Abbie shot back. "One day I'll figure out how to get around your system. Now get that torch out of my face before I decide to drop my sunny demeanour and hurt you." Her face had a wicked smile on it as the light winked off and was replaced by ambient mood lighting within the bedroom. Mark stood up, pulling on a dressing gown and walked across the room to close the window. "Just out of professional courtesy, which one did I set off this time?"

"Thermal sensors – the ambient temperature in the room rose by point one six degrees the moment you opened the window. The new sensors I've designed are sensitive to temperature changes of less than one hundredth of a degree. After that, they relay the information to the home security system and it, in turn, analysed the increased mass in the room once you entered and change in air pressure density to determine that there was an extra person here." He moved across to a computer terminal that seemed to grow out of his desk. The screen winked to life, streaming data across it. To Abbie the streams of numbers made little sense, yet she knew Mark was reading them like a book.

"A secondary scan then identified that you were carrying at least one metal object – which I believe is a knife in your left boot – and considered you to be a threat." He continued.

"And how long did all that take?" Abbie asked, shaking her head as she walked over to stand next to him at the desk.

"Er, about 5 nanoseconds at last count." He turned to face her. "So, what are you doing here at two in the morning?" He asked. Abbie shrugged.

"Not sure, I couldn't sleep and thought you might like some company." She looked at him. "Oh, I bought the bypass kit back – turned out that I didn't need it after all." Abbie dropped the pouch on the table.

"Everything go okay then?" Mark asked.

"Of course," Abbie replied as she reached towards him, running her hand over his face. She could feel the stubbly hairs through her gloves. "When was the last time you had a shave?"

"When was the last time you got laid?" He countered.

"Touché," Abbie answered. "So, do you fancy doing something about that?" Mark smiled.

"I'll get my razor."