Marissa and I spent an enjoyable two hours together before catching a first class flight straight to Boston. The International Refugee Society had bought Marissa a seat in coach, but I’d upgraded her. It was strange how little regarded Assistants were while Letters were treated like kings. It was like the Society thought they could make up for pillaging our minds and keeping us as slaves. Then again, maybe they were just cautious. You could put a tiger in a cage and it would never be a tame housecat, but mistreating it further was just asking to be bitten.

Our flight was delayed on the ground for an hour and I briefly wondered if there wasn’t something amiss. The sun had set and it was an unusually cold night for this time of year. A quick survey of the airport’s CCTV system from my tablet told me it was just regular maintenance. It gave me enough reassurance that I dared to get a few hours’ sleep. If there really was a problem with the Carnevale, then I was going to need all the rest I could get.

Unfortunately, all sleep held for me was more memories. Not of my pre-conditioning past, but of the moment I was born into my new life.

My baptism.

It was all terribly vivid, the splash of water in my face that woke me up. I observed everything around me, absorbing all the details with rapid speed. I was in a shining metal room with windows, just a camera in a corner, and a single door. I was sitting on a steel chair bolted to the ground with my left hand cuffed to the similarly bolted table in front of me. I was wearing a gray jumpsuit and my head had been shaved. Before me were a manila folder with a pen beside it, and Persephone. Persephone was holding a now-empty glass in her hands, staring at me with a look of disinterest.

Persephone hadn’t changed that much in the past five years, being a thin white-haired woman in her sixties with a preference for dress suits and an overly large wedding ring. Her right hand was in a glove. Only later did I find out her hand was artificial.

I pulled on my handcuff instinctively, testing it against my surroundings. I started collating possible escape routes and whether it would be possible to kill the woman in with the pen between us. It struck me as strange only in hindsight.

“Hello.”

I stared at her. “Who the fuck are you? Where the hell am I?”

“We leave our previous identities at the door and pick them back up when we leave. You are noticeably confused, but that’s because you’ve just undergone the final round of treatment. However, if you think back, you should be able to answer those questions.”

I closed my eyes, remembering flashes of intense pain that were accompanied by images of training in a high-tech gym and on muddy obstacle courses. Needles. Pills. IV drips. Surgeries. Staring at blank screens full of subliminal messages in an empty movie theater. “I’m in the International Refugee Society’s basement. You’re Persephone.”

“Yes,” Persephone said. “You are a person. Someone who has been emptied of his previous identity and emotional ties to the rest of the world. The conditioning is complete, but now we have to see if you’re ready to become a Letter.”

I closed my eyes, struggling to remember anything. Nothing came to mind. No childhood, no teenage years, no fantasies about girls I liked, or fears. I was a blank slate and it was horrifying. Yet even as I spoke, it felt like my emotions were numb. How could a person with no past muster the anger to care about it? “Why would you do this?”

“While you’ll soon learn not to ask those questions, I’ll indulge you this once. We live in a transitional age. Never more in history has the nation-state been less important in determining the size and shape of our enemies. A person with a computer can do more damage than a battalion of soldiers. We don’t meet on the fields of battle anymore, but in dirty alleyways and in shadows. This has created an extreme demand for precision killers, and drones can only do so much.”

“Send in a sniper then,” I said, surprised at my snark.

Persephone curled her lip. “Unfortunately, there are limits even to what most people are willing to do. Samuel Lyman Atwood Marshall did a study on the ratio of fire, which determined that only fifteen to twenty percent of soldiers aimed to kill their subjects. Soldiers need to be conditioned continually to believe what they’re doing is the right thing via patriotism, demonization of the enemy, or the greater good. They also balk when the targets are civilians, members of their home nation, or not an obvious threat. The Society’s predecessors tried to recruit psychopaths as an alternative, but they proved to have other problems.”

“I’ll bet.” I wanted to be angry, but mostly I was just numb.

“What the world needed was a collection of killers who knew no nation, creed, or philosophy. They had no families or friends to cause them to balk. People who could pull the trigger and possessed the skill to do so. Individuals under the control of the person sending them to do the killing.”

“It sounds like you want machines.”

“Yes. Except machines are limited by the hands that guide them as well. The Society exists to serve as the machine that thinks but remains dispassionate.”

“How did I get roped into this?”

“You volunteered.”

I closed my eyes, the headache returning. “No. I’m not… that’s crazy.”

“Is it? There are benefits to our program that aren’t available to the public. We have technology capable of curing cancer, albeit at an extraordinary price. Artificial organs and limbs. Money. People who sign up to serve the Society, Letters or otherwise, are desperate. For ten years of service, you can be guaranteed your loved ones are taken care of better than any other profession could manage.”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Except I don’t remember my loved ones.”

“Which is why you will be well compensated for each mission you perform. You’ll live well, I can assure you. When you complete your term, you’ll be given Reassignment and returned to your original life. If you find you don’t like that idea, we can also put you anywhere else you might want.”

“Do I like movies?” I asked, strangely finding this an important question.

Persephone said, “Yes.”

I remembered a catalog of hundreds of films and trivia about them. I tried to remember the movies themselves but couldn’t recall any images. I knew the plots in my head, but the scenes were scrubbed from my mind along with all the faces. It was another side effect of my conditioning.

I closed my eyes. “I don’t have anywhere else to be.”

“Good. We understand each other then.”

Persephone slid the manila folder over to me and offered me the pen. “You’re in the final stages before you become an active agent. All you need to do is sign your service to us.”

“You’re not going to have me kill someone?” I tried to cross my arms but couldn’t.

“You already have. Two people, in fact.”

I stared at her. I wanted to call her a liar, but I started to recall details of the two people they’d sent me to murder.

