THE RUSSIAN HOOKER

It should be noted here the hooker is not, in the strictest sense of the word, a hooker. In fact, she is an assassin who’d rather kill than have sex for money. Her name is Olga.

Being an assassin worth her gun oil, Olga isn’t standing around on the corner waiting for a trick. Olga is a woman of initiative. Olga makes things happen. Things such as blending in as a cosplayer at the San Diego Comic-Con. And given her Black Widow costume started off about the size of a nicotine patch before she’d squeezed it over her curvaceous frame, this is an impressive thing to make happen.

The dizzying white noise of mega-fans geekifying in the reverberant convention center does not faze her. Nor do the ubiquitous Ninja Turtles, Pokepeople, or Wonder Women. There is one commotion that catches her attention. An American celebrity taking his seat at a signing table. Wall-to-wall costumed fans part for the square-jawed yet effeminate man as he makes his way to his seat. Blue blazer, no tie, silk scarf. He is the perfect picture of classic Hollywood. His name is Johnny Gemini.

Olga pitches her weight to one side and twirls a strand of her beet-red hair. She pictures for a moment how it’d be to do an American celebrity and dismisses it before even getting to the good stuff. Gemini isn’t her type. Her type is doing Vladimir Putin on the back of a horse. But having already done that on no fewer than twelve separate occasions, she’d summarily stricken him off her to-do-on-the-back-of-a-horse list. Which goes to show why a career-driven, FSB-trained assassin has no time for romance. Gemini is a distraction. He is not the target. Her targets are the two hipster girls passing out pamphlets in front of Gemini’s signing table.

It should be noted here the two hipster girls passing out pamphlets in front of Gemini’s signing table are not, in the strictest sense, hipster girls. In fact, they are men who’d rather get laid than die virgins. Their names are Wang and Shmuel. They are the A-Team.