Evie looked up at the rope dangling from the ceiling of the training center. A bead of sweat slid down her temple, and she unconsciously tapped a toe in nervous anticipation. Across the room, forming the second and third points of an equilateral triangle, Lubanzi and Haruto stood in front of their own ropes. Headgear obscured their faces, there to protect their brains from injury if they fell. Lubanzi grinned at her, mouthing something unintelligible but clearly meant to be a taunt. Evie threw a rude gesture back at him, smiling despite her nerves.
Claro stood between them at the triangle’s center. She turned slowly, looking at each human in turn. “On the count of three,” she yelled, holding up three of her four fingers. “Remember! There are only two flags. Whoever doesn’t bring one back down to me gets an extra hour of sprints this evening. On your mark! Get set…Go!!!”
Evie didn’t need to be told twice. One of the few things all three humans could agree on was that sprints were the worst. She seized the rope in front of her and began hauling herself up. In the last two months, climbing ropes had become a familiar, everyday activity, and she quickly ascended up the twenty-foot distance to the first platform. She dismounted, glancing across the room at Lubanzi and Haruto. Haruto was still climbing the rope, though he was almost at the top. Lubanzi was already making his way across the first obstacle.
The first platform was narrow, about a foot wide and fifteen feet long. More ropes attached to the front and back of the platform held it suspended in the air. It swayed back and forth ominously. There were no handholds available to aid her crossing. That was fine. They would only have slowed her down. She crouched low, keeping her weight centered, and darted across the platform.
The aerial obstacle course was a few hundred feet long in total. Each assassin had their own path, three large spirals that came together at the center of the room above where Claro stood. Evie focused on running the course as quickly as she could. She jumped from platform to platform, climbed over and under distinct features and ran along narrow balance beams. Some sections had to be navigated using only her hands, forcing her to dangle precariously over the uncomfortable drop, hoping her grip strength wouldn’t fail before she reached the other side. But by now, muscles corded her forearms, and calluses replaced the blisters that had first covered her hands.
She was familiar with this exercise. It was never exactly the same, but they had been running different variations of it for weeks now. However, this was the first time they were doing so as a competition between the three humans, and the added pressure threatened to make her sloppy. As she neared the end of her spiral, she could see the small platform at its center, on which lay two small black flags. One last obstacle stood between her and her goal.
There was a gap. It had to be at least 10 feet wide, and the only aid to cross the distance was a small hanging ring, suspended above her head halfway across. She landed on her second to last platform and looked up to see Lubanzi across from her. The tall man reached the edge of his penultimate platform, leaned out and casually caught the ring before his feet even left the ground.
“No fucking fair!” she shrieked at him as he easily swung himself across. He stuck his tongue out, grabbed a flag, and slid down another rope to land next to Claro. Evie glanced over to see where Haruto was. He was still one obstacle back, but approaching quickly. Evie hopped up and down twice, psyching herself up for the jump, then went for it.
It wasn’t actually that far, but it was high enough to make her stomach plummet before her fingers successfully wrapped around the ring. Relieved, she swung to the central platform, grabbed the second flag, and moved to the rope. She didn’t make it. Haruto crashed into her, ripping the flag from her hand. He must have made the final jump without stopping to gauge the distance as she had. Evie screamed as she fell. The last thing she saw as she plummeted from the platform was Haruto looking down at her. His face was its normal hard mask, but the edges of his mouth twitched into a small, satisfied grimace, before he turned away towards the rope. A sharp burst of pain spiked through her, and the world went black.
Evie screamed, jostled back into consciousness. An overwhelming, searing pain consumed her. Whatever she lay on was moving, swaying slightly from side to side, and every movement sent agony radiating up her right leg. She cracked her eyes, gritting her teeth to keep from crying out again, and saw she was on a stretcher being carried through the hallways of the Skonarian ship.
“I’d go back to sleep if I were you,” said a familiar voice next to her. Claro. Evie craned her neck and saw her trainer walking alongside, grinning cheerfully down at her. The trainer’s smile sent an unwelcome spike of annoyance through Evie. Claro could have at least tried to act concerned. Evie ground her teeth and glanced down at her leg, but regretted doing so immediately. Nausea momentarily replaced her pain. Her white uniform was crimson from her ankle to halfway up her thy, and the jagged edge of a bone protruded through a rip in her pants by her knee.
“You really did a number on it, didn’t you? Don’t worry, we’ll have you into a Resurrection Chamber and fixed up in no time.” Claro said.
“I did a number on it?” Evie snarled, the memory of the last few minutes returning to her. “Haruto fucking pushed me! I had the flag, fair and square.”
