The thing that stepped through the door was trying hard to look like a woman. It wore a sharp, well-fitting pant suit, red pumps, and a pair of fashionable sunglasses. The effect was ridiculous, like an expensive caricature of a businesswoman. Everything else about it was wrong. It stood well over six feet tall, and was much too thin, with long, unnaturally angled limbs. Its face was flat, its nose barely protruding enough to hold the sunglasses in place above prominent, slitted nostrils. Blond curly hair covered its head, but sat just slightly askew, clearly a wig. As the creature walked under the room’s fluorescent light, the skin that Evelyn could see glittered an almost pearlescent white, and she could make out tiny, delicate scales.
For a moment, Evelyn and the creature stared at each other. Evelyn couldn’t move. This was too much. It felt like she had lost the ability to process what was happening. The thing raised its hands in a slow, nonthreatening motion. They were covered in beautiful white leather gloves which fit perfectly over its four long fingers. It reached up and pulled off the sunglasses, revealing a pair of large, golden eyes with long, narrow pupils. As Evelyn watched, it blinked, little membranes sliding from both sides of its eyes to meet in the middle, before snapping back out of sight.
Evelyn finally reacted. She pushed backwards from the table and the cheap plastic chair tipped over, dumping her onto the floor. The blanket she was wrapped in tangled around her, preventing her from breaking her fall. She yelled in fear and pain as she hit the ground. Struggling free, she stood and backed away as far as she could into the corner, looking frantically for an exit. The room had only one door. She was trapped.
The creature didn’t react. It stood calmly, hands still out in an unthreatening gesture. It looked her dead in the eyes, pushed its right arm forward, and folded two of its fingers up into a good approximation of a peace sign. Evelyn started, bewildered, at the familiar gesture.
Moving slowly, it reached down, pulled the chair that had previously held Officer Tan out, and sat. It placed a briefcase on the table, opened it, and pulled out a small, doughnut shaped device. It set the device between them, then spoke. The words that came out of its mouth sounded strange, dissonant, unlike any language Evelyn had ever heard. As soon as the thing stopped speaking, the doughnut device spoke in a disembodied robotic voice.
“Please. Do not be afraid. I am not here to hurt you. Please sit down.”
The thing gestured at the overturned chair. There was no way this was actually happening, so Evelyn slowly peeled herself away from the wall. She picked the chair up from the floor and sat, scooting as far away from the table as she could in the cramped space. The creature’s face split into an unsettlingly wide grin, its mouth full of small, sharp teeth. It reminded Evelyn of the Cheshire cat, not quite threatening, but definitely not comforting. The creature spoke again, and the doughnut translated.
“Hello Evelyn. It is nice to meet you. My name is Azur. I am a representative sent by the Skonaros from the Understanding, and I am here to offer you a job.”
Evelyn was not sure what she had been expecting, but it definitely hadn’t been that. The creature’s absurd costume suddenly made more sense. She opened her mouth, and laughter burst out of her. The laugh sounded crazy. It stopped as quickly as it had started, replaced by quick, frantic breathing that she had to fight from turning into a full-on panic attack. The day had finally caught up with her. Minutes passed as she slowly took control of herself. Finally, she was calm enough to respond. “A job?”.
The thing, Azur, nodded enthusiastically. “Yes. A job. It is ok to be confused. You are actually handling this quite well. You have not passed out or thrown anything. The last candidate I interviewed projectile vomited all over me.” Azur hesitated, eyeing Evelyn up and down. “You are not going to vomit, are you? Do you think you could let me know if you are going to vomit?”
Evelyn stared across the table, incredulous. It looked genuinely concerned, inching back in its chair.
“I’m not going to vomit.” she said slowly. “What kind of job offer?”
“Evelyn. We have identified you as a candidate for participation in the Assassination Simulation. You have taken the life of a fellow human, making you and your weapon eligible. After review, we have selected you, which is why I am here. Personally, I think you may be one of the strongest candidates that I have ever seen. An umbrella. Who kills someone with an umbrella? It’s brilliant.”
Azur ended the statement with a grin and a soft chuckle. Even before the sound hit the translator, Evelyn could tell it was a laugh. She realized a lot of the creature’s body language had been easy for her to understand. She wondered if it was intentional, another way to put her off guard. Regardless, Azur’s amusement made her uneasy.
“I am going to give you a simplified explanation for now. My people, the Skonaros, are part of an alliance called The Understanding. In exchange for access to certain technologies, we agree not to commit violence against each other, or any of the other species that make up The Understanding. Some species adjust to this better than others. Tension and conflict are inevitable, especially between parties with different backgrounds and perspectives. As more species joined, this became a problem, so the leaders of The Understanding found a solution: the Assassination Simulation.
