Chapter 3: Coffee and Donuts
by DJLiopleurodon
Natasha hated taking the extra time every morning to straighten her hair before sweeping it back in the too-tight, too-low ponytail. Quite a contrast from the too-tight, too-low jeans that usually accompanied her undercover gigs. She'd had assignments that were far more difficult within the city walls, but, by the end of the day, Emma gave her a headache. While she disliked the persona, it was a nice change to find herself in a place where the eyes of everyone she passed didn't assess her as an object of desire, fear, envy or conquest.
But then, for every human eye, there were at least two dead robotic eyes and a score of unseen lenses. It annoyed her that the people of this precinct seemed like good people; she didn't understand how they could go about their real lives under the government's constant scrutiny.
No way she could submit to living her whole life like that, even if it meant waking up in bed next to Clint every morning. Though that did have its appeal.
"Mmrph," he said, when she flicked on the light and tried to wake him. She pulled off his covers, smacked his bare ass and figured he'd amble into the shower soon enough.
It didn't take long for him to blearily open the glass door, jostle her aside, and turn his face up to the hot spray.
She neglected to get dressed before she began her morning ritual of frying her curls into submission with the flat iron while he tried to make up his mind if he was going to watch her from the small kitchen with the coffee maker or from the comfort of the bed.
"Go back to bed," she urged as he invaded her space to toss his towel over the shower door to dry. "Sleep in since you can." Even though she was proud to be a citizen beyond the wall, she was well aware of the privations of their lives there. Like her, Clint could sleep anywhere, eat anything, endure most any conditions and just about survive anything. But that didn't mean either of them were immune to the amenities and luxuries that the walled city provided, especially when they weren't purchasing these fleeting comforts at the expense of their civil liberties.
"Good idea." He glanced slyly at the bed and then back at her.
He kissed her neck and pulled her back against him, meeting her eyes in the mirror. She glanced regretfully at the clock but allowed herself to relax back against his warm skin and skim her nails through his hair as she anchored his mouth against the curve of her neck.
When she left the bed for the second time that morning, he stayed in the disarray of sheets.
"There's cereal in the cupboard," she said, securing the elastic tightly in her hair before buttoning an awful polyester blouse.
"Coffee?"
"Hmm. Probably."
"Probably? Fuck, Nat," he complained sleepily, managing to read her lips with his face half-buried in the pillows.
"Go back to sleep, Hawkeye. I'll update you as soon as I figure out what is up with Galasso and you can file the report."
"Do you have any extra Voce patches?"
"Yeah, I calibrated a few for you already. I'll keep my receiver on, but I'm not going to put on my other hardware unless I need to." She dropped the patches on the night stand along with the ear pieces. He fumbled for them and stuffed one in for the sake of vigilance.
"What are you going to do after you report in?"
"T gave me a list of things to bring back. He knew I'd stay."
"He give you the coin for it?" Their technical guru's formerly wealthy life sometimes meant he forgot things cost money in the real world.
"Did me one better," Clint said, reaching over the side of the bed and pulling his heavily augmented phone from the heap of clothing on the floor. He tossed it to her. "Gave me a bit-cloner."
She inspected the sleek and artfully-battered device. It exactly resembled a mid-range Lumia, last year's model, one of the ones with a bit-coin key and built-in biometrics. The digital currency system was rife with opportunities for exploitation, but these all-in-one units were practically an invitation. A clever technologist could build a bit-cloner inside a phone in a weekend. This particular one was a work of art.
"Nice. Grab any good creds?"
He smirked but didn't answer.
"How come you never bring me donuts, Emily"?
Natasha was actually startled when Clint's voice thrummed in her ear; the inflection completely natural since he could speak aloud in the relative safety of her apartment. She'd become so used to the feeling of the device and so used to being on her own here that she'd forgotten he was with her. She ducked into the ladies' room to slip on her patch and transmitter.
"Have you been listening in most of the day?"
"Well… yeah."
"That's not creepy, or anything."
"What else is there for me to do? I didn't bring anything with me. Your media library sucks. Watching the news here makes me want to shoot the screen. The other day-time shows make me want to shoot myself. You hardly have any books and nothing I'd want to read. You only have granola and almond milk in the kitchen. And I can eavesdrop and clean my weapons. And yours."
"You touched my Glocks?" Quiet murder in her voice even over the SV.
"No, no," he reassured, "I have my limits on death-defying feats. I just honed your blades a little. Chill."
A faint feedback whine.
"So, uh…. was that Connects?"
"Ugh. Yes." She hoped he heard the derision she was emphasizing for his benefit. Honestly after all she's put up with over the years, John Kennex's flat-footed little attempt at flirting had been almost cute. And she liked that he didn't seem to mind the cliche of unabashedly scarfing down the donuts. The other officers, especially the guys over 30, all seemed a bit ashamed of taking the pastries.
