11. Half a Person
She watched, standing, as he poured out a glass of wine.
"It was polite of you to come through the door," he remarked. "After what I'm told took place at the House of Blue Leaves, I half-expected a robot to come crashing through my roof."
Her tongue felt numb. "I left my Pfadfinderin back in town."
"Ah." He lifted the glass to his lips. "And how is Doctor Kabapu?"
"He's good."
"Is he still the same tedious fool as ever?"
She nodded.
"And have Doctor Shioji's – habits improved at all?"
She shook her head.
"You know," he said, laughing quietly. "I never would have expected to see you fallen in with that bunch." He examined her face in the low light, and she felt herself blush. "You've changed."
"So have you," she said.
He glanced at his reflection in the windowpane. "I suppose I have. But how I forget myself!—Please do have a seat. What a poor host I am." With a sweep of his hand, he indicated one of the handsome chairs at the kitchen table. "I don't think wine is quite appropriate for one of your still-tender years. But could I offer you milk?"
"Sure."
Feeling like a child, she took a seat with her legs pressed close together. He set the glass in front of her – a long-stemmed wine glass, like his own, but filled with milk. She couldn't help smiling.
In the corner, Menchi trembled with her tail wrapped around her legs.
"Heavens!" Ilpalazzo nudged his glasses. "What did you do to that poor thing?"
"Emergency food supply," Excel muttered.
Ilpalazzo lifted the dog and cradled her gently in his arms, making soothing noises.
"There, there…it's alright. The scary lady isn't going to hurt you."
Excel sipped her milk, on the verge of tears.
"Does this belong to you?"
She turned, to see Ilpalazzo holding her handgun by the barrel.
"…Yeah."
He set it on the table in front of her. "Well do keep track of it, then. I so like to keep the place tidy."
He sat across from her, still holding the terrified Menchi. He looked so small without his cloak, she thought again. So defenseless.
"I think you'll be pleased to know that I've received word from Miss Cosette Sara in Tokyo." Casually, he removed a postcard from the breast of his uniform. "Would you like to hear?"
Excel nodded.
After sipping his wine again, Ilpalazzo read: "'Dearest Lord Ilpalazzo.'" He stopped to laugh. "Such a formal girl!—'Thank you for the letter of the eighteenth. I have quite recovered, although I was the cause of some concern at the hospital when I attempted to slay Doctor Takano with my hairpin. Since then I have been removed to a different ward. I am now in the company of other children who, like myself, experienced trauma at an early age, and subsequently exhibit homicidal behavior. The doctors are trying to cure us through a program of fresh air, exercise, and arts & crafts. The other day I received a very nice compliment from Nurse Kusaka on my macaroni collage of the martyrdom of St. Sebastian. I don't know I feel about 'recovery,' but I suppose it might be pleasant if, tomorrow, I could look at a kitten without imagining the way its blood would spill from its severed throat.'
'Your truly,
'Cosette.'
"A happy ending. Wouldn't you agree?"
Excel nodded.
"Yes," he repeated, reflectively, tapping the postcard on the table. "A very happy ending."
Excel sipped her milk. "So. What about us?"
"That remains to be seen." He stood. Menchi leapt out of his arms, and took once again to the corner. "Now. When it comes to you – and us – I have a few unanswered questions. So before this tale of bloody revenge reaches its climax, I'm going to ask you some questions, and I want you to tell me the truth.
"But therein lies the dilemma!—For, when it comes to the subject of you, I believe you to be truly and utterly incapable of telling the truth – especially to me, and – least of all to yourself.
"And, when it comes to the subject of me, I am – truly and utterly incapable – of believing anything you say."
"How do you purpose we solve this dilemma?" Excel said dully.
"Well!—It just so happens, I have a solution."
With a flourish, he produced a gun – treachery! flashed through her mind – and fired. Instead of a bang, through, there was a quiet pop, and she stared at the four-inch hypodermic dart protruding from her arm. There was only a slight itch of pain, followed by a more unpleasant draining sensation.
She sputtered. "W-what – did you just shoot me with!"
"My greatest invention," he said, replacing the gun inside a cabinet. "Or at least, my favorite. I call it the Undisputed Truth. Twice as effective as sodium pentathol, without – any of those messy side-effects. Except you may perhaps experience—" he waved his hand airily—"a slight wave of euphoria?"
"Euphoria?" she gasped. "—No."
"Mm." Ilpalazzo smiled again. "That's a shame.—Don't touch it! It's already begun to set in. You'll only make it sting."
With a grimace, she put her hands on the table. "Fine."
She expected a sadistic smile, but as he returned to the table, his expression was grave. He sat with his hands laced in front of him. "I imagine you may have one or two questions of your own. After I've asked mine," he said, "I'll allow you to ask yours."
She nodded.
"So…" He nudged his glasses. "My first question."
