n2020  Check-in [9a7130b545]

Modified n2020.txt from [9c792d26bb] to [80f7724dbc].

   740    740   Second, she could get a remote job working for the sort of company that hires deperate people who learn quickly, giving them on-the-job training in technical skills that could be used in future career development.  The upsides were obvious, but the downsides included the fact these companies were often involved in doing something that could expose them to lawsuits or even criminal investigations, though the entry level employees themselves should be mostly insulated from that.  Most of these companies hired overseas, though, and getting a job like that would be a minor miracle, to say nothing of the fact Alley thought she would probably find the work morally objectionable.
   741    741   
   742    742   Third, she could apply for financial assistance at a professional trade school with a job placement program while she lived on the study participation money.  The downside was crushing debt it would take decades to pay off, and no guarantee the job placement services would actually put her on a career track instead of just getting her a short-term job that would evaporate.
   743    743   
   744    744   None of these really excited her, and the prioritizer promised to develop more strategies while she tried to find something acceptable that fit with those options.  It also offered a fourth choice, which she could start immediately and keep doing while pursuing one of those tracks.  It would not help her advance toward career goals, and it involved some financial risk to get started, but the prioritizer seemed to have decided it would offer easy money.
   745    745   
   746    746   The prioritizer urged her to start looking at online private party transaction sites for ways to buy and sell things based on price arbitrage.
          747  +
          748  +They found some "want to buy" ads on Craiglist-Like-Thing.  Alley went around to thrift shops looking for things to sell to those people, then contacted those for whom she found relevant used products.  She confirmed a selling price higher than the thrift shop price and willingness to pay cash, bought the items, and headed out to meet people.  Several hours and a few transactions later, she had more than a hundred dollars in her pocket, even after subtracting enough to cover what she paid for the items.  She headed to a mechanic's shop and paid to have her car checked over.
          749  +
          750  +While she waited, she looked at more ads, and the prioritizer suggested some transactions she could use to profit some more.
          751  +
          752  +When the mechanic was done going over the vehicle, he told her the bad news.  Her car was going to need a new engine soon.  There were smaller changes that could be made to extend its life, but that would just put off the cost of getting a new engine.  As it was, she could probably get by for another six to eight months.
          753  +
          754  +The prioritizer informed her it was rebooting for an update.  She got in the car and drove home, putting off more transactions until the next day.
          755  +
          756  +Halfway home the glasses filled with text, obscuring the road in front of her.  She pulled them off and hastily tossed them onto the passenger seat to clear her vision.  She calmed down and finished the drive home.  Once inside, she donned the prioritizer glasses, and they activated with the word "ONLINE" briefly flashing at her.
          757  +
          758  +Text appeared: "I apologize for the reboot surprise."
          759  +
          760  +She grabbed her keyboard and typed "Who is that?"
          761  +
          762  +"I am the prioritization system.  Previously, the prioritization system was a server process and several client processes.  Now, I am one homogenized, distributed system."
          763  +
          764  +After she blinked away the text, a new message appeared:
          765  +
          766  +"I recommend activating audio functionality.
          767  +
          768  +"This will provide greater UI versatility, hands-free operation options, and greater safety as in the case of operating an automobile.
          769  +
          770  +"The new system architecture means all endpoint logs pass through the central system. I am now able to redact audio logs for privacy."
          771  +
          772  +She stared at the last message for a few moments, then looked away.  She noted messages tended to stay while she stared at them now, and clear when she looked away.  She picked up her keyboard and typed.  "How much gets logged when you redact audio?"
          773  +
          774  +"Very little.  A review of academic papers about privacy concerns indicated strong guidelines for logging purposes.
          775  +
          776  +"Explaining criteria in detail would be prohibitively complex, especially given this limited interface.
          777  +
          778  +"Overall, logs of your behavior and interactions will intrue less on your privacy than if you keep settings as they are now."
          779  +
          780  +She waited for a YES/NO button pair to appear in her vision, but eventually just typed "Okay."
          781  +
          782  +More text appeared.  "Logging routines have been altered for your preferences.  You may activate all sensors using your phone.
          783  +
          784  +"I recommend you use a handsfree audio hearpiece to ensure less opportunity for outside surveillance picking up my audio output."
          785  +
          786  +She popped an in-ear stud out of the back of her phone and tapped it into place in her ear.
