Episode 84

(Washington D.C., July 23, 2019)

Rin surveyed the photos and was unsure whether to feel happy or sad. She would have preferred to feel nothing at all. For nearly eighteen years, she had kept apprised of Daryl through one investigator or another. In her experience, it was best not to employ the same individual for too long. There had been six so far, all quite good.

This track record was no accident. Rin had a knack for reading private investigators. She could tell whether an ex-cop — and they almost all were ex-cops — would be a problem. It was in their eyes and the shape of their voice. When interviewing them, she paid their actual words little mind. Anyone could concoct a plausible and self-serving reason for leaving the police force. Some even believed it, and those were the hardest to spot.

Rin always laughed at the television stereotype of police departments as rife with corruption and intrigue. The reality was far more banal. In every era and place, police were police, nothing more and nothing less. The occupation drew a certain type of person. Or maybe it created that type of person. She never had been entirely sure.

For the most part, the police she encountered weren’t particularly smart or honest, but they weren’t thinly veiled brigands either. There were some bullies and blowhards in their ranks, but most police followed the rules for the same reason people generally did: the potential consequences of breaking them far outweighed the advantages. It took a special sort of person to fail to appreciate those consequences, imagine themselves immune, or just not care.

In another time and place, the right combination of such qualities could have been mistaken for valor. In this one, every combination was a problem. Sometimes, those problems got weeded out. The majority of candidates fell into this category, but how they did so made a big difference.

Alcoholics and drug addicts were betrayed by their constant fidgeting and the darting of their eyes. The crazies also were easy enough to detect. The volume of their voice changed in the wrong places, and there was a certain incongruence between their expression and tone. They also tended to pepper their speech with uncommon words, incorrectly applied.

Rin had met lunatics who hid it well, but rarely among the police. This puzzled her. She would have assumed that someone trained to spot unusual behavior would also be adept at disguising it. Maybe there was a certain cockiness that went with authority. Or maybe police really were a less astute class of person. Whatever the reason, the crazies among them tended to be easy to detect.

What was less explicable was that their colleagues didn’t notice them. For every crazy she interviewed, there probably were several still on the police force. Maybe an inexperienced employer would confound a predatory glimmer with confidence, contempt with brusqueness, and an inexhaustible restlessness with a penchant for action. But it was inconceivable that seasoned professionals who dealt with the fringes of society all day would make such novice mistakes.

Rin’s best guess was that police were loath to turn on their own. Maybe this was some sort of pack behavior, or maybe doing so would be unpalatably demoralizing. They probably refused unless the officer’s depredations grew too egregious to overlook. Most crazies never acted on their craziness, or at least were savvy enough not to draw attention to it.

Aside from addicts and sociopaths, there were other candidates she avoided as well. Some prospects talked themselves up to a comical degree. A certain amount of self-promotion was to be expected — after all, they were selling themselves — but once they started in with the superlatives it was over. That was a sure tip-off that they were inexperienced and/or incompetent. Denigrating their colleagues or exhibiting obvious resentment also were warning signs. Even if such sentiments were justified, expressing them to a stranger bespoke poor judgment. Someone who lacked discretion would inevitably tip off the subject of their surveillance.

A few candidates seemed likely to blackmail Rin. This struck her as a reasonable strategy for an ex-cop, though she imagined it could backfire if they picked the wrong victim. She was the wrong victim. In the past, Rin even had indulged this sort on occasion. She was tempted to see if they could pull it off with finesse, which they never did. How painlessly they died depended on how much entertainment they provided. One way or another, she got her money’s worth.

These days she didn’t bother. It was counterproductive to play such games, and she left this type of villain to ply their trade on others. If someone fell for it, that was their own damned fault. Her purpose wasn’t to cleanse the world of sleazy detectives.

What her purpose actually was, Rin could not explain, least of all to herself. She felt compelled to keep an eye on Daryl, and she rarely refrained from doing the things she felt compelled to do.

