Frozen

A/N: This is just a very small one-shot from Jason's POV...about the night on Wombosi's yacht.

He was in.

He had done what he'd been trained to do, what he'd been built to do. Just like he had so many times before.

He'd planned. He'd manipulated. He'd infiltrated. There had never been the slightest doubt that he would. His mind and body were a machine-supremely attuned towards performing their designated task to the highest capacity. And so, inevitably, he was in.

He was in.

And the protocols he lived by, the protocols he ran himself by, demanded one final stage to complete the successful execution of his task.

All he needed to do was pull the trigger. Terminate the target. Complete the mission.

Terminate...and exfiltrate...that's all the program demanded of him now.

The weapon was against the target's cranium. The target stared up at him, the inevitability of his impending demise evident to him.

When the body was discovered...it would be assumed he was killed by one of his own. There would be not a shred of evidence at or near the strike-point to testify to the contrary. The scenario was perfect. Perfect.

But something was...different. Something was wrong with the scenario...and his trained senses swiftly informed him why.

There were witnesses. And the presence of witnesses was anathema to his plans.

Terminate them, his conditioning told him.

But as he saw the children, some sleeping peacefully, another one looking at his weapon with curiosity, as though it were a strange toy...he simply couldn't bring himself to proceed with the program. He couldn't bring himself to complete the scenario.

So he did what any other machine which encountered a fatal glitch did...

He froze.

The machine inside him...the program...the protocols...told him that it was just a minor deviation from the ideal scenario...that it could be easily rectified if only he eliminated the witnesses...

But there was something else...something else in the deepest reaches of his consciousness...which seemed to find the very notion of eliminating the children abhorrent...which found the very notion of terminating the target himself abhorrent...

And he came to the realisation that this something...whatever it was...would not let him follow the protocol.

It would not let him pull the trigger.

Somewhere inside him...the frozen machine...the program...the protocols...fell apart...

And bit by bit...he simply broke down.