Fuck.

“They deserved to die,” Persephone said. “I won’t say how, though.”

I stared at the pen. “I doubt a contract to join Murder Inc. is going to stand up in court.”

“It won’t,” Persephone said. “Not that you’d ever get to court. The contract is merely a tangible sign of accepting your situation.”

“And if I don’t accept it?”

“You won’t leave this room alive. If you do accept it and attempt to escape, you’ll live as a man without any knowledge of who you are or where you fit into this world for the rest of your life. Homeless and without an identity.”

I took the pen from her. “Some might find that preferable to being a professional assassin for some obviously crazy people.”

Persephone gave a half-smirk. “Try it for a couple of weeks and see if you say the same thing. We’ve had runners before. They always come back.”

Or we get them went unspoken.

I stared at the contract for a long time, rereading it five times but unwilling to sign. It wasn’t until I had a flash of who I was, a sign my conditioning hadn’t entirely succeeded, that I knew I had to get back to my family. It was an image of the brown-skinned dark-haired woman and the girl from my dreams, together. I didn’t know for sure that they were my family, but I wanted to believe they were. That was enough for me to become a murderer.

Repeatedly.

I woke up when I felt a hand shaking my shoulder. I grabbed it and almost broke her wrist before seeing who it was. I immediately let go when I realized that I was in my seat on the plane, and we had come to a stop. The passengers were starting to disembark and Logan International Airport was visible beyond.

“Ow,” Marissa said, glaring at me as I still held her wrist.

“Sorry,” I said.

“Bad dreams?”

“Always,” I sighed.

“That’s the price you pay, I suppose.”

“Yes.”

“Sometimes I envy the lack of memories, you know.”

I looked over at her. She’d changed out of her goth attire to something slightly more businesslike—a blue skirt, white blouse, blue jacket, and glasses. All the piercings were gone, too, except for a pair of simple diamond earrings I’d given her.

It was a better fit for the look she was going for as a secretary at the International Refugee Society. I was stunned that she’d managed to hide the outfit in her computer bag without getting it wrinkled, and I was no stranger to storing disguises in odd places.

“Aren’t you looking forward to having all of your memories flushed when you’re Reassigned?”

I looked at her, knowing she was asking about us. “No, not really. I want my memories back, not to lose another set.”

“Even with all you’ve done? Knowing you’ll feel guilt for it?”

“Yeah, even so.”

I wasn’t sure I would have a choice, though. It wasn’t like the Society was willing to let its retired agents walk away with their secrets. I had no idea what Reassigned agents remembered, if anything, since no active agent was allowed contact with them. The only reason I knew they existed was because I’d hired a couple of private detectives to track down F and a few others to make sure they hadn’t been killed after their term was up.

Honestly, it surprised me they hadn’t been.

“There are a lot of things I’d like removed from my past,” Marissa said, looking over her shoulder.

There were only a few passengers left now, and we needed to get moving if we weren’t going to draw attention.

“I’ve never asked about your past,” I said, putting my hand over hers. I didn’t have to since I’d already learned everything about her via her files. Still, she obviously had a need to share, and I was willing to let her think I hadn’t pried.

“Thanks. I appreciate you leaving it be. Information deserves to be free, but all of us have our secrets.”

“Yes, even to ourselves.”

Marissa looked up, blinking. “Are you familiar with a gang called the Mayans?”

The Barrio Maya, or Los Mayans, were a Mexican-American gang that was originally based in El Paso, Texas but had since expanded to much of the United States. They were one of the most violent gangs in the country. R had used them to transport guns for missions and once had me kill one to prove myself a worthy partner. Marissa had grown up in one of their neighborhoods as the youngest of three sisters.

“Vaguely,” I lied.

“They’re bad people,” Marissa said, sighing. “My mother was one of their auxiliaries. She was fanatical, really. Loco. Had us helping her with credit card fraud and making dime bags for sale when we were kids. My older sisters were given out as gifts to the men in the gang as soon as they turned fourteen. When I objected, she burned my arm with cigarettes until I agreed to do my duty.” Marissa practically spit the next word. “Puta.”

“I’m sorry.” I meant it, too.

“When I was sixteen, I ran away with one of the Mayans’ tech guys. Someone who helped them make fake IDs and other crap. He taught me a lot about computers before I moved on.”

“He sounds like a good man.”

“He was a pig. However, I learned enough to make it on my own until I could get some real training. It’s amazing how much you can steal from banks, corporations, and the government if you know where to round the right zeroes.”

“Not really. Paper money is dead,” I said.

“The golden rule is now the code-en rule. She who codes the money, makes the money.” Marissa gave a light chuckle. Her expression then became grim. “I often wonder what happened to my sisters. I feel guilt for leaving them behind. I wonder if they made it out like I did.”

“You could look them up.”

“Then I would know they didn’t.”

I was silent.

Marissa gave my hand a squeeze. “So, I guess what I’m saying is sometimes it’s better for the past to stay buried.”

I looked at her, wishing I could agree. But I had come too far to say anything but “Those who do not learn from the past are destined to repeat it. I want to be more than what I am.”

“What you are is pretty great.”

“I think you’re great t—” I was cut off by my cellphone ringing.

I checked the number. It had an S on it.

The wife.

I hit the send button and lifted it to my ear. “Hello, honeybunch.”

“Don’t make me gag,” a cool, seductive voice said. “I have a good record avoiding that.”

I tried not to laugh. It was bad form to laugh at your wife’s dirty jokes in front of your girlfriend. “What’s up?”

“This isn’t a social call,” S said, her voice suddenly cold. “The airport is full of hostiles and they’re here to kill you.”

Well, fuck.