Rin had only made two mistakes during the course of this venture, and both had swiftly been corrected. Fortunately, neither proved fatal. The biggest problem was that Daryl himself was pretty skilled, in no small part thanks to her own instruction. Evading detection by him wasn’t easy, and Rin was sometimes inclined to dispense with professional help and simply do the job herself. There were distinct benefits to being unrecognizable. He probably would be suspicious of a woman who suddenly intruded on his life, but she could be subtle about it.

Rin seriously toyed with the idea at times, particularly when frustrated with her PI du jour. Yet something inside her always spoke against it, and she kept her distance. Besides, there probably was no need. After all this time, surely he had let his guard down. Constant vigilance was tiring, and it would be easy to grow complacent if life remained uneventful for long enough. However, the same held for her investigators — one more reason she rotated them. After a while, they tended to grow bored and sloppy.

It would have been easier to employ her existing network of spies, the one she used to locate Proteges. Rin had considered this at first, but there were strong arguments against it. For one thing, it would offer her employees leverage against her. When hunting a Protege, the worst they could do was sabotage her mission, delaying it a tiny bit. They all knew what would happen if they tried that. She had publicly illustrated it whenever someone had the temerity to do so.

However, this sort of mission was different. Daryl was mortal. His death would not be a rectifiable inconvenience. If they perceived that Rin cared, they could kidnap him in an effort to coerce her. It wouldn’t work, but they would have every reason to believe it would. Her operatives were highly skilled but often too clever for their own good.

For all her care selecting PI’s, they were nowhere near the caliber of her permanent employees. This made them ideal for the purpose at hand. She wanted someone good but not too good. Or ambitious.

There was no better way to inoculate against ambition than by hiring a freelancer. Being part of an organization fostered the desire for promotion within it. The top position was the top prize, at least to those who didn’t recognize or suspect the unassailability of the throne.

Rin had learned that wisdom and experience made no difference in this. Ambition was a disease, an addiction. Once it inhabited someone, no other facet of their character could contain it. The only solution was to preempt this by removing the source of addiction. Where there was no room for advancement, ambition could find no purchase. Freelance work accomplished this, and the approach had worked admirably for her.

Every few months, Rin received a little packet containing updates on Daryl’s life, habits, and whereabouts. To her surprise, he hadn’t moved much after the first six years. Now and then, she would decide he had grown irredeemably boring and wonder whether she should finish the job. Then another packet would arrive, and she would eagerly pore over the photos and notes, grinning foolishly despite herself. Maybe next year. She’d do it then.

The presence of one boring man posed no threat to a world already filled with them. Nor did she feel insulted by his existence. He just was a disappointment, and Rin had lived with disappointment for a very long time. There was no rush to end this one. If she waited long enough, nature would do it for her. That was the nice thing about mortals.

In Rin’s estimation, Karkov’s pride far exceeded his cleverness. The man believed he had tricked her into falling for Daryl. What he deemed a brilliant deception was both transparent and laughable. Nonetheless, she had come to be grateful for it. Sometimes, Rin wondered whether she misjudged him. Maybe the stratagem was meant to be transparent and laughable, and she was the one who failed to grasp the obvious.

Though certain she could never love anyone — least of all a mortal — Rin did recognize a certain fondness for Daryl. She had watched him evolve from an unremarkable boy into a man worthy of acknowledgment — his subsequent devolution notwithstanding. She ascribed much of that growth to herself, but this did not detract from the credit he was due. Part of her — a large part — was glad she had not been forced to destroy the little plant she had cultivated so meticulously in her own peculiar way.

For this too, she felt some small gratitude toward Karkov. Though probably intended as another deception, perhaps even a cruelty, he had convinced Daryl that it was impossible to live with Rin. He either could live or be with Rin, but not both. Giving him the choice was not something she would have done, or could have.

She at first had resented Karkov for interfering, but soon worried that he had not gone far enough. Would the boy be too foolish to take Karkov’s gift? Would he instead hurry back to her arms like an oblivious puppy? He hadn’t, and for that she respected him. Whatever Karkov’s actual intent, his machinations had saved Daryl. Seeing how plain Daryl’s life had become, Rin sometimes wondered what he had been saved for.

