5: Edible
The noble art of the assassin is one which relies on a variety of tools – the most common of them being, of course, poison. Trouble is, these days there’s more than enough knowledge of such things that pulling off a successful poisoning is damn near impossible: there are any number of methods for the detection of poisons that were believed undetectable until after they’d done their work for years, yet here we are in a situation where technology has caught up. It is no longer enough to introduce a toxic substance into the body of a target and wait for it to do its work, there needs to be an additional layer of subtlety that goes above and beyond the subtlety of common poisons.
It is said that the advent of nanotechnology brought the promise of functional immortality closer than ever to realization, but in fact the reverse is true: the advent of nanotechnology made cutting life short easier than ever. Poisons used to have to rely on chemical compounds introduced to a target – now those chemical compounds can be manufactured in the target’s body. It’s merely a matter of introducing the proper instructions. The personal favorite of one of the Chicago families when it comes to showing their displeasure is something that’s been called the Edible Blade.
The Edible Blade is a set of instructions which can be introduced any number of ways (though as its name suggests the preferred method of transmission is through food) as a simple protein chain. Said chain propagates within, generally, four to five hours of ingestion and results in the victim’s body being quite literally shredded from the inside out as nanomachines use available iron in the blood to create small blades. It is a thoroughly unpleasant and painful way to die. It is possible, of course, to countermand those instructions before death, though it needs to be caught before blade manufacturing has started. Once the blades are present in the system, death is more or less guaranteed.
Another option, of course, is to just constantly consume counterprograms, but as they are both incredibly expensive and carry their own potential health risks, it is not recommended unless you have really, really pissed someone off.