EVE pulled him along from store to store. She’d linked up to the satellites overhead and plotted out the most efficacious course for their activities.

Her idea for appropriate places to shop were places that made the clothes on demand and to custom tailoring orders. In other words, expensive. The customer stepped into a 3d holographic matrix, which then projected the clothing onto the wearer, replacing the need for old fashioned dressing rooms. The customer would then say what they wanted changed like colors, patterns, trim, etc., and when the order was complete, the clothing would be printed out. Most stores still had a dressing room in case the customer really wanted to verify the fit, but as the technology was considered stable at this point, hardly anyone ever actually did use it.

Mark did use the dressing room. His concern was the lack of mobility in the stylized clothing. Mark had almost lost his life due to bad clothing on one of his earliest patrols as a uniformed cop.

He’d seen a driver going suspiciously slow late at night. The driver then turned into a road without signaling, prompting Mark to turn on his police siren and pull the driver over. The driver kept going and stopped outside a house. When Mark tried to confront the suspect and get him to take a breathalyzer test, the suspect went into his house. Mark grabbed him to prevent him from escaping, and the man turned around and punched Mark.

The night had been cold and the large jacket and thick pants Mark wore hindered his ability to move away from the suspect, who bunched Mark’s jacket and pummeled him senseless. Mark couldn’t reach for his gun while his arms were trapped, and was thus forced to earn a brutal and embarrassing beating.

The case went before a judge, who threw it out. Laws regarding signaling while changing lanes only applied to cases where the person driving was putting other people at risk. There were no other drivers on the road, so the lack of signal wasn’t illegal. The slow driving might have been a sign of intoxication, but Mark hadn’t been able to perform a sobriety test, so there was no legal grounds on that. Finally, Mark had attempted to restrain the man when he was entering his house without probable cause, so the beating Mark suffered was his own fault for failing to observe proper police protocols.

Mark learned his lesson. He wore thin, breathable layers of clothing instead of a single bulky layer. He made sure to test out his outfits before he went on patrols and make sure that he could jump, run, and climb without unnecessary impediment. The same process applied to his shoes and gloves, making sure he could draw and fire and run in full uniform.

The tailors accommodated him and made adjustments to his clothing as he performed various calisthenic exercises in the tiny dressing room. He had to pay for all of the failed bundles of clothes that his tinkering caused, but being mentally and physically comfortable in his clothes was a price he was willing to pay.

Special automatic delivery vehicles would deposit items bought into trackable safe vaults that were dropped off outside the house, similar to meal shipping services in in the earlier part of the century, and signed with a biometric lock. It was a helpful service when competing against the automatic delivery services and it had the added bonus of getting people to shop more when they didn’t have to lug around gigantic bags of goods with them everywhere.

New Orleans also had the added bonus of being an old city. New cities tended to be designed for automobiles, and not people. Older cities still had pedestrian friendly areas, and Eve navigated through them with brusque efficiency.

Similar stops were made to cobblers, jewelers, hair stylists, and other accessorizing stores. Eve also made sure to pick up items for herself, and Mark couldn’t figure out if she actually wanted him to change his look or if she just wanted to pick up stuff for herself and have him along for the ride.

The weirdest stops to Mark were to cosmetic and makeup stores. Eve bought a variety of different wigs, sunglasses, facial powders, skin bronzers, and other assorted goods. Mark found himself in the new role as a guinea pig for her figuring out which combinations of skin toners, blushes, and makeup went best with his skin. All of these products had automatic application kits that would apply everything in a uniform manner, but Eve did it all the old fashioned way with her hands. When she was satisfied with her choices, she paid for everything and sent it off to his apartment.

“Are we going to be doing movie reenactments any time soon? Or did you just volunteer me for the Witness Protection Program?” Mark asked after they left the store.

“Selfie time!” Eve said, pulling out her mobile data pad. She took a picture of herself and Mark close together, like a couple out on a stroll. Except she had a perfect smile and playful gesture, while Mark had the look of a man completely bewildered and caught off-guard. It was probably the least flattering picture of himself in existence.

“What was that for?” Mark said. “Look carefully,” she said, sliding the data pad in front of his face. She had zoomed it in on two people off in the background.

“We’ve been tailed for a while now, only those two. I’ve been monitoring them to see if they’d call for reinforcements or help, but so far, the only thing they’ve done is sent someone out to tail the car.”

“Great, so they know where I live?”

“No,” Eve said with a smile, “I sent all those deliveries out to the middle of nowhere. There’s a courier service that’s waiting by and is recording anyone going in or out of the area. We’ll use the footage of the vehicles that come to that place to reverse engineer who is after you.”

“How did you know someone was after me?” he asked. “And why didn’t you tell me about it?” The last part came out as a growl, his anger rising.

“Because meat bags are so emotional. If you knew, your behavior would have changed, like it is right now. That would have given us away. Now, turn into this alley.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him in.

