The two of us proceeded to a nearby town to purchase changes of clothing, laptop, a hotel room, and water. We used the hotel room to change out of our clothes, have sex, and shower as part of our preparations for our hit.

The sex was purely perfunctory and I suspected both of us wished we could have avoided it. While physically satisfying, it was entirely lacking in anything resembling emotional content. Both of us were running the other, though, and she was used to feeling like men desired her to the point that would betray themselves or their causes. I needed her feeling like I was ambitious and intrigued enough by her offer to want to go along with her coup d’état, but also attracted enough to potentially fall in love later.

I thought of Marissa. I imagined she thought of Gillespie.

Or perhaps simply of her own pleasure.

Stepping out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around my waist, still wet from my second shower, I took a moment to take stock of my surroundings. The hotel was a locally-owned one rather than part of a franchise, which meant it was lacking in certain amenities but had an atmosphere I rather liked.

The fading sunlight coming through the floral-print curtains behind the bed played well against her form as she lay on the bed, and I had to admit an aesthetic appreciation of her body. Lucita’s Shell was an idealized version of the human body, at least in its sculptor’s mind, and had all the feeling of a normal human’s flesh. It weighed about twice as much as body of flesh and blood, but this was a small issue compared to how human it felt in other respects.

I couldn’t help but wonder again how being a Shell compared to being a Letter. I was deprived of all my memories but she was deprived of her human body, given a substitute made of artificial carbon-fiber bones and nano-weave organs. Her exterior flesh was grown in a vat somewhere, harvested and applied to the endo-skeleton, theoretically giving her access to all of the feelings she might normally possess. Certainly, she seemed to still respond as a woman might. But were those feelings real? Were mine, since my brain operated through a cybernetic implant?

I couldn’t say.

Noticing my stare, Lucita turned over on her side and gave me a view of her front. It was as impressive as her back. “Enjoying the view?”

“Very much so,” I smiled. “I’m ready for another round if you are.”

Truth be told, I wanted to get down to business, but I wasn’t about to let my charade of attraction to her drop.

“I’m afraid we don’t have the time,” Lucita said, rolling back onto her front. “I’ve set in motion events that are going to rapidly pick up speed.”

“You’ve contacted your people?”

“Yes,” Lucita said, staring at the screen. “I’ve let them know I suspect Alonzo tried to kill me.”

“Why him and not your father?”

“Lingering loyalty,” Lucita said. “Alonzo is considered brutal and stupid by the majority of the senior assassins. Putting his brain in the Zombie’s body has also been seen as offensive to many of them even if it prevents us from losing one of our most requested killers. And he’s also considered to be quite mad.”

“I heard about the incident in Spain.”

“Killing all the cops following you, after killing all the witnesses, is an epic fuck-up even by the Carnevale’s loose standards of operation. Were my father to die and he to receive the blame, it would be considered plausible.”

This was working almost too well. “No regrets?”

Lucita shot me a glare. “About killing my father? You’re seriously asking me that?”

I looked back at her. “I don’t have a father, or a mother, so I don’t know what you should be feeling.”

That was another absence in my life I had to contend with. I knew how mothers and fathers reacted to their children in movies or on television. I’d observed their interactions in real-life. However, I didn’t know what sort of relationship I’d had with my own. If Doctor Gordon was the kind of man who sent his son through conditioning and a mindwipe, he probably wasn’t a loving parent. Perhaps he’d had his reasons. It was also possible he was just an abusive asshole.

But I wanted to know.

Lucita looked at me, then looked away. “There are some regrets, yes. I always thought my father cared for me more than this, but I should have known it was otherwise. Do you know he killed my uncle and grandfather?”

“It was in his file.”

“My mother was the only person he truly loved. He always said I was his treasure, but if that were the case then he wouldn’t have made me into an assassin. He wouldn’t have sent me to the Zombie to break me and remake me into something strong.”

“Break you?”