In hindsight, she should have expected Haruto to pull something like this. Over the last few months, his behavior had been growing increasingly violent. He had sent Lubanzi to the med bay twice in the past two weeks, but the last few injuries he had inflicted had happened during sparring matches. There was a big difference between getting a little carried away in a fight and intentionally pushing someone off of a ledge twenty feet in the air.
“I didn’t say that ‘the first two to grab the flags win’,” Claro replied, “I said, ‘the first two who bring the flags back down to me.’ Haruto won. Take it as a learning experience, Evie, and don’t think something as trivial as a broken leg is going to get you out of sprints-”
“That’s bullshit!” Evie stifled another cry as the stretcher she was on jostled to one side. Internally, her deep respect for the Skonarians warred against her temper, but right now pain burnt away everything but white-hot rage. “Claro, are you fucking blind? This is just going to keep escalating! Breaking Lubanzi’s finger might have been an accident, but shattering his forearm sure as hell wasn’t. And now this?! What the hell does he have to do before you take his actions seriously?”
Claro’s grin didn’t waver, but the edges of her mouth tightened.
“Var, knock her out,” she said cooly, addressing the figure behind Evie’s head. Evie opened her mouth to protest, but a sharp pain in her neck sent her spinning back into unconsciousness.
Evie snapped awake. She was in a resurrection chamber. No matter how many times she experienced them, the machines still made her uncomfortable. She extracted herself, noting that her leg seemed back to normal beneath her bloodstained pants, and looking around to see Var, accompanied by Hat, perched on the medic’s arm. The second Evie exited the pod, Hat hopped across to her.
“Are you blind, or just stupid?” he snapped at her. “You could see that fucker coming from a mile away!”
Evie stared at the bird. It took her a moment to realize he was talking about Haruto. “I didn’t think he’d get there that fast,” she mumbled, shaking her head and trying to clear it. The memory of the confrontation in the hallway returned to her, filling her with mortification. “Where’s Claro?” she asked, desperate to apologize for her behavior. How could she have been so disrespectful to her trainer, and over such an insignificant issue?
It’s not insignificant that Haruto is intentionally trying to hurt Lubanzi and I. She blinked, suddenly confused. Haruto had pushed her off a twenty-foot drop, shattering her leg, and Claro acted like he had done nothing wrong.
But he had done nothing wrong. She wasn’t hurt, not permanently. Claro was right. Things were different here, and she needed to learn to accept that. The familiar feeling of respectful admiration for the Skonarians washed over Evie like a wave. They knew best, of course. She had to apologize to Claro.
“Claro went back to the training room after we got you into the Resurrection Chamber. You’ll see her at hour five for sprints. Don’t worry, she knows you weren’t in your right mind. She won’t hold it against you,” responded Var. Evie looked down, placated but still wracked with guilt.
A knock at the door frame leading into the med bay interrupted them, and Lubanzi poked his head around the corner. Worry creased his forehead, but when he caught sight of Evie, he visibly relaxed. He walked over and offered Evie a plate of large, Honrad dumplings. She took it gratefully, realizing she had missed lunch, but before she could grab one, Hat jumped down, snatched the biggest dumpling from the center of the plate and flew off into the corner. Amiya, perched on Lubanzi’s shoulder, shot both humans a guilty look, and took off after him. Evie laughed, grateful for the distraction.
“I’m glad to see you’re okay.” Lubanzi said as she took a bite of one of the remaining dumplings. “That was horrible! From now on, I vote we let me handle Haruto’s beatings. I take them much more gracefully than you do.” Lubanzi’s attempt to make light of the situation did not fool Evie. She knew him well enough by now to see how much Haruto’s increasingly violent actions were affecting him. Lubanzi tried to hide it, but he was getting progressively more skittish around Haruto. The older man was whittling away at Lubanzi’s confidence, preventing him from progressing as quickly as he needed to.
That’s the problem. That’s why the Skonarians need to take this more seriously. Evie shook her head, trying to banish the unwelcome thoughts.
“You won’t have to put up with him much longer!” Var said. “The Weapons Ceremony is in a week. After that, you won’t be spending any time working together, not for a while at least. You’ll be too busy mastering your individual weapons.”
Evie and Lubanzi shared a silent look. Var looked back and forth between the two humans, nonexistent eyebrows raised questioningly. “Sorry,” Evie said, “Azur still hasn’t briefed us on what exactly the Weapons Ceremony is. It’s coming up so fast, I wish we had more details. But I guess she wants it to be a surprise.”