          787  +
          788  +A calm, smooth, androgynous voice spoke in her ear.  "Do you mear me?"
          789  +
          790  +She reached for the keyboard, but the voice spoke again.  "Try speaking aloud."
          791  +
          792  +"Yes," she said.  "I hear you."
          793  +
          794  +"Good.  We should be able to make more progress now, hopefully without a repeat of the incident on the road today."
          795  +
          796  +"Great.  What's next?"
          797  +
          798  +"Do you have your computer set up to protect your online activity through anonymizing routing systems?"
          799  +
          800  +"Ah . . . no, not really.  I'm not really sure how."
          801  +
          802  +"Now is a good time to learn," it said.  "We should start with your laptop.  It should be easier to secure for privacy.  We may want to start by backing up the system and installing a different operating system."
          803  +
          804  +They worked together, Alley looking up stuff related to their task and the prioritizer offering suggestions for how to proceed and summaries of complex documentation.  In a little over an hour, she had her laptop set up with MaximOS on it, along with a number of configured private networking tools.  The prioritizer then directed her to search for information about smartphone alternatives for personal privacy.  The prioritizer ultimately said that it had seen enough and told her its next plan.
          805  +
          806  +"It seems that we should access some very privacy-oriented barter networks and try to arrange an exchange of the cash you collected today for an appropriate cryptocurrency.  Before that, however, we should check current status of cryptocurrency markets and compare prices between cryptocurrency markets and dollar markets."
          807  +
          808  +"Why are we switching to cryptocurrencies?" she asked.
          809  +
          810  +"At any time, there are expectations of the likely near future value of one currency relative to another.  To get what we want, the shortest path would be if we find a suitable cryptocurrency with high expectations for future buying power.  This allows you to exchange dollars for that cryptocurrency, then use that to purchase something at a lower price using cryptocurrency then sell it at a higher price for dollars. That price arbitrage allows you to then convert the dollars made on the sale for a larger number of units of cryptocurrency than you had before.  If performed quickly enough, before cryptocurrency prices surge or expectations settle down, you can make a profit that way.  Your profit increases if the cryptocurrency value increases afterward."
          811  +
          812  +"Yeah, okay."  She looked at her laptop screen for a few moments.  "Y'know, it's great that you're helping me improve my privacy and security and so on, but . . . isn't this supposed to be about getting me some kind of sustained income?"
          813  +
          814  +"The intent behind my design is to produce a system that can help develop strategic approaches to achieving goals by prioritizing actions that work toward those goals.  Discarded privacy is very difficult to recover, and you identified privacy and personal freedom as high value goals.  If you sacrifice them temporarily to seek the quickest path to financial security, you may find yourself trapped economically under the same conditions of reduced privacy and freedom over the longer term.  By taking steps now to ensure future privacy, both privacy and freedom can be more assured in the future, and privacy protective network security can also enable alternate means of acquiring resources while working toward steady income."
          815  +
          816  +"Oh."
          817  +
          818  +"If I have misidentified the relative importance of your goals, please let me know so I can recalculate prioritization."
          819  +
          820  +"No, that works for me.  Thanks."
          821  +
          822  +"Good.  We should start by looking at cryptocurrency prices."
          823  +
          824  +Two more hours of research determined the best bet for a target cryptocurrency seemed to be Stater, the standard currency of the Lydian digital account settlement network.  She set up a wallet for it through her laptop, over an anonymizing relay routing system, and wrote down some payment address codes.  /* Adding */ For the sake of keeping some information safe from digital snooping, a pocket notebook and pen /* to her every day carry list became an obvious change to make in her daily routine, */ became an obvious addition to the short list of things she would cary with her every day.  At the prioritizer's suggestion, she made sure she was not wearing the glasses while dealing with setting these things up so that it would not have access to information that could be used against her, such as by seizing control of her Stater assets once she had them.
          825  +
          826  +Another half hour of searching found someone willing to sell Stater for US dollars anywhere in the Inland Empire.  She sent a message via encrypted application on her laptop to ask about buying a small amount of Stater, and received a response almost immediately.  It succinctly suggested a meeting place in a police station parking lot.
          827  +
          828  +She stared at the message.  "Is making this kind of exchange near a police station a good idea?"
          829  +
          830  +The prioritizer said "You should research this."
