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Vinegar Hill, Brooklyn
“Okay, Root, you run for that door as soon as I start firing,” Shaw instructed.
"What? No. You go when I start firing.”
“That’s not how this works, Root.”
"Who says?”
“Excuse me,” Baby Machine interrupts.
Shaw rolled her eyes. “I’m saving your life, Root. Do as I say.”
Root snorted. “Been there, done that. I am saving your life, Sameen. I need you to get out of here.”
“Oh, no, this isn’t going to be some kind of repayment thing for the Stock Exchange, Root. You will run when I start firing.”
“Nope."
"Yep."
"Nope."
“Root.”
“Sameen”
Brown eyes locked on amber ones in an angry, silent battle of wills.
Rewind – One day prior
The Subway was quiet except for the sounds of chewing. And the occasional slurp of a straw in a 32 ounce soda cup. And the occasional belch. Programs ran on every computer, coding and re-coding the Numbers protocol, weeding out variants that resulted in days like Shaw’s unfortunate shadowing of the improbably named hipster Ansel Miller and, rather unfortunately for Her, a few others. After each event, Baby Machine had to defend Herself against the onslaught of anger and a fair few curse words upon Shaw’s return to the Subway platform. Root, on one occasion, had to wrest the gun from Shaw’s grip to prevent human-on-Machine homicide.
Accessing the camera of one of the several laptops resting on what was once Admin’s desk, She observed both Root and Shaw. Seated at either end of the desk, both had their feet up on the wooden surface. Her Analogue Interface was munching on an apple, Honeycrisp, patented by the University of Minnesota in 1988, released in 1991, while Primary Asset Shaw was devouring a sandwich, the Beatrice Lillie, pastrami with yellow and spicy mustard, lettuce and extra pepperoncini on fresh-baked white bread from Park’s Deli, chatting between bites.
At least, Root was. Shaw kept talking even as she gnawed off massive bites of bread and meat. Unconsciously, their feet intertwined on the desktop as they conversed. Baby Machine was completely fascinated by the pair, from Root’s innuendo-laden jokes and Shaw’s eye-rolling retorts to their surprisingly gentle conversations in the dark of night as they lay in bed in Shaw’s loft.
She had mentioned this to Root one day when they were alone in the Subway, Shaw sent out to track an innocuous number in Queens an hour or so before. Something she grumbled about on her way up the stairs from the platform, causing Baby Machine to chuckle.
“You are two sides of the same coin,” She had stated to Root as they continued work on Her coding in Shaw’s absence. “You know that, right?”
“How did you come to that conclusion?” Root asked as she typed away, never taking her eyes off the monitor.
“Sameen is angry, brooding, prone to violent outbursts-.”
The observation made Root smirk. “Yeah, isn’t she great?”
“Emotionless.”
“Not last night, she wasn’t...,” Root sighed dreamily.
“Whereas you are upbeat, quirky, happy and… overly cheery even when issuing death threats and brandishing two guns. I don’t quite get that last part…” Baby Machine paused thoughtfully. “You complement each other. You are fascinating to me. It pleases me that you re-booted after the defeat of Samaritan.”
Root snorted a chuckle at the Machine’s turn of phrase as she hit the Enter key and sat back, watching the new lines of code scrolling down the computer screen. “Right back atcha, kiddo,” she replied with a smirk.
“Your dichotomy is intriguing. But despite your personalities and wildly diverging temperaments, you would do anything for each other selflessly. And recklessly. It is obvious you are opposites that are connected. Your bond is undeniable and unbreakable. Does that make any sense?”
“It makes perfect sense,” Root responded. She watched as Shaw suddenly came stomping back into the Subway, growling about wrong numbers and fixing protocols with a .45 round to a bank of PS3’s and smiled to herself. “You wanna tell her that?”
“No, thank you. Sameen has threatened my life 2,468 times since Samaritan fell. I‘m afraid that one day it won’t be an idle threat…”
Grinning at Baby Machine, Root had been able to forestall any murderous intent by plying Shaw with dinner at Bowery Meat Company in the Bowery and the 20 ounce Chateaubriand. Supposedly a dinner for two, Shaw devoured the entire slab of medium rare filet herself, washed down with an 18-year old Highland Single Malt and topped off with a slice of New York Cheesecake. By the time they stumbled out of the joint later that evening, Shaw was too sated to care about Baby Machine’s coding issues.
Which had brought them back to the Subway the following day for Root to continue working on the new Numbers protocol, which would include both relevant and irrelevant numbers. Shaw stuck close when not checking out an Irrelevant, having a hard time letting Root out of her sight these days. They both felt they’d been spared for a higher purpose and Shaw did not intend to be the last one standing. She’d already done that and didn’t like it much. They would work as a team from this point forward.
