High Energy Collision [Completed]

Chapter 32 - Mission: Inseguendo un goal

"Don't you think we're overdoing it a little bit?"

Plan had wanted to climb out of the van that Tio had just parked behind the Italian restaurant where Rose's date with Cameron would take place – but Mean had held him back and was now fixing a microphone and a micro camera onto his shirt.

Somewhere along the path, the simple plan of having Rose go on a date with the wannabe womanizer of Black Hand, in order to find out who the leader of their shadow organisation was, had turned into an utterly ridiculous operation involving all of them.

"Nonsense, we have to keep Rosie safe, don't we?"

Mean grinned broadly.

Too broadly.

Plan could see it, now.

Whatever his boyfriend said to justify all of this – this was totally not about Rose:

It was about having an excuse to use cutting edge surveillance technology. Mean had spent most of the past week in his workshop, not even grumbling that Plan had taken the results of his latest simulation home with him, hoping to find the evidence he was looking for.

This wasn't just a way to protect their friend, it was... the way Mean looked at the screens in front of him, adjusting the feeds and starting up the AI he had trained over the last week, you could have mistaken this for his birthday.

Sometimes, Plan wondered what would be a bigger blow to the image of his boyfriend: the fact that he was gay or the fact that he was secretly a huge nerd.

Well, seeing that Plan himself had loyal fans, as a physics student... maybe nerdy was cool and it was just Mean's family who were being difficult about it.

"I'll be at the bar, cleaning glasses and having an eye on her in case he tries to poison her or grope her or whatever Viola is afraid of. I'll be too far away from the table. Why do I need to be wired up?"

If it had been up to him, he wouldn't... Plan found the fuss they were making entirely too much, but he would humour his new friends, and his secretly nerdy boyfriend. His role wasn't too hard to play, after all.

Viola had somehow convinced the restaurant owners to allow her to work there as a server for the entire evening. She was already wearing a low-cut, girly summer dress, a long, brown-haired wig and so much make-up that nobody would recognise her, sure, but they wouldn't take her seriously, either.

When Mean had pointed that out – after a laughing fit that had lasted about ten minutes – Viola had huffed and had told him that she was only dressing up as an Italian woman.

Like Monica Bellucci.

"More like a clown," had been Mean's verdict.

So, while Viola would be a clown-like Italian server at the restaurant – she had even learned a few Italian phrases for the occasion – Plan would work behind the bar in a disguise.

Why he should be the one working the bar was obvious, given his former job at Gravity – but both Win and Mean had also argued that he was the most versatile of them in his looks. They just needed to tweak a few style choices, and nobody would recognise him anymore.

He had vetoed the moustache, though.

They could put him in clothes they called "typically Italian", a slightly curly wig and blue contact lenses, making him look part Italian – but no moustache.

Neither real nor fake.

Not even as a joke.

Mean would stay in the van, of course, monitoring everything through his fancy tech setup.