[ISBI] Cool Change

Being dead was weird.

Not the good kind of 'Woah, honey, that feels' weird, either. It was an unsettling weirdness, and one that he hadn't grown accustomed to as yet. It was an indescribably odd situation; idly, he wondered how many of his friends and loved ones actually knew, and how many were blissfully unaware that he was no longer counted amongst the living.

He supposed that perhaps, were he actually dead, he might feel somewhat differently. Well, probably wouldn't feel at all. It was the fact that everyone thought he was dead, but he actually wasn't, that was so unsettling. Granted, it had been on purpose; all part of the job. This mission was deep cover: so deep that they needed him not only under the radar, but erased from the grid entirely. His identity was so intensively and so extensively masked - all in the interests of protecting him, and anyone connected to him from reprisal - that it bordered on witness protection.

Of course, it's not me that needs the protection.

It's them.

The grip on the broadsheet he held shifting enough to liberate a hand, he reached for his now lukewarm mug of caf, and fought the urge to wince. He had, for three days now, been covertly monitoring one of his suspects: a potential lead that he hoped could be manipulated into granting him access to the inner workings of this particular Coruscanti gang.

For a moment he relived the disappointment he'd felt before when he'd discovered that this gang wasn't tied to the Black Sun cartel, and wasn't secretly aiding the Rebellion - just a Rebellion. It hardly seemed glamorous enough work for a dead man to be performing; he wondered if his time could be better spent trying to infiltrate his way into one of the real threats to the Empire. Hell - if they let him off-planet, he could probably make it to Nar Shaddaa, and work his way in from that angle. It'd certainly have more of an opportunity to affect things for the better on a galactic scale than watching some low-life, two-bit crook all hours of the day.

He sighed, and set his mug back down on the table. He knew he was overreacting, particularly since this was his first real assignment. Unfortunately, it was no a side effect of the sheer quantity of this hideous brew that he'd been forced to consume, just to stay conscious through the boredom.

He glanced at his watch idly, before returning his attention to the broadsheet. He barely had a chance to read it however before his view was obscured by the shadow cast by a figure looming ominously behind him.

Unphased, he merely folded the 'sheet closed, and set it down on the table; twisting in his seat, he looked up to regard his spectator. "Is it really necessary to have a new face each time," he asked, casually, "Or are you just trying to show off and impress the new guy."

"Sugah, when ya get t'a hundred and sixty two years old, you'll amuse yourself in ahdd ways too."

She drawled softly, a patently bright smile curling her plump, pink lips. The rest of her looked Chandrilan - tall and slender figure topped by a waterfall of platinum locks that reached her tiny waist. Ana leaned over and kissed Mack's cheek before sliding gracefully into the chair beside him.

With great speed, a server stopped by to take her caf order, lingering as she spoke, a flavorful litany of preparations for the perfect cup. She smiled and lowered her lashes, watching the young man's retreating form...and biting her lip as he turned to look back and stumbled. "God, this game never gets old..." she murmured under her breath, though loud enough for Mack to hear.

"Have ah missed anythin' excitin'?" she asked aloud, plucking a mirror from her purse and fussing with her hair.

"Not a thang, darlin'," Mackenzie replied with mild disinterest, the briefest hint of a smug smile creeping onto his lips as he folded his arms, voice producing an intentionally not-quite-perfect copy of Ana's speach pattern, in sarcastic mockery of the falsified accent she had chosen for the day. "Ah have just been sat heeya on mah mighty fine an' round, waitin' foh ma lessa half t' show up an' grace me with her presence."

His eyebrows climbed slightly with added sarcasm, and he flashed a grin that to the casual observer would look like just a mildly arrogant jerk teasing his admittedly enviably gorgeous companion. His accent turned to its normal intonation - admittedly not that far removed from the exaggerated backwater accent that Ana had chosen to mock - before he spoke again.

He leaned forward, a flash of mischief sliding into his grin before his lips fell to her shoulder, a string of slow, gentle kissed planted against the silky smooth skin of her neck. He hesitated as he reached her ear, voice dropping into a low and undulating allure - too quiet for anyone else to hear, but easily dismissed as the sweet nothings of a lover. "Subject hasn't moved; absolutely no variation from his usual routine. This guy is one dull sonnova Sith."

"Tha's bettah half, dahlin', an you know it..."

Ana replied, tilting her head slight to send her platinum curls tumbling away from her bare shoulder and neck. A delicate sigh of pleasure passed her lips as her eyes fell half-closed, presumably losing herself to the sensation of his attentions.

Her eyes however, were sliding delicately over the crowd to their intended target for a brief moment. Sipping at his usual coffee, with his usual broadsheet, at his regular table, and even in the same chair. Ana let her eyes fall closed the rest of the way and her lips curled into a smile as he whispered, drawing envious attention from some of the women who wee sitting alone. Oh, if they only knew, she mused.

She shifted in her chair as her pale blue eyes opened and she lifted a prefectly manicured hand. Trailing a fingernail across his jaw, her lips pressed to the corner of his mouth before trailing back to his ear to reply in kind. "Bloody hell he's the dullest surveillance I think I've ever been on. We following him to try and find the house again?"

