New York
Rin leaned in. “I’ll bet that really ticks you off.”
The woman looked petrified. Jesus, was it even worth keeping her alive?
Rin rubbed her own chin. “Well, maybe it doesn’t. None of them seemed to know who you were, so you probably didn’t know them either. But I’ll bet everyone knows who you are now.”
She cupped Melinda’s cheeks in her hands. “I’m willing to bet you’ll be a pretty high priority soon. After all, I used your credentials to get in.”
“That’s impossible. There are explosive-sniffing dogs.”
Rin straightened up. “Funny you should mention that. It turns out that if you encase your bomb in sealed acrylic, thoroughly clean the outside of the case, accidentally spill a bottle of loud cheap perfume on it, and then transfer the whole mess to a new vehicle, the dogs won’t pick up anything. I actually tested it several times with real dogs and explosives before the live run.”
“Why?” the woman sobbed.
Rin shrugged. “Because? Did I get that right? I’ve never been good with those minimalist philosophy questions.”
She grew serious. “You’re asking the wrong question. Yes, I just killed a very large number of your colleagues. And yes, you’ll be suspect number one. But these all are minor matters.”
“I don’t understand.”
At least, Melinda was a bit calmer now. Had she concluded that Rin was going to spare her for use as a fall guy? Fall gal, Rin corrected herself. Language was important. A gal could fall as easily as a guy. Melinda shouldn’t be calm, even if she was to be the fall guy or gal or whatever. Didn’t she ever watch television? The fall guy usually was killed so they couldn’t clear their name. Rin sighed. She sure liked to pick them dumb.
“Did they tell you anything about this task force you were on? You know, the one I just murdered.”
Melinda shook her head. At this point, Rin had no doubt she was telling the truth. The woman simply lacked anything resembling the steel to lie.
“Well I’ll fill you in, having attended that very meeting in your stead. Which, by the way, you should thank me for — since you’d probably be charred flesh like the rest. At the very least, I saved you from a very boring few hours. At least it felt like a few hours. It may only have been a few minutes at that level of boredom. Well, I did set a timer.”
Seeing the bewildered look on Melinda’s face, Rin laughed. “In any event, they were trying to find a way to defeat — or maybe just thwart — a particular immortal woman. You know, the one who’s been in the news.”
Melinda gasped. “You’re working with her?”
Rin wondered why she even was killing these people. If they were this dumb she was doing them a favor, and she definitely didn’t want to do them any favors.
She sighed. “I am her. No, I am she. That’s right, I think. I’ve never been clear on the grammar of that.” She looked at the woman. “But I’m guessing grammar’s not your main concern right now.”
“That’s impossible. I’d recognize her.”
“You’d recognize she,” Rin corrected. “Not that she likes to be objectified.” She scratched her chin. “Wait, no, I think you actually had that right.” She returned her attention to the prisoner. “But no, you would not recognize her. She has a protection ‘I am unrecognizable’. You won’t recognize her. You simply cannot.”
“But you look like me. I can see that.”
“I always look the same, including to you. However, your mind simply cannot associate me with her.”
“That makes no sense.”
Rin rolled her eyes. “This is getting us nowhere. Hi, my name’s Rin.”
The woman gasped.
“There, now I’ve introduced myself and we’re proper acquaintances. We could attend a ball or gossip about the duchess of so-and-so or maybe just kill a bunch of people together. It’s all okay since we’re no longer strangers. You see, once I identify myself you now are allowed to associate me with me.” Rin smiled. “Once again it all comes down to grammar, and the grammar of this can be quite messy.”
“But how did you know you’d look like me?”
“As I said, I don’t change how I look. People see the same me but don’t register who I am. Given that, I was just another face. I look enough like you to pass muster. Why do you think I picked you?”
Rin pondered this for a moment. “To be fair, I was surprised how easy it was. Apart from a few superficial similarities, we actually look nothing alike. Only a complete moron would mistake me for you. Maybe you could pass for a distant third cousin. You know, the one who is a bit soft in the head and really hits the donuts. Of course, that does raise the question of how closely they scrutinize these things.” She tapped the ID card for emphasis.