“We do not know each other well enough to discuss that sort of thing.” A haunted look passed over Lucita’s face before she shook her head. “What the hell, since we’re plotting patricide together. There’s a place not far from the Palace of Miracles called the Campus. It is a place where recruits are made into my father’s loyal soldiers. He did not wish me to be weak, and I was treated no better than the other women in the camp.”

“I see.”

“I castrated one of the instructors and left him hanging from a tree by his foot. That was my graduation.”

“The Hanged Man element is a nice touch.”

“Thank you. I thought so.” Her expression turned serious. “My father must die, and it must appear that my brother is responsible.”

“And how are we going to accomplish that?”

“That would be telling.”

I paused, wondering if I should press the issue. “I can help.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“I know you can.” Lucita looked up. “However, I want you focused on the Mondo issue first.”

She turned the laptop around to reveal a newspaper article with a picture of a beautiful Italian villa that easily had over two hundred rooms and occupied a massive estate. The article talked about how Luigi had purchased the property during the Financial Crash of 2008 and added on to it extensively with his immense personal fortune.

“Impressive home,” I said. “How are we going to get in?”

“That’s the simple part. You’re my date tonight.”

I blinked. “Your date?”

“Luigi is hosting a fundraiser tonight for his campaign.”

“A bit early, isn’t it?”

“Never for someone who wants into power. It’s not important, though, as the election is already fixed.”

“Ah,” I said, not even surprised anymore by the various things I found out about the world these days. “If he’s planning to use the military to crack down on the Carnevale, won’t he object to the daughter and second-in-command of that organization coming for a visit? Or is this an Italian custom I don’t know about?”

Lucita got up from the bed and started going through her clothes. I decided now was a good time to start doing the same.

“Luigi is still acting friendly to the Carnevale,” Lucita said, slipping on her underwear before putting on a gorgeous backless black dress. “He thinks that we don’t have eyes and ears listening to his activities. We put him in power though, and know who is trying to turn him against us.”

I paused, realizing who she was talking about. “The Society.”

Lucita nodded, turning around to have me zip up her back. “Yes. They or their supporters have wanted to turn the Italian government’s assassination needs over to the Letters for some time. When Luigi sabotaged the debt talks with Greece, he put himself the fast track to being rewarded with a place in the history books. The price they’re demanding, though, is an expansion of their franchise.”

“Very clinical.”

“Murder is a billion-dollar industry that oversees all the other ones.”

Putting on a new set of underwear and dressing myself in a freshly purchased tuxedo, I tried to figure out how this information squared with the causal way the Society had sanctioned Luigi’s murder. Were they really that desperate to get rid of the Carnevale? Did they have someone to replace Luigi if he was killed? Or was Lucita simply mistaken, and her belief that the Society was operating a KGB- or CIA-level job just the musings of a woman raised in a megalomaniac crime lord’s household?

I decided to ask.

“Marissa?” I said, giving her a call. “I need you to verify some information for me.”

“Finished with your exercise?”

I felt strangely uncomfortable. “Can you see all I’ve been doing?”

“Only hear, and only when you’re transmitting. You’ve been doing that off and on this entire time. We may have some bugs to work out in the system.”

“Ah.”

This wasn’t the first time I’d used sex on a mission to get closer to a target. It was one of the most readily available tools to an assassin who wanted information or a favor. It was, however, the first time it had happened after my relationship with Marissa had turned serious. I hadn’t given much thought to how it would make her feel, and had rather causally assumed she would get over it. Strangely, it wasn’t her reaction that bothered me, but how the event was making me feel.

I felt… ashamed.

These new emotions were troubling. Were they a function of my new IRD implant? A breakdown in my conditioning? Marissa and I falling in love? If love it was. Was I simply defective? Dammit, I didn’t need this. A mission was the last place I required an existential crisis.

Explaining the situation to her, I asked a simple question. “Is any of this true?”

“Yes and no,” Marissa replied. “Luigi is the candidate being supported by Persephone, but he’s being put in power by the World Banking Organization. We have little to do with it other than the fact that we own a substantial portion of that group’s members.”