“EVE!” he thought, through his mental link, “What the hell are you doing? This is the perfect spot for an ambush.”

“Exactly what I plan to do. Crouch behind the dumpster with me please.”

He didn’t have time to argue, so he dropped behind a dumpster next to Eve. He wasn’t sure what was on the ground or in the alley, so he made sure not to lean against anything. Soon enough, he heard the sounds of two people walking down the alley.

“Think they spotted us?” one of the two men said.

“No. I think they maybe went for a quick make out session, maybe something more.”

“Sounds like you’re fantasizing.”

“Hey, get paid and get to see a little action in one night? Not a bad day.”

Unfortunately, he invoked the law of Universal Irony with that statement, transforming his day into a bad one. Eve sprang out and executed a judo throw, Harai Goshi, on the thug that had been talking. She held onto his arm as she threw him, and quickly flipped him over and began frisking him, throwing away weapons. The time from start to end barely took her three seconds.

Mark went after the other thug, who had a good thirty pounds on him. The man had the short, square body Mark associated with wrestlers, so he figured a good boxing match would probably be the best bet. He feigned a quick jab to the man’s face to test the reaction, and then followed up with a cross.

Unfortunately, that’s where a problem kicked in from learning how to fight inside of a virtual reality simulator. In the game, Mark’s dexterity skill put him somewhere near an elite athlete’s level. In the real World, Mark was not an elite athlete. The military pods realistic training helped, but the games soldiers had played gave them physical stats similar to their own real-World stats.

The effect was that he threw a very good punch, but his aim was off. He wanted to punch the man in the soft cartilage of his nose, blinding him and throwing him off balance. What he actually did was punch the man in the protruding cheek bone. Sharp lances of fire danced up his knuckles as he heard his knuckle pop. He didn’t think he broke his hand, but it sure as hell hurt. He had a flashing memory to Luciana teaching him that fighting styles which didn’t use gloves, like Kyokushin Karate, struck with the bottom of the palm rather than the closed fist. It was knowledge he couldn’t use at the moment.

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The man recovered quickly from the blow, and shot in for a textbook double leg. Defending a double leg takedown in full clothing is surprisingly easy. In a MMA fight, combatants couldn’t grab the clothes of the opponent, which means a double-leg had to be stopped by a quick sprawl. But in the real World, if you sprawled quick and hooked onto the belt of the opponent pushing his pants down, he couldn’t do anything because he’d have to lift himself off the ground to complete the takedown, which is physically impossible.

Unfortunately, the fact that his hand was ruined meant that Mark’s grip was weak, and he was slow to sprawl. The man closed his hands together behind his legs and slammed him into the concrete. Mark had the presence of mind to tuck his chin in to keep his hand from smashing off the pavement, but the weight going into his stomach still knocked the breath out of him.

The man pinned Mark’s legs down as he advanced, keeping Mark from pulling guard. He was good, his movements fluid and graceful as he easily escaped Mark’s failed attempts to try to shrimp away from the man and get into a defensive position or kick him off. The man straddled Mark completely and Mark prepared himself for the joy of having his head bounced off the pavement. Instead, a fist clocked the man right in the side of his temple. The blow knocked the man completely off Mark, and he lay in a contorted position, clearly knocked out. To Mark, it had sounded like the man had been hit with an aluminum baseball bat.

He quickly got to his feet to see if any other attackers, but the other person was completely passed out on the ground, his own clothing used to tie him up. She’d knocked him out, frisked him, stripped his weapons, and managed to wrangle him in maybe ten seconds. The thought sobered Mark, he’d almost lost a fight in just ten seconds.

He shrugged off the feeling and went over to the man Eve had just knocked out. He hadn’t really gotten a good look at the man in the chaos of combat. He was short and powerfully built, wore a long-sleeved designer shirt with bright colors. The conspicuous clothing told Mark that they probably hadn’t been tailed from his apartment, since no one on a stakeout would wear anything this gaudy.

He had a knife on him, which Mark was thankful hadn’t been used. He’d heard stories about cops getting into knife fights and not realizing they’d been stabbed until the adrenaline wore off. He gave himself a quick putdown over his body, but didn’t feel any warm, wet spots on himself. He finished by following Eve’s lead and tying the man up with his own clothing. Given the man’s build, he could probably rip out of the restraints eventually, but not without a significant struggle.

She finished going through the man’s pockets, but he didn’t have anything else of interest on his person. The man started stirring as she finished. She slapped him awake for good measure, and he woke up with a jolt, stopped short by his restraints.

“What the hell?” he growled, “let me go.”

“Not until you say something for me.”

He didn’t say anything, opting to just glare at her instead. She made a dramatic sigh and grabbed his right hand that was bound behind his back. She began squeezing. Mark could hear the bones in the man’s hand starting to pop and his face turned bright red as he tried not to cry out in pain.

