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said, you never had the Infiltrators in your scope. No coolhunters ever did - they were either too clever or never existed in the first place. Someone's fucking with you.
He thought about the scrambled face, the easygoing hello, the innocuous surroundings, and realized he was grinding his teeth. Who would want to do this to him? Who had he ever -
Lauden.
Of course. Holy shit. Lauden! Still pissed off about the Ripper affair. He was there that night, he was - fuck, he even got him drunk! Doug started to snicker. The "i" tattoo - couldn't he have come up with something a little more subtle? Still, all in all, way more cunning than he had given him credit for.
He looked at his watch. Past midnight, but what the hell.
He scrolled his watch back and re-established the connection he had disconnected so hastily in the tattoo shop. In the few seconds it took to resolve, he wondered why he'd been spooked so easily. Well, they had been close enough to practically tattoo my ass...
The same office was beamed onto the surface of his eye, and the same man was in there. This time, though, he was looking out the window.
"Doug!" he said in a welcoming voice that didn't entirely nullify the coldness of his slowly shifting mask.
"Lauden!" Doug exclaimed sarcastically.
The man didn't respond, just stood there.
"Get rid of that stupid mask, Lauden," Doug spat, irritated that he would continue with it.
"Ah... there it is. Lauden's your co-worker," said the man. He folded his arms, and said in a calm voice. "My name's not important, Doug."
"You sure it's not Prime Infiltrator?" jeered Doug.
"Quite sure."
Doug, using hand controls, zoomed in on the desk. It was covered with files, but they were gibberish. "These aren't even real. They're props."
"They're encrypted," the man's voice said. "I have quite a few visitors here. A lot of these documents are sensitive. The one on you, for instance." A hand, gigantic with the enlargement, pi