“Your definition of ‘little’ is rather peculiar. Is there any luck with finding the second spy?”

“Yes. I found plenty of e-mails and other material belonging to Lisa Simple. She killed herself instead of letting herself fall into the hands of the Discipline Unit.”

I thought of the mousy young woman with two kids who had considered her adultery a great rebellion against authority. “Lisa doesn’t fit the profile of a traitor.”

“Trust me on this. Finish your mission quickly. We’re running out of time.” That was when Marissa broke our connection.

What the…?

“Frank?” Lucita said behind me.

I turned my head. “Sorry, lost in thought.”

Lucita looked positively stunning in her attire. It was elegant and formal, but still on the daring side with the way the fabric accented her frame. I wasn’t really attracted to her, mostly because she was a psychopath, but could still admire the beauty of her form. I made sure to look like I desired her, though.

“That’s a dangerous habit for an assassin,” Lucita said.

“It’s only started up recently,” I said, putting on my cufflinks. “You mentioned there was a plan to destroy the Society in the works.”

“Did I? I don’t recall that.”

“Perhaps you implied it.”

“And I should share this with you because . . .?”

“I have an overwhelming hatred of the organization, saved your life, and am an amazing lover.”

“Two of those are true.”

“No, I truly do hate the International Refugee Society to an intense level. I say that as a man who thinks refugees get the short end of the stick. I mean, they at least help a couple every year.”

Lucita snorted and then walked over to adjust my bow tie. “The President of the United States.”

“Sarah Douglas?” I asked, surprised.

Since defeating her opponent in the primaries seven years ago, the two-term President had been a political dynamo for the Republicans. Her healthcare reforms, military strategies, and vigorous anti-corruption measures had all proven extremely effective. There was a dark side to the President, though, as she also favored militarizing the police even more than they already had been, as well as doubling down on expanding the federal government’s ability to curtail civil rights.

Despite this, President Douglas was something of a lame duck when it came to dealing with the various secret societies that really ran Washington and Wall Street. A suspicious number of her political supporters and political allies had suffered mysterious deaths over the past few years, making the initiative to allow her to run for a third term unlikely to succeed. I’d killed two of those individuals.

“She knows of the Society,” Lucita said, chuckling. “My father’s allies slipped her information about them. I’m sure she’s already planning a suitable revenge for all the trouble they’ve caused her.”

My mouth went dry as I pondered the sheer stupidity of that act. There was an unspoken agreement between the two dozen or so independent intelligence and assassin societies working for the world’s major governments. One of them was that you didn’t directly involve the Heads of State in our affairs or inform on the other societies. If you did, breaking our informal omerta, or code of silence, then you were targeted by all the other factions combined. It was too dangerous to us all.

How could Caesar be so stupid?

How could Lucita?

I didn’t react, though. “Brilliant.”

If the President of the United States decided to destroy the International Refugee Society, then there would be absolutely nothing it could do to prevent it. Our organization depended on both secrecy as well as the general ambivalence of its host country to survive. The Carnevale might be willing to eliminate the future president of Italy here, and perhaps had the political patronage to survive, if not thrive, but that wasn’t the case back in the USA. The Society would be stormed by the FBI or Special Ops, its members arrested or more likely killed, then its archives of sensitive information confiscated.

Unless I warned them. But did I want to?

If I could get my memories back from Doctor Gordon now, then what use did I really have for the Society at all? I could let the organization die and be free of them. I might even sign up with whatever replacement emerged to fill the void following its destruction. There were a few people I might care to see survive such an event, but not many. Most of the Society’s employees I’d be happy to see consigned to the dustbin of history. Most were acceptable collateral damage. It was an intriguing proposition, one that required careful consideration.

Assuming I survived this mission.

Lucita gestured to the door. “We could go arrange for some transport to Luigi’s palazzo. After he’s dealt with, I’ll tell you how we’re going to eliminate both my father and Alonzo. Then we can discuss how the two of us will reshape the Carnevale.”

“Of course.”