Episode 117

(New York, September 19, 2019)

Alana gave a dry laugh. “So, let me get this straight. You did Rin a favor by taking control of the country, and you buried her alive to save the universe. Let me guess: you also took a bullet by allowing yourself to be made a Sixteen. You really need to work on your story. Incidentally, the whole thing would sound a lot more plausible if you didn’t happen to be the only Sixteen she made before suddenly becoming a threat to the world.”

Karkov shrugged. “It was what it was. I have no interest in what others think, least of all you. But I will say this —”

“You have a lot to say for someone who doesn’t care what I think.”

“Would you rather I didn’t?”

“Care what I think?”

“Say.”

Alana sank back into her chair. “Fine. Get it off your tiny unmanly chest.”

Karkov suppressed a chuckle but then grew serious. “I never asked for Rin’s blessing, let alone her grandest one. I won’t deny that it pleased me, but mainly because it was a gift from her. I did not comprehend the magnitude of that gift. I simply was happy because she was happy.”

Alana wasn’t sure what to believe, but she wasn’t about to allow Karkov the last word, especially one which painted his own actions in such a rosy light.

“How earnestly naive you were back then,” she replied. “It’s so touching. You were happy and she was happy and everyone was happy. Just like a kiddie cartoon. ‘I love you and you love me, it’s okay if I’m buried.’”

“That doesn’t rhyme as well as you think.”

She gave a contemptuous laugh. “Unfortunately, your actions don’t support your claim. If immortals are a threat, why did you go to such lengths to drive us away? Once we departed your sphere of influence, you lost any leverage you had over us. It would have made more sense to keep us near and destroy us one by one, or at least maintain a tight grip. Because of your ineptitude, we metastasized.”

Karkov sighed. “I admit that I acted foolishly in that regard. I was young and stupid. My reasoning, such as it was, led me to believe that dispersing the immortals would be far less dangerous than allowing them to remain concentrated. This made some sense at the time but turned out to be shortsighted.”

Alana stared at him in disbelief. “Are you actually admitting a mistake?”

“I’ve already admitted several, if you had the temperament to listen.”

“In my experience, there are few less fruitful pursuits than listening to you.”

Karkov smiled at her. “Yet, you went to such lengths to seek me out. Then again, you must like fruitless pursuits, your brother being the epitome of one.”

Alana glared at him but just sipped her tea.

“As you say, I should have kept you all near,” Karkov quietly explained. “That would have made it easier to ensnare and destroy you. Now it’s much harder.”

“You think you could get the job done?”

Karkov looked away. “You asked the same thing before and in the same words. You really should try to be more original.”

“If the question is the same, why would I trouble with different words?”

“Fair enough. Well, the answer is no. I had no idea how to destroy an Eight back then, and I have no idea now. Fortunately for my plan at the time — or unfortunately, in light of that plan’s defects — everybody thought I did.”

“I didn’t,” Alana objected.

“Whatever you say, my dear.” Before she could snap at him, he barreled on. “In any case, it didn’t matter. Everybody’s actions — including yours — conformed to my expectations. Whether you actually believed me or were skeptical or possessed the crystal ball of omniscience was irrelevance.”

“There’s no such thing.”

“Sure, there is. You’re a priestess, so you believe in all sorts of ridiculous nonsense. Any result can be derived from a single false premise. I very much doubt that a religious nut like you lost her faith after discovering mere irrefutable proof of the divine. Which, if you think about it, is precisely what immortality constitutes.”

Alana rolled her eyes. “Can you get to the point? Otherwise, I may prefer getting encumbered by Rin.”

Karkov smiled. “Perhaps you already have been. Did it occur to you that this may be the form of your damnation.”

“It certainly is beginning to feel like it.”

“Anyway, I was lucky to discover a way to deal with Rin — but it was heavy-handed and imperfect and took a great deal of time and planning. It didn’t hurt that she was my wife and believed everything I told her.”

“I’d wager it hurt her.”

Karkov gave Alana a sympathetic look. “Don’t worry, I’ll never be nearly as good at that as you.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. You’re a natural.”

Before Karkov could reply, Alana waved dismissively. “She was a Four. That should have been easy. As I said, it beggars belief that you failed at this.”

Karkov frowned. “One of her four protections was quite troublesome. I’m sure you already know that, though perhaps you choose to forget it in service of your disdain for me. Or … maybe you just weren’t as close to her as you imagined.” He grinned. “Did she ever tell you her protections?”

Alana scowled, but Karkov continued. “You also seem to forget how paltry our resources were back then. Today, it would be easy for me. But today she’s not a Four. In any event, it didn’t matter.”

“I imagine it mattered to her.”

“The big problem wasn’t Rin the immortal,” Karkov explained, ignoring the interruption. “It was Rin the Crafter. I needed to put her out of commission, and I managed to do so for quite some time.”

“Yeah, thanks for that. You had two choices: do nothing or finish the job. You picked choice number three: fuck it up just enough that she ends up all-powerful and pissed enough to kill us all. Great job. Where do I fill out the customer satisfaction survey?”

Karkov shook his head. “As I said, it was necessary. You’d understand precisely why if you’d let me finish.”

“I don’t think my life is long enough for that, and I’m immortal.”

“The point is that I was unable to undo her handiwork. I couldn’t remove the protections she had bestowed, and I couldn’t even kill the Eights and many of the Fours. So I did the next best thing: I pretended to be a despot.”

“Ah, I see, it was just an act. You actually were all about flowers and kittens inside. I’m sure Stalin was too, secretly crying as he wrote up those death lists.”

“I met the guy, and I can assure you that he was not crying — secretly or otherwise.”

