The Doctor breathed a sigh of relief. “I have absolutely no aptitude for this sort of thing myself, you see. Gunfights aren’t my scene. Preparation and maintenance—now, you can rely on me for those—but if things start getting violent it’s Balot who will to need to protect me.”
Balot nodded. As long as she had Oeufcoque by her side she was confident she could do anything.
“Looks like we’re on the road to victory, then. Come on, let’s go. Time for us to solve our case.”
≡
Balot went to sort out her outfit in the bathroom while the Doctor settled the bill.
She rolled up the long skirt that she had worn for the trial and took her underwear off and placed it on top of the toilet.
She took off her shoes and socks, placing her socks next to her underwear. Then she reached around and unzipped her dress, unhooked her bra, and loosened the belts that ran up and down her body.
She focused her mind on the precise image of the new outfit—a new shell—that she wanted.
–I’m ready.
She touched her choker to transmit the image to Oeufcoque.
Oeufcoque’s turn was quick and thorough. A skintight bodysuit spread out from underneath the choker, sliding neatly between Balot’s body and the clothes she still had on. It enveloped Balot swiftly from tip to toe. Power flowed through her.
Balot adjusted her clothes, put her shoes and socks back on, and left the bathroom. She glanced at herself in the mirror on the way out and subtly altered the design and color of the bodysuit so that it matched the rest of her clothes.
She returned to the restaurant and joined the Doctor to head out to the parking lot.
The red convertible was as good as new, brought back up to scratch in a week.
The car was officially registered as being made by an obscure custom car company, one that existed more or less in name only. There was only one garage that did repairs, and they had to special-order the parts on contract.
The parts in question were, of course, Made by Oeufcoque. Oeufcoque’s existence as a sentient being may not have been officially acknowledged, but the parts that he made certainly were.
They climbed into the car and the Doctor inserted the key and set the controls to AutoDrive. The steering wheel sank into the dashboard and found itself fixed in position.
“I’d be drunk driving otherwise. It’ll take us a little longer, but let’s go on auto.”
Balot fastened her seat belt, and the car moved off.
Their destination was a high-class bar on the North Side, and they had plenty of time to get there.
“Excuse me a minute,” the Doctor said as he leaned over toward the passenger seat and pressed his fingers against the electronic fingerprint scanner. A compartment in the dashboard opened out, revealing maps, a wallet, a small handgun, and a bottle of pills.
The Doctor placed the handgun in his jacket pocket and took the bottle in his hand.
The pills contained a potent double dose: a mixture of caffeine and enzymes that accelerated the breakdown of alcohol. The Doctor threw a fistful of them into his mouth as if they were so much candy, then popped the bottle back in the compartment, which he pushed back into the dashboard.
“Now, let’s see how they’re going to play this one…”
“They’re doing everything by the book so far,” Oeufcoque said, his voice emerging from the vicinity of Balot’s left hand. The Doctor nodded as if the short conversation had settled everything.
Balot looked straight ahead at the road. She thought how there was still so much she needed to learn.
“This is not a good smell. They’re waiting for us, ready for something. We’re not talking just one or two people there, either—there are at least five of them,” Oeufcoque said when they parked the car two blocks away from the bar.
The Doctor checked something out quickly on his PDA, then shrugged. “I get it. The bar’s part of a chain, and guess which corporation owns the chain? Not that I imagine many of their directors visit on a regular basis, of course.”
“How convenient for them. I guess the idea is that the whole bar could disappear off the face of the earth if need be,” said Oeufcoque.
“Uh-huh. It’s the underbelly of their empire—a place they use to conduct the shadier end of their business transactions. Rather than bothering to go in, why don’t we just launch a rocket or two at them? The joint’s a front, anyway—it’s not as if there’d be any innocent bystanders caught up in it.”
Balot braced herself, imagining for a moment that the Doctor was indeed about to do as he suggested.
“So we’re terrorists on top of everything else now, are we, Doc?” Oeufcoque’s sarcastic reply made Balot realize that of course they were going to do no such thing. “They’re going through the official channels, and as long as they stick to this, we do the same.”
“Sure, sure. Can’t say I’m wildly enthusiastic about the prospect, though. I suppose we can expect them to suggest some sort of trade or information exchange, although I’m not quite sure what they imagine is going to be in it for us. They must know by now that we’re not the sort to be bought off.”
“So we go in fully expecting that they’ll have other means of persuasion at their disposal,” said Oeufcoque.
–Are we going to be using guns?
“Hmm… If it comes to it, I’ll leave that side of things to you and Oeufcoque, if that’s okay. My speciality is really the negotiating part. If the going gets tough, I hope you won’t mind if I’m first out the door?”
The Doctor looked so serious that Balot nodded without even thinking.
“Right, then, let’s go!” With these words the Doctor hopped out of the car and walked toward the quiet bar on the quiet street. Balot followed, and soon they had reached the main entrance of the pub.
There were two sets of doors, and Balot realized that something was up the moment they passed through the first set.
Someone was watching them. The Doctor had noticed it too.
They opened the second set of doors and went in. The clientele seemed at first glance to be a surprisingly refined lot—some were smoking cigars or drinking brandy from large goblets, others were reading newspapers or discussing the latest stock market fluctuations.
It was a veritable pocket of resistance against the recent all-pervasive trend of smoking bans.
Balot and the Doctor went up to the center of the bar and took a seat. Had they not been in the clothes they wore for court, they would have felt terribly out of place. No one else sat at the bar; patrons lounged on plush leather sofas or in boxes lined with red velvet curtains.
The Doctor pointed to a bottle on the counter, then went into a detailed spiel as to how exactly the bartender was to prepare it.
The bartender—middle-aged, receding hairline—took his order with a nod, and then looked at Balot. Balot didn’t really need anything, but she thought back to a Western she had seen in her childhood and recalled what the hero ordered when he was in a bar.
–A glass of milk, please.
She spoke through the crystal on her choker. A funny look flickered across the bartender’s face.
Balot didn’t know whether it was her order that was at fault or whether he was just surprised by her voice. Or it could have been that he was surprised by the very fact that someone like Balot was in this place.
If he felt something was odd, the bartender certainly hid it well. “Would you like ice with that, miss?” he asked.