We weaved our way through rooms until we’d come to an area full of desks and screens. The cops had all left the room behind and we made for a back door.
“They just leave a back door here? Just for anyone to walk through?”
“Well, the room is usually full of cops, Laze.”
“You know, I was almost mouth-raped. You’re not being very sensitive to my situation. Clearly the psychological trauma has made me unable to think reasonable things.”
She ignored that bit and pushed open the door. It led into the auto pool garage. Police cars still had manual drive as an option most of the time but I’d learned from having spent a teensy bit of time in researching them that they required a near-field ID badge or fingerprints to start. Maybe both. They weren’t entirely unstealable, but it was enough trouble that you’d really only be likely to do it in the case that you desperately needed a police car for some wrongdoing. They were full with dozens of tracking sensors and automated notices sent when they stopped somewhere outside of standard patrol routes.
Marine either also knew this, which was a reasonable assumption, or had no interest in using them to begin with because we ran past the entire line of cars and toward the door at the far end of the garage. She eased the door open and peeked out onto the sidewalk.
“Alright.” She stood up pushing the door open. “Let’s go.”
“Don’t have to ask me twice.”
When we were out on the sidewalk and casually moving away from the bustling police station, I noticed that there was smoke pouring out of the building.
“So… those alarms?”
“Yeah, that was me. I figured setting a fire would make them less likely to look into the code on their little tracker box. How was jail?”
I sighed. “Next time can I just hit you in the face or something?”
She pretended to consider it. “Hmm, nah. Not nearly as good for me that way.”
“So it was good for you.”
“Well, which would you rather do? Grab some boobs or have a bruised fist?”
“I… boobs? But then… but then the rape.”
“Look, what are the odds of that ever happening again? You just have some sort of monumentally terrible luck. Normally it’d just be some elementary school teacher who got busted taking pictures of eight year olds peeing or something. You’d have stuff in common. And no gang members. Usually.”
“I’ve never taught elementary school, though.”
She laughed which helped calm me down. I was honestly still on edge from the whole rapey cellmate thing. Whatever self-destructive urges I’d started yesterday with were getting dragged slowly away and were being replaced by a frustration that things seemed to really be going gangbusters for her. I guess so long as she was smiling it was fine.
“Where are we going now?” We’d come to an intersection so it seemed like a solid time for me to ask.
“Gotta confirm the job’s done.”
“Right, so they’re waiting in a limo in a dark alley somewhere?”
“Nope. Coffee shop.”
“Well… all my movie dreams have been shattered to pieces.”
“You hanging around my shop being randomly handed drives and little hardware bits to fuck with rarely included gun fights.”
“Yeah, but you don’t own a limousine. Why would you ever get out of a limousine, when you could crack the window and wear cool sunglasses and say cryptic, vaguely threatening things?”
“Maybe she likes coffee.”
“Yeah, I guess. Maybe there’s a no coffee in the limo rule. Gravy seems like he’d be into that.”
She gave a small smile. “He’ll really kill you if you call him that, you know?”
“Not once he sees my irresistible firebush. I know his weakness now.”
That managed to get a laugh. The coffee shop was only a few blocks away. Cincy was sitting outside at one of the tables on the patio. I say patio, but it was just a fenced in part of the sidewalk. Marine sat down so I did too.
“You’ve completed the job?”
“Yep. Everything was in the surveillance room. Fireproof case around the hardware, so I corrupted their camera feeds a bit and started a plausible looking electrical fire.”
How did she know what plausible looking was? What kind of coffee did they serve here? Cincy had a really foamy looking thing. How is foamy milk an enjoyable thing to put inside of your mouth? It’s just bubbles. Milk bubbles, sure, but who can even tell? A whole mouthful of those bubbles is basically two drops of milk. Completely pointless.
“Do they sell pastries here?”
I was stared at by both of them for a second and then they went back to their conversation without answering me. Like, they felt so interrupted that they took the time to stare at me, but then they didn’t answer the question? Just “yes” would have worked. I’m hungry. I can’t get a fucking pastry?
I stood up. They stopped talking again.
“Where are you going?”
As if Marine has any right to ask me that shit after giving me the stink eye.
“Pastry.” I pointed at the coffee shop proper.
Maybe I’m just lost as to what the big deal was with getting a pastry. I didn’t pick the coffee shop. If we’d been in an alleyway, then this wouldn’t have been an issue. I know for sure they don’t have pastries in alleyways.
I went in and looked over the selection. Honestly, it