A soft, warm chuckle escaped from his throat, and Mackenzie's grin grew impossably broad, a hand slowly creeping up her thigh and towards the small of her back, faltering for a moment too long half-way. "That sounds like an excellent idea, darlin'," he replied, loud enough for half the café to hear, completely ignoring the fact that her nails had briefly dug into his arm to express her protest at his tactile meandering.

He turned his head, cheek nuzzling against Ana's impossibly soft skin. "Give me five minutes," he teased, seeding yet more secret comments about their mission into his words. "I wanna set everythin' up, nice and perfect for you."

Still grinning he eased away, extracting himself from the seat beside her, contact lingering with her arm briefly as he made to leave. As he prepared to however, his mind changed; he stepped closer to her, a hand threading through her hair, and scooping her cheek into a long, deep, lingering kiss from his lips. As it ended, he hesitated just a moment longer, the slightest flirtatious flick of his eyebrow almost imperceptable as he held her gaze.

Then without another word he turned and walked away, a pair of sunshades produced, flicked open, and slid over his eyes as he wove through the scattered tables and out into the street beyond.

Her cheeks flushed with warmth as her fingertips rose to touch the spot his lips had lingered on. It was all part of the game...part of the undercover ruse they were putting on.

Of course.

Wasn't it?

Ana wasn't entirely sure anymore. But it didn't bear thinking about - they had a job to do, and that was all that mattered. She slipped a smile onto her lips as the server returned with her caf, its sweet scent rising in the whorls of steam from its surface. A credit chip from her purse was tucked onto the server's tray, and her attention wandered off, dismissing the young man in short order.

Minutes passed, as Ana sipped at her coffee, savoring it, before rising gracefully at last from her seat. Taking a different path, she wandered through the cafe and its array of tables, and out onto the street, pausing as many women did to peer into the jeweler's shop next door. A wistful sigh and she sauntered away, towards their meeting place.

The last of his coffee was gone and no matter how hard he looked, Talus couldn't find a scrap of good news in his broadsheet. He folded the paper away and snatched up his hat, bracing himself for the outside world. It wasn't that the weather on Coruscant on bad, but what should have been an easy stroll from the diner to his offices was quickly transformed into a gauntlet by the endless barrage of peddlers, traders, brokers and anyone who thought they could turn a profit. Fortunately, there were a couple of tourist groups waddling by and Longstar managed to side-step around them – and the con-man they'd been cornered by – to stalk his way to a less crowded pathway.

Mackenzie kept to the fringes, keeping his movements casual as he made his way through Imperial Center's crowded streets. He and Ana were engaged in a fairly standard pursuit tactic: Mack had left ahead, and positioned himself at one of the kiosks several meters along their mark's regular route home, pretending to view the various souvenir items on sale. He actually bought one, too - a little bobble-headed Stormtrooper action figure that's helmet bounced and wobbled around when you poked it. Ana would criticise him for it; but whatever. He was maintaining cover, and she could shove it up her shapeshifting, multiform ass.

Mack waited patiently, watching at their target wandered past; a few moments later, Ana passed, picking a speedier route through the maze than their mark had managed to locate. She halted at a kiosk herself, and Mack picked up the pursuit; and so they continued, alternating every hundred meters or so. It was a tried and tested tactic - designed to alleviate paranoia in a mark, and prevent there being a constant, single individual following them. Not that it mattered, of course. After so many days of doing this, they'd learned that their target paid far more interest to negotiating his way home than he did to the possibility of pursuit. Still. Good practice.

It took a huge amount of willpower for Mack not to press his finger to his ear like they did in the movies every time he made a comlink message, but he did succeed, just barely. Clutching the souvenir in his fingers helped considerably in that regard. "Target aquired," he stated simply, keeping his voice low, and relying on the sophisticated comm gear to screen out the ambiant noise and transmit his message to his partner. "In pursuit until the doughnut stand."

He hesitated for a moment, stomach rumbling at the prospect of Koruscanti Kremes. "- no sprinkles on yours, right?"

Even at her age, Ana was a sucker for pretty jewelry. Granted, she was still young for someone of her species, but she'd been on her own with little familial contact for nearly a century.

While most of her attention was taken up with the pursuit, she did manage to haggle amiably with the kiosk's proprietor over a pair of dangling earrings. Long silver strands dripped with multi-colored crystals, catching the light in a way she just couldn't resist. With the earrings and a few of the matching pieces wrapped up in a bag, she handed over a cred chit and sauntered off.

"- no sprinkles on yours, right?"

"Right...gods, I am going to kiss you for remembering. I've had a craving since yesterday." Ana murmured in response, a soft smile curling her lips as she passed nearby the stand and kept going. Their quarry was nothing if not predictable and walking along at a slightly slower clip, thanks to the sheer volume of people that were out and about this morning. Her next stop was a newstand, where she purchased a number of fashion publications, and one of Mack's favorites as well.

"Crowds are slow this morning. Is it just me, or is it taking longer than usual?" she said softly, eyes casting along the walkway, keeping their mark always in sight.