Tethers: Invasive Negotiations II

Dresden, Icarus, 5th Month of Year 24, 71 Days after First Deployment

Tide had been followed by all sorts of uncouth creatures in her day, but getting trailed by three men was sort of intimidating. At least, it was intimidating when she didn't have a helmet with a panoramic wrap-around feed so that she could see behind her. It had been drilled into her to rely on her equipment, but Sergeant Kadlec always reminded them that their helmets and weapons may not always be with them. Self-reliance was one of his greatest emphases in training, and Tide didn't forget that. They had been trained briefly without their armor and all of its assets, but this was her first time on a mission using those skills. This was real; Sergeant Kadlec and Storm weren't her pursuers--these men wanted to harm her, though, granted, they were mediocre at best. Tide lost them fairly easily.

She toted them around Dresden for over an hour, wandering and pretending to window shop, and generally trying to lose them at every chance she could. The public transit is what finally trumped them after she boarded and got off several times. Finally, she was able to take a roundabout route back to her hotel and get into the room with no incidents.

Tide threw her horrendously florid suitcase onto the bed and sat down on the floor with a sigh. As much as she ragged on the squad, she missed them. It was easy being alone when she was busy being the sniper--she was at least protecting the squad, and she could hear their breathing over the comlink, talk to them whenever it was safe. But here, now, she was serving an organization that was essentially ruining a life she could have had while her squad sat and watched. Nobody wanted to be condemned to sitting and watching. It was becoming abundantly clear that Tide needed to get this mission over with as soon as possible.

It was 1100 hours. Tide grabbed her comlink and called Sergeant Kadlec again.

"Lisa, dear," he said when he answered.

"I'm safe, Pops."

"Good to hear. You know what to do in the room."

"Yep," Tide said with a sigh. She had the tiny monitoring bug in her other hand. "I'll call back in a bit."

"Take care."

"You too."

Tide set the comlink aside and looked distrustfully at the bug. It could save her life, or simply give Flare a peep show. Damn it.

Tide stood and found a good place to hide the bug. Part of her wanted only to allow an audio feed to go back to the temporary HQ in Grieg City, but they would need the visual feed should anything happen. And like Sergeant Kadlec always said, it was better to be safe than dead. "Sorry" was too soft of a word for their world.

Tide planted the bug and turned it on, glaring into it as she activated it. "Hello, boys. I'm going to go undress now. Just so you know." The encoded signal from this bug would alert the bugs that Puck, Storm, and Flare planted on their recce trips into Dresden. The bugs planted outside the hotel would now orient on the entrances to the hotel, as well as the outside wall where her room was situated.

Moving over to the bed, she unzipped the suitcase and extracted each and every piece of its contents, laying it all out meticulously on the queen-sized bed. There was an assortment of clothes (mostly dresses and skirts, to Tide's dismay, though she had been given some tight denim pants and pinstripe dress pants), undergarments that must have been purchased by Sergeant Kadlec under highly comical circumstances, and a swimsuit that she had almost mistakenly placed with the undergarments. Tide held up the white polka-dotted swimsuit top and bottom and scrutinized it with a scowl.

This was almost too much.

Tide was now Lisa Shepard, a well- (if not scantily-) dressed Sympathizer there to attend the convention. She had been taken aback when Kadlec told her she would be going by her paternal name, but Kadlec explained that any trace of a newborn Lisa Shepard bought by Cross-X had been erased from existence, the only remnants being the birth certificate that Kadlec kept under lock and key in a high-security filing cabinet in his office. No one would know who she was, not even if they were part of Cross-X. It was information known only to her, Kadlec, and the squad.

Her main objective was to crack the case on what the Sympathizer higher-ups were planning. Their leader, Fred Highland, was there to attend, and he surely had the information Tide would need to foil their plots. Still, Tide had been warned that it would be nearly impossible for her to get one-on-one with him, unless she played on his womanizing tendencies. Her other option was to divulge information from the other prominent Sympathizer leaders, and that was what Tide planned on doing. But she had to try and get in Highland's pants first because Cross-X command said it would be safer--at least, Tide wouldn't get shot with that plan.

The comlink rang again and Tide picked it up since it was Flare. "What do you want, Drew?"

