Chapter #5Prelude to a Stakeout--1 by: Seuzz   Note: This storyline contains massive spoilers for the branch that begins with "A Stakeout"  . I strongly recommend you read that one to the end before reading this one. For further background on the storyline that begins here, read "The Four Musketeers"
"Fuck. The things I do in this job."
You kick the hotel room door closed and totter into the room proper. You slipped your high heels off in the elevator, and now you drop them on the floor.
Joe, clad only in a pair of khaki trousers while sprawling on the bed, looks at you over top of his reading pad. "Fucking is one of the best things you do in this job," he grins.
With a snort you plop onto the edge of the bed and lift the long tresses that drape down the back of your neck. "Unzip me, please. And no hanky-panky. I have fingerprints and worse to wash off, so I'm not in the mood." Joe obliges, and also unclasps the bra for you. You stand, and from the corner of your eye watch in the mirror as the chunky girl with the heavy mascara and green eye-shadow wiggles out of the retro-mod, one-piece dress with the psychedelic colors and patterns.
But you wait until you're in the bathroom before peeling off the panties and letting the bra slip off. You start some bath water and wrap a flimsy robe about you, and lean in to study yourself in the mirror: a fat face with pouty lips, though cute in a kewpie kind of way; certainly it worked on the mark. You peel off the fake eyelashes and squeeze some cream onto your face, scrubbing it hard before washing it and the makeup off. One of your glue-on nails nicks you in the cheek; muttering with frustration you rip them all off. Stupid, fucking honeypot. It's not enough to get into the female flesh, you've got to get into the fake flesh as well. Malaika teases you that at least one of your disguises is going to need collagen injections and breast implants if it's going to be convincing. But you're not ready to get that deep into a character, not yet.
The bathwater is insanely hot, but you let the tub fill halfway before shutting it off; you'll let it steep for a while before filling it the rest of the way. You flush the toilet—a habit like that can slip if you don't maintain it, which would be bad for the illusions you have to cast—and let your head sink briefly as you throw off one imago and wrap yourself in another. "Daisy," you call this new form, for there's a simplicity to her blonde hair and milk-and-cream complexion; but there's also a raw toughness under her green virginity. You put on this form when you want men to chew at you without being able to break you. So it's a good form to wear around Joe. It sends a message and stops him from making insolent requests.
He knows it, too, and groans when you sit on the bed next to him. "Where's the girl I checked in with?"
"She'll be back if someone knocks. Or maybe not, maybe I'll just get in the tub. You can touch me if you want, though."
"What's the use in that," he says, but rubs your back with his palm. "But you can touch me too, if you want."
You look over your shoulder at him. His bare chest is broad and hairless and well-defined, and so are his abs. His shoulders and biceps are similarly smooth and rounded without being gross. "That's okay, you're already too stuck up about yourself without my encouragement."
"True, and that's why it's safe to flatter me," he says. "I already can't think better of myself, so you don't have to worry you're puffing me up." He turns onto his side and strokes you more firmly. "Why don't you let me help you feel better about yourself?"
You hide your face and make another quick change, then turn his own wide smile back on him. "You already taught me the quickest way to feeling good about myself, Joe."
"Fucker," he growls, yanking his hand back and hopping away.
But you chase him. "Don't you want to kiss yourself, Joe? You know how awesome it is." You jump across the bed as he leaps off the other side. "I used your face to get that one girl in Dusseldorf, and that other girl on the big island in Hawaii, and—"
"Stop it! There's too much of a good thing, which is me, and then there's twice as much of too much of a good thing, which is—!" He stops as your giggle turns girlish again. "Thank you." And then, since he can't remember one moment into the next when he's got a girl in his bed, he hops back onto it with you. "And when I said I wanted to help you feel good, I meant—"
"Alright, if you want to try," you sigh, and fall onto your back. You undo the robe and open Daisy's naked body to him. "But don't expect me to do any work, and don't unzip or unbutton anything of your own. Just an all-over-massage."
"Rrmm. Thanks." He hunches over you and gently fits his hands around your torso. He buries his face in your breastbone and lightly kisses it.
You just close your eyes and shut out the rest of the world, and dredge up the mind and memories you stole from the man you slept with last night. It's very bad news, and you spend a very long time digesting it, so that when you open your eyes again it's much later, and Joe has his arms and legs wrapped about you, and is snoring softly in your ear.
* * * * *
Two weeks later.
You're sitting in the back room of a Glaswegian pub. It's small and cramped and airless, and it smells of gasoline; but it's secure. Frank reserved it, for Frank doesn't trust Hal Swann's idea of security: "When Hal wants to keep a secret, he slaps some masking tape across his mouth," he complains.
So you and Frank and Joe and Hal drifted in separately; and after slipping on Hal's jacket and face you made a great show of leaving before doubling back in yet another form. Steve Patterson is the last to arrive, having made this trip special from Amsterdam. "Malaika's given us the green light," he says as he pulls up a chair. "Blitz 'em, sack 'em, and burn 'em to the ground."
"Brilliant!" Hal exclaims.
Frank asks if she put any restrictions on the job. "No casualties, if at all possible," Steve replies.
"What's that mean?" Hal laughs. "Fewer than what Rick and Miko left when they pulled the Churchman girl out of—?"
"It means no casualties, Hal" Frank says. "That was a raid. We've got time to plan this one. How long?"
Everyone turns to you. "They've only made a theoretical breakthrough," you tell them. "If you asked that researcher, he'd say a year to a working prototype, then maybe another six months to a final design."
"Plenty of time, then," Frank says. He turns back to Patterson. "What's the end point?"
"We have carte blanche," your supervisor replies. When no one says anything, he adds, "If it's up to me, I say we take them down to nothing."
"That sounds pretty extreme," you say.
"Will's right," Frank says after exchanging an uneasy glance with Joe. "When Dad was running things, our Fane policy was to hedge and harass them only. We don't want to splinter them into cells we can't keep track of."
"I know," Patterson says. "Charles and I spent a lot of time talking. You have to trust me I'm being consistent with what he'd have said."
"So what do you mean when you say 'taking them down to nothing'?"
"Trim them back to the root, so that they have to start over again. Destroy Diana's technical knowledge, their institutional knowledge. Eliminate their personnel."
"How do we do that without casualties?" Joe asks.
"I don't know," Steve confesses. "But we have a year to figure it out." He turns to you. "For the next three months, your job is to get as deep inside Diana as you can. That's your job too, Hal."
"Am I reporting to you, then?" Swann asks. His tone is innocent, which always means trouble with Hal.
"No," Patterson says. "I just figure it's a job you'd really like."
"Oh, you spoil me," Hal grins.
"We'll talk again in four weeks, after you've done a serious recon," Patterson says. "But we want to get everything. Will, that means the scientists, the executives, the secretaries, the operatives. Hal? The comms, computer systems, utilities—"
"Gonna be a trick," Hal says. "Mimir's getting good. Even their outer systems are making me sweat these days."
"Will you need physical access?"
"In some cases, yes. Not like me to confess my weakness, but I might need some technical help. I mean, you know me, raid and ravage, spoil and troll. But if you're talking a sustained penetration— Can you set me up with Nash, then?"
"Of course." Then to you, with the shadow of a smile, Steve says, "And I can set you up with some of Malaika's makeup, wardrobe and hair specialists."
"I already have them on retainer," you retort as Joe bursts out laughing. You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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