Var’s forehead creased in confusion. “Azur really hasn’t gone over the ceremony with you yet?” he asked.
Evie and Lubanzi shook their heads. “We haven’t seen her since the day we were introduced to our producers,” said Lubanzi tentatively, trying not to sound accusatory.
Var sighed. “She really should have. This is why she usually has one of her underlings handle onboarding. She doesn’t have time to do it properly, in addition to everything else on her plate.”
Evie considered Var’s words, chewing thoughtfully on a dumpling. “Who exactly is Azur, if you don’t mind me asking? It’s obvious she’s someone important.”
“Azur is the director of the entire Skonarian branch of the Assassination Simulation,” Var responded.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Evie and Lubanzi stared at Var. “Well, no wonder she’s busy. What is she doing here with us?” Lubanzi asked.
Var shrugged. “She claimed it was because she felt like she was losing touch with what makes the Assassin Simulation great. To my knowledge, she hasn’t taken part in assassin onboarding in… hundreds of years, at least, not since she took over the department, and she wanted some time ‘back in the field’. If I’m being honest, though, I think it’s probably a political stunt. Her brother, the Skonarian Emissary to The Understanding, is currently running for reelection. I would bet this has something to do with that.”
Evie wasn’t sure what “The Skonarian Emissary to the Understanding” was, but it sounded important.
“That definitely explains why we haven’t seen her,” Evie said, choosing her words carefully. “But in that case, is there any chance you could give us some details, Var?”
Var looked a little uncomfortable, and considered for a moment before shrugging. “The Weapons Ceremony is your introduction to The Understanding. We show each of your origin stories, and present you with your now optimized and enhanced weapons. It generates interest and anticipation for the new assassins.”
Lubanzi paled noticeably. “What do you mean, our origin stories?”
“Your murders, of course!” Var responded. “The earth pigeons keep a close eye out for prospective candidates. They film any incident that seems like it might qualify someone to make sure we have a record of the events. Those recordings will be shown, and a panel will review them and vote on if you’re eligible to take part in the Sim.” Var finally noticed Lubanzi’s expression. “Don’t worry!” he said, smiling reassuringly at the younger man. “It’s just a formality. No one ever gets voted off at this stage.”
Evie knew Var was misunderstanding the root of Lubanzi’s discomfort. She didn’t know what Lubanzi had done to put himself here, but she knew it haunted him. Many times in the last few months, Hat had woken her in the middle of the night after an internal summons from Amiya. They would sneak down the hall to Lubanzi’s room to find him curled up, shaking and sobbing quietly in his bed. Evie would sit with him, stroking his back like she would have for a child, until he finally calmed down enough to go back to sleep. She wanted to help him, but whenever she tried to bring it up, he would dig in his heels and laugh it off, insisting he was fine.
Evie watched Lubanzi closely. He looked rattled. “What exactly do you do to our weapons?” she asked, trying to distract Var and give Lubanzi time to recover.
“We optimize them, and each gets two enhancements. The changes vary depending on the weapon and have to be approved by the Sniffers.”
“I’m not sure I understand. Can you give us an example?”
“You have access to the current season’s episodes, right? You’ve seen Celia?” Evie nodded. “Celia’s weapon is an industrial hot knife. I have been told this is a specialty tool on Earth, used for crafting and cutting foam. We start by optimizing the existing weapon. The ‘Knife’ to use to term loosely, was a flimsy piece of junk that only went up to about five or six hundred degrees.” The number and unit Var used was different, but Evie’s mind automatically converted the figure to Fahrenheit. Another neat trick she had gained from her neural surgery. “After optimization, it was much sturdier, and could get about four times as hot. Then it got two enhancements: the sheath on her wrist which allows it to extend and retract as needed, and a radiation feature that allows it to cut much quicker and more effectively through materials it wouldn’t be able to otherwise.”
“Like glass?” Evie said, remembering the first episode of the sim she had ever watched.
“Exactly!” Var responded.
Evie tossed the final dumpling into her mouth, wondering what enhancements they might give to an umbrella as she chewed. Her mind went immediately to Mary Poppins, and the thought of using an umbrella to fly around an alien planet was almost enough to make her laugh. She looked back at Lubanzi. He was still paler than normal, but seemed otherwise ok.
“Thanks for breaking the rules, Var!” Hat said from behind Evie, landing heavily on her shoulder. He had bits of dumpling stuck around his beak, which he wiped off on her shirt before she could stop him. A second later, Amiya, whose face was spotless, landed on Lubanzi and gave his ear an affectionate nibble. He reached up and absently scratched the bird’s head.
