Thursday 19 April 2012

Old Wounds

Yesterday, against my better judgement, I went out to coffee with the Femme Fatale. For a given definition of coffee, since I had tea.

She left another note with a time and place in my letterbox two days ago. This time, I went. I brought my crowbar, concealed inside my shoulder bag, in case things got ugly.

We sat across from each other, silent, for a while before I said "I assume you didn't invite me here for the pleasure of my company."

She looked at me, unreadable, for a few seconds. "In August of last year, an old colleague of mine showed up on my doorstep, said she was going away for a while, and if she didn't come back before Christmas, to find you. I knew her as Two-Face.I've been trying to track you down ever since. I was hoping you would be able to tell me what happened to her"

"You mean Kristen MacIntyre?" I asked. "She's dead. She killed several of my friends, then went after another. He killed her."

She looked startled for a few seconds. "So that was her real name...I take it you're not Indoctrinated, then. If you don't mind my asking, who exactly are you? All I know about you is your address, the design on your mask, and that you don't drink coffee."

"I'm not anyone in particular," I told her, "I was Indoctrinated for a while, and I wiped people's minds to give them a fresh start for a while more. Now I'm just a guy with a lot of dead friends."

"I'm Evelyn Schoeman." she said after a while, frowning at the bottom of her coffee cup. "I'm an Indoctrinated, for lack of a better word, although He has little use for old ladies like me. I haven't had to do anything major in a few years. A bit of vandalism, intimidation, that sort of thing."

I spent a minute trying to process this, before I blurted out "You're not an old lady. You're what, thirty?"

Evelyn gave me an incredulous look. "Thirty-four." she said finally. "And you can't be much younger, by the look of you."

"Twenty-eight." I retorted. "Having Where's-his-face hanging around doesn't help you stay young."

She laughed. "Well, Sir-who-has-cunningly-avoided-telling-me-his-name, I have to be off now. I have to pick up my kids from school soon."

"Kids?" I asked. The thought of a proxy raising children, I admit, was a rather alarming one.

"Three boys." she said. "They're a gift, albeit a noisy and stressful one. See you, stranger."

"Not if I see you first."

Then she left, and I went home.

I don't trust her. She's a proxy, for one, although I'm somewhat thrown by the fact that she was forthright about it.

Well, she got what she approached me for. Hopefully she will leave me alone for a while.


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