Acts of the Assassins

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FIRST, FIND THE body.

Male, early thirties, bearded. Distinguishing features: extensive trauma injury, severe to hands and feet. Decomposition consistent with springtime conditions in an arid territory. So follow the smell of a four-day-old death, the black fruit stench of human decay. The corpse is out there somewhere.

Find it. Then the occupying army, representing human progress, will investigate. These people have forensics, a rational system of criminal justice, and will ensure that those guilty of stealing a body from a burial site are tried and punished. Whoever they may be.

Cassius Marcellus Gallio, counter-insurgency, switches on the recording equipment and speaks out loud the precise date, the exact time, the full names of those present. This is how it usually begins. Then he switches the machine off, watches the green recording light fade and die. In this city he has the title of Speculator. He expects to get results.

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