I frowned when Tracy didn't continue.

"Well?"

"Right, okay." Her avatar sighed theatrically. An image of a man in a suit appeared on the screen. Alongside it, another image appeared, a person wearing a snake-adorned costume.

"Thomas Calvert, otherwise known as Coil. He wants to talk to you."

It took me a moment to remember when I had heard those names before. I snapped my fingers, "the one with the backdoor into the local PRT."

"And the Undersiders' boss. Yes."

"And that." I frowned again, "What do you mean he wants to talk?"

"He… somehow figured out he was being monitored, but it's not just that." she started, "He knows what technology you're looking for and he wants to offer something."

I quirked an eyebrow. That was… intriguing. And more than a little annoying. I couldn't afford random people figuring out what I was doing. I was doing something important here. Important and dangerous. Countermeasures. I needed better countermeasures.

"We can ignore it… pretend we didn't hear his message?"

"What was his power again?"

The avatar winced, "We don't know."

I leaned back in my seat. Now that was really annoying.

I bit my lip. The how and the why mattered little at the moment. If he had already figured out what I wanted, pretending wouldn't do much good. If he could help, I would take it. It might even be a safer alternative to what I had in mind. And regardless, I could make up my mind after talking to the man. There was no need to presume too much. It wasn't like too much time would be lost by a simple conversation.

"Alright," I licked my lips, "how are we going to talk?"

"I can set up a connection right now."

"Oh?" Just how compromised were we? "Fine, do it." Better to get this over with sooner rather than later. Then if it wasn't what I wanted it to be, I could return to what I was doing before.

Thirty seconds later, the masked face of Thomas Calvert appeared on the screen of my laptop. I smiled as politely as I could.

It took the man a few seconds to begin the conversation by clearing his throat.

"Miss Hebert, it's nice to… see you even if it's from behind a screen."

I smiled tightly, "Likewise, Mr. Calvert. But let's cut the pleasantries. I'm on a tight schedule here."

"Of course, of course," the man steepled his fingers, "I have… heard from my sources that you may be looking for technologies that could manipulate… the fabric of reality, such as teleportation and… tools to create pocket dimensions? I believe I could help if that's the case."

"That's very interesting," I replied with no sarcasm, "Well, I'm sure having access to something like that would be useful for my line of work. I could do it myself, of course. But any insights I would gain from tinker-tech would be invaluable."

I would not ask the man for his sources. That would only demonstrate weakness. That, of course, didn't mean I wouldn't look for them later.

The man on the other side nodded.

"Are you familiar with Uber and Leet?"

I felt my eyebrows rising high. "Those clowns? They have the technology to create pocket dimensions?"

Now that was just insulting. I was tempted to try my hand at doing it myself right fucking now, safety be damned.

"If rumors are to be believed, Leet's powers give him the ability to create anything he might want, much like your own." Un-fucking-believable, "With the added caveat that his technology can be unreliable."

My eyes slid toward Tracy's avatar. She shook her head. Great. More knowledge that the man couldn't possibly have access to, and could be pulling out of his ass for all I knew.

"What's your price?" I asked.

"Just a bit of a discount on your next products."

"Fair enough." I replied immediately. My products were already far too overpriced, considering everything. A discount didn't mean much when I would still get enough resources in exchange to get things done.

"Well then. I will give you the address to Leet's cache of tinker-tech, if you would write it down…"

I let Tracy do the "writing down". When the conversation was done, and before the inevitable protest, I got up from my seat.

"I'm going."

"Taylor! Come on. You can't trust this asshole."

I huffed. There it was. "And why would he be lying?"

"I don't know! There could be a million reasons."

I rolled my eyes, "You're just paranoid."

"And you're vulnerable, dumbass."

I stared at the furious-looking avatar of the AI I had created to help me.

Huh.

I took a deep breath and sat back down.

"Okay, let's go through my reasoning. You point out the flaws. Alright?"

It took a long moment but Tracy eventually nodded.

"Okay, let's start from the purely logical. There could or could not be a cache of tinker-tech at that address. Best case there is, I find what I want and we get a head-start. Worst case—"

"Worst case, it's a trap and you die."

"I- wha- I don—" I paused. Wow, that was really paranoid, "Why would there—"

"I don't know. It's the worst case, isn't it?"

I raised a hand to my forehead, already feeling the burgeoning headache.

"Fine," I relented, "Fine. Worst case," I breathed out, "for some reason, it's a trap."

I looked at the self-satisfied avatar.

"You do realize that with that logic, everything everywhere could be a trap, right?"

"The difference is that you don't need to do this."

Can't argue with that.

I pushed myself up from my seat and grabbed the bottle of water that sat on the desk. What had gotten into Tracy today?

"How about this?" I started after I took a sip of the warm water, "I… prepare as much as possible before going in?"

