executioners come in all shapes and forms, but i never thought mine would be this beautiful, her eyes were deep blue, the kind of blue that comes from somewhere so cold you can freeze in their gaze, she was pale skinned with white bleached hair, short and swept back across her scalp, and her lips were ruby red. i smiled, it was a natural response, for there was a vague glimmer that death would come quick and i would be released from this strange new world so imagine when my surprise when she smiled back.
'captain mission, you're captain mission from the old world, i know you, we've met.'
'i am captain mission, i'm not sure who or what i was in the old world, before the soft apocalypse, i can't remember anything.'
'do i look familiar?'
'no,' i whispered, adding, 'you just look beautiful.'
she lowered the sword, and pulled me upright, she stood about the same height as me, slim and healthy like an extreme athlete from a winter olympics. 
'you and i we...knew one another in the old world, we were...close,' she said. 
i stood near her, assessing, reading her body, scanning with my abilities, could feel her breath, cold and icy like her eyes. she was some sort of ice maiden, a calculating killing machine, her mind was a razor blade, she could kill with extreme efficiency, she didn't seem to be real, almost from some weird fairy tale or myth, she came from an ice palace far north, her father was a king, her childhood traumatically swept from idyllic to traumatic and now she was just ruthless. i looked at the sword, a black blade, it sucked all light, it had one single red jewel in its hilt embedded, some sort of precious stone, ruby like, instead of gleaming it glistened.
the savage ice maiden felt my scan, she relaxed and for a moment i could feel her innocence, it was fleeting as she composed herself quickly, and flashed me her teeth.
'who are you?'
'the executioner, that's who you know me as in this world, but we go back mission, back into the old world, i wish you could remember.'
i shook my head, nothing, all i knew was i was an ambergris man, i lived in this place, an outpost near the ocean and i travelled the lands finding whales. i was quite infamous, respected, for my skills in the trade were legendary, i had several contacts and various networks to trade in but the market was always under threat from JIN and i'd always known the executioner would be on my heels. apart from that i couldn't recall much else, it was all just lost, i knew it was there somewhere, it felt right but it seemed so unimportant, like a fading dream.
she sat at the table while i made some tea, she inspected my gun with her hands, 'i've never seen anything like it before, how does it work?'
i don't know how i knew, earlier i didn't, now i did, 'it's a moon powered zap gun, lunar charge, it's got several settings, from a stimulating creative charge to a lethal one. i think there's one where it sends the unfortunate victim insane. lately i wonder if i charged myself with it accidentally.'
she smiled, 'no you didn't, it's the split, the soft apocalypse changed us all, i was never an assassin, you were never an ambergris man, everything just kinda distorted and shifted, we are in a new reality and being part of it makes you forget the old one.'
'but you remember it don't you?'
'yes, i do, i made myself remember one thing above all else as i adjusted to the shift. i seared it into my brain and it's been there from day one.'
i poured out some spice tea into a large mug and sat with her, listening to her story.
she couldn't recall her name in the old world, here she was known as elektra, she found herself in a palace, daughter of the emperor of the ice kingdoms in the north, she was orphaned by war and had been working freelance as an assassin since then, that was the new history, she knew fighting skills, was expertly trained in all manner of dispatch, weapons, hand to hand, explosives, she even knew poisons and technology. on this side of the soft apocalypse technology was all different, but neither of us remembered what it was exactly like before, we had just been given the means to use it. she had been hired by governments and corporations, the first column, cartels of extremely powerful elites, elektra currently worked for JIN hunting down competitors in the whale trade and i was her new target. but when she climbed through the window, something instinctive seemed to take over her, a feeling and then she found me, she recognised me as the one person she had chosen to remember from her life pre soft apocalypse, her husband.
i found this hard to believe, for all i recalled i was alone, i had never had a wife, i could not remember her one bit although her eyes did reflect something, a portal of significance, some kind of doorway or opening into some lost landscape, one that was just out of reach but lingered like a reincarnated memory, i wondered if i should invest belief in such a thing.
alternatively now would be a good time to aim my zap gun and end her existence as the executioner. 
outside the night had fallen, my security perimeter was still active, the place was secure, i'm not sure how she had breached it but it showed she was a class act. i smiled at her, 'you're welcome to stay for dinner.'
'you need to remember me mission, it's very important.'
i breathed out, a long breath, 'everything from before, it's gone, this world is more familiar, it's real to me.'
'there's a way i can make you remember, a man, a memory man, he lives in the turkish quarter. we can be there in the morning.'
i felt uncertain, i needed convincing, i'd never heard of a memory man. i played with the zap gun in my hands, i slid the radar umbrella open and shut, my fingers traced the word ZAP and then i put it down on the table.
'okay, i guess i have nothing to loose.'


