Take a Shot

Joyride

Gods, these kinds of jobs were boring.

I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel, leaning my head back into the headrest. This was a nice car, at least, so I wasn't uncomfortable while waiting for Emerald. So this was better than some jobs we'd taken together, especially in the olden days. I closed my eyes.

I hadn't been entirely briefed on this mission. I assume Emerald had tried to brief me, but her brain worked in mysterious ways and so, often, her briefings were more just her planning to herself while I tried to piece together what exactly was going on. This particular mission was far enough on the DL that Geechis hadn't wanted us to bring a helicopter, so I was basically just along as a getaway driver. Apparently, Gee wanted something from this building or someone in or nearby it, and he'd entrusted the duty of safe retrieval to Emerald. That seemed a bit menial for either of our stations, but I wasn't complaining about an easy mission.

Of course, the likelihood of a mission going awry was incredibly high, so I did still need to be aware.

It seemed like very easy stuff, though. She would go in, get what was needed, she would walk back out calmly. I would pretend I was here to pick her up, I would drive off while she called Geechis and gave him a quick update. That finished, we would get on the freeway and relax the rest of the drive back to HQ. It worried me, how easy this seemed. I was getaway driver, so I needed to pay attention for her to come out so we could make a quick but casual and, most importantly, successful getaway. I had been getaway driver before, mostly because Em didn't drive, but this mission added an entirely new layer of her being in disguise. Not just any disguise, either. She needed to look completely unlike Harmony's flash of terror, so she'd gone full wig, makeup, girly clothes, the whole shebang. She might even have been wearing contacts, though it had been so dark this morning that I hadn't gotten a good look. Recognizing Emerald was normally not much a problem for me, but brown hair and potentially-not-red eyes was really going to throw me for a loop. Not that I only recognized her by her hair, of course, but it admittedly did make things easier to see those waves of green. Brown wasn't going to inspire the same confidence.

I tipped my head off to the passenger's side, squinting. I didn't even know where we were. This almost looked like a courthouse. It was the same almost-square shape, with large, dark double-doors that stood out against the off-white, sort of cream color of the walls, bracketed on either side by windows. A partition separated the two doors and two windows from the four windows on top, all symmetrically spaced, though I was a bit too far away to determine whether it was simply raised architecture or a balcony. Large, sandstone stairs lead to the bottom floor, where the doors were. So there were at least two floors, a ground floor and a basement, and it was likely there was a top floor as well, which totaled to three floors. That was a similar, if more extravagant, layout to the courthouses in central Dalal, where the castle was. I'd been in a few of those for varying reasons, and they all sort of looked like this. There wasn't really anything to steal from a courthouse beside people and documents, though, and Geechis always let us know before we had to traffic people, since it was sort of a sensitive spot for Em. So I wasn't sure what this building was. I moved my left arm to my window, turning my head back forward and setting my temple in my palm. So boring.

I wondered if this was how Emerald felt when we were in negotiation settings. Geechis had sent us on negotiations missions exclusively for damn near two months, which was great for me since it meant we spent all our time together and I had something to occupy me, but likely very boring for her since it wasn't exactly in her wheelhouse. And Emerald hated being bored.

Come to think of it, negotiations maybe weren't Emerald's cup of tea, but, honestly? She wasn't bad at it. She was a bit brusque, a bit forward, but she wasn't graceless and she was quite charming, which made her a better negotiator than I'd thought. She'd only been getting better since Geechis had been sending us out on these missions. It shouldn't have surprised me; she was excellent at reading people, even though she couldn't read a room for shit, and the types of negotiating she'd shown an aptitude for was all about control. She was particularly good with militia-types, large men who didn't like to beat around the bush and had other things to attend to. They liked how upfront and straight-shooting she was...and as much as I hated it, I had to bet they liked negotiating with an attractive woman. I knew I would. I didn't like weapons and troops negotiating, so part of me was glad she was getting better at it fast. It meant less I had to do. But I had a sneaking suspicion that she was getting better, not because she was simply bored and looking to expand her talents like she'd told me, but because she was trying to "not get me dirty." She'd seen how tense those meetings got sometimes, even with my expertise. I chewed on my bottom lip.