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“The Assassination Simulation is a competition. Think of it like football, except instead of competing in spandex over a ball, we compete to assassinate each other’s politicians. The assassinations are real, but not permanent, and it gives everyone an outlet that keeps tensions down. We cannot compete ourselves, not without violating the nonviolence agreement. So instead, we select candidates from species outside of The Understanding. They receive the offer that you are receiving now: to become an assassin, in your case representing the Skonaros.”
The translator stopped, but Evelyn’s brain kept spinning. “You’re offering me a job in which I’m supposed to kill alien politicians. For entertainment?”
“Yes.”
Evelyn blinked. “You make it sound like I have a choice, like I can choose to accept the offer, or not.”
Azur nodded. “Of course you have a choice. We will not force you to do anything. If you’re not interested, I will leave. No one will believe that this conversation took place, and you will be in the same position you were before: sitting in police custody, about to be charged with…what do they call it in Singapore? Culpable Homicide?” The alien paused and looked directly into Evelyn’s eyes, grinning. “Honestly, with that recording, they might go with plain old murder.”
Evelyn felt her heart sink. Azur was right. There was no chance of her getting out of this. She had heard of a man a few years ago who served three months for carrying a butter knife around in Singapore. He didn’t even use it, just admitted it was for self-defense. She would be in prison a long time.
“And if I accept?” Evelyn asked, hesitantly.
“If you accept, you will come with us and disappear. No one will remember your involvement this evening. We will delete or alter any records, including your neighbors’ video. Your friends and family will look for you, but eventually they will give up and move on.
You will work for us as a Skonarian Assassin until the completion of the current season of the Assassination Simulation. Training takes around nine months, the time it will take us to travel to the planet we will station you on. The Simulation will last until one team wins. After that, assuming you survive, you go home.”
“Assuming I survive?” Evelyn responded warily. “I thought you said that the deaths aren’t permanent.”
“Oh, they aren’t. For your targets.” Azur responded. “You, however, are not a member of The Understanding, and therefore will not receive access to the tech that revives them. Your targets aren’t going to roll over and let you kill them. The work can be dangerous, and if you die, you stay dead.” The woman shrugged, grinning her large, unsettling grin again. “There have to be some stakes, otherwise it would be boring to watch.”
Evelyn let that sink in for a moment. “You’re calling this a job, which means I get something in return. What do I get if I agree to risk my life and do this for you?”
“If you survive, we will return you to Earth in any location of your choosing. We will give you a sizable amount of money, enough for you to live comfortably for the rest of your life. You will be able to retrieve your old identity, or create a new one. Additionally, at the end of the Simulation, the top two assassins on each team will be granted a boon.”
Evelyn’s forehead creased. “A boon?”
“Oh, it can be anything really, within reason!” Azur replied. “Humans usually ask for fame to go along with their fortune, to be made a famous singer, painter, actor, that kind of thing. Some ask for their youth back. We won’t make you a child again, but we can set your biological age back to around twenty human years. Except for a few things, the big one being immortality, you can ask for pretty much anything.”
Evelyn stared at Azur, her heart suddenly a deafening pounding in her ears.
“Can you track someone down?” she asked breathlessly. “Someone who is missing… probably dead. Could you find them? Maybe even… bring her back.”
Azur thought about it. “Yes.” She said, drawing the word out thoughtfully. “There’s no guarantee we could bring them back, though. We could definitely find them, and if they are deceased, so long as we find enough biological material, we can bring them back. However, if they have been cremated or otherwise destroyed, there isn’t much we can do.”
“But you could, at the very least, find out what happened?” Evelyn replied frantically, full of hope for the first time in years.
“Yes. Though if I’m honest, it sounds like a waste of a boon, you don’t get another one, if that’s all we can do.”
“I’ll do it,” Evelyn said, jumping to her feet, knocking her chair over for a second time.
Azur remained seated. Her big, yellow eyes bore into Evelyn, curious. Finally, the alien shrugged.
“All right, if you are ready, please take this.” Azur reached into her briefcase and pulled out a small vial containing a single white capsule. “Orally, please. It is not a suppository. Apparently, there is a human association between aliens and suppositories. Frankly, it is weird. This will knock you unconscious while we return you to our ship.”
Evelyn reached forward, taking the capsule. She looked up one more time at Azur, watching as she opened her briefcase and put the small translator back inside. Maybe this wasn’t actually happening. Maybe the creature was lying. It didn’t matter. She picked up the chair and sat back down, opened the vial and popped the capsule into her mouth, swallowing. Darkness surrounded her almost immediately.