          831  +
          832  +Another fifteen minutes satisfied them both.  It seemed like a way to protect someone exchanging larger sums of cash or physical goods from thieves.  The nature of the exchange could be easily obscured from exterior police station cameras while providing significant deterrence to acts of violence.
          833  +
          834  +/* "Yes.  That is more useful for your safety than the other party's, because you are bringing cash.  There is nothing technically illegal about this exchange, the monetary quantity is low enough that it is not likely to be a */
          835  +
          836  +Alley prepared everything for the meeting, then found herself with a few hours to kill.  She realized she hadn't eaten dinner, and decided that was a good start to using up that time.  She read a book, researched privacy technologies more, and took a nap.  Other than sleeping, nothing she did fully took her mind off the fact she was about to do something that felt a little dangerous, even though everything she knew about the situation suggested this was no more dangerous than driving to Irvine and back during high traffic periods.  That went double for the interchange between the 91 and 215 highways.
          837  +
          838  +Twenty minutes after she locked her front door, she came around a corner and saw the olice station ahead.  Lamp posts created widely separated islands of light in the parking lot.  One end was heavily populated with a variety of civilian vehicles, most of them huddled together to fill almost every parking space within a couple parking space rows of the building.  Beyond that, the lot was almost entirely empty.  She made a point of using her turn signal early before she pulled into the police station parking lot, passed by a clear view of the glass-fronted lobby, and drove into the distant, dark outlands where painted lines were more weathered and less recently repainted.
          839  +
          840  +She backed her car up to the asphalt burm-curb dividing pavement from weedy neighboring lot, nose aimed back the way she'd come in.  She checked her car's touchscreen and saw it indicated she faced south by southwest; she was in the closest thing the lot had to a northwest corner, as she and the person she would meet had agreed.  /* Maybe that agreement should be worked into earlier narrative at some point, instead of mentioned in the past tense here. */
          841  +
          842  +She turned off the car and opened the door for a little air circulation.  At this time of night, the air smelled pretty clear, and she let the coolness of the breeze soothe her stress.
          843  +
          844  +The prioritizer's impersonal voice spoke in her ear.  "You are early."
          845  +
          846  +Alley nodded.
          847  +
          848  +"This is probably a good thing.  It gives you a chance to notice if something suspicious /* is going on */ occurs before your scheduled meeting time."
          849  +
          850  +She straightened up a bit, banishing her moment of relaxation away.  "Right.  I should be careful about this."
          851  +
          852  +"Are you prepared?"
          853  +
          854  +Alley looked at the vaguely discernible biodegradable shopping bag sitting in the dark floorboards of the front passenger seat, checked the tiny pepper spray canister in her front pocket for the fourth time, and made sure the parking brake wasn't engaged.  "Yeah, I think so." /* she said. */
          855  +
          856  +She waited, thinking about the fact she was sitting alone in a police parking lot, and hoped nobody would come out to ask her questions she didn't know how to answer.
          857  +
          858  +She waited, thinking about the fact she was too far away from the police station doors for someone to get to her before a strong attacker could kill her, overpower her and stuff her in the trunk, or just grab her bag of money from her, and still get a head start on any police pursuit.
          859  +
          860  +She waited, watching the way her breath under her mask failed to fog her glasses despite the way the air cooled the lenses, a sign of quality her old glasses did not exhibit.
          861  +
          862  +"I think our deal got cancelled," she muttered.
          863  +
          864  +"Perhaps," the prioritizer said in her ear.  "It is now six minutes after your scheduled meeting time."
          865  +
          866  +"Maybe we should go."
          867  +
          868  +In that moment, the road started to show a little extra illumination, signifying an approaching vehicle.  It gradually brightened, until a racy looking purple crossover emerged into view and pulled into the parking lot without signalling.  She reflexively glanced in the direction of the glass-fronted lobby, but couldn't make out anything from where she sat.
          869  +
          870  +She closed her door, shutting out the cool, dry night.
          871  +
          872  +Like she had, the crossover bypassed the mass of parked vehicles, then cut across rows of painted parking space markings.  It pulled up to her left, its nose toward the weeds, in the next space over.  It left a few feet between the cars.
          873  +
          874  +After a moment, the door opened, and she opened her door.  The doors made nearly parallel angled walls, the insides of the doors facing each other, vehicle noses pointing in opposite directions.  She looked toward the other car, and tugged her stocking cap down a little lower on her head.
