Intermission: The Queen

A woman sat alone in a hotel room, fixing her nails. They had to be sharp, just in case, but also couldn't be explicitly dangerous so as to avoid suspicion. Never a moment wasted, even when waiting for her most important of messages, of which she must acknowledge immediately. Failure to do so, would mean the monitor would never again send its messages. Sure, she's next to her monitor, but that doesn't mean she can't use this time in other ways. If she finished with her nails, she would perform her third workout of the day, never building any muscles that would detract from her beauty. Efficiency. Never a moment wasted. Every action deliberate and intended to advance a goal. On her desk are what can most simply be described as a dubious array of objects few other women would own.

First, on the far edge of the desk lay a machine somewhat resembling a mannequin bust. A female mannequin's. Laid on top of it, a membrane covering the face, is a fleshy material. The machine is manipulating the structure of the flesh material, forcing it into a new shape. A new face. The woman would need it later. The device hums as machines do, and the woman counts the seconds down until it produces her new face, so that she can dismantle the device and pack it up. The truth was that the woman felt naked without that membrane over her face. The person she is without it is irrelevant, no matter how well... sculpted her body is.

Next to the device was a small printer, editing the electronic pages of her unusual passport. The face the device was creating printed upon it and her new name, her new self would be on it. The person she was before would cease to exist.

The aforementioned monitor is actually composed of several parts and must be assembled by the woman by hand, so as to allow her to travel without arousing suspicion. A game console, a charging dock, a phone, and the monitor itself, a common tablet. If disassembled and reassembled in a certain way, the woman is able to take these seemingly innocuous objects and build her extremely secure communication device in the comfort of her hotel room. One of the perks of the woman's job is her absurdly disposable income.

The most suspicious object of all on the woman's desk are, of course, her weapons. Knives, multiple (small) firearms, needles, and phials of (assuming you have been paying attention) are most likely poisons of varying capacities. She was more than capable of killing without them, but tools exist to assist. Just as the plumber needs a wrench, the woman needs

On the woman's bed behind her are various pieces of equipment designed to be worn between layers of clothing (or under it). She wouldn't have need of them today, so they'll go in her suitcase, which lay open next to it. The suitcase, if opened at the airport, would get the woman arrested immediately. The poisons, explosives, and the firearms she's about to pack therein are illegal to own, let alone travel with internationally, as the woman would be doing, of course. The suitcase itself, while seemingly ordinary, was designed to create a false image in any airline imaging software that would show ordinary traveling women's things. The kinds of things that a man would feel embarrassed going through.

And as the woman finished sharpening her claws, her monitor showed the message the woman had so longed to see, which she acknowledged immediately with her password, of course. "Morning, Queen," were plastered on the screen, "your current cover, which has fulfilled its mission, will die today." This didn't surprise the woman. Someone else would be producing the cover identity's ****, which would implicate a different organization than the one that hired the woman and her team. This would obfuscate her client's involvement and advance them more than the actual actions of the woman anyway. "Your plane ticket has been sent to your mobile, Queen. Your client is one Margaret Cordelion, the brand new head of a small syndicate. You are to meet with her personally. Apparently her mission for you can not be explained electronically, even on a secure line."

The woman, Queen, rolled her eyes. Usually when a client wants to meet with her, it's a man who wants to undress her with his eyes. Not that such things bothered her, so much as she had grown bored by the routine of it. No, she wasn't bothered by anything anymore. Being bothered after what she had done and had done to her was hardly becoming of her. She'd do any job, no matter how dirty, then go home and put her feet up. But when a woman wants to meet with her in person, it's far closer to bothersome. They usually want to meet in person because of some misplaced sense of camaraderie between "us women". What a joke. The only women who get into this world are spiders and saints. The saints are women who find themselves in shit they can't wade through. They're innocent and in over their head, maybe they're like miss Cordelion and are brand new heads of a mob. No matter the reason, they're annoying. They have to be coddled and never quite get to the point. They hire Queen in order to solve their problem for them, not stopping to realize they need to be a little specific. Queen's a professional, she doesn't have time to try and divine how her client wants to be okay with ****. The spiders, while not as bad, are a large reason why Queen is so cynical. They're always wolves in sheep's clothing. They claim to be innocent at first like their saintly sisters, but they're rotten to the core. Working for rotten people is why Queen never takes a job from the same client twice. For a woman to want to meet her personally, that could only mean she's either about to coddle some girl who's in over her head or a girl who is trying to exploit her. Either way...

Queen softened her breathing. She was getting annoyed. Emotions were her enemy. It was because of moments like these that Queen discarded her original self. Meditation and discipline. No mind control was perfect, and the hypnosis she performed on herself regularly to prevent herself from being that helpless little girl anymore was the same way. She had properly trained her mind to become Queen in all facets of her life. If a mark or a rival organization ever attempted to mind control her, they would meet with failure, as Queen was already a defense mechanism preventing people from ever working their way into her mind ever again.

The machine stopped its humming. The woman's new face and identity were set. Now, according to the self-updating passport, the woman was.... Mathilda Connick. Yet again Queen would be white and the little Japanese girl would be lost further to time. She had properly trained herself into no longer being herself. She no longer thought in Japanese, practiced its cultures, nor enjoyed its food. She had been a white girl so many times that she felt uncomfortable as she did now, looking up at the mirror in front of her. Seeing the picturesque Japanese beauty in front of her, with its perfect naked figure and its tall (for an ethnically Japanese woman) body. That was a foreign person in front of her, not who Mathilda was. She put the mask on and adhered it to her face. After a moment, it grew accustomed to her face's movements and the two properly became one. Quee-no... Mathilda performed some facial exercises to test it, until she was satisfied. She donned a wig, a wonderful strawberry blond which she showered often.

Mathilda then took out her phone and opened a dating app. Well, it looked like a dating app, but in actuality in one of the settings it allowed her to manipulate various sound sliders. Mathilda performed some vocal exercises while manipulating the sound levels. The surgical implant replacing her original vocal chords manipulated in length and thickness until Mathilda's new voice revealed itself. A beautiful face, soft hair, a flawless porcelain body, and an angelic voice. These are all that anyone would see if they saw Mathilda right now.

Mathilda got dressed as she created her new accent. Mathilda was American, after all, and she had to sell the image perfectly. Her clothing was casual, yet sexy. Designed to turn heads but for every reason than suspicion. Her accent was sexy, her movements ditzy. Designed to appear as the furthest thing from a dangerous assassin. Mathilda was created to compel idiotic men into thinking they can fuck and exploit her.

Mathilda finished packing and headed to the airport, which she passed through without incident and boarded her flight first class. Whatever this Margaret Cordelion needed from the woman, no doubt she was like all of Mathilda's other clients. A woman thrust into a position of power in a men's world. No doubt she was afraid of men. She's jumping at shadows, perhaps she thinks even her own subordinates circle like sharks to take power from her. And so, not trusting the men whom are supposedly in her employ, she outsources to Queen, a hitwoman with whom she can identify. Or she wants to manipulate her, entrap her in a scenario where she must work for miss Cordelion for free. Whatever the case, it always involved a job. She would no doubt be asked to kill or steal or destabilize some other man and secure Margaret's position. So she would help, for a price of course. Everything always has a price.