"I still think going in is unnecessary."

I frowned at the screen. Was there something I was missing here?

I took another breath, "Listen, it's either this, or I'm breaching the wormhole today." I tapped my skull, "I need to do… something. This is too much helplessness, Tracy. I can't just…" I trailed off.

"Is there any particular reason you distrust Coil this much? I mean, logically, it would be against his own interests to set up a trap here…" I narrowed my eyes at Tracy's avatar, which stood uncharacteristically still.

I waited for her response. One second, two seconds, three seconds.

"Tracy?" I prompted.

"I don't have any evidence. I just have this…"

"What?" I prompted again after the silence stretched.

"I know it doesn't make any sense. I just have this sense that something's off here."

Huh.

I leaned back in my seat. The one fundamental difference between any truly intelligent being and an automaton was the former's ability to recognize complex patterns. Intelligence, of course, didn't necessarily mean the creature who had discovered a pattern could actually, properly, explain it to another. That didn't mean the pattern wouldn't hold true. It also didn't mean it necessarily would. An intelligent being could still overgeneralize or hold false assumptions.

Tracy probably hadn't fallen that deep into those pitfalls. I had designed and built her with the express purpose of minimizing the probability of that happening to her. She had her reasons for what she said. She probably also recognized that any 'evidence' she had was probably too tangential to prove anything. Yet, if she still 'felt' so strongly on the matter, then…

"Alright. I trust you."

"Really?" her astonished avatar was really cute. I smiled in response.

"Yes," I leaned my head backwards, letting my eyes wander toward the ceiling, "but you do realize why I can't pass up on this opportunity, right?"

It took a long moment but eventually…

"I do." came the grudging reply.

"Great," I leaned back up, knowing that a wide smile had appeared on my face, "Let's spend a few hours planning more countermeasures then. Something to defeat the wildest traps anyone could imagine. Hmm?"

Lisa woke up to the ringing of her phone.

With a groan, she reached over and picked it up, silencing it as she rubbed her eyes. It was midnight. She knew it was well into midnight. Who the fuck—

She groaned again even before she saw the name on the screen.

"Hello?" she answered sleepily.

"Hello! My dear friend Liz- uh- Lisa!"

"Why do you sound so excited?" Lisa asked drowsily.

An operation. A chance to finally use her—

Lisa cut the thought-process, she didn't really care.

"I was wondering if I could borrow the pretty boy for the night?"

What the fuck—

Wants to do it alone. Doesn't want help. Has to ask for an assistant because of someone else's insistence—

Oh right.

She let her head drop back on the pillow.

"I'll ask him."

"Great! Call back very soon!"

Lisa sighed as she hung up the phone, and with a herculean effort pushed away her blanket.

"He's here."

I stopped fiddling with my clothes as I looked up at the screen. I could already feel the adrenaline rushing into my bloodstream. It had been difficult to discreetly get away from home with dad so restless and awake. This was going to be a piece of cake in comparison.

"Let him in." I ordered as I walked toward the other desk, which hosted the equipment I would carry with myself for the night. I would be vastly overprepared, though I didn't really dislike the idea.

The door shut behind me as I turned. And was faced with a certain masked and costumed supervillain.

"So, what's the mission, boss?" the boy asked in a playful tone.

I just grinned at him, "Take that thing off."

I turned to the desk and picked up one of the two identical masks that sat there. A full facial white mask with no apparent holes for the eyes.

"This," I turned and tossed him the mask, "will be much better."

There was a pause after he caught it, but the boy eventually took off his mask and with a curious look observed the one I had given him.

He looked back at me, then at my desk, his eyebrows quirked, "I haven't said I'll help you yet."

I rolled my eyes, "Come here," I turned back to the desk to pick up yet another thing to give my accomplice, "Wear this armband, it might save your life."

He frowned as he took it out of my hands.

"Not that it would be necessary. It's all because a certain friend," I glanced toward Tracy, "is really protective."

"What's—"

"The mission," I interrupted as I turned back to him, "We go to a warehouse, steal some tinker-tech and come back safely. One- Two hours max. Easy."

"Cool," though he narrowed his eyes, "what do I get in exchange?"

"Wear the mask," I grinned again, "Come on."

With another suspicious look at me, he put on the mask. It took him a few moments to properly put it on, and a few more to grasp what exactly he was looking at.

"Woah," his voice sounded different from behind the mask, just as expected.

I let him marvel at his surroundings for a few seconds before making my offer.

"Yeah, you can keep that."

He turned back to me, "I mean," he pointed at the mask he wore, "this is amazing but I don—"

Goddamn annoying.

"How about this? If it was any more difficult than simply going in and out and carrying a few things, I'll… build you one thing. Anything. As long as it doesn't take me more than a day."

He tilted his head, I could almost see the smirk behind the mask, "Deal."