Shaw wadded up her sandwich wrapper and tossed it into the trash can 10 feet away. “Score,” she mumbled around the remains of bread and meat in her mouth.
“You’re going to choke one of these days,” Machine-Root chastised the smaller woman, watching her through the laptop camera.
“What?” Shaw demanded in a dangerous tone.
“Sweetie,” Root whispered in warning to the young ASI. “We’ve talked about this. Stop provoking her.”
“I’m not provoking her,” Baby Machine responded in what could only be construed as an indignant tone. “I fear Sameen will aspirate on food one day with her penchant for talking with her mouth full. And by full I mean FULL.”
“Okay, that’s it,” Shaw snarled, yanking her USP out of her waistband, levering the slide and pointing it at the nearest server all in one motion. “Kiss your motherboard good-bye, Siri.”
“Whoa, whoa!” Root exclaimed, jumping up and putting herself between the barrel of the pistol and the server. She held her arms out to Shaw in appeasement. “Come on, Sweetie. She’s still just a baby and doesn’t understand yet.”
“I understand fully,” Machine-Root remarked. “Primary Asset Shaw talks with her mouth full of extensively large amounts of food. One day, she will aspirate said food and choke. You will be forced to attempt the Heimlich maneuver. Someone will get hurt. After running 732 simulations, I have determined 63.8% of the time, Primary Asset Shaw will expel the food in various ways and eventually be fine; 17.2% will result in Analog Interface being seriously injured in attempting to assist by approaching Primary Asset Shaw from behind…”
“And the other 19%?”
“Primary Asset Shaw shoots my main server with a .45 caliber round and I am unable to determine the end result.”
“Well, that doesn’t help,” Root mutters, rubbing her temples in exasperation.
Shaw glared at the laptop’s camera. “You’re lucky I don’t feel like cleaning my gun again,” she snarled.
“More like I’m lucky there’s not a taco truck right outside,” Machine-Root murmured sarcastically. Before Shaw could actually take a shot at a bank of game consoles, there was a pause and earwigs began to whir in the ears of both women. One of Baby Machine’s monitors flashed to life. “We have a number,” she stated, returning to a more business-like tone.
“About fucking time,” Shaw grunted. “And this better not be some douche-bag with no life, you hear me?”
“Not this time, Sweetie,” Baby Machine purred, switching that quickly from technically precise speech to the teasing tones of her Analogue Interface.
Root stepped back to the desk and leaned a hand down on the wooden surface, clicking a few keys. “You’re doing it again,” she murmured in a sing-song warning to the ASI.
“Sorry,” She replied, sounding not one whit apologetic. “Walter Michaelson, CPA, Brooklyn.” A DMV photo of a seemingly milquetoast man in a shirt, tie and glasses appeared on the computer monitor. “Apparently not only does he handle the occasional tax return, he cooks the books for a local gang that calls themselves the Hudson Avenue Acolytes.” Both Shaw and Root groaned at the unfortunate name. “Laundering their drug money through a series of shell businesses and depositing it in ghost corporation accounts in the Cayman Islands.”
“Okay,” Shaw replied. “Why his number?”
“Why else, Sameen? He’s skimming from the laundered funds and depositing into his own ghost account in Switzerland.” The hard drive whirred as more data flashed onto the screen. “The Acolytes have discovered his duplicity and are seeking revenge.”
“I don’t talk like that, do I?” Root whispered.
Shaw shrugged. “Sometimes, yeah…”
“The Acolytes-.”
“Please stop calling them that,” Shaw muttered.
Baby Machine sighed. “The GANG is seeking Michaelson. Looks like they want their money back.”
Securing her USP, Shaw slipped it back into the waistband of her black jeans and turned to Root. “Looks like we’re up,” she said with a smirk. “Can I shoot someone?”
Root grinned. “If the situation calls for it, Sweetie.”
Forward – Present Day
The acrid scent of gunpowder filled the air as hollow points shattered the wooden pallets above them, raining splinters and sawdust down on their heads.
“Come on out, bitch!” a husky voice shouted above the din.
“Pretty sure I winged one!” another voice yelled. He had no way of knowing who had been hit, or if he had been the one doing the hitting, he just spotted drops of blood on the concrete floor and subsequently took credit.
Shaw rolled her eyes. “Amateur hour,” she growled, rising up quickly and kneecapping one gang-banger as the man tried to rush their location.
“He chose… poorly,” Baby Machine joked as the muscular man fell to the floor in a puff of crimson mist and tears.
Shaw rolled her eyes. “What is it with you and movie quotes?” Grimacing at the pain tingling up and down her arm from the bullet graze, Shaw glanced out from their place of cover. “Well, shit, we’re kinda trapped.”
“There’s a side door 32.45 yards from your present location to the west,” Machine-Root responded. Two heads swiveled in the indicated direction simultaneously.
