[Author’s Note: We've returned to Rin's encounter with Karkov, right after the events of episode 57.]
When Karkov opened his eyes, Rin found the look on his face tremendously rewarding. At first he seemed stupefied, but then a certain triumph crept into his features.
“It didn’t work,” he murmured with uncertainty. “Nothing happened.” This time there was jubilation in his voice. “After all that, your weapon failed.”
Rin desperately tried to suppress her laughter. “That’s not how it’s done, idiot.”
Only slowly did his countenance change as it dawned on Karkov how badly he had embarrassed himself.
“Imagine if you’d shat yourself,” Rin tittered. “You could have been stuck that way forever.” With this image, she no longer could contain herself and burst into full-throated laughter.
It took a few seconds to regain her composure, and Karkov was silent with an odd expression the whole time. Did he still not understand?
“I accept your proposal,” Rin explained.
“For sex?”
She rolled her eyes. “For information.”
“And then sex.” Karkov seemed oddly chipper for someone who desperately had pleaded for a reprieve moments earlier.
“I’ll level the playing field. But it goes both ways. Are you sure which way the field was tilted to begin with? You may come to regret this.”
To her great delight, Karkov now appeared uncertain. Or was he still rattled from her trick? Of course, there remained the danger he would lie to her. He had as much as signaled his intention to do so. If he agreed too readily, it was even more likely.
Agreed? He had proposed the damned thing. Of course he would lie. But it didn’t matter. Rin would play his game for one simple reason: curiosity. She was curious to hear his lies if not his truths.
Karkov gave a hesitant nod and murmured an “ok”.
“Ok? OK? It was your goddamned idea. You were the one begging for this. Don’t act like you’re doing me a favor,” Rin snapped.
“No, I was talking to myself. You made a good point. Yes, I asked for this. Thank you for agreeing.”
“That’s better. As long as we know where we stand.”
It was clear from his face that Karkov had not forgotten his recent terror. This both pleased and impressed Rin. Only a fool would choose not to know his own mind. For all his pride, he still was no fool.
“We know,” he affirmed.
Rin nodded. “Ok, first things first. What’s this crap all over my sphere?”
“It’s my sphere,” Karkov objected.
“They’re all my spheres. And you didn’t treat this one very well.” The spheres were indestructible, but it felt wrong to treat them that way. It was disrespectful.
Karkov sighed and nodded. “I painted it in lead.”
“Why?”
“So it would feel heavy, like a real metal sphere,” he explained in a somewhat impatient tone.
Rin gave him a bemused look. “Don’t you even remember?”
“Remember what?”
“I even let you handle it. While we had sex. Several times. You insisted. You still don’t remember?”
Karkov shrugged. “I handled a lot of things while we had sex.”
Rin laughed. “You’re so full of crap. You really don’t remember. My crown wasn’t heavy. The sphere was light. Most people assumed I was too cheap to use a solid gold sphere. I thought you knew all along and did this deliberately, just to live on the edge. I guess I gave you too much credit. Apparently, you’re just a senile fool.”
“So, I could have …”
“You could have glued it on just as it was, and that would have been perfect. Instead, you covered it in this gunk.”
With her pocket knife she began to scrape the lead off as Karkov watched in silence.
“Does everyone think these things matter?” Rin wondered aloud as she whittled away at the sphere.
Karkov seemed puzzled. “They do matter. They give us immortality.”
“Sure, but they can’t be undone or damaged. Why worry about them so much?”
“Well, everyone I’ve met keeps theirs nearby. I guess it’s natural to be protective of the thing which makes you special. I feel the same way. Isn’t it important?”
Rin imagined a Protege losing his sphere and spending centuries frantically searching for it under the delusion that possession mattered. The thought amused her, and she was tempted to play that trick on Karkov. Instead, she tossed him the half-cleaned sphere.
“They are irrelevant. Once created, they cannot be destroyed. It doesn’t matter where they are. Even if you lose yours, nothing can happen to it. Or to you.”
“But what about the information on it?” Karkov protested.
“Information? What you see is just a shell.”
“Oh, I see, it protects my soul from the world.”
Rin gave him a look of dismay. “Is that what you people think? I can understand their ignorance, but yours is inexcusable. I told you all this when we were together. Did you listen to anything I said?”
Karkov averted his eyes like a guilty schoolboy. “I was distracted.”
“You don’t have a soul, moron. The sphere just protects your body. That’s all you have, all you are. There’s nothing of yours in the sphere. It’s just bound to you. The shell protects the world from the sphere, not the other way around.” Rin shook her head. “How did you even get confused? People didn’t come up with all that ridiculous soul nonsense until centuries after I made the spheres. Do you have any excuse for believing such crap?”
Karkov ignored her tirade. Something appeared to be on his mind, and Rin was losing patience. “Out with it. I already said I would tell you what you want to know.”
He motioned for Rin to calm down, and she suddenly regretted their agreement. Well, a few questions and then she could be done with him forever. What was it about the man that was so infuriating?
“I had a little chat with the boy.”
The expression on Rin’s face changed faster than Karkov would have imagined possible. “He was one of yours?” Her voice was icy.
“Of course not. We can’t have kids. But if you insist, I’ll be happy to try anyway.”
Rin waved her hand impatiently. “You know what I mean. Was he working for you?”
Karkov shook his head. “Oh no, nothing like that. I interviewed him when he was captured. He was trying to learn about you.”
Rin eyed him with cold suspicion. “If I find out this all was some game of yours …”
She smiled with a malice which caught Karkov off-guard, one utterly incongruent with her next words.
“I will spare you.”
This was an unexpected departure from her usual theme, and Karkov was taken aback by it.
“And then I’ll spend the next few decades coming up with a way to bind you to the worst torment imaginable. And I’ve got quite an imagination.”
Rin produced the sphere with which she had menaced him earlier. “You don’t know what this one does, but I assure you it is bliss compared to what I will come up with.”
“He really means that much to you?” Karkov asked, clearly relieved she was back to her usual self.
Rin leaned in, as if to kiss him. “No, but you do.” She held his eyes for a long second before withdrawing. If Karkov had been tempted to complete the kiss, he wisely refrained. Rin felt a pang of disappointment. She had readied quite the fury in case he had. Instead, he settled back in his chair and waved dismissively.
“Well, there won’t be any need for that. He didn’t work for me. You’ve met him. Do you really think he could pretend that well?”
For all her indignation, Rin could not argue this point. In fact, the mere absurdity of the thought caused her to burst into laughter.
She returned the sphere to her pocket. “No, I guess not.”
Karkov contributed an uneasy chuckle. “You really strung him along didn’t you? The poor kid knew next to nothing, and what he knew was mostly nonsense. He did tell me about your missions together, though.”
Rin stopped laughing and winced. She didn’t care if Karkov knew about these, but she was disappointed with Daryl for telling him. No, she couldn’t blame a mortal for breaking under Karkov’s tender ministrations. It would be unfair to judge him when she herself was immune to such pain.
“I assume he was not too forthcoming?”
Karkov shrugged. “Believe what you wish. Besides, you did promise to teach him how to kill you. What right do you have to complain that he looked to me for advice?”
“He asked for advice while you were torturing him?”
Karkov smiled. “I said he was alive. I never said he was happy.”