Moonstrike 13: Do-Gooders and Creeps

By Wednesday morning she was sick of the hotel breakfast. It felt a little lonely to start off without Alex.

'That's pathetic,' she scolded herself, yanking on a hooded sweatshirt. 'I've always gone alone before. I don't need a buddy to hold my hand.'

Irritation with her own neediness left a bad taste in her mouth as she left the hotel on a meandering route towards the conference center. She found a coffee shop to wash it away and got in a long line. She killed time looking at her notifications and messaging Ari until she got to the front of the line. Maybe she should get another photo up soon? She thought about it as the line snaked to the front.

Finally it was her turn. "Scone and latte please, M size."

"Will that be hot or cold?"

"Hot, please." Ji Min dug out her card.

"Alright then. For here or to go?"

"To go." She held her card over the reader and glanced at the glass food case at the right once more, wondering if she should have gotten a piece of quiche.

A man on the other side of the glass caught her eye. Ji Min suppressed a frown as she put her card back away. There was something about his profile and face shape that tugged at memory and told her to pay attention. She accepted the bag her scone came in without focusing on it at all.

'I don't know him, do I? Someone from the conference? One of the government creeps?'

"Name?" Prompted the cashier.

"Anna," Ji Min lied thoughtlessly, and stole another glance.

The man wasn't doing anything in particular. He was looking down at his phone, one hand shoved in the front pocket of his brown leather jacket. He had an undercut and one of those classically handsome jawlines.

'I've seen him. I know I have, I just don't know where.'

He lifted his face slightly as the line moved. What she'd thought was a shadow was actually a bruise across the right side of his jaw. It was a bluish purple that matched nicely with his blue phone case.

…that bruise was about the size of her palm, if she had to put a measurement to it.

Well. Whoops.

Ji Min moved down to the waiting area and suppressed the urge to look at him. She flexed her fingers guiltily in her jacket pocket.

She'd only seen half of his face before, but she felt certain that was the wannabe hero she'd smacked away when he tried to save her from a mugger.

'He didn't quite deserve that,' she thought ruefully. 'If I really was a civilian, I'd have needed that rescue.'

She was pretty sure she was right, but she kept her attention focused on him as he reached a cashier and gave his order. That voice-

Yeah. That was the vigilante who had tried to save her.

It was unfortunate that she knew his face, but she hadn't actively tried to violate his privacy or anything.

Ji Min flipped up the hood on her jacket and took a deep sigh. She still didn't know who he was, and that sucked. He could be a full-on hero type. Or he could just be some degree of rogue or villain who just didn't like seeing women get mugged. A crime lord even, someone who was keeping other offenders out of their territory.

It was tempting to tell herself that he'd probably forgotten all about her already. But it was irresponsible. She had to assume that the mugger had told him why he'd followed Ji Min in particular.

She had options:

If Ji Min didn't want anything to do with him: she could just abandon her drink and get out of here without being seen. He was probably a vigilante. Even though she could easily claim she'd been there on official business, she would have to let someone know the connection between her face and her heroic ID.

For a middle option, she could make eye contact on her way out to see if he recognized her. She didn't know what she'd do with the information, but it might help her pick the best way forward.

Or she could actually interact with him. She could try to feel out if they were on the same side. Whether he was a hero or a villain, she had credentials that she could lean on to get him to back off. And honestly? He was kinda hot.

She decided that didn't want the trouble. Ji Min ducked her head on the way out to hide her face behind the hood. She was at the door by the time the barista started calling out her order. She hurried onto the street and chose to go left so that she didn't have to walk in front of the glass window. He didn't see her.

Hopefully, she wouldn't see him again.

'What are the odds?' Ji Min hurried to the conference center. 'He could just live and work by here. But both times I've seen him it's been within a couple blocks of an entrance to the complex. Is he like, staking it out?'

That would pretty solidly make him a hero or vigilante. Any half competent villain in the area should have been able to net an invitation, if only as a plus one.

The evasive driving practical had a strongly advised lecture pre-section. Ji Min arrived early and found a seat at the back where she could kick up her feet.

The room filled up to about a quarter capacity. Ji Min absently counted the students when the lecture started- 13. That wasn't many people for such a coveted seminar.

'I know why Alex isn't here, of course, but the rest? Are that many people skipping the educational section?'

The woman in front of Ji Min was taking notes throughout the lecture. Ji Min rolled her eyes and just concentrated on the information.