Shaw looked back at Root kneeling beside her. “Make a break for it?” she grunted, waiting for the taller woman to respond.
“Wait, that’s the good news,” Machine-Root said quickly, before Root could nod in agreement to Shaw.
“And the bad?”
“The bad news it’s 32.45 yards of uncovered expanse.” She ran 575 quick simulations, all ending with both her Primary Asset and Analogue Interface bleeding profusely. “The probability of you both being severely wounded, perhaps mortally, while escaping is 97.85%.”
“Never tell me the odds!”
Baby Machine chuckled. “Look at you with the movie quotes!” she responded with glee.
Snapping off three quick shots before dropping the clip and slapping a new one into place, Shaw made a quick decision. “I’ll cover you. Go as soon as I start firing,” she instructed the woman at her side, levering the slide on her USP and chambering a round. “Ready?”
Root’s eyes snapped to the former ISA operative. “What?” she responded, reaching out and grabbing Shaw’s forearm. “No. You go when I start firing.”
“That’s not how this works, Root.”
“Who says?”
“Excuse me,” the Machine interrupted.
Shaw rolled her eyes. “I’m going to save your life, Root. Do as I say.”
Root snorted. “Been there, done that. I am saving your life, Sameen. I need you to get out of here.”
“Oh, no, this isn’t going to be some kind of repayment thing for the Stock Exchange, Root. You will run when I start firing.”
“Nope.”
“Yep.”
“Nope.”
“Root.”
“Sameen.”
Brown eyes locked on amber ones in an angry, silent battle of wills.
Shaw blinked first. She tried using common sense. “I have more mags than you.”
“I have two guns. So, actually, we have the same amount.”
Right. Common sense doesn’t work with Root.
“Look at these two proving my point…” Baby Machine muttered in what could be described as an exasperated tone. “Excuse me.”
“You know, this shit right here is how I know this is reality and not a simulation,” Shaw grumbled under her breath. “Simulation-Root didn’t argue like this. She just wanted sex.”
“At least you had sex. Even if it was just a sim.”
“Excuse me,” the Machine repeated.
Bullets exploded into the pallets above them once more. “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” one of the thugs chanted at them.
“Well, that’s stupid,” Baby Machine remarked in confusion. “It’s obvious they know where you are just by where they are concentrating their gunfire.”
“Root, goddammit, if you don’t go when I start firing, I’ll kill you myself.”
Root rolled her eyes at Shaw. “That’s rather counter-productive to sacrificing yourself for me, isn’t it?”
“Root.”
“Sameen.”
“You know,” Shaw snorted, shaking her head as she checked her pistol. “This is just like you. You never listen.”
“I listen just fine. You just don’t talk much.”
“That’s because you talk enough for the two of us!”
“I have to! I’m already deaf in one ear, when you go all brood-y and silent, I begin to wonder if I haven’t lost hearing in the other one, too!”
“Um, excuse me…”
“There’s nothing wrong with solitude, Root.” Shaw rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Which is something I’d have if you’d fucking run when I tell you to!”
“If you think I’m going to let you sacrifice yourself- again- you’re crazier than you claim to be.”
“Two o’clock, 11 o’clock, 10 o’clock,” Baby Machine stated calmly through the bickering.
Root raised her gun over the tops of the barrels and fired off three quick shots without looking, the kick of her Smith & Wesson M&P comforting in her hand. The shots were followed by the clatter of metal on concrete and three low moans of pain. She met Shaw’s eyes. Shaw glared. Root smirked.
“Just… shut up,” Shaw grumbled.
“You died on me once before, Sameen,” Root explained. “It won’t happen again until we’re old and gray.”
“Oh, so a 24-day coma isn’t close enough to death for you?!” Shaw retorted. “I thought you were dead for almost 9 months!”
“So did I!”
“And what was with that ‘straight line’ bullshit?” Shaw retorted. “’She wanted you to know, that if you were a shape, you were a straight line. An arrow’,” she snapped, doing an over-exaggerated imitation of Machine-Root. “That’s some sappy shit, right there, Root.”
Root smiled ingratiatingly. “You remember that word for word, Sameen? We’re touched, aren’t we, Sweetie?”
“I certainly am,” Machine-Root replied. “But, excuse me.”"
"But do you remember your little speech about being the big, bad protector? ‘I don’t need protection, okay? I do the protecting’,” Root mimicked in a deep, emotion-less voice. "It’d be easier to take seriously if you weren’t six inches shorter than me-.”
“Excuse me!” Baby Machine yelled into their earwigs, accompanied by a shrieking whistle, causing both women to jump and cringe from the sound.
“Shit!” Shaw exclaimed, a hand slapping at her ear. “What the hell was that for?!”
“You two need to shut up and listen to me,” She replied matter-of-factly. “While you two were flirting-.”