Initially, the packets had been thin. There wasn’t much to report as Karkov set Daryl up with his new life. Without anyone to hunt or hunt him, Daryl’s adjustment had been uneventful, if emotionally trying. With no peril, he had no purpose.

Rin had hoped he would become a soldier of fortune or try his hand at something similarly suited to his talents. She wanted to see her disciple make some noise. If he got killed, she would enjoy a sense of bereavement and finally be disburdened of her concern for him. She’d remember the boy fondly when it suited her and forget him the rest of the time. It would be the ideal relationship. Most importantly, his death would free her of conflict and temptation and disappointment. Regrettably, Daryl did nothing so convenient. Of all things, he decided to go to college.

During those early years, Rin paid scant attention to his daily affairs. There was nothing to hold her interest, and she sometimes considered walking away altogether. Just as she began to seriously entertain the notion, the packets grew thicker.

The first big surprise was when he got married to a woman named Katrina, somebody he met in college. Rin had not paid much attention to the reports of his various girlfriends. A guy like him was bound to have lots of women, and she did not care what their names were or what they looked like. The packets had offered no hint that Katrina was different from the rest, and the marriage caught Rin off guard.

She scoured the earlier reports for information on this Katrina. When she saw that the woman was a political science major, Rin laughed. She imagined that Daryl could teach his bride a thing or two about the sort of practical political science not found in any textbook.

Apparently, the wedding itself was a nonevent. Katrina had little in the way of family — or at least family she cared to invite — and Daryl had none. They had a simple town hall wedding, and their only concession to tradition was a small photo shoot in a rented tuxedo and dress. That seemed rather sad to Rin. A wedding should be a grand event. Her own was quite the affair, though she now looked back on it with mixed feelings.

Rin’s favorite photo was of Daryl as a bridegroom. Her investigator had tricked the wedding photographer into selling him some official wedding photos, claiming to be a relative who wanted to create a surprise album for the couple. She gave him a nice bonus for that one.

She had to admit that Katrina was quite beautiful. In fact, Rin noticed certain marked physical similarities to herself. Even if Daryl would not recognize her now, it didn’t mean he couldn’t remember her. Only recently had she sussed out the details of how this protection worked, though some aspects of it still remained unclear.

As far as she could tell, Daryl would see her as she was but be incapable of registering that she was Rin. His memory of what she looked like should remain unadulterated. If there was any doubt of that, Katrina furnished ample enough proof. Rin couldn’t say she approved of this. It felt like she had been replaced by a cheap imitation.

A year later, Daryl graduated from college. A month after that, his daughter, Susan, was born. Rin did not like the name Susan. It was bland and unenthusiastic. Was Daryl trying to make up with normality for all he had been through? Maybe he wanted to ensure a simple, safe existence for his family. Wasn’t that what all these idiots wanted? Once they had kids, they ceased to be men and women of substance. They became utterly predictable, their personalities supplanted by an all-consuming obsession with their family. It was pathetic, and Rin once again was glad she could not have children. Many of the Proteges lamented this as a “cost” of immortality. To Rin it was another protection, and a free one at that.

The packets grew thicker, as she had expected they would. A wife and child and school all added to Daryl’s responsibility, the daily drama of his existence. Rin could not complain; she was the one paying to be bored by these details. The absurdity of this was not lost on her. However, there were some moments which made the whole exercise worthwhile.

When Rin read that Daryl had enrolled in graduate school, she almost spit out her coffee. When she read that he was studying mechanical engineering, she did spit it out. Daryl? An engineer? The sheer ludicrousness of this was too much. One of the most exciting humans she had met was striving to become one of the dullest. Was this a strategy to protect himself from her? To bore her away?

Rin was no stranger to this species. She once had a neighbor who was a graduate student in mechanical engineering, a young man named Eric. She normally didn’t trouble with her neighbors, but this one was very fussy and troubled her. The first time he showed up to complain about the noise, she had to hide the knife behind her back and speak through a small crack in the door. This wasn’t from kindness or a desire to avoid violence. Rin was tired, and didn’t relish any extra carving. The job was satisfying enough when it pertained to a disloyal employee, but an obnoxious neighbor would just be a chore. She promised that the noisy part was done, and he went away grumbling.