It ended up mostly being a review for her. She’d never taken this particular seminar, but there was material available online.

After a while the proctor handed out paper and writing utensils. There was a pop quiz on tire pressure for high center-of-gravity vehicles, route assessment, and technical skills. Then they got to work through several examples of routes to identify choke points and devise a series of routes through to the specified destination. Ji Min liked that exercise, hastily scratching out ten routes before time ran out.

She glanced at her nearest neighbor's paper and judged them immensely.

"More routes," said the instructor, when he came by. He frowned at the student. "If you do this you'll approach the choke points at a predictable time every trip."

"This is the best route," the student argued. Her voice was stubborn. "Wouldn't it be a mistake to choose an inferior route?"

There was a pause. "Get out," decided the instructor. "You fundamentally misunderstand the concept and I'm not here to hold your hand."

Ji Min put her lips together hard to avoid sniggering as the teaching assistant confiscated the testing materials and shoved the still-protesting woman to the door.

One more student had to be kicked out before the educational portion finished up. The staff took back all the papers, including any notes people had taken. Ji Min rolled her eyes at the arguing that produced.

'This is a lecture for criminals,' she thought disdainfully. 'Taught by criminals, at an illegal gathering. Why the fuck would you want any evidence you attended and of what you learnt, much less think the organizers would permit it?'

She didn't get involved, instead smugly observing the people who would probably end up blacklisted for future events. Those weren’t quality clients, but they might make good targets at some point in the future.

There was a certain schadenfreude when the practical session started and the people who had skipped the lecture were barred from entry, bar one who had apparently taken the assessment beforehand.

It was luck of the draw that decided the order and route, and Ji Min had pretty mid luck. She ended up waiting in the out building by the parking garage for a long time while other students went ahead. She killed time on her phone, confirming her meeting time with the other cat burglar. It would be one city over, in a loft apartment. Ji Min checked the location, scoping out windows and doors and how wide the ledges were on the building edifice.

'I'm so excited for that.' Ji Min felt herself smile at the phone. She didn't wipe it off her face even though it didn't fit her public persona.

She flipped open her social media app and checked on the alerts again. A text bubble caught her eye.

'The person who DMd me before I made my account publicly available,' Ji Min realized. She opened the message. She had to, she was curious.

"I understand why you didn't respond," was the first line, which made her snort. It came across resigned and plaintive. "I've included the GPS point of where you took your profile photo to verify my investigative skills."

The smile dropped off of her face. She looked at the numbers. She opened a new tab on her phone and checked.

…it was right.

'That's so creepy,' Ji Min thought, admiringly. 'What a sicko.'

Ok, fine. She settled in to read the conspiracy theory in the initial message. It could be a scam or a weird trap. It honestly came across like a cry for help.

If she took it at face value, then some nerd had discovered evidence of a human trafficking operation in the shithole city next door. They had to have no support, because if they were government or a hero, they would have contacts to help them deal with it.

Reaching out to the new account of a barely known hero persona on social media was an absurd solution. It was desperate, is what it was, unless this person was inexplicably a big fan of hers based on almost no data.

'Maybe they also hate Hammer,' she thought, a little cheered by the idea. 'Or they could be super into astronomy. Or…'

She hated thinking this, she really did, but if she assumed that this person had exceptional access to information, then they might have reached out to her based on the quality of her work in rogue circles. She wasn't an unknown or a newbie. She was a fairly respectable mid level thief with a body of work that promised she had a skillset.

And it looked like this person was angling for someone to sneak in and gather information on this supposed trafficking operation.

'Until I know better, I'm assuming they know there's a connection between my personas.'

Ji Min didn't like it, but since she'd had the thought, she was going to listen to her intuition. Hopefully this person knew nothing.

'But realistically,' Ji Min thought, looking at the G.P.S. pin for the generic metal rigging she'd perched on for her photo, 'this person knows more about me than I thought people could figure out.'

When her turn came up, Ji Min didn’t rush herself with setting up in the car. She’d been assigned something perfectly average to play with. It was for the best. Still, she popped the hood and made sure there was nothing wrong with the car. No bombs underneath the body, nothing leaking- neat.

‘I don’t think anyone hates me enough to put a contract on me, but if they wanted to, this conference is one of the few places I’m guaranteed to be.’

She was very pleased that it wasn’t a big car. She took a moment to compare the width of the thing to the streets she wanted to use and decided plan A would work.