Alana perked up. “You really met him?”

Karkov stared at her. “No. What is wrong with you? Did the years give you a lobotomy?”

“I’d prefer one to your lies and hypocrisy.”

“Sorry, but that’s not an option. However, I can recommend a good psychotherapist if you want. He may be able to help you work through some of your … issues.”

“My only issue is that you won’t stop spouting self-serving tripe and let me get to the real issue.”

Karkov laughed. “Oh, my apologies. That is selfish of me. I didn’t mean to keep you from spouting your own self-serving tripe. That’s what relationships are about: give and take.” He grew serious. “If I recall, you wanted an answer.”

“Which I got. Fine, you were a reluctant despot, did everything with the best of intentions, and probably deserve a sainthood.”

“The last thing I would put faith in is a sainthood conferred by you,” Karkov replied. “For the record, I never claimed any of those things.”

Alana stirred her tea. “If you are right about this threat, yet acted with such naivety, why hasn’t the world already ended? Incidentally, that would be great for you. You’d no longer be just another guy who fucks everything up. You’d actually be ‘the man who fucked everything up’.”

“We’ve been through this.”

“That was then and this is now. Let’s assume the whole thing isn’t a hypothetical and that I believe you about this danger.” As she said this, Alana realized that she did believe. In fact, doing so felt utterly natural. She wondered whether she had absorbed the thing into her doctrine. Should the beliefs of a priestess be so mutable? “Some sort of conflict must have happened by now,” she insisted. “This makes no sense to me.”

Karkov shrugged. “You’re the theologian, so come up with a plausible fiction. I personally have no idea. I suspect that my plan accidentally worked. Even though I drove everyone beyond my control, they’ve proved to be an unsociable lot. I’m not entirely sure why, but I suspect congregating holds little allure. Relationships with mortals offer greater novelty, less baggage, and are relatively consequence-free. There’s no real point in trying to kill an immortal either, especially when mortals are such easy prey. Early on, I discreetly disposed of a few troublemakers — all Fours — who thrilled in attacking other immortals. Fortunately, no Eights were so inclined, at least to my knowledge. From what I heard, small groups occasionally banded together, but such arrangements were always short-lived. As far as I aware, you and your brother are the only immortals who regularly seek one another’s company. The higher numbers have no need of safety in numbers, and they probably get tired of looking after the lower numbers. Now that Rin’s doing her thing, we’ll see whether that changes.”

“So it wasn’t just Rin killing immortals.” Alana murmured. She smiled at Karkov. “I figured you were all bark, but I guess not everything you say is a complete lie.”

“An interesting assumption.”

Alana rolled her eyes. “After learning of her … activities, I just assumed that it had been Rin all along, and that she had upped her game recently. Now it seems that you were a culprit as well.”

“A bit of both, depending on what you consider ‘all along’. Rin didn’t have her epiphany until around a thousand years ago. Or, at least, that’s when she started acting visibly on it. Before then, it was me — or mostly me. Maybe somebody else managed to deal with a few of the lower numbers without it reaching my ears. By the time Rin came on the scene, ordinary conflict amongst immortals had long ceased. None of that previous conflict was particularly dangerous, though. The real threat would have come from an Eight fighting another Eight or me. I did what was necessary, but nothing more. Unlike Rin, I prefer not to kill our own.”

“I thought you said our very existence creates problems. By this premise, leaving us alone isn’t an option. A Two fighting a Two would cause some tiny risk, and even the smallest risk must be mitigated. That is why you said you buried Rin, isn’t it?”

Karkov’s eyes wandered across the room. “Our creation was a sacrilege,” he replied at length. “But, once created, we have the right to live like anyone else. I’m less worried about us being ‘unnatural’, as Rin would put it. As long as there is no fighting, the chance of protections conflicting with one another is minimal. That’s all I care about. I would consider killing us all only if there were no other way to save the world, and perhaps not even then.”

“How weak and unprincipled,” Alana scoffed. “The world would be doomed with you at the helm. Fortunately, you’re not at the helm. Incidentally, it sounds like the woman you profess to love was the only immortal you did not offer such grace to — and now she’s returning the favor.”

Karkov gave her a cold look. “I do not disagree with what Rin is doing.”

“People rarely disagree with such things until those things are done to them.”

“I’ll confess that my leniency is inexpedient. And, yes, the world would be doomed with me at the helm. However, that is not a position I hold or aspire to.”

“How modest of you.”

“Modesty has nothing to do with it. I simply am incapable of doing what needs to be done. Only Rin has the ability to destroy us.”

Alana looked him over. “Yet, you don’t seem particularly concerned.”

“Rin isn’t the one who concerns me. I never asked for immortality, and I don’t expect it to last forever.”

“That’s an odd take on immortality.”

“It’s a word, like any other. Can anything be truly immortal in a universe whose very laws can change?”

Alana shrugged. “You haven’t answered the question. Why aren’t you concerned about ending up in eternal torment?”

Karkov gave a wry laugh. “Well, that should be obvious. The same way that every mortal blob of flesh goes through life, fully aware that the slightest cross-wind of fate can end their fleeting existence or, worse yet, consign them to decades of anguish in myriad forms. I simply choose not to believe that it will happen to me.”

“That seems uncharacteristically naive of you.”

“Not so. I just excise the part of my being which worries about such things. Otherwise, how can one endure a single moment of existence, constantly struggling to imagine the unimaginable?”

Alana sighed. “I wish I could adopt such willful optimism.”

Karkov smiled. “No, you don’t.”

“I suppose not. But why now? If Rin perceived this threat a thousand years ago, and has had the power to act on it, why are any of us still free?”

“That is the question, isn’t it?”