To Rin’s surprise, the boy’s subsequent impertinence did not annoy her. She found it quietly refreshing, a reminder that some people existed in a different world, one they considered unremarkable. They could pretend, moment to moment for an astonishing number of moments, that there wasn’t an endless dark waiting to drag them below the surface of that normality the instant they let their guard down. Rin never had been able to pretend, which was why she had sought protections from this dark. Those protections were the reason she now could let her guard down, even if she rarely did.

Eric was perhaps the most boring individual she had ever met. He came home from school at 5 PM every day and ate a simple TV dinner in front of the TV. Who actually did that anymore? During one brief chat, she learned that the boy’s ambition was limited to working on an oil rig after graduation. When asked why, he replied that he would save money on housing. Rin just shook her head.

At times she felt sad for the boy, but Eric seemed oblivious to the life he was failing to live. She wondered whether this was intentional. For an existence destined to end, perhaps not existing was the best way to cope. An existence that never was could not cease to be.

Oddly enough, Eric was that rare breed of socially-inept male who wasn’t intimidated by women. Perhaps he had given up on the possibility of connecting with one or had a hidden reservoir of confidence related to his technical expertise. Whatever the cause, he had no trouble speaking with Rin but also never showed any interest in her. He wasn’t gay as far as she could tell, just asexual. That certainly made things easier. For some reason, she never felt the desire to kill him.

Desire or no, the need eventually arose on its own. Her quarry at the time was a particularly skilled Protege named Michela who commanded her own web of informants. There was a small but finite chance that Eric could inadvertently tip her off to the approaching danger. This was precisely what her former employee had done, though not inadvertently — and was what ultimately led to Eric’s noise complaint. Now, it was his turn. He hadn’t done anything wrong, so she would spare him the extended prequel. The boy had simply become a point of vulnerability for Rin. He knew enough of her comings and goings to pose a danger if interrogated.

Once the decision was made, there was no reason to dawdle. With a sigh, Rin walked to his door and banged on it. She planned to dispatch him the moment he opened it — quick and painless.

He answered with a scowl, and Rin just stared at him, seething with annoyance. After a few moments, he began to sense something was amiss.

“What’s up?” he asked.

He obviously was trying to be more polite than usual. Rin had to do something before he got the wrong idea. She was there to murder him, not seduce him. She produced a knife and brought it to his throat. He didn’t even flinch. Had she been wrong all this time? Maybe he was some sort of operative. Was he secretly working for Michela? That would put a new face on things. If so, she would have to take her time with him.

Rin realized how ridiculous this was and started laughing. She removed the knife from Eric’s throat. He tried to pull the door shut while staggering back, but she pushed it open and put her finger to his lips. No, he wasn’t brave. Just impossibly passive. He probably hadn’t even registered what was happening in any meaningful way.

This made Rin unspeakably sad. Should she take away his nonlife on the oil rig? It felt like killing a spider. There was no point. In the whole universe, nobody and nothing would care whether he died now or lived out his entire life. His existence had no impact, no import. Rin looked at the ceiling. The same could be said of them all, she supposed. These little creatures crawling on the surface, imagining themselves alive, perhaps even sentient, with their laughable notions of meaning. All that differed was how they defined ‘meaning’: a meal, immortality, a crappy job on an oil rig.

She wouldn’t take that from him. This spider would be allowed to continue on its way until it found a meal or became one. Let somebody else step on it if they must.

Rin spun the knife around, handed it to him handle first, and smiled. “You should have seen the look on your face. I’m moving out and thought you could use this.”

Eric gave her a puzzled look.

“To make a real meal,” she explained. “Or maybe defend yourself on that oil rig.”

She turned and walked out, leaving him speechless. She never saw him again and never troubled to learn whether he had found his meal or become one.