"We've got a visual of Highland down at the resort," Puck said. Tide could hear a lot of background noise, so Flare must have been sharing his comlink. Good thing she didn't answer it with something [i]revealing[/i], otherwise she would have had to pound him for being careless with his comlink.

"Yeah," Flare added, bitterness rather apparent in his tone. "So why don't you put on that pretty, little bikini of yours and trot around?"

"Why don't you shut the hell up?" Tide countered venomously.

"What, like I really [i]want[/i] you to be some ugly guy's piece of meat?" Flare asked, his voice low.

"Oh, stop it," Puck grumbled. "Lisa, just go make an appearance so that he'll recognize you. Smile at him. Whatever. You don't need to do a little dance and strip. And, Drew, shove it. She knows what she's doing."

"Be careful," said Flare, chagrined.

"Don't worry," Tide assured them. "Oh, and one last thing: if I find out that you two were watching the visual feed while I change, I might have to sterilize the both of you."

"Copy that," Puck replied weakly.

Tide turned off the comlink and loaded up her datapad, bringing up a profile picture of Fred Highland to make sure she would recognize him. Staring at the double chin, grisly beard, and receding hairline, Tide thought for a moment about how she would rather get shot than attract his attention.

---

Flare stuffed his comlink back into his pocket and stared down at the coffee table, its surface covered in equipment.

"This is really bugging you, isn't it?" asked Puck.

"I just don't like it. That's all."

Puck reached out and grabbed Flare's shoulder. "I don't think any of us do. Not even her."

Flare sighed and looked at the corner of the coffee table where the tiny, five-inch screen showed the feed from Tide's room. She was standing with her hands on her hips in front of the bed where she had laid out her clothes. Flare picked up the little screen and sat it in his lap, then he shut his eyes.

"What are you doing, Drew?"

"Keeping watch."

"You would," Puck said accusingly. "Bruce isn't going to like it."

"I'm not looking, I'm listening. And you'd better not look either, wise guy."

"Because seeing my pseudo-sister undress is worth getting my jugular ripped out by her boyfriend and brother. No, I'll go see if Pops and Bruce need help."

Flare heard Puck get up and leave, then he honed his senses in on the screen sitting in his lap. All he could hear was the rustling of fabric, the soft padding of her bare feet on the hardwood floor. Flare kept his eyes squeezed shut to the point where it hurt the muscles in his face, and as much as he was tempted to take a little peek, he waited, motionless and listening.

Flare's comlink went off, and he picked it up, knowing exactly who it was. "Peep show's over," said Tide from the other side.

"Oh, good, you're still alive," Flare replied. "I stopped watching the feed because I was afraid of losing my manhood."

"Really?" Tide asked emphatically.

"Yes."

"You're watching now, right? Just you?"

"It's just me."

Tide had a mischievous smirk on her face when she undid her swimsuit top in front of the visual feed. She didn't want for a reply from Flare; she simply covered herself again and went for the shirt and skirt she was going to wear to the resort.

"Just doing a little practice for Highland," Tide joked.

"So not funny," Flare mumbled, breathless.

---

Tide donned her sunglasses as she exited the sliding doors leading out to the resort. There was a large, temperature-controlled dome over the entire area, its ceiling mimicking the light from the sun while scrolling stock footage of white clouds to emulate a real tropic paradise. The pool was large enough to house a whale or two, and the wave pool smelled and sounded like a real ocean. Hotel guests were lounging and being served cold drinks by the staff, and it was honestly a little too hot. But Tide supposed that was how the hotel made more money.

"Highland's in the northeastern quadrant," Storm said in Tide's earbud comlink. "Well, I mean, he's caddy-corner to where the door was that you came out of. Make sure he sees you."

Tide coughed daintily as she walked, affirming Storm's statement. She had to concentrate harder than normal to look natural, as the wedge-heeled espadrille shoes (black with white polka dots to match her swimsuit, of course) were awkward and more trouble than lugging a full pack up a mountain. Tide made a wide circle around where Highland was seated at a table under an umbrella, then she walked right by him from behind and found an empty lounge chair near the pool. She set her purse down on the chair and looked over her shoulder, taking off her sunglasses slowly. Highland's face was aimed in her direction, but she couldn't be sure if she really had his attention or not.

"I think he looked at you," Storm reported darkly, almost as if Highland had made some rude comment about her.