“You’d think that some high-alert mega-tactical ultra-ops task force about to be deployed would spring for better security. Maybe something more than a bored security goof perfunctorily examining IDs. I guess they were too busy stringing together adverbs to describe how cool they were. I personally would have opted for the security instead. But hey, as they said in the meeting: I’m no expert.”
“That’s why you spared me? Because I look like you?”
Rin pressed her lips against Melinda’s forehead. “Oh no, you’re so much more than that. You’re my little gift to myself.”
“You’re a psychopath, aren’t you?”
Rin stifled a groan. “How exactly would you expect a psychopath to respond to that? They really don’t hire the best or brightest, do they?”
“You’re just going to leave me here so I’ll be blamed?”
Rin covered her own mouth with her hand.
“Heavens no. Is that all you think you are to me? My dear, you wound me. You have so much more potential, and I’m going to help you realize it. You’re going to be my apprentice.”
Melinda’s jaw dropped. “Never. You can kill me now.”
“First brave thing you’ve said or done. Though not really so brave given the alternatives to immediate death, I suppose.”
Rin looked at the woman. “Do you always speak in cliche’s? You sound like the dialogue from a bad police procedural.”
Drawing herself up again, she continued. “But you will be my apprentice. I’ve developed a fondness for apprentices, you see. And now I’ve decided to take a modern perspective that not all of them should be men I fuck.”
In reply to Melinda’s horrified look, she grinned. “You should be so lucky. But I don’t swing that way … at least for you. Anyhow, I need an apprentice since my current one has run away. A little tiff over some dead relatives of his. I’m sure he’ll return, but I haven’t the patience to wait without some form of recreation to keep me occupied.”
“But why me?”
“Well…” Rin began to count on her fingers. “It’s not your brains or your boobs or your beauty or your eloquence or your hair or your hygiene.” She scratched her head. “Come to think of it, you really don’t have anything going for you. I guess I really should just kill you.”
The woman averted her eyes but tried to keep a steady voice. “I won’t do it.”
“As my apprentice, you’ll get to do the job you were about to be assigned by your beloved colleagues. Well, ex-colleagues. Dead and barbecued ex-colleagues.”
Rin looked at the ceiling. “Actually, take it from me, I did you a favor. Those guys were real pricks. The whole thing probably wouldn’t have been a good career move.” She looked at Melinda. “Being dead never is.”
Oddly enough, this seemed to have more of an impact than anything else Rin had said. Melinda tried to recompose herself.
“You won’t sway me. I’m not going to betray my country for some crazy terrorist.”
“Of course you will. There’s no better way to serve your country than to betray it. Hmmm… I like that. I should trademark it.”
Rin leaned very close to Melinda’s face. “Look, a dead patriot has no hope of defeating me . But a live traitor — and not just any live traitor, but my apprentice — will have any number of opportunities to redeem herself. Heck, I’ll even teach you how. You’ll get to see how I really work. You can try to sabotage and assassinate me to your heart’s content. Unlike with my primary mission, I don’t care if you interfere with this one. I’m really just letting off some steam, and interference would make the whole thing more fun.”
“Your primary mission?”
Rin once again clasped Melinda’s face in her hands. “Don’t worry your not-so-pretty little head over that. I’m giving you a once in a lifetime opportunity. Literally. Your decaying corpse can be found in that ice-box, or you can be my apprentice and frenemy. That’s a new word I learned recently. I like it. We get to eat cake and laugh and try to kill each other. Except that I won’t try to kill you, because I would succeed. Unlike you.”
“You’re insane.”
“That’s good news for you. It just will make killing me that much easier for my new besty. See, Daryl was wrong. I can adapt to the new world.”
“Daryl?”
Rin suddenly grew maudlin. “Never mind that. Let’s just skip to the part where you accept this wonderful offer.”