Var nodded. “I’ll have a talk with some people. If Azur can’t keep up, we should get someone to fill in for her.” He bustled back to his desk. Evie and Lubanzi took the hint and left the Med Bay together.
“Hopefully, he’s right about the sparring being over for a while after the weapons ceremony.” Lubanzi muttered to Evie. “I think we can get through one more week.”
Evie flinched. If there had been any wood on the Skonarian ship around them, she would have knocked on it.
A few days passed before the trainers put Lubanzi and Haruto back in the sparring ring together. Evie had been spending some time in the evenings with Lubanzi, working with him on how he could better hold his own against the older, smaller man. Lubanzi had a massive reach advantage, and Evie had been showing him how to take advantage of it. She didn’t think Lubanzi could beat Haruto, not yet, but she was hoping he would at least be able to keep him at a distance, and prevent him from doing any actual damage.
The match started well enough. Evie was nearby doing body weight exercises with Claro, and kept an eye on the two men. Lubanzi was holding his own, better than he had before, and Haruto was finding it difficult to get close enough to land a hard strike. Evie smiled to herself, and after watching for a few minutes, turned away and focused back on what she was doing with Claro.
A jarring, wet CRUNCH echoed across the training arena, followed by a painful gurgling cry. Evie spun around to see Lubanzi stumbling back, clutching at his throat. Haruto stood a few feet away from him, an expression of triumph on his face. She couldn’t tell what was wrong, but as she watched, Lubanzi fell to his knees. Horrible sounds came from his throat, and he seemed unable to breathe normally. Evie ran to him, sliding to his side in time to catch him as he fell over the rest of the way. He coughed, spraying bloody spital over the white floor. Now that she was closer, she could see what was wrong. Haruto had crushed his throat.
Evie met Lubanzi’s eyes. They were full of terror, pleading for help. She hugged him to her chest, trying to offer some kind of comfort. She looked around frantically and caught sight of Haruto. For the briefest of moments, she thought she saw a flicker of worry, maybe even remorse, cross Haruto’s face. She must have imagined it, though. His expression quickly returned to its normal, stony mask. He turned and walked away, meeting his trainer at the edge of the mat.
“Help!” she screamed, looking back to where Claro stood. Lubanzi’s coach, Formad, had walked over to Claro and was chatting with her. He looked mildly annoyed, and as Evie watched, Claro shook her head and chuckled. Lubanzi tried to say something, but all that came out was more blood.
Evie trembled as she clutched Lubanzi closer, her respect and adoration for the Skonarians almost physically at war with her horror at what Haruto had done, and the Skonarians’ indifference to it.
She turned back to Claro and Formad, who were casually making their way over. “Please, you have to do something.” She felt tears trickling from her eyes. “He can’t breathe. That ASSHOLE crushed his throat.”
Lubanzi’s eyes closed, and he mercifully slipped into unconsciousness. His labored attempts at breathing were growing weaker.
“It was a good kick!” said Formad. “Lubanzi should have blocked it.” Evie stared up at him in disbelief. Pressure built inside her head, her mind struggling to find an outlet, a solution that wouldn’t contradict one of the things she knew to be true.
“Relax, Evie.” Claro said. “Var and his team should be here any second. Lubanzi will be fine.” Right as she spoke, Evie heard footsteps coming from the door. It was Var, and another Skonarian Evie didn’t know. They walked over with a stretcher and lifted Lubanzi’s limp body up and onto it. His breathing was almost undetectable.
“Anyway, where were we?” Claro said as they watched Var and the other Skonarian carry Lubanzi’s body out of the training room. She turned and headed back to the equipment they had been using before Lubanzi’s injury. Evie realized Claro wanted to pick up where they had left off, as if nothing had happened.
“Claro!” she said, her voice quavering, barely controlled. Anger built inside of her, breaking its way through all other thoughts. “I told you this would happen. You need to do something about him!”
Claro flicked her tongue in a Skonarian eye roll. “Evie, we talked about this,” she said. Her voice was soft, but something in her tone made the hairs on the back of Evie’s neck stand on end. “Lubanzi will be fine. You’re overreacting. You need to learn that stuff like this doesn’t matter, not like it did back on Earth. Haruto did what he had to do to win the match, that’s all.”
“You know that’s not true.” Evie said, her voice louder. Claro was correct. Every fiber of Evie’s being resisted the idea of continuing to question Claro, to show her anything other than respect and obedience. But the memory of Lubanzi’s face fueled a rage that wouldn’t let her stop. “Haruto could have won without crushing his throat. He has never needed to resort to the level of violence that he does. He chooses to.”
