Scene 2, Without Knowing

Without Knowing 

      The light from the patrolling guard’s plasma torch flowed around the corner as I put my back against the wall my partner mimicking the move not a nano-second later.  The matte black of the Tronian Blastworks armor I was wearing were of a special make, not just to blend in with the shadows but to actually absorb light.  Like nearly all things worthwhile, nothing lasted forever.  After enough lumens had been absorbed, the suit would burn out and it would be no better than black cloth with ceramic tiles sewn into it.  There was no point in absorbing any unnecessary lumens.
      The guard swept the light across the hall a couple of times in the uninterested manner of someone who has done it a thousand times before and no longer saw the point in doing it.  The blue electrical hiss did not give the guard sufficient warning to turn back before the stun bolt hit him in the neck and he fell to the floor with a soft clatter.
      “Thomas,” I said, shaking my head.  “That was unnecessary.”
      “Now he certainly won’t be bothering us.”
      “While that may be true, somebody will probably know we have been here now.  Let us have no more and certainly no casualties.”
      “As you say, Antony.”
      The rest of the path through the subterranean labs left Thomas no further chance break his word as the pair of intruders encountered nothing larger than a mote of dust.  They found their way into the server room and began pulling devices from their pouches that looked significantly more functional if somewhat less elegant than the pristine boxes and tied off cables.
      The ease with which they connected their equipment and began their hack didn’t concern Antony in the least.  He and Thomas had been doing jobs of this nature together for more than 15 years and while born of different parents, were more brothers than many of the biological siblings he’d met over the years.
      Everything went smoothly until he felt a wisp of wind a moment before he felt the barrel of a blaster pressing against his spine.  Next to the enlarged eyes, a slight tensing of all his muscles, silence was his only response. 
      “Sorry, old friend, but Cynthia said—“  A lightning bolt went through me.  My former fiancée was dead.  She had died while I was away doing a job.  How is it she could tell Thomas anything, let alone something that would turn him against me?  “—and so it is with a sad heart, my friend that I leave you with this parting gift.”
      Thomas pulled the trigger.