K is for Kill License

I have a short piece of fiction for you today. This is part one of a story that you can read more of later this month. I hope you enjoy it:

The woman applying for her license was sweating a lot. Understandable with the circumstances being what they were. The average person only applied for one kill license in their lifetime. Some never did.

As a Kill License Officer, the first thing Mortimer Larkin learned was not to let sympathy skew the picture. If he approved every applicant based on a one-sided story the firm would be in debt within a month. Risks had to be considered every time.

He cleared his throat and spoke without looking up from the paperwork. “The intended target… Mr. Winslow?”

“My Husband,” she said.

“Of course,” he said with a nod. “I didn’t want to assume.”

“It’s common, is it?”

“The most common of all.”

He scribbled a few numbers down on his notepad and flipped to the second page of the application.

“Sad,” Mary said.

“Huh?” He looked up from the paperwork and saw sadness on her face. “Oh. Yes. An unfortunate result of the societal statistics, I think.”

Other common applications were for a brother, a sister, father, uncle, and every other possible family member. It’s where the phrase, ‘Kill the ones you love’ came from. He had even handled an application for a man seeking to kill his grandmother. Fastest decline he had ever done.

“You haven’t written anything under applicable experience,” Mortimer said.

Mary’s gaze dropped to the kleenex she was wringing in her hands. “I don’t have any. I’m a homemaker. I was a homemaker.”

“Have you ever fired a gun?”

She shook her head.

Mortimer sighed and added a few numbers to his notepad. He was confident what the numbers would come out to, but he would still do the math.

“You haven’t listed a reason.”

“Not sure what to call it,” she said, dabbing the tissue at the corner of her eye.

“Can you describe it?”

“There’s another woman.”

“Adultery.”

“And another house. Three kids. An entire other life. I don’t even know if she’s the other woman, or I am.”

He paused with his pen hovering over the form. She had a point. It seemed more of a betrayal than adultery.

“For the sake of the form, I’m going to put general abuse.”

She nodded and dabbed another tear away.

“Almost done.” He spared her an emotionless smile and fed her application into the built-in scanner on his station. Within seconds her file appeared in front of him.

As he expected, it was a by-the-numbers denial.

“I’m very sorry, Mrs. Winslow, but—”

A distinct tone sounded once in his ear piece and was gone.

“But, I’m going to need you to excuse me for one moment.”

She nodded and continued to twist the remains of her tissue.

Mortimer crossed the office, to the hidden door at the very back, and knocked once.

“Enter.”

Part 2 can now be found here!