"Is it true that you love me?"
There was no need to resist the serum. She nodded. "Yes."
Something that was not quite a smile, or a frown, contorted his mouth. He still didn't look at her. "And did you believe – honestly, in your heart of hearts, did you believe – that I could ever love you in return?"
There was a long silence. Menchi, who had always seemed, uncannily, as if she understood human language, sat with her head bowed.
Excel made an effort to hold the word in. Finally, though, the serum won out over even her incredible will, and she stuttered: "N-n-no."
The first tear rolled down her cheek. Ilpalazzo watched it dispassionately.
"That was the warm-up round," he said quietly. "Now. The one million yen question."
Excel sat with her eyes clamped shut; a second tear joined the first.
"When you came to the desert fortress, on that day four years ago. You knew that I had ordered your death. Did you not?"
"Y-yes."
"And yet you came anyway. Why?"
"B-b-because." Her head sank lower, as if she wanted to slide under the table. "B-because love and loyalty are the s-same to me."
"That's a poor answer," he snapped. "I don't understand you. How could you be so perverse?"
She was silent.
He glanced again at the window. Outside, the leaves of the palms showed soft and bright, like metal. "You don't have as much sense as a dog does." Menchi, in the corner, pricked up her ears, and he looked at her. "You saw the way she cowered away from you.—She loves me because I feed her. But if I were to kick her, she'd be afraid of me. Isn't it true?"
Excel shrugged.
"Poor girl. You must be severely deluded. What – tell me, what – do you see in me to love?"
The question startled her out of her tears. It was something – like Menchi's presence in the dim-lit kitchen, like the kitchen itself – she had never expected.
"I-Ilpalazzo?"
He spread his hands. "Look at me," he said, and bitterness had begun to creep into his level voice. "The most wretched tin-pot dictator on the globe is not so wretched as I – because they, at least, aspired to nothing more than power. They are dogs; my shame is far worse. Here I sit, a fool, a dreamer; the conqueror conquered by his own ambition." He looked at her. "So, Excel-kun. Can you look at me, even now, and still tell me that you love me?"
She shook her head. "I don't c-care about that. But—"
"Yes?"
"But – why?" She gestured at the gun on the table. "Why'd you do it?"
He shrugged. "I shot to kill. That's the way of the conqueror: eliminate deadwood. I knew full well what I was doing; I'm afraid I can't beg off any such simple grounds. What I didn't know – Excel-kun – was what I had done to myself."
She waited.
"I felt – strange. And slowly, over the months to come, I began to realize my folly; but it was too late. ACROSS had already risen as an evil power, and I hadn't the strength to set it on its proper rails again. I hadn't the strength because – the only person for whose sake I might have reformed, I assumed was dead.
"It was then that I learned that certain things – once done, can never be undone," he finished, with a tired smile.
Excel's amazed had cleared her tears, and now she was in danger of succumbing to it instead. She sputtered: "For – me?—You would have—?"
"When I heard you had appeared again," he went on, looking at the table, "I knew that my hour had come. The vengeance of the gods – or God, if you prefer – had found me at last. I was serene. A fitting end for a tyrant, to be cut down by the one he had first wronged. And I knew that if you had ever loved me, you could feel nothing for me now but hatred.
"And now. You're here in front of me – and not only have you failed to kill me, but you say you still love me."
He laughed, and not happily.
"Lord Ilpalazzo."
"I know that Nabeshin taught you the Five-Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique. You know what you have to do."
Slowly, horror spreading over her face, she shook her head.
"Agent Excel! I order you to kill me."
She shook her head.
"Kill me."
She looked at her hands. There was a long silence.
"You know," she finally said, in a strangled voice. "If I had to make a list – five years ago – of impossible things that would never happen…you, performing the coup-de-grace on me, by busting a bullet in my bust…would've been right at the top." She looked up. "I would've been wrong. Wouldn't?"
"Oh.—I'm sorry; was that a question? Yes, on the subject of impossible things that could never happen – I'm afraid you would have been wrong. Excel-kun."
She leaned forward and kissed him.
He was too startled to pull away; and his hands remained motionless on table. She put her hands behind his head and gently, deferentially rubbed her lips over his. When it came to impossible things that would never happen, she reflected, this would have been second on the list.
There was no erotic shock or outbreak of choral singing; only the strange, tart flavor of the wine on his lips; but she hardly felt like breaking off. He made an attempt to draw back, muttering some last futile protest – but she followed, planting her timid kisses; and finally he put his arms around her in surrender. Their chairs had gradually shifted until they sat side-by-side.
Menchi, the soul of discretion, padded quietly out of the room.
With his arms around her, Excel felt an incongruous happiness – not because she was in his arms, but because she had spared Cosette and climbed out of a pit, and because the night was cool and the moon was round, and because she was her and he was him and he was her…
Because, she thought deliriously. Because.
