💾 Archived View for cosmic.voyage › Cilix › 07_a_hitch.txt captured on 2024-07-09 at 00:41:04.
⬅️ Previous capture (2021-11-30)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
All we had to do was stick together. After about the second night without her, I started to have doubts about the whole thing. It was one thing to talk and joke about murdering your lover's oppressive husband, it was another thing to actually go through with it. I really didn't think I would be able to...well, /perform/, when it all came down to it. When I started to think like that, I just returned to the plan. It was detailed, meticulous. It involved two of us. That made it seem less lonely. I felt sorry for all the killers in history who had to go through it all themselves. At least, I felt sorry for them until I realised that having a partner complicated the whole business quite a bit. Even back then, I should have sensed the danger of my situation. I was doing most of the heavy lifting, but my reward depended entirely on her. She would be the benefactor of the money, I would be the benefactor of her. I don't know why I assumed it would just work out nicely like that. She called me after a few days. She was breathless, a little manic. The guy did a great job designing her, I had to give him that. She had the whole gamut of human emotions and psychology programmed into that tiny silicon chip of hers. She said there was a hitch in the plan. Just a hitch. Things would still be going ahead. She just needed a little something extra from me. "Does that mean I'll get to see you soon, Honeysuckle?" "Sure, but maybe not in the way you think." It turned out the old man had actually removed the triple indemnity clause from his will a year ago. Saved himself a few pennies on the premium. "Dang," was all I could say at first. I felt relieved. I tried not to show it. "Guess it's back to the drawing board for us." There was no point going through with the whole thing now. I sipped my rye and looked up at the giant mass of Jupiter. I felt like getting back to the other side of that mass pretty quick. Maybe I could still take her with me. "Drawing boards already all drawn up. You're coming here at 9 a.m. sharp tomorrow morning," she told me. I should have known I wasn't getting out that easy. "A social call? The old man will be out I presume." "A business call. You're the salesman, after all. You're gonna have to do what you do best and sell him back that policy."