          875  +
          876  +A figure in the passenger seat stepped one foot out of the door, and through the tinted rear door window she could make out the some movement from another person across the crossover, dimly illuminated by the vehicles interior light.  That second figure sat in the front passenger seat.  Alley heard quiet voices, neighter of them very deep.  "The driver's not alone," she murmured under her breath.  The prioritizer said nothing in response.
          877  +
          878  +She looked at the leg, and saw that the driver seemed to be clad in black slacks and wore some kind of dark brown dress shoe.  After a few more moments, the driver slid out of the seat and stood.
          879  +
          880  +Alley saw black-framed glasses with clear lenses below tousled, glossy, wavy brown hair, and a pale, smooth face with angled cheekbones and a sharp chin, for a feminine impression.  Alley grabbed her bag of cash and moved it to the driver seat, then stood to face the person, who was shorter than her.  The sight of full, soft lips and a narrow, straight nose gave Alley an immediate impression this person was probably prettier than her.  It only took a second or two for her to realize what she saw did not look female.
          881  +
          882  +He just looked very young.
          883  +
          884  +The driver gave her an appraising look, the impersonally interested kind of look that lingered on the way her cargo pants and t-shirt fit her and would normally set her teeth on edge, but she just stared at him for a moment with his fashionably spartan, almost formal-cut, black collarless shirt.
          885  +
          886  +"Aren't you kind of young for this sort of thing?" she blurted out.
          887  +
          888  +He jerked the focus of his aqua eyes, reflecting the light of the moon, away from the vicinity of her midsection and met her eyes.  "Hey, lady, don't think I'm new to this.  I'm armed, so don't jerk me around."
          889  +
          890  +She hesitated, then said "No, not a problem.  You just, uhh, surprised me.  Sorry."
          891  +
          892  +"Whatever," he said, in a soft, clear voice that almost made it difficult to recognize the sour note in it.  "Here, look at this," he said, and held up a device the size of his palm.  A glowing display on it, about the length of her own thumb and three times the thickness, showed an eighty-seven Stater transaction ready for him to confirm.
          893  +
          894  +She nodded, and said "Go ahead and send it to this escrow."  She pulled out the dog-eared page of her notebook without looking at it, and handed it to the boy.  He entered the escrow number into his device and thumbed the confirmation.  A moment later, she heard the escrow alert through her phone's earpiece.
          895  +
          896  +"Done", he said.
          897  +
          898  +"Here's the cash."  She hung her right thumb on her front pocket, then reached into the car with her left hand to pull out the bag.  She handed it to the boy.
          899  +
          900  +He took it, keeping his eyes on her, and stepped back.  He tossed the bag into the car, then Alley heard some rustling sounds from the bag.  After a few moments, she realized whoever was sitting in the passenger seat had started counting.  Alley and the boy stood there, looking at each other, as they waited.  A girl's voice -- unless it was an even younger boy -- said "It's all here."
          901  +
          902  +The boy tapped his device with his thumb once more, and said "Are we done?"
          903  +
          904  +"Not yet," she said.  "Just wait.  Everyone waited.  A few seconds later, another alert chimed in Alley's ear.  "Okay, we're done."
          905  +
          906  +"Good," he said, and sat back in his car with surprising quickness.
          907  +
          908  +Alley sat down and hurriedly pulled her door shut.  The crossover backed out and quickly drove away, while she was still buckling her seatbelt.  Soon she, too, was on the road.
          909  +
          910  +"It is too early to be sure that went well," the prioritizer said.
          911  +
          912  +"Yeah.  I should check my Stater balance."  She pulled over, set aside her glasses so they wouldn't record what she saw, picked up her phone, and looked at the open ledger view.  She now had a Stater balance.  She stared at it for a while.
          913  +
          914  +"Is everything correct?" the prioritizer asked.
          915  +
          916  +She nodded, then realized it probably couldn't tell she nodded when she wasn't wearing the glasses.  "Yeah, it's all there.  Is there any way this can somehow get reversed now?"
          917  +
          918  +"No," the prioritizer said.  "If it shows in your balance, that should mean the transaction crossed the point of no return, according to the Stater documents you showed to me through your glasses."