i slept for a few hours, dreaming of ice capped peaks, somewhere else, a wilderness, some sort of trek through a mountain valley, clambering with ice picks, an ascent with ice picks in each hand, upwards i rose, each muscle aching, i moved above clouds, looking across the summits at the ice kingdom. my skin was burning from the wind, my face felt like a million pinpricks were being stuck into its surface, i pulled myself up towards a shelf of rock. breathing the thin air, i wanted to close my eyes, but i knew that if i closed them i could never open them again, and i knew i had to get to the kingdom, to the king, to his daughter?


in the morning we set off for the turkish quarter, elektra had changed her appearance, she blended in as as a civilian, we both looked like citizens. 


to get to the turkish quarter you had to move through the american section and that would be particularly dangerous due to the high level of security, but our paperwork was all in order and we looked so inconspicuous no one seemed bothered by us, although elektra turned a few heads with her exotic looks. she had dyed her hair black now, and her face looked much more angular, her eyes darker but they still had that coldness deep within. she was frozen deep inside.
some children were playing baseball, she suddenly raised her arm catching a ball in mid flight, she threw it back in a perfect arc, flashed me a smile and led me through the gate into the turkish section where we were greeted with the smell of strong coffee and hash.
the streets here were narrow, crowded with families out and about, the walls were all sandstone and the noise much louder, above the cacophony was the muezzin 
and the cry of a few lone men, arabic calls to prayer.
a number of men stopped to gaze at elektra, she was most definitely out of place, unveiled and attracting attention, but she weaved through the crowds into a dark corridor that seemed to take us underground, through some sort of deserted courtyard and then we climbed up a narrow set of steps, they went on for a very long time and stopped at a large wooden doorway.
she knocked, it was code, some sort of elementary one but i could tell it was a code. the door opened and an old wizard type of man let us through into a very large room filled with charts and papers. 
i looked around me, the room was like a chamber, there was a desk piled high with maps, astrological charts and what looked like an old computer being powered by a solar panel which was on the rooftop. the walls were covered in posters of some sort of astrological maps and equations, there was some hint of alchemical process embedded within and then a huge sanskrit chart of tables and sigils. the only light came from the screen of the old computer and a few candles.
'mission this is ishmael the memory man, he can help you.'
we shook hands, ishmael was ancient, he looked like he was over one hundred years old, with his walnut crinkled face and white beard trailing down, his hands were frail and his voice broken and quiet, he murmured quietly, 'yes yes, i can help, come i'll make some coffee.'
he pottered over to the pot and lit the stove it sat upon, i flicked through some of the papers on the desk, there was no way i could understand anything written upon them, but there were drawings i recognised, the sun and planets, a map of the earth and points where all the pyramids lay, there were constellations and tables filled with dates and numbers.
'the universe is not clockwork but it's a good analogy, we can learn from history that it's patterns repeat, we can dive into the past and see the future, memory is just an ocean of treasure lost, sunken and buried treasure, just like your profession, you work with whales mr. mission, whales and ambergris, a treasure hidden within the whale.'
'in the stomach, it's whale vomit really, not the most attractive substance.'
'yes but it transforms into an attractive substance does it not?'
'yes it does, but i only deal in the raw materials?'
'like wise captain mission. sit down and i will trawl your history and see what sunken treasure i can bring to the surface.'
he passed me the coffee, it was hot and strong. elektra sat to my side, he held my hand as ishmael put his hands on my temples, he muttered some arabic words, rocked my head from side to side and then took out a pendulum. it was a clock on a long chain, a transparent clock and it had words inscribed upon it.
'TIME CONQUERS ALL'
that was the last thing i recalled.