What Do We Do Now?
"Maybe you could wear a mask" she suggested. "And a cape" she added with a straight face.
"I'm not wearing Lycra" he said defiantly and she choked on her beer as she imagined the portly detective in traditional superhero garb.
Despite the levity they were discussing a serious matter: how to organise themselves to save the numbers when there was just the 2 of them. The stumbling block was the same one that had stopped them telling him the big picture sooner than they had: he had a normal life. He had a job, family, friends, and relationships but the others were ghosts: she and Reese were officially dead and Finch and Root had so many aliases that it amounted to the same thing. It only needed a bad guy to see him helping her and later recognise him at the precinct or court house and his secret would be revealed to all. Neither of them felt ready to bring in new faces so soon after losing three of the team.
"I want to be doing more to help" he repeated, looking at her with concern "You're not looking great, you know. You can't do it all on your own". He looked down and inspected his finger nails "Maybe the best thing is to stop being a cop"
"What!" she exclaimed "You like being a cop. You're good at it too"
"Thanks but you know that part of the problem - a big part - is that I'm a public servant so I'm on public view. An ex-cop would be less... visible"
She pinched her lower lip, thinking "Hmm, while you're a cop you can at least run interference on my/our activities. You're able to keep up to date with any FBI stuff as well. We'd lose all that intel if you left"
He grinned "Maybe not. We work for the most advanced computer system in the world - maybe it's time the Machine did all that sort of thing for us. Plus the stuff Finch used to do"
She frowned "Harold was one of us and he usually had our interests in mind. I'm not sure the Machine is the same - it's not human and it's a lot more independent since he and Root rebuilt it and took off a lot of Harold's restrictions. I know that he was very nervous about what direction it would take after they did that"
"If I stay on the force" he said sombrely "We'll need to review the kneecap policy. Dead bad guys would reduce the risk for us in 1 way. On the other hand a vigilante serial killer or two would stir things up, both in the PD and the media - we'd never keep a lid on it. The 'man in the suit' was tolerated because he didn't make too many waves, the 'girl in the suit' would not be treated like that if she left a trail of dead bodies all over New York"
"Yeah, can you imagine the heat if we'd killed all those HR, Russian, Elias, Brotherhood, Samaritan, etc. goons instead of just disabling them? Not just from you cops but from the criminals too"
"It gives me nightmares just thinking about it. Elias's empire is splitting too - no one's got his smarts to keep it together; not with his guys, Bruce and Anthony, gone too. That means more turf wars, more bodies, more numbers"
"Maybe we should take over, with the Machine's help of course"
He looked seriously at her "That's not a bad idea. If we controlled things there'd be less mayhem - we'd stop numbers before they even became numbers, if you see what I mean"
She looked askance at him "You're kidding, I hope: if we got involved in criminal activities that would expose us to all sorts of problems. I had a phase of that before the Stock Exchange thing and they're not the sort of people I want to work with again"
"Just throwing ideas about. Do you want another beer?"
"I won't say no"
He returned from the bar with a new idea "Instead of me stopping being a cop, maybe you could start being one. I need a new partner after Riley; and the Machine can fix it for you just like him. That way we'd both have legitimate reasons to catch bad guys and save numbers"
She looked thoughtful "I don't know much about police procedure but neither did Reese. Won't it look funny if you get another oddball partner from the Drug Squad?"
He grinned "I was thinking more like Vice, actually. Might be tricky at first but once the arrests start the Captain will be happy"
"What about psych tests? I'm not exactly wired like normal people, you know that"
"Now that might be a challenge" he frowned "Can you fake normal? What about before you worked with us?"
"Hey, they didn't care about that" she said airily "In fact it was an advantage in their eyes. What about that shrink who was hot for Reese, can we use her in some way?"
"Hmm, anyone medical usually has morals - Hippocratic oath and all that"
She snapped her fingers "We're idiots: the Machine will give us any answers we need for that sort of thing"
Relief came over his face "Yeah, you're right… I hope"
She had a sudden thought "What about Bear? If I'm a cop I can't look after him while I'm at work and he wouldn't like a stranger"
An idea came to him "K9 Unit" he said "Bear's been invalided out and you've both transferred to Homicide. Better make it a different city though, you could run across an NYPD dog handler who might see through the story"
"That might work" she agreed.
"I like it more and more" he said enthusiastically "That way I can keep an eye on you, make sure you don't get into trouble" She looked offended "I can take care of myself" she said with a huff.
"Of course you can but neither of us has back-up now – no Reese or Root or even Finch. Unless we work together officially. I, uh… figure to lose some weight too, so I can chase bad guys better"
"Hmm, let's sleep on it. Can I crash at your place?"
"My couch is yours, Miss"
"Your bed is more comfortable, Detective"