“Why would you help me fight against you?”
“Because in my native tongue the words for apprentice and nemesis are the same.”
“Really?”
“No. But you’ll serve in both capacities until such time as you succeed — which you won’t — or I tire of you — which I will.”
Rin smiled. “You’re thinking you’ll escape at the first opportunity. I guess the best way to prevent that would be to sever your Achilles tendons, slice the dorsal extrinsic ligaments in your wrists, cut out your tongue, and probably remove a few other parts for good measure.” She gave Melinda a sidelong glance. “But that would make you pretty useless to me … and to you. So here’s a better reason you’ll stick around.” She leaned in and whispered in her ear. “I’m the only one who can protect you.”
“From what?”
“Your former colleagues. The ones who aren’t yet dead, of which there are many. All the people who now think you’re a terrorist collaborating with me. Which you will be, but not for the reason or in the way they expect.”
Rin drew a breath. “What delightful irony. Of course, with a little thought it will be obvious that you have been framed. But everyone will be demanding blood, and you’ll be a very convenient scapegoat. Believing you would mean admitting that their crack team was defeated before the race even started. Nobody is going to want to give that press conference. As for the rank and file, you’ll get no quarter from them. Goons and thugs aren’t given to nuance.”
Melinda’s downcast expression made clear that she had resigned herself.
Rin smiled. “Wise choice. Now, miss ex-goon, you have been spared and born anew. In ancient Japan, they’d bury you in a barrel and then dig you up to symbolize your rebirth. Congratulations. I hereby name you Hashimoto Munjiro.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I don’t speak Japanese. Get your head on straight. This isn’t some samurai tale.”
“What are you going to do with me?” the woman mumbled.
“You’ll get an all expenses paid trip across America. You’ll get to follow me around and do what I say as I kill to my heart’s content. But you’ll assuage your conscience with the not-entirely-misguided belief that your obedient presence and my consequent good humor may reduce the death count in some small measure. You’ll thus credit your treason with having saved many lives, even though it will not be recognized as such by others. In the end, you’ll see yourself as Plato’s vilified saint, the epitome of virtue. See, that’s what you get when you serve me. All for free. If you want, I even can throw in a martyrdom. If I make it extra painful, you may find yourself beatified by the CIA someday.”
“You still haven’t told me why you picked me specifically,” Melinda complained, ignoring the diatribe.
“I told you, we look sort-of maybe not-quite really-not alike. It was a practical matter.”
“You could have killed me and picked someone else to be an assistant.”
Rin gave her a cold look. “I still can.” Why was knowing this so important to her? It was a stupid thing, and the same damned question which seemed so important to Daryl. There was no answer, but Melinda never would accept that.
Rin leaned over and cut the woman’s bonds. “It is best not to try anything,” she warned. “The consequences can be unpredictable.”
However Melinda took this, she made no immediate attempt to fight or escape.
“Do you have a family?” Rin asked.
Melinda shook her head. Was she relieved that there was nobody Rin could take hostage?
“That is why.”
“Because they could be used as leverage by someone?”
Rin laughed. “No, silly. It’s no fun killing someone without a family. Who would be left to suffer?”
Melinda looked horrified.
Rin produced two cigarettes and offered her new assistant one, which she declined. Tossing the spare aside, she lit the other and looked at the ceiling.
“You may not believe this, but I’m actually not an unkind person. In the past I wasn’t like this, and in the future I won’t be. But for now, things are what they are.”
“Why?” Melinda ventured.
Rin saw a glimmer of hope in the woman’s eyes. Did she imagine she was getting to the crux of the matter? That she would bond with Rin over whatever grievance drove her and somehow inveigle her way to freedom? She doubted the woman was that cunning, but one never could tell. The quietly craven often were.
Rin ashed out the barely-used cigarette.
“I find myself exceptionally motivated at the moment.” She gave Melinda a hard look. “And it was your bosses who motivated me.”