1. Talking code
1249 Words
Jay's POV
"H-how-" - as the girl spy was trying to find words to express how surprised she is by the fact I'm an iris, I laughed. "You're an iris? I guess that explains it all."
"Yeah, pretty cool, huh? That'll come in handy for our missions together." - the girl still looked at me wide-eyed. "What's your name anyway?"
"Vilhelm." - the spy said briefly, but I didn't believe her.
"That's your code name. What's your real one?" - I crossed my arms again. I looked at the girl, who was probably just a few years older than me and tried to remember everything about her for some reason. She wore a red costume that didn't cover her abdomen and it looked good along with her red beanie. She had blue hair, tied in a braid and dark-blue eyes, silver lipstick. Her guns were futuristic, one of them was a gray one with yellow details, the other was yellow with gray details. She wore red gloves. You could tell she's a spy from 100 kilometers.
As I was looking at the spy, she spoke again.
"I can't tell you my real name because of security reasons. But I guess you'll find it out soon enough." - as she said that, I realized I can access her thoughts and memories as I am transformed into her. So I did.
"Lena. What a pretty name." - I said, making the blue-haired girl frown and look at me funny.
"You irises sure are a pain in the ass." - I laughed at that. "Can you turn back into yourself? This is getting creepy." - I did as I was told. "Thank you."
"So... what do you wanna do now? Do we have a mission or something?" - I raised a brow.
"Boss said we have the rest of the day off, so we can chill somewhere if you want." - Lena suggested and I shook my head in agreement.
....
We spent an hour or so looking for a place to crash. There was literally not a soul on this forgotten highway. But rather late than never we found a good-looking pub. It didn't seem like we had any other choice, I mean there weren't any other options for us, so we got in.
Inside we found a lot of people chatting and drinking about. I immediately spotted a guy that was arm wrestling with another guy. A few people surrounded them and it seemed like they were rooting for the smaller, weaker looking guy. I looked at Lena and then I was sure she was thinking the same thing. We soon found two empty stools by the bar. We sat and were ready to order something to drink.
"What's it gonna be, ladies?" - the bartender said with a strong Irish accent and a cigarette in his mouth. The manner in which he asked us that came off a bit flirty. There probably weren't many girls coming around here.
"A diet coke for me." - was what Lena said with a sigh, resting her elbows on the bar. I looked at her dumbfounded. You're telling me she's coming to the only bar in a 2 kilometers radius to drink... coke?
"And I'll have whiskey on the rocks." - I added. The bartender smiled and turned around to get our drinks ready.
"Just so you know, drinking isn't allowed on missions." - Vilhelm informed me. I barely looked at her.
"That's a bummer." - I said as I pulled out a cigarette.
"Is smoking allowed on missions?" - I asked and puffed on my cig.
"Well, there's not a rule against it, but-"
"That's all I wanted to hear." - was my reply and I looked around the bar. I noticed Lena was doing the very same.
There were a few sketchy people at a table not too far from us. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but it seemed like they were speaking in some sort of a weird code.
"See those people over there?" - Vilhelm asked and I looked at her as if I didn't hear her. But I did.
"Yeah? What about them?" - I stole a quick glance at the sketchy guys' table and then my gaze shifted at Vilhelm again.
"They seem... weird. I don't hear much coming from their table, but they're talking in a numeric code. Wait." - as Lena said the last word, she pulled a little notebook and seemed to be writing down what the guys were saying. I looked at what she was writing. For now she only had a few numbers: 9 44 33 777 33 444 7777.
"What does that mean?" - I asked, squinting. "Like, obviously the numbers stand for letters, but-"
"Shhh." - Lena said as she continued writing down the code: 8 44 33 6 666 66 33 999.
"This sounds utterly familiar. Obviously the numbers aren't the sequence of the letters from the alphabet." - I continued despite Vilhelm's remark. "Wait a second... Vilhelm, I got it!"
"I told you to shut the f**k up." - the blue-haired girl looked at me, frowning.
"No, I think I cracked the code!" - I said as she continued writing what the guys were saying.
"What?"
"Yeah, look." - I took the notebook from her and pointed at the first number: 9. "In Kozmodius we used burner phones to communicate. All of them had buttons with letters underneath. So, what do you get from pressing '9' just once?"
"You get a 'w'." - Lena realized. "Good work, Josephine."
"You can just call me 'Jay'. I actually prefer it." - I replied. At that moment the bartender served our drinks.
"I couldn't help but notice your outfit, girlie." - he said, looking at Lena. "Are you a spy?"
"That's classified." - she replied and took a sip from her coke.
"I admire you spies so much. You're what's keeping this country together. The police would be nothing without you." - the bald bartender, who looked like a former prisoner, added.
"Thanks. I guess." - Lena said with an emotionless face. She tended to do that a lot. "Do you, by any chance, have something for me to put on top of that outfit? I can't walk around looking like this. It's calling for trouble."
"Well, yes, of course." - the bartender smiled. "Go on, take this." - he pulled out a long coat somewhere from some drawer below the bar. It was a dark-green coat with a few pockets here and there. Lena put it on and buttoned it.
While she was busy talking to the bartender, I had the job to write down each and every one of the numbers the guys on the table near us spilled out. After a while I had a general idea of what they were talking about. There was a drug deal happening, right here under our noses. After the bartender left us alone and started paying attention to some new customers, I turned to Lena.
"I know what the guys are talking about." - I said, almost whispering.
"What?"
"Well, the first seven numbers your wrote down stand for 'Where is'. The next eight stand for 'the money'. After that I wrote a few more numbers it didn't take long to figure out they are arranging a drug deal."
"Shit..." - Lena said and I guess we were both wondering what we were gonna do with all this information.
- Writer
