J the Sleuth Ch. 01: The Genesis

"Then I guess she'd better get to it, hadn't she?" J responded.

It was no longer just Catherine who was unsure of herself; the other two were now rethinking the situation, too. J didn't seem worried at all about the prospect of Catherine blowing her away.

"Do it," The Boss said, and everyone but J flinched when the gun went off... leaving her unscathed. But in an instant, she was sitting up, the gun from the nighttable in her hand, aimed back at Catherine.

"I told you," she said, "I could feel that it was loaded with blanks when you gave it to me. The weight was off. So I switched the Glocks when you were in the washroom." She turned to The Boss. "She's not very good, frankly; you never should have put her up against me. You should have known better."

The look of shock on Catherine's face was short lived. BAM-BAM-BAM -- with three shots, so close to each other they almost sounded like one, J took out all three of them. She waited a moment, keeping a wary eye on the bodies until she was sure they were really dead, and then she was out of the bed like a shot.

"Get dressed," she said. "That's four gunshots, in a residential neighbourhood. Someone'll be calling the cops. We need to get out of here -- now."

She wiped the gun down, threw it on the bed, and they both got dressed in record time. In a matter of minutes they were out the back door, over the back fence, and walking down the street, away from the house. They tried to walk as normally as possible, without hurrying. Just two people out for a stroll.

They found a bus stop, waited for the bus, and took it away from the neighbourhood. When she judged that they were far enough away, they got off, and took a taxi.

"Where to now?" he asked, wearily.

"My place," she said. "No more hiding; no more games."

---

A half hour later they had arrived at J's apartment. She took a quick shower; Ben went to the kitchen to grab a drink. When J came back to the living room, cleaned and in a soft robe, she found him with a glass in his hand.

"A bit early for scotch, isn't it?" she teased.

"Maybe," he responded. "Even earlier for the two I already had, technically. But I think I've earned it."

She smiled. "Yes, if anyone has, you have. In fact... pour me one, too."

"So what now?" he asked, pouring her drink. His hand was slightly unsteady by now, so she got more scotch than he was intending, but she figured she could handle it.

"Now nothing," she responded. "It's done. The Boss is gone, the ones who knew about his plan are gone... everyone's gone. You can go back to your research, back to your life, and everything goes on like it did before."

"But how do you know that everyone who knew about his plan are gone?" he responded.

"That's how he operates," she responded. "He'd keep something like that to an absolute minimum; the more people who knew, the higher the likelihood of one of them stealing the information, creating their own computer, and putting him out of business."

The truth was that she wasn't 100% sure. Coming back to her place was a safeguard: if there was a fourth member of The Boss' team -- if anyone else was going to come after them -- she wanted them to find her quickly and easily, so she could finish things. But she wasn't going to tell Ben that, and worry him more.

"So... so it really is done," he said. "There's nothing left to do."

"Well..." she responded. "There's... one more thing we should do." She opened her robe, and then let it fall to the ground at her feet, standing naked before him. "Scotch is all well and good, but... it just can't beat endorphins."

He was instantly across the room, taking her in his arms, whereupon they sank back onto the floor.

Nobody else arrived at her apartment that afternoon, to interrupt them.