There was no point in opening herself up to more mockery with respect to the rugged detective and his android partner. For all the teasing about the unique DRN with the incongruous, beautiful blue eyes and polite manners, there was something appealing about this man, too.
At least, until he opened his mouth.
"How could you tell?"
"Just figured you'd be hanging around the interrogation room. They got him in there?"
"Yeah. Looks like they just finished up. Glass looked transparent the whole time. Seemed like they were leaning on him a bit, and the kid looked pretty freaked out at one point. But he's back to looking like a smug little bastard again. So maybe we can get him tonight after all."
"Looks like I'm in town for another day," a self-satisfied smile in his voice. She knew he'd been bullshitting last night about not planning to stay. "I'm going out for coffee. On Connects."
"You bit-cloned him? That's stupid, Clint. Don't do that. Don't underestimate them. They are dangerous. I have about 25 sets of credentials you can use. I even have one for your current cover."
"It's not my fault that he carried his own creds into their little op last night. I'm not getting anything big; just some stuff that's so trivial that its not worth it to go through our regular channels. It won't trigger an alert until way after I'm gone."
"They will be getting wise to it soon. That type of bit-cloner was part of what we auctioned off a few months ago to refill the coffers. I heard the buyer resold it to Insyndicate. Captain was pissed."
In his silence, she heard 'I'm going to do it anyway.' Clint was a big boy; he could take care of himself. At worst, he would burn his current identity when the cameras caught him. This long in the city, it was probably time for him to do so anyway.
"You are getting Tony booze, aren't you?"
"Um, maybe. And coffee. And some actual food."
Clint had filed his report, taken the longest shower of his life and even made the bed and washed his clothes. He was sitting around, trying not to get gun oil on her pink bathrobe (which he sincerely hoped was something she picked up when she was creating her "Emma from IT" identity and not something more worrisome; namely that she had wanted a fluffy pink bathrobe) when he contacted her via the SV.
He considered her caution and decided to use a different bit-clone at each of the different retailers he was going to patronize.
But Connects was still going to buy him coffee.
And a donut.
Or two.
Dressed in civies, a baseball cap and not-too-dark glasses, he felt pretty inconspicuous, but not conspicuously inconspicuous. His first stop was at the biggest, busiest of the premium coffee shops. He had decided to only use his stolen bits at the big corporations. He knew that was a massive rationalization and recognized the hypocrisy of being charged with keeping the peace in the sector nearest the wall and then coming over to this side and behaving like a common criminal. However, after listening to Connects ineptly hitting on Tasha, he was really looking forward to this coffee.
He thumbed the key and scrolled through his various identities until he found John Kennex. When he waved his phone over the reader, it transmitted the bits and Kennex's biometrics. Capitalism inched forward and no one had to touch anything as crude as money.
He liberally applied sugar and cream to the steaming cup, marveling at the seemingly endless supply of both commodities.
Goddamn, he missed having regular access to good coffee and real cow's milk.
He knew better than to linger around a "crime scene" so he travelled several blocks and set about collecting the items on Tony's list. Finally, he stopped at a small grocery store and used the credentials of a chrome stock-broker to buy steaks, some vegetables and potatoes. His cooking skills were limited, but this was the meal being prepared on the one morning cooking show he'd tried to watch before giving up on TV. It didn't look that hard and it would give him something to do this afternoon.
"David Archer?"
The stiff MX approached from the right. Clint glanced down the alley to his left and calculated how many steps it would take to reach that fire escape. From there, he could draw his bow and take on as many MXs and drones as they threw at him. Ten blocks to the nearest passage back beyond the wall.
He could easily evade one MX and could probably take out two before he needed his weapons. A few more MXs approached, all with guns drawn. All repeating the same phrase at slightly different times. His quiver was full of bolts made from a compound specifically designed to combat MXs. The material had proven too volatile for bullets, but a small amount of it on an arrow head had a devastating effect on the automatons. He was dying to try it in the field.
However, when he saw the fifth MX and the two armed drones, he decided that losing his 'David Archer' identity, his bit-cloner and his arsenal was preferable to the city-wide alert that would ensue by the time he made it back to the wall. No amount to video scrubbing would allow him to be able to enter the city ever again. Like Tony, he'd be permanently regulated to the other side.
Fine. Surrender it was, then. It was a bitter pill to swallow. Especially when he'd been aching for an opportunity to do some actual damage. And he had really wanted to take on a bunch of MXs and show those smug bastards how misplaced their faith in those damn things were. He could show them what real human ingenuity could do.
He was confident in his cover and knew that the SV looked so much like a standard hearing aid, they wouldn't even give it a second glance once they saw partial deafness on David Archer's record. Tasha would be able to get him released and would have yet another thing to remind him of next time she was telling him not to be an idiot.
Great. He needed more of those.
He dropped the shopping bags and raised his hands.
"Hey, guys," he said to the MXs.