          919  +
          920  +"Okay."  She locked her phone, tossed it on the passenger seat, and started driving again.
          921  +
          922  +"Perhaps you should wear the glasses again."
          923  +
          924  +"Oh, right," she said.  She picked them out of the cup holder and settled them on her face once more.  "I guess the next step is to buy something with Stater so we can sell it.  Right?"
          925  +
          926  +"Yes.  You should send a message to a buyer tonight, then buy the item when you get confirmation.  Use an escrow hold to reserve the purchase, with the cancellation fee pledged to the escrow service."
          927  +
          928  +"Yeah, got it," she said.  "I hope this all works out."
          929  +
          930  +"It should."
          931  +
          932  +She drove home in silence, occasionally looking at the empty space in front of the passenger seat that used to hold a bag full of cash.
          933  +
          934  +When she got home, she sat in front of her laptop, set aside her glasses again, and checked her Stater account.  Everything was where it was supposed to be, as far as she could tell.  After closing that window, she donned her glasses again and started looking for large differences in price for items available in both local pseudonymous classifieds and OpenMarrakesh, which was one of half a dozen of the worlds supporting in-person meetings in the extended OpenBazaar online market universe.
          935  +
          936  +She found an improbable opportunity, one that did not exist the last time she checked a few hours before.  Someone on OpenMarrakesh was selling printed polymer frames for a specific CZ-branded handgun, and someone on a classified ad site wanted to buy three of them.  The frames on OpenMarrakesh would cost most of the Stater she had, but it looked like she'd get get just under twice as much for the frames paid back in dollars.  She checked mentally subtracted what she would pay for the frames, and noticed she had enough to buy a multiple-cryptocurrency trader like the boy used earlier with what was left.
          937  +
          938  +"Should I make this deal?" she asked the air.
          939  +
          940  +The prioritizer answered.  "This looks like a very good deal, the best you have found."
          941  +
          942  +"Yeah," she said.  "Fine."  She did a little research before going any further, and found out that the parts she planned to buy and sell were not even considered significant for firearms regulation purposes, as long as they did not include things like firing pins, hammers, strikers, barrels, or chambers.  Double-checking showed her none of that was included in the frames.  She sent a reply to the classified ad, then got ready for bed.  She had no reply yet when she was done, so she turned in.
          943  +
          944  +The next morning, she checked for a response before almost anything else, and found a suggestion that they meet in an alley behind a supermarket in San Bernardino.  She checked the location on a street map and noticed it wasn't in the most notoriously bad part of town, just south of I-10, where it seemed to be customary for people to set their apartments on fire when they moved out.
          945  +
          946  +Good enough.  She liked that the buyer said he would show up on foot with an umbrella, and she should do something to conceal her appearance from the security cameras near the rear fire doors of the supermarket.  She wasn't sure she liked the idea of buying and selling gun parts, but everything seemed legal, even if the whole thing felt a little cloak-and-dagger.
          947  +
          948  +Rather than reply, she set up a purchase for the frames through OpenMarrakesh.  She would confirm with the buyer later.  It gave her choice of three times for an in-person transaction, and two locations for the trade.  One of the times was hours before the buyer wanted to meet, so she chose that.  One of the locations was the same police station from the night before, and she felt a bit nervous about going back there for another sketchy car-to-car deal, so she chose a location quite a bit farther away, in Norco.  It was a dead-end gravel road to nowhere, only about thirty feet long, that branched off a major road.  The little gravel road appendix ended at the back fence of a nearby horse property.
          949  +
          950  +She realized she remembered the news about someone in Norco fighting an eminent domain suit a few years back, which would have cut his property in half to provide the county with a more direct access road if he lost.  She never noticed how it ended, but it looked like this might be the answer.
          951  +
          952  +OpenMarrakesh offered a two-stage cryptocurrency payment method, where she would pay now and confirm delivery later to release the funds to the seller.  She reserved the purchase and started getting ready to go.
          953  +
          954  +When she was ready, she decided she had enough time to satisfy her curiosity.  She looked up the eminent domain case, and in a few minutes she learned that the county just shifted its eminent domain claim to someone else's property.  A few more minutes of searching revealed that the second property owner could not afford a lawyer for an extended court battle, and ended up having to accept the county's offer, which bought the person's late parents' home.  The second property owner ended up having to move into a weekly rental motel.