Tide coughed daintily again.

"Strip!" Flare urged. "Do a little dance!"

Tide cleared her throat sharply, an emphasized no. She took off the cover-up shirt and skirt, then she sat and stretched out her leg, undoing her shoe and taking it off.

"Jesus, Tide," Puck swore. "You have at least three guys looking in your direction."

"It doesn't help that she seems to be the only woman at the resort under forty," Storm grumbled.

"I dunno, there are some hot 40-year-olds there too. Did you see that blonde--"

"You're banned from this conversation, Drew," Puck snapped.

Tide turned and fished around in her purse, subtly glancing up to try and locate the other men. One of them caught her eye because he was familiar--he wasn't looking at her in that moment, but she was fairly certain he was one of the men that had tailed her earlier. She produced her datapad and quickly scripted a message to Sarge to let him know.

She sent it, then sprawled out on the lounge chair and projected a holomagazine from her datapad, idly reading.

"Don't leave, and don't act like you know anything. Look natural," Sarge instructed warily. "Storm, make sure nothing's wrong back in her room. In fact, reserve a different one--just in case she gets tracked."

Tide coughed.

An uneventful half hour passed while Tide read articles ranging from house-keeping to Core celebrity whereabouts. Eventually, a waiter approached Tide and held a drink out to her.

"From Mr. Fred Highland, miss," the waiter said in a snooty tone.

"Take it!" Flare hissed in her ear.

"Send him my thanks," Tide said with a smile as she took the drink. The waiter did a little bow and moved away, and Tide studied the drink's contents for a brief moment. Was this how men usually picked up women? It seemed... tacky, if that was the correct term.

Tide dipped her finger in the drink and pressed it against her datapad, letting it download a readout from the substance.

"Pretend to take a drink. Don't look like you're waiting for an analysis," Sarge instructed quickly. Tide put the glass to her lips and closed her mouth around the edge, tipping the liquid so that it touched her. It was blue, which seemed strange to her, as she had rarely had anything to drink other than water her entire life.

"Readout is clear. No unfamiliar substances in it," Puck said. "It's water, some sort of sucrose-infused mixture, vodka, and liqueur."

Tide took a little taste of it and made a face, which she quickly concealed. She sent them another message reporting that it tasted like cough medicine mixed with phlegm.

"Sip what you can stand. We have to be polite," Sarge said, and Tide could hear that he was grinning.

Several more minutes passed before Flare reported, somewhat frantically: "Pretty Boy's on the move. Heading toward you on your three."

Tide let her peripherals catch a glimpse of Highland. He walked right up to her, then sat down on the lounge chair beside her. "I see you are not pleased with your drink, Miss...?" he prompted.

"Shepard," Tide said, a smile hard to manage. This was harder than making a clean headshot on a moving target. "I--well--the drink is... blue."

Fred Highland laughed, and his globular gut jiggled underneath his florid red and white button-up shirt. "Then I simply must get you another. Fred Highland was born to please." He signaled for a waiter to come over.

Tide's smile didn't falter, although she made a note that she had a newly-discovered pet peeve for people who referred to themselves in the third person. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Highland. I was hoping to see you at the convention."

"You called, sir?" the snooty waiter from before asked.

"Please get this lady another drink," Highland said. "What would you like, Miss Shepard?"

"A water," requested Tide with a sweet smile.

"With or without lemon?"

Hesitation. "Without." Who the hell put lemon in their water?

"Right away, miss," the waiter said before taking off.

When Tide looked back at Fred Highland, his eyes weren't focused on her face. In fact, his gaze had trailed so low that Tide had to clear her throat to get his attention again.

"The convention! Of course. You will be in attendance, then, Miss Shepard?"

"Yes. I'm looking forward to it. I mean, I have been--for a long time." Tide was wondering if she forgot how to speak English.

"Wonderful! But, I am afraid I must be leaving," Highland said morosely. He took Tide's hand and kissed it. "I hope to see you at the banquet tonight."

Tide's skin began to crawl as if she had been dropped in a vat of centipedes. "I'll be there."

Highland smiled at her and moved away, heading toward the exit of the resort.

"A couple of guys are following him," said Puck. "I've captured some shots of their faces so we can identify them."

"On a related note, that guy is slimy, and I hate him," Flare muttered.