A Nod to the Contract Killer
A Portrait
Written by: gibru
Published on September 21, 2025
So! It must be tough to be a contract killer. Working in the shadows, risking your life and living in constant fear of being unmasked. Not to mention that your job has a pretty bad reputation. Big surprise there…You kill people for a living! What did you expect? Then again, it’s probably a bit like internet porn: publicly everyone’s condemning what you do, but in secret they’re rooting for you. Especially when you shorten the lifespan of someone they don’t like anyway. And so as you whack, they wank. Not at the same time, though.
But you know what? At least, your profession is transparent. Most people with jobs are so far removed from any kind of meaningful responsibility that they can simply point the finger at the higher-ups, Bob and Miranda. Not you, though. You’re working solo. You’re self-employed. Has its perks as well. Parkinson’s Law and the Peter Principle? You couldn’t care less. But you ain’t careless. Your job requires you to be on top of your game. Or it’s game over. For you. Literally.
Luckily, life is hard. In other words, you’re definitely not complaining: there’s so much hate, spite, and all-around stupidity that your business is booming. And since you’re one of the best in your field, you’re killing it. Obviously not just metaphorically. And it shows. You’ve invested your earnings into family, a house, and a yearly vacation somewhere warm. And you’re in luck: with global temperatures on the rise, you’ll soon be able to sunbathe on the Antarctic beaches — once you’re ready to retire, of course.
Anyway, keeping up with the Joneses has never been easier. Your social media feed is proof of that. All those pictures of your successes make the most magnanimous people envious. Your private successes, that is. You’re obviously not dumb enough to take pictures of your professional ones. Like everyone else, you keep those skeletons — or, in your case, decaying bodies — hidden in the closet. And yet, despite your meticulous efforts to lead the perfect double life, there’s a looming threat. Something that might finally disrupt your carefully laid out plans for the future. And it ain’t generative AI assisted image creation that helps virtually everyone to take their social media presence to the next level, making you in turn look a lot less impressive. No, the problem is that technology is about to catch up with the skills required to make it as a contract killer.
These days, when you’re not out and about taking care of your targets, you spend an increasing amount of time in underground forums for individuals with murderous intentions of all sorts, carefully explaining that there will always be a need for human contract killers. After all, your clients prefer to interact with someone as charming as yourself as opposed to the cold and impersonal dealings with a Skynet employee. Though you gotta admit it’d be kind of funny if the last words you’ll ever hear are: “I’ll come for you and your family” with a distinct Austrian accent. That being said, even your targets prefer to look a human in the eye before you gently blow their brains out — with a satisfied smirk on your face. Accent or not.
So as it gets tougher and tougher to compete with James Cameron’s imagination, you start to look for alternatives. The magic pill that solves everything. Overnight. Universal basic income or services? Please! People advocating that nonsense in public — you whack ’em on the house! And in the basement (or wherever convenient). More importantly, however, you had to earn your place! Painstakingly honing your skills; fighting (literal) tooth and nail for everything that you hold dear. So the idea that some goddamn fucking freeloaders might have it easier just doesn’t sit well with you. Understandably, you’d rather see this entire planet go up in flames than to watch Bob’s and Miranda’s kids scroll their social media feeds all day long. You know what? I think I’m with you on that one. Conditioning these poor suckers to be victims of run-of-the-mill status games seems rather cruel.
With all that in mind, you’re slowly becoming aware that your cynicism is pushing it a little too far. Because when it comes to accessibility, even you have to get real. People who don’t see much — or anything at all; people who don’t hear much — or anything at all. Yes, blind and deaf people. Well, those with any kind of disability, really…they get to participate more and more in a reality that felt rather exclusionary to them up until now. Of course, that’s all fine and dandy and makes perfect sense to you — as long as they don’t decide to become contract killers and compete with you for a slice of the pie, am I right?
That leads us to the quest for a way out. And this is where your current situation with all its successes has unfortunately set you up for short-term failure: while you have all this tacit knowledge that would give you an edge over the competition, you couldn’t document your work, unfortunately. Too risky. So now all your know-how is locked inside your head and you cannot use it as training data. All you have access to is average killer AI that has no unique selling point. Just the standard, corporate-sponsored models limited to basic and strictly ethical murder. Crucially, however, that AI is more efficient and cheaper than you — even when prompted by Bob and Miranda. Or their kids. I know…nepotism. It is a problem.
Well, this is why I wanted to interview you. I’m curious: what are your next moves?
Alternative Version