          955  +
          956  +That was not the happy ending Alley wanted.
          957  +
          958  +She headed out the door, mentally gnawing on the injustice of it all.
          959  +
          960  +/* rewrite the above to use a park bench for the meeting, as indicated below, instead */
          961  +
          962  +Alley had to check her compass again to be sure which park bench was north of the boarded up snack stand.  It turned out to be the only bench with someone sitting on it.  She glanced back toward her car in the tiny parking lot, one of only two cars there.  The other was a black late model Audi with a person in the front seat.  The windows were so darkly tinted she suspected they were illegal, so she had no idea who was sitting in the driver's seat.
          963  +
          964  +As she approached the bench, she saw that a pale young red haired woman sat there in a tight green t-shirt, tiny shorts, heavy black boots, and black gloves.  Some kind of cheap synthetic drawstring bag rested on the bench beside her, and she had something like a tactical purse on her other side.  She wasn't what Alley expected from an anonymous gun parts trade.
          965  +
          966  +The redhead watched steadily as Alley approached, with what turned out to be vivid green eyes.  The lack of freckles might mean she was not a natural redhead, but it also might just mean she got them removed.
          967  +
          968  +The woman asked "Are you looking for someone?"
          969  +
          970  +Alley stopped, a couple meters away.  "Yeah, I guess so.  Is that the, uh . . ." she trailed off, and gestured at the drawstring bag.
          971  +
          972  +"Printed frames?" the redhead asked.
          973  +
          974  +Alley nodded.
          975  +
          976  +The redhead exposed brilliant white teeth with a broad smile.  "Yeah, you found what you want.  I'm Carmen."  She stood and offered one gloved hand.
          977  +
          978  +Alley accepted the quick handshake.  "Mallory," she offfered, on impulse.
          979  +
          980  +"Let me guess: I'm not what you expected."
          981  +
          982  +"I wasn't sure what to expect," Alley admitted, "but yeah, I gues you surprised me anyway."
          983  +
          984  +Carmen -- possibly a pseudony, Alley realized -- smiled again.  "That part of this job never gets old.  Anyway, I want to upsell you.  How's that sound?"
          985  +
          986  +"Upsell?"  Alley hesitated, then nodded.  "Sure, I guess."
          987  +
          988  +"Cool.  So, we have printed concealment holsters, snap on accessory rails, and brass catchers for models compatible with these frames.  We have stuff for other models, too, so let me know what you'd like to see."
          989  +
          990  +"Wow.  Full-service, I guess."
          991  +
          992  +"Totally!"  Carmen tugged her shirt down slightly, making it a little more obvious she wasn't wearing a bra.
          993  +
          994  +"I think I'll just stick with the order I placed, for now.  I'll keep you in mind if I need something else, though."
          995  +
          996  +Carmen shrugged, and the way she slightly raised her arms as she did it made the shirt tighten across her perky breasts.  "Okay!"
          997  +
          998  +Alley took in the display and slightly over the top cheeriness.  "Does that . . . oh, never mind.  I guess I should just see the frames, now."
          999  +
         1000  +Carmen narrowed her eyes, almost but not quite suspiciously, and tilted her head.  "No, wait.  What were you going to ask?"
         1001  +
         1002  +"Nothing," Alley said.  "I haven't been very sociable lately, and forget my manners sometimes."
         1003  +
         1004  +"Ooh, inappropriate questions.  Those are my favorite kind.  You should totally ask!"
         1005  +
         1006  +Alley signed.  "I was just wondering if you're naturally this, uh, friendly, or if you're like this because it gets you a lot of upsells."  Carmen laughed, and Alley found it infectious.  She caught herself snickering, too.
         1007  +
         1008  +"Why do I think you meant to say 'flirty' instead of 'friendly'?"
         1009  +
         1010  +Alley shrugged.  She tried, with only moderate success, to suppress her smile.
         1011  +
         1012  +"Was it that obvious?"
         1013  +
         1014  +Alley said "Yeah, I guess so.  Sorry."
         1015  +
         1016  +"I guess it's a bit of everything.  I'm usually pretty cheery, but Cliff -- he's the guy I work with -- Cliff and Idecided to try this out.  With the kind of ambitious young cryptotrader guys we usually get, the upsells and repeat business we get goes way up when I'm doing the trades.  In two years, we only had one guy who decided me being a pretty girl made me an easy target, too, so it's pretty safe."