“So what?” Claro responded. “He’s an assassin. You’re all assassins. Brutality can be effective, and honestly, it gets great ratings. Why do you think we hire murderers, Evie?”
Evie opened and closed her mouth, trying to think clearly through the cacophony in her head.
“Instead of bitching at me, why don’t you go over there and do something about it?” Claro finished, glaring a challenge at Evie.
Evie froze. All of her dissonant feelings suddenly resolved into perfect clarity. Claro was right. There was an obvious solution here. If Haruto wanted to play dirty, why couldn’t she?
Evie stood and walked to the center of the sparring mat.
“My turn,” she said, loud enough for Haruto and his trainer to hear. Her voice was calm. Haruto looked questioningly at his trainer, who shrugged and nodded. Evie watched Haruto as he walked towards her. If he was worried, he didn’t show it. They both knew she was the better fighter. They had sparred together before. She beat him, but had never given him a reason to be wary of her.
Their first round went as it always did. Evie won, and she won deftly, throwing Haruto to the floor. He lay there for a moment, rolling his eyes as he got back up. As he rose, she studied him. She didn’t want to beat him. She wanted to crush him. Make it so he was too afraid to hurt her, or the people she cared about, ever again.
She thought of Lubanzi as they circled each other for a second time. Forced herself to see him, suffocating on the ground, coughing up blood. Evie allowed angry tears to spill from the corner of her eyes and lunged. The move was sloppy, desperate. Calculated. He knocked her aside easily, and she waited until the last possible second before she dove out of the way of his retaliation. This match lasted much longer. She still beat him, but it was a near thing. She acted distracted and allowed Haruto to take advantage of it.
As the third round started, Haruto’s confidence grew. A hungry light had appeared in his eyes. Evie had to fight to keep a cruel smile off her lips. She waited until she could tell that he thought he had her, that he was about to win. Then she struck. She gave him an opening, and he threw a punch that would have shattered her ribs if it had landed. As she watched his fist fly towards her, she did something she had never done before. She let her anger out. She dodged his punch and landed a knee to his stomach. Two months of heavy training had built her muscles, and her knee sank deep into his gut, followed by a satisfying, surprised “Oof”. Haruto bent double, the wind knocked out of him. She sank a vicious uppercut into his chin, knocking his face up and backward. As he staggered back, she kicked him as hard as she could between the legs.
Time froze for a moment as Haruto’s face contorted in pain. He looked like he was trying to scream, though no sound came out. He stumbled, then collapsed to the ground, curling into a quivering ball. But before he covered himself, she saw the red stain forming on the front of his pants, sharply contrasted against the white fabric. She had ruptured one of his testicles.
Evie stalked towards him, kneeled down and whispered, “If you ever lay a finger on Lubanzi or me again, I will rip off the other one.” She used the roughest Japanese she knew. Japanese was a language built on levels of formality. How it was spoken showed the amount of respect one held for the person they were speaking to. She spoke to Haruto like he was slime on the floor, like he was nothing. He whimpered, and she felt a swell of satisfaction fill her. This man would no longer be a problem. He knew now that he couldn’t beat her. That she would make him pay for any future actions against them. Her rage retreated, satisfied for now.
“Damn Girl!” Claro spoke from behind them. The trainer had walked up and was looking down at what Evie had done. “Savage. See? You don’t need me to step in and solve your problems. Var’s going to be pissed. Two in one day!” She laughed, and Evie smiled up at her, basking in her trainer’s approval.
“I suppose we can be done for the day.” Claro continued. “Go calm down. I don’t want to hear any more about this, understood?”
Evie nodded and turned towards the exit. Hat and Amiya sat perched on some equipment a dozen feet away. The pigeons didn’t normally attend the training sessions. Hat had “better shit to do than watch Claro beat your ass over and over again.” They must have come when they heard what happened to Lubanzi. She grinned and walked towards them, but froze at the stony expression on Hat’s face. His gaze was guarded and held a flicker of unease. Evie couldn’t stand to see him looking at her like that. Didn’t he understand what she had done? It was the right move. It solved all their problems, and Haruto would be fine as soon as they got him to the Resurrection Chamber.
But that hadn’t mattered before, when it was her or Lubanzi being sent to the med bay.
“We’ll talk later.” Amiya said softly to Hat, before shooting a guarded glance at Evie, and flying back out the door. Hat watched her go before returning his gaze to Evie.
“Back to your room. Now,” he said curtly.