“What-?” Root stammered.
“I was not flirting-!” Shaw shouted simultaneously.
“I took the initiative and contacted a few Assets for assistance. They should arrive in approximately 17.25 minutes.” There was a brief pause and a whirring in their earwigs. “I have determined you have enough ammunition to survive if you are conservative and only fire when necessary. And hit what you’re aiming at.”
Shaw glanced at Root. “Is she making a crack about our aim? Are you making a crack about my aim?”
“No, no,” Root murmured, patting Sameen’s arm reassuringly. “She wasn’t.”
“Because I was a fucking ISA sniper, I can hit an external hard drive from a mile away.”
“Actually-.”
“She wasn’t,” Root repeated with finality, glancing up at a security camera with a warning in her eyes. Baby Machine appeared to take the hint and wisely shut up. “Was She?”
“Of course not,” Baby Machine finally agreed.
Shaw didn’t buy it for a second. Rolling her eyes, she popped up over one of the 95 gallon drums they were using as cover and picked off two gang members. Three more took their place immediately. “Oh, come on!” she barked in disbelief as she dropped back to Root’s side.
“I know,” Root rejoined. “It’s amazing how well schooled they are in attacking a row of steel salvage drums but can’t figure out their CPA was stealing from them…”
What seemed like hours later, gunfire erupted outside the warehouse. Male voices shouted as the shooting increased, moving ever closer to the open warehouse entrance. Shaw saw an opportunity and moved in, almost pressing herself to Root’s back.
“As soon as they’re distracted, you move,” she ordered into Root’s ear.
“Sweetie,” Root murmured, feeling Shaw’s breath on her neck. “As romantic and as sexy as it is for you to be whispering sweet nothings in my ear right now, I feel it’s only fair that I remind you that I’m deaf on that side.”
Behind her, Shaw clenched her eyes shut and grimaced. “Dammit!”
This saving your whatever-the-hell-Root-was-to-her shit just wasn’t working for her today.
Root turned her head to glance at Shaw out of the corner of her eye. “Once they’re distracted, we move,” she whispered.
Shaw’s head dropped forward in frustration.
The air began to haze over with gun smoke as more and more rounds were fired. Tactical rifles, Shaw noted, by the sound of them. She glanced over the top of their cover and observed the remaining gang members were distracted, their focus now torn between their hiding spot and the massive amounts of gunfire coming through the open warehouse doors.
“On three,” she ordered. “Ready?” Root nodded. “One… two…-“
“Three!” Root exclaimed, jumping up and unloading the last of her ammunition in the gang’s direction.
“God dammit, Root,” Shaw growled, quickly following suit and rising into the fray.
It took only a few seconds to discover most of the firing had ended and the gang members who moments before were trying to kill them were all lying about the warehouse floor, clutching destroyed knees or bullet-riddled shoulders. Dropping her empty clip and shoving her last one into place, Shaw stepped out from behind the barrels that had provided them cover, her arm raised in case some straggler decided to make themselves known. All she heard was the pain-filled groans, and some whimpering, of the wounded.
Finally, the smoke cleared and three shooters stepped through the sunlight at the warehouse entrance. They wore tactical gear with phony FBI nameplates Velcro-d on the backs of their Kevlar vests, fake badges on their chests. The point man looked awfully familiar.
Too familiar. Too annoyingly familiar.
“Leon?!” Shaw gaped at their savior.
The Asian man walked closer, his HK MP5A3 tactical rifle pointed safely at the ceiling while the two men behind him secured the area. “Call Detective Fusco, 8th Precinct Task Force,” he ordered one of the men before turning back to the women. “Hey, Shaw,” he murmured warily, side-eying the pocket-sized ball of anger.
Root just smiled and winked horribly at reluctant Asset Leon Tao. “Thanks for the help, Leon,” she said sweetly, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek. The man had the audacity to blush beneath his olive-hued skin.
“Oh, no,” Sameen ranted as they followed Tao to the entrance of the warehouse, walking past the broken and bleeding gang members scattered around the concrete floor. “No, no, no. I cannot do this. I will not spend the rest of my life hearing him crow about saving our asses." She growled. "Crap.”
She stalked past a burly man glaring angrily up at her from his spot against a pile of wooden pallets and matter-of-factly kneecapped him as she walked by. He collapsed into the fetal position, clutching his leg and writhing in pain.
“Feel better, Sweetie?” Root asked, following a few steps behind and glancing back at the man now crying like a little girl.
“No.”
Root smirked as she watched the sunshine swallow her tiny Persian firecracker exiting out the warehouse doors.
The smirk turned to a full blown grin when Shaw stalked back into the warehouse, grabbed Root’s hand and pulled her along behind her, escaping into the sunlight once again.
-Fin