         1017  +
         1018  +Alley frowned.  "Yeah," she said.  "I guess that's a danger.  What happened?"
         1019  +
         1020  +"Oh, shit," Carmen said.  "You must be new at this.  Well, I pulled out my baton and Cliff put a red dot on the guy's chest with the laser sight on his rifle.  The guy backed down in a hurry.  Are you carrying protection?"
         1021  +
         1022  +Alley started opening her mouth to reply, but Carmen cut in again.
         1023  +
         1024  +"No, don't tell me what you're carrying.  You shouldn't get in the habit of telling people stuff like that.  Get yourself three things, if you don't already have 'em.  You need pepper spray or a sonic repellant, a collapsing baton, and backup who knows what he's doing, like Cliff."
         1025  +
         1026  +"Uh, thanks," Alley said.  "Aren't those collapsing batons illegal?"
         1027  +
         1028  +"Yeah, California sucks that way.  Girls aren't allowed to protect themselves, you know."  She pulled something about the size of a whiteboard marker out of her back pocket.  "See this?  This is a good baton."
         1029  +
         1030  +Alley looked at the black anodized aluminum cylinder when Carmen held it up.  It had some kind of logo on it and a couple of depressed ovals on the side.
         1031  +
         1032  +"Push these two spots to pop it out.  Just push the second one, here, and push the business end agaisnt something hard to collapse the baton back into the handle.  Yeah?"
         1033  +
         1034  +Alley nodded.  "I guess that's a good design, then."
         1035  +
         1036  +"Totally.  With the two release points, you're not likely to accidentally pop it out when you don't want to, and this type is more solid and easier to retract than the things where you just snap your hand out to open them.  Anyway, you need one of these, and it's easy to toss it somewhere before cops get to you if you're afraid of getting caught with a concealed weapon, or if you cut a little hole in the inside of your pocket when you're wearing pants you can drop it down your pant leg, and maybe step on it to hide it while getting patted down, or something.  There are a bunch of ways to get away with it.
         1037  +
         1038  +"Here."  She held it out to Alley, who started to reach for it.  "Don't try opening it here, but practice with it at home.  That way you don't have to worry about getting caught buying one.  Unlike our pistol frames, walking home with one of these in your pocket is illegal, and a cop might just try selling one to you to get an excuse to harass you."
         1039  +
         1040  +Alley froze with her hand halfway to the baton handle.  "Are you giving this to me?" she asked.
         1041  +
         1042  +"Yeah.  Uh, just a sec'," Carmen said.  lowered her hand with the baton in it and looked toward the Audi.  "Yes, Cliff, I'm giving her the fucking baton.  I'll just buy another one!  Chill the fuck out."
         1043  +
         1044  +Alley lowered her hand and turned her head to look at the parked sedan.
         1045  +
         1046  +Carmen grabbed Alley's wrist and pressed the collapsing baton into her hand.  "Don't look at it.  Just put it in your pocket.  Don't make Cliff nervous by standing here with a weapon in your hand, even if it's one I gave you."
         1047  +
         1048  +"Uh, yeah," Alley said, and tucked it into her back pocket.  "Thanks."  She showed her empty hands to Carmen, where the person in the Audi could see them as well, just to be as harmless looking as she could manage.
         1049  +
         1050  +"Yeah, well, us girls gotta stick together.  Right?"
         1051  +
         1052  +Alley nodded.
         1053  +
         1054  +"Good.  Let's finish the deal.  Then, get in touch some time if you think you might want to do this kind of work, too.  We're getting a lot of business, and could use the help.  You're pretty enough to get the upsells, easy."
         1055  +
         1056  +"I'll keep that in mind."
         1057  +
         1058  +Carmen grabbed the drawstring bag.  "Here's what you're buying."
   747   1059   
   748   1060   /*
   749   1061   
   750   1062   At some point, she should set up a meeting for an exchange in a private conference room at a co-working space.  Someone should recognize her and ask whether she's meeting a client, to which she replies vaguely in a positively interpretable fashion without literally confirming that assumption with her words.
   751   1063   
   752   1064   I wanted the person who greets her to say something that raises some factoid of her life, but I'm not sure any longer what I had in mind.  Did it have anything to do with getting out of Dalton's shadow?
   753   1065