4. Ninja School

"Yo, Dylan," I say, finding the bird-kid in question with his nose buried deep in the packet. How does he even read that thing? It's about as interesting as the list of ingredients on the back of shampoo bottle. "Why don't you tell me what you've found out so far?"

His eyes are still glued to the paper. "Uh, right now I'm finding out Maya's favorite ice cream flavor...which is...um...mint chocolate chip. Right."

"If we ever need to poison her ice cream, it's always nice to make sure that the poison goes well with her favorite flavor," I say dryly. "Anything of use?"

He flips another page. "You really should read these things, Max."

"Why should I read them when you read them and tell me the useful parts?"

"Hmph," he says, pretending to be put off. "Here we go," he begins. "Her parents are researchers. She used to attend public school until seventh grade, when she was transferred to some special boarding school in Seattle. She excels in the harmonica and ballet." He frowns. "Sounds pretty normal to me. Everyone else we've targeted has been fairly well-known, or at least in a position of prominence. Definitely not harmonica-playing ballerina teenagers."

"Don't you get sick of it sometimes?" I burst out suddenly. "They never tell us why we're killing these people."

Dylan looks at me with serious eyes. "Max, don't. Don't bring that up."

I know what he's thinking, that the entire place is bugged and that there are researchers monitoring my heart rate and heat signature at this instant. At the same time, I'm sick of behaving like a trained monkey, doing what they want me to do. But I swallow this and fall silent. I'll talk about it with him later.

"Anyway," Dylan continues, "Maya has a friendly and fun personality. Funny, Max, she's kind of the opposite of you-"

"Hey!"

"-kidding! Maya has a fear of cockroaches and heights, and often talks to herself. She-"

"Enough about her!" I say, but I can't rid myself of questions. She's my clone. One of us has wings, the other doesn't. It doesn't take a Sherlock to figure out that something's a little fishy here. "Can you tell me what information we're supposed to pry out of them before they die? And I never found out where we're going tomorrow."

"It's all in the packet," Dylan says, trying to sound stern but clearly amused. "If you're going to make me recite it to you, then you'd better go one thing at a time. Want to hear about Fang?"

"Oh, Mr. Perfect-Bodyguard?"

Dylan gives me an appraising look. "Nice nickname. I think I'll borrow it. But not so perfect once you get through with this job, I'm sure."

"Right," I say, but my words feel hollow.

"Moving on. We don't have as much information about him. No info on his parents or birthdate or childhood. He simply seems to have appeared out of nowhere, wings and all. Additionally, it's speculated that, due to the location he was first sighted, he has ties to some corporation - I forget the name - that manufactures sunglasses. Oh, wait. Maybe it was cotton candy. Something like that."

"So how did he end up protecting Maya?"

Dylan sighs. "You know, the thing about these packets is that they're really good at covering up how much we don't know with a huge jumble of words."

Or how much we're not being told, I add silently, but instead say, "Fine. At least we know what he looks like. So where are we going tomorrow, and as who?"

"This time we're going to be posing as-"

"-ordinary high school students," I finish glumly. After some of the more fun disguises we've come up with, this is going to be pretty boring.

"-no," Dylan says, raising an eyebrow. "Maya is not in an ordinary high school. The boarding school is for specially gifted children, aimed at teenagers with a gift in intelligence or ...well, killing people."

"So...like ninja school?" I guess, a mental picture of kids bouncing off the walls and hurling daggers already in my mind.

Hardly missing a beat, Dylan nods. "Summed it up pretty well. Everyone's either a specialist in hand-to-hand combat, or poison, or computer hacking, or something of the sort. Which is, I'm guessing, why she was sent there. You know, I'm really curious as to why she has to be killed. Mr. Bodyguard, I can understand. He's dangerous. But Maya? She's just...well...really ordinary."

"We have to watch out," I say, eyes narrowed. There's no way I'm going to fail. "Does this mean that she's good at killing?"

"We don't have any sources that say so. Could be. But then why would she need a bodyguard and be sent to an ultra-safe school designed for practiced killers?"

"Good question," I remark. "So who do we cover as?"

"Dr. Brigid mentioned something about you, Max, staying in the shadows since you're identical to Maya and that would rouse suspicion. I'm supposed to go out in the open and meet the rest of the kids, divert attention if needed, while you do a little skulking around. Try to avoid Mr. Bodyguard, will you?"

"Pssh," I scoff. "As if I'm going to go looking for him."

Dylan looks at me as if to say Yeah, right.

"Well, I might," I concede. "But only if I feel like it."

"You're not to be seen," Dylan warns, already shaking his head. "Meaning, you're not going to be enrolled as a student in the academy. You're going to be a silent spectator, but we'll communicate with each other at all times."

"Of course. So what's your disguise?"

When asked to find an assassin, most people won't point to the guy who's obviously lost or stupid as he meanders around, or the girl who strides across the room in heels, chatting cheerily on her cellphone while studying her nails. The trick is making sure that guy - or girl - looks different every time. We've made a grand total of four television appearances total, two of me, two of Dylan - and each time, our features are scarcely recognizable, grainy and blurred in the darkness as we escape amongst the crowd. It can't be helped, but we're pros at minimizing the risk.

"None," Dylan says simply. "I told you, these people are masters at stuff like that. They'll recognize a disguise instantly, as good as it may be. I'm better off being myself - it'll attract less suspicion that way. And that'll help me win Maya's trust, should we need it."

"Please," I scoff. "Do we really need her trust to kill her?"

"Interpersonal relations are more important than you think, Max," Dylan says earnestly, and I can't believe that such utter sappiness is coming out of the mouth of a hardened assassin. But the sad thing is, he thinks it's true. And the more I think about it, the more I realize how much his charm has worked to his advantage. He would be like the public face of our team, if we had one. He gets us in the right places, wheedles out the necessary information. I'm the one who actually does the job most of the time. Win-win situation.

But it was all while under disguise. This time, we'll be showing our true faces. At least, he will be. And the thought makes me edgy.

"So, let me get this straight," I say. "Tomorrow, we're traveling off to Ninja School, to kill a high schooler who supposedly has an invincible bodyguard protecting her, in the presence of a bunch of other ninja teenagers."

"Fun," Dylan says.

"You bet."

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