“Okay, so we’ve have tried blowing him up?”

The twitchy assistant with a clipboard and headset flipped through his papers. Sighing, he nodded. “Yes, three times.”

“Three?” The person whom I assumed was the executive producer grunted in frustration. She took a long sip of her coffee as she stared at me. From my cell’s uncomfortable chair, I sat and stared back at her before I gave her a small shrug. “Okay,” she drew the word out as she thought it over. “Gun of some kind?”

The assistant flipped through his notes again. “Yes, many different types.”

The producer rolled her eyes. “God. Okay, I’m just going to list off a bunch of things, and you tell me if we’ve tried them or not. I don’t want to spend another day like yesterday trying to figure it all out.”

The assistant nodded and changed their stance to something resembling a fighter’s stance. “Okay, ready when you are.”

Taking in a deep breath all the while staring me down, she began, “Hanging.”

“Yes.”

“Downing?”

“Yes.”

“Wild animal attack?”

“Multiple.”

“Including a be…”

“Yes, including a bear, tiger, lion triple attack.”

“Gladiator style?”

“Yes, he won by attrition. The rest of the fighters passed out from fatigue after hitting him repeatedly with their weapons.”

“Shit. Okay, military weapons?”

“Of all grades and types excluding nuclear. We decided even he wasn’t worth the literal fallout.”

“Fuck.” She finished her coffee and chucked it into the trashcan nearby. “Death by overeating?”

“We tried force feeding him. It was like that episode of The Simpsons when Homer goes to hell.”

“Oh yes, I remember that now.” The producer groaned. “That one was more expensive than we anticipated; let’s not do that again.” Throwing her hands up in disgust, she finally approached my cell. “Well?”

I stared dumbly at her for a moment before I realized she was addressing me directly. “Well what?”

“Do YOU have any ideas?” She rolled her eyes at me.

“In how to kill me?” I laughed at her. It couldn’t be helped. “Lady, I’ve been trying to figure that out myself for at least a couple hundred years. As best as I can tell, the answer is you can’t.”

“Well that just fucking sucks,” she yelled, turning angrily to her assistant. “Do you hear that? We CAN’T kill this guy. What the hell are we supposed to do with him? Our audience has been watching him survive attempt after attempt for weeks now. At this rate, the edging is so bad I’m afraid they’re going to revolt and demand I take his place just so they can get some release.”

“Uh, w-well…” her assistant began as they pulled out a sheet of paper from their clipboard and handed it over. “It would seem our ratings are actually up.”

“What? Give me that.” She snatched the offered paper and looked over the data. “Huh, who would’ve thought.” Turning back to me, she held the sheet up for me to see. “Seems like the audience is really into seeing you survive these attacks. You’re gaining a little bit of a cult following even. Listen, how would you like to stay here with us and just keep doing this for a little bit?”

I’d heard this before. I had actually been a gladiator, and that didn’t end well once the people got tired of me winning. “And when they tire of me? What then?”

She handed the sheet back to the assistant and shrugged at me. “This is TV. We’ll fake your death. It’s pretty clear we can’t kill you, and I’m willing to bet if we locked you up somewhere you’d eventually get out.”

“I’ve been known to outlast a prison or two, yeah,” I said with a chuckle. “If you live long enough, the walls will eventually literally crumble around you. You just have to be patient.”

“Okay, so you stay with us as our hero, we all work together on scenarios, we set you up some place cush between shows, pay you a couple of hundred thousand an episode, and, when it’s time to fake your death, we send you wherever you want.”

“After I sign all the NDAs and contracts you have in mind?” I smirked. This could be fun. It’d certainly be different from my past few hundred years.

“I knew you were a smart one,” she said with a smirk of her own. “Deal?”

“Maybe. Bring me the documents and proposals to look over, and I’ll let you know.” Leaning back in my chair, I glanced around my cell as if taking it in for the first time. “If I don’t like what I see, I’ll just… sit here.”

“That’s the first time that threat has ever been effective,” she said with a light chuckle. After she directed her assistant to get an immediate meeting with legal, she ran a critical eye over me for what felt like the millionth time. “You’re taking this all in stride well. It doesn’t bother you what we’re doing here?”

“I’ve lived a very long time. I’ve seen humanity do some really fucked up things to itself in that time. This? This is nothing compared to the horrors I’ve witnessed, and this at least is contained and not likely to become something popular among the masses. When the masses get their claws into something, that’s when it all really gets bloody, so, no, this doesn’t bother me.”

She nodded at my words, her mind clearly thinking back on something, probably her world history knowledge. “Okay, then, fair enough. So, if we’re going to work together, I think we should at least be on a first name basis. You already know mine.”

“Janet,” I said with sly smile.

She smiled brightly. “Yes, and you are…?”

Standing from my chair, I let out a long, annoyed sigh. “Cain.”