"Oh my god, I blocked it!"

The second installment of A Friendly Game of Assassin starts this Thursday and I'm joyed. This weekend at the Jericho game I got to talk to a few people about Assassin, whether it was regarding the rules ("My house is OK for attacks, I just don't want people breaking my windows. Look, I have Nerf guns everywhere!"-Andrew, game participant), assassination strategies or just people they hope are on the other team. Repeatedly I expressed my desire for getting a melee kill this game. For the moment I've decided that  I'm willing to bite the bullet in the commission of getting said melee kill, but I can't guarantee that this foolish mind sate will carry over when the game actually starts.

On Saturday I said I would be continuing on with stories from the first Friendly Game of Assassin and this one concerns a player named Skylar. Up to drawing him, I was leery of and respected the skills of the people who had been my targets, especially Ben and Tyrone who I'd seen play before. But I had been keeping my eye on Skylar's progress throughout the process.  I had both played with and against him and I definitely respect his prowess with a blaster as well as a foam sword. I'd seen him shoot 5 people wearing a disguise (Skylar has a seemingly endless array of disguises) during a courier escort mission in Jericho, as well as fighting through a pretty giant group of zombies with a sword in each hand at a SF State HVZ game.

He also went to High School with a friend I've known since Fifth grade, works at Gamescape (and was allowing attacks at his job) and is an overall pretty cool dude.

I had acquired Skylar as a target through a somewhat convoluted process. I was both organizing and playing in this game and as such I had my girlfriend Courtney pick half of the original participants' targets. I picked the other half and had no clue who my Assassin was. But as the field shrank, it shrank far enough to where the person who was my Assassin became my target. When this happened, Courtney started handling the passing out of all targets to keep it honest. When this happened, a few players had their targets reassigned, myself included.

So just as easily as I drew Skylar, Skylar could kill his target, or his target could get a kill and possibly cause need for reassignment as well. Skylar had been having a somewhat rough time with his target, a guy I went to High School with named Daniel who signed on to play. Daniel both lived and worked in areas that where inaccessible to Skylar. Skylar had tried to poison him, placing a snake (i think it was a snake, but it could have possibly been some other type of plastic reptile/arachnid) inside of an envelope and mailing it, but Daniel had none of it, posting on Facebook that, after serving in the military, he had enough Counter-Terrorism training he knew enough to not open a such a suspicious package. He applauded the attempted but implored his Assassin (Skylar) to try a little harder.

On top of this, Daniel had killed Skylar's friend and co-worker in Gamescape not that long before. After looking for some games, talking to David and asking for his name, Daniel pulled out a Triad and shot David while he was working the cash register.

Based on all this, if Skylar drew another target he would move on them fast. Therefore, since I drew his name, to save my own backside, I had to move on him fast. The next day, I loaded up a Stryfe with a 6 round clip, put my jacket on over it and tucked a Triad in the pocket. I put an 18 round clip in my backpack, just in case I ran into him un-expectedly. I figured if this happened, he would be armed and shooting when he saw me. Loaded up, I headed over towards Divisadero street, walking over there in about 25 minutes.

As is frequently the case in San Francisco, the weather on one side of town is totally different from the side you just came from. From where I live around Polk street, it was maybe 50 degrees and windy as all hell. Pretty standard fare over here, so the jacket helped, but when I got near where Skylar was, it was sunny and maybe 10 degrees hotter. Coupled with the accompanying antsy feeling that  comes with expecting a shootout if seen had me sweating from head to toe. Making it to Divisadero, I walked up Page street and put a plan together.

My plan was to pass by the store a couple of times and do a little recon. Namely, how much attention was he paying at his job? Not necessarily to his job, but to potential sweaty Assassins lurking in the not so far off distance. Making sure my weapons were loaded (never hurts!) I keep my headphones on but turned off my music as I made my first pass in front of the store. The door was open and I could see through space in the front window display. Skylar had his back to the door and was talking to someone as he stood behind the counter. I kept walking, taking a left up Fell street to reassess.

My first thought was, I should pass by again and if he's still talking to the same person, I'll just go for it. I tried to think of something better, but in the end I decided it was really the only thing to do. There was  a time imperative to remember and I didn't want the roles reversed. Circling back towards Gamescape, when I came to the doorway, he had his back turned and was in conversation with them same person, this time standing further away from the counter but still behind it.

My body just kind of took over for me as I walked through the door and took the Triad out of my pocket. I held it low, waiting until I was about five feet from Skylar before raising it.

At the time, he told me his first thought was "Hey! Cool, Connor is stopping by the store!" He looked at my face and said I looked pretty much how I always looked. Then maybe a second or two later, he just happened to look over a bit and saw I had a gun in my hand.

I fired a shot.

"Oh my god! I blocked it!" He proclaimed immediately after deflecting my shot with a piece of cardboard he had in his hands.

I cocked the Triad and shot him in the gut.

"You bastard! You shot me in the gut!" Skylar declared, then picked up a Strongarm he had stashed a few feet away when I asked if he was armed.

"Im sorry." I said and then apologized to the woman he had been talking to.

"I was actually doing work stuff." Skylar said, nodding towards the woman. "It was the only thing I had to do all day and I was worried someone was gonna show up."

We talked for a minute and I told him that I was relieved for a couple of reasons. One I didn't have to worry about him coming after me, and two, now I could stop by his job and get some games like I'd been wanting to, but hadn't, due to the above mentioned shootouts on site. We shook hands and parted ways, as I had to go to work later that day, to worry if my own Assassin had done the same mental math I had with Skylar.

It wasn't that night, but death would find me soon enough. I will go into that on Wednesday, a day before the next Assassin game starts. If you were possibly getting the feeling that this blog was just a platform for me to boast or channel ego, this next blog will certainly show otherwise.