Ji Min pulled out of the parking lot and onto the route. The first follower showed up a few blocks before her first choke point. Ji Min tsked and tried one of the less obvious methods for shaking a tail- turning. They followed. She used textbook escalation of tactics before barreling through the chokepoint anyway, a one-way street that led into the neighborhood she needed to pass through.

Two more cars were waiting there. They pulled to either side of her.

Ji Min glanced at the closer one, cataloguing the gun being aimed at her by a passenger. She hit the brakes so that the other two cars blew past her and then she reversed into a two point turn and went a block down the one way in the wrong direction to maneuver onto a back road. That was a risky move in a neighborhood like this full of dead ends, but she’d memorized the area and there was an alley that let out onto the road again.

At least one of the cars had followed her down the back street. They had to assume she might trap herself on a dead end. If she was lucky, all three of them were slowing down and making those turns.

Ji Min came down the alley, smiling faintly. It was narrow. She angled carefully to slip past the dumpster, knowing that she was going to sacrifice the passenger side mirror to make it down the alley.

Tires screeched behind her. She hit the dumpster with a scrape that left the mirror dangling. It thunked into the side of the car as she turned onto the main road again.

One of the cars had been waiting. It was a few blocks behind her, stalling on the side of the road. She glanced back in the rearview mirror as both of them accelerated.

She didn’t hit the gas as hard as she could have. This was for training, not a life or death situation, and no amount of preparation could ensure that no civilians or law enforcement would get involved.

The scenario calmed down once they got back onto regular streets. Ji Min counted two different pursuants and made a mental note of the descriptions so that she could later confirm how many she’d caught. She made a few more evasive turns, switching lanes and taking detours, but there was no avoiding the main boulevard through town. Her current follower came lazily up the block behind her as Ji Min was forced to stop a red light.

Her mind was on the last leg of the route when she caught motion in her peripheral.

The red car next to her was rolling down the driver's side window. Ji Min glanced over and startled when she realized the female driver and her male passenger were looking directly at her with concern.

"NPPD," the man said, leaning over the driver and out her window a little. "Is everything alright, ma'am?" His eyes darted back to the car behind her.

Ah, shit.

Ji Min took a moment to respond, blinking through surprise at the sudden shift in priorities. "I'm fine," she said, a little late. Nothing happening here, officer, no crime.

The woman elbowed the passenger. He yelped and pulled back. "No one likes cops," she said, voice teasing. "I'm a firefighter, would you give me a different answer?" She laid her arm on the window sill. Ji Min absolutely could not help but notice how toned and muscular it was.

'Christ, that bicep. She absolutely could carry me out of a burning building.'

She accidentally answered the arm and not the woman. "Same answer," Ji Min said, finally tearing her eyes away to see that the light had changed to green. "Thanks for checking in on a totally normal citizen having a normal day."

"I'll take that at face value," said the firefighter, and tapped her fingers on the outside of the car before she drew her hand back in and onto the steering wheel.

The man sighed audibly. He said something to his friend, but it was cut off by the sounds of traffic starting up again.

The firefighter waved before starting up her engine again. Ji Min lifted her hand back, still a little stunned by the encounter.

It took just a moment to do a risk assessment against the benefit of continuing the practical:

If she'd garnered any police attention at all, it was time to cut loose and play dead.

The driving practical was over at this point. The pursuant revved their engine behind her, because they didn't know that yet.

Casually, Ji Min put her hand out the window as she started to drive. There was just no way the cop should be able to see it but she felt tense anyways as she made the hand sign for the police.

The pursuant fell back. Ji Min kept with the described route on the way back to the conference center and noted when her follower turned off route at an intersection. Good. The cop might have sent someone to pull them over and check in. "There's going to be paperwork," Ji Min muttered, flexing her fingers against the steering wheel. "Talking to police mid training… Goddamnit."

He was obviously off duty, but it wasn't good that conference activity had garnered any attention. The conference was in the same place year after year- it was important to fly under the radar.

It occurred to her that this was the second time someone had assumed she was a victim.

"What bad luck." Ji Min turned up the radio for a distraction from her thoughts. “That shit’s embarrassing. Maybe I won’t see any of them again.”

What a matched fucking set of do-gooders: a cop, a firefighter, and a probable vigilante. Yuck. Not the type of people Ji Min wanted to associate with.