"Where to?"
"Uptown. I'll tell you when we get there."
The taxi driver looked into the back seat. His passenger had brown hair, long on the sides, and a goatee. His eyes looked like he could look right through him. His T-shirt was wearing thin. The driver looked over his shoulder.
"Is there a problem?" the passenger asked.
"You got cash? You look like you don't have two nickels to rub together."
The passenger fidgeted. He boosted himself up, dug into his pocket, and brought out a wad of mixed cash. "Can we go or am I going to find another cab?"
"Sure thing, buddy. No hard feelings. You never know in this neighborhood."
"I get it."
The cab peeled out. Smith sat back down, letting go of the pistol he'd reached for where the driver couldn't see.
A month had passed. Smith had found a hair stylist and a helpful girl at a consignment shop who picked clothes for him. The humiliation of asking a human power source for help was nothing compared to his fear of the other agents, not to mention his disgust for smells. He kept it simple. Smith realized his code was expanding; he was learning.
The cab crossed from downtown to midtown.
"Did you catch the game last night?" Smith asked.
"Fuckin' sucked. I can't believe the Angels blew that game."
"I lost twenty bucks on those guys. A friend of mine's a Tigers fan."
"They'll get 'em tonight."
Smith didn't care about the Angels or the Tigers. He was practicing his communication skills.
The cabbie hit the gas and jogged them around a traffic snarl behind a bus. He made the next traffic light, cutting off a truck trying to make a turn. The trucker leaned on his horn.
"Nice moves," Smith said. Not really. The cabbie nodded. Smith nodded too. The human believed him. He felt more like an agent than he had as an agent.
"All right, this is uptown. Where are we going?"
A bomb went off less than a block ahead of them on the left. Windows shattered. Debris hit their cab. The cabbie pinned his brakes, throwing Smith against the front seat. Other cars screeched to a stop too. Smith heard screams all around him.
"We're here," Smith said. He tossed a twenty into the front seat and bolted from the cab. He blended into the crowd. Everywhere people were running away. He stood near someone close to his height, and imitated someone standing on their toes. They tried to see what was happening. Smith was looking for agents.