#SonofaPitch: Query #6: Killer's Day Off

For my regular readers, these are some special posts this week as part of a pitch contest I'm providing feedback for. My normal musings will return next week.

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Title: KILLER'S DAY OFF
Category and Genre: Adult Urban Fantasy
Word Count: 84,000

Query:

Eleven doesn’t feel like killing the President of the United States today. Every other profession gets sick days, so why not genetically-enhanced android super-assassins? Unfortunately, that’s not how his owner/creator/father-figure, Simon Cordova, sees it. A few threats, a little brainwashing, and Eleven is off to the White House.

Only when he gets there, he finds that Simon has lied to him about Eleven being the only android around. Sure, meeting this other guy doesn’t stop Eleven from killing the president, but it certainly raises some questions, such as ‘Why has Simon lied to me?’ and ‘What am I?’ and ‘Why the hell am I being brainwashed?’

Except those answers need to wait, because this job didn’t end in DC. No, it followed Eleven home and found where his friends live.

Now Eleven has to protect those around him while working through a budding existential crisis. But none of that will stop him from finding answers to every one of his questions, even if it takes a few explosions, abundant violence, and at least one hostage situation to do so.

First 250 Words:

“What?” Agent Olsen’s voice hissed through the telephone. “You’re calling out sick from assassinating the president?!”

“Yeah, sorry about that.” I nestled the phone between my head and shoulder while I pulled the bag of Cheetos open. Olsen probably heard it, but who cares? “I’m just feeling a little under the weather.”

“Under the weather?!” Olsen screamed. Static screeched over the line, the cords and tubes of the phone company cracking under the pressure. “You’re a genetically modified android, Eleven. You can’t feel under the weather!”

“Oh, did I say I felt sick? Meant to say tired.” I kicked my shoes off and fell backwards onto the couch. “Didn’t sleep very well last night. Etcetera.”

Static hissed through the phone again before Olsen’s voice simmered down enough to be heard. “—any idea how much time and money and planning went into—“

I pulled the phone away from my ear and glared at it. I had nearly four years of perfect attendance under my belt, and they couldn’t give me just one damned vacation day? Sometimes people just weren’t up to the task of going outside and being productive—or, in my case, murdering politicians in cold blood. Today was definitely one of those off days for me.

Hopefully Agent Olsen and his boss could understand that. If not, then my status as a badass super-assassin earned me some other undeniable privileges.