From his perspective, this had to be a surreal situation. Most humandroids could be detected, there were giveaways present. However, Eve’s model had no tell-tale signs. As far as this man knew, a 115 lbs. Woman was breaking his hand with raw grip strength.

“Unless you plan on hiring a humandroid to help wipe your ass, I suggest talking.”

The man tried to hold out for a few more seconds, but he was clearly going to crack.

“Okay! What do you want me to say?”

She eased up pressure on his hand. “Say the following: ‘That quick beige fox jumped in the air over each thin dog. Look out, I shout, for he's foiled you again, creating chaos.’”

“What?” the man responded, before he felt his hand get gripped again. He repeated the words along with Eve, so he didn’t have to remember the nonsensical sentence all at once.

The other man that Eve had initially tussled with started trying to wriggle away. Eve calmly walked up to him and pinched his carotid arteries shut, which made him pass out again.

“When you captured us,” Eve said, walking back, “What were you planning on doing? You needed to call someone right? To tell them where to find us? What was the person’s name?”

“No names,” the man said, eyeing the woman. “It’s a dark web contract. That guy’s face is on a contract, twenty grand to bring him in alive. Killing him will get the contract placed on you instead. Someone wants him, alive, very badly.”

“How were you to get into contact when you captured him?”

“Just make a phone call to a number. Might just be an answering service or a burner, don’t know.”

She stood completely still. Mark guessed that she was trying to collaborate his story by going online and looking for confirmation. Unfortunately, the dark web operated off of less than stellar servers, making it hard to connect to it and search it. After maybe twenty seconds, she grabbed his data pad and made a call.

“The package has been obtained,” she said, in a perfect imitation of the man’s voice. “Call me back and give me a location.” She hung up. A few seconds later, a message beeped on the phone.

“Well Mr. Bad guy,” the other one had woken up as well, but a sharp look from Eve made him decide against trying to get up, “you’ve just been framed for setting up a failed meeting with the boss man. They’ll probably try to kill you after this. I’d run if I were you. But first, can’t have you messing anything up.”

She took off the man’s shoes and socks, and stuff a sock into his mouth and tied it. It had to taste disgusting. She then flipped open the can to the garbage dump they had been behind and lazily tossed him into it. He landed with a hard smack that told Mark the trash can was empty. She repeated the same performance with the other man, then closed the lid behind her.

“What are we doing with the location data?” Mark asked as they walked away from the dumpster. Despite feeling like an eternity, only a few minutes had passed.

“I’m going to forward the audio transcription, screenshots of the dark web contract, and the confession from those two goons to the police. Whoever they will send after you is going to be someone low on the totem pole, but the police might be able to dig up some clues. Regardless, it’ll at least slow down whoever is after you. If you leave the apartment, you need to wear a disguise and something that will disrupt face recognition technology.”

“So I am in the witness protection program,” he replied dryly. Well, this sucked.

“I thought about using you as bait, which would work in the game. In the real World though, you don’t have any of the advantages that you have in the game.”

The words stung, but she was right. In the game, he was a badass judicial investigator armed with a myriad of weapons and fighting skills. In the real World, he was a regular guy who worked on the low-end of the totem-pole for a corporation.

“Regardless,” she continued, “We need to get you into the game and find out who is behind this. The police aren’t going to have much to go off of. Also, you’re temporarily moving into a new apartment. We don’t know how compromised you are. It’d be best if we could get completely out of state, but moving your vat tank out of state would take too much time. I’ve had it transferred to a building I’m renting out. In my name.

Don’t worry, I only hired humandroids. Can’t trust humans,” she said, matter of factly. Mark had a quick inward wince. One of the advantages of humandroids was that they didn’t have autonomous thinking like humans, so they could be absolutely trusted to do whatever they were told without interference.

Mark was reeling from all of the new revelations. He was being hunted by a mysterious group, almost certainly the same ones that were running slave operations in the game World. He had been moved out of his apartment into an entire building that was being rented out. He clearly didn’t have money issues anymore, though he had no idea how much money he actually had at the moment, but the insider trading business that Eve ran seemed to be flourishing. She could buy out an entire building and not bat an eye at it.

“Are we going to be moving out of state?” Mark had nothing that attached him to Louisiana. His Dad was dead, he didn’t have any siblings, and his mother spent her days in a different proxima galaxy. There was nothing tying him to the city, save the excellent cuisines, but he still didn’t want to move.

“Not at this moment. Contingency plans will be prepared, but for now, I’m fortifying the building we’re going to be staying at and monitoring your current apartment. We don’t know how much resources our enemies have, but it could be very extensive. The time and cost of fully relocating could cost us more time in setting up than we’d gain in throwing off our scent.”

Mark had been motivated to take out the slavers, but now, they were starting to make things very personal with him.