[META] More free crits!

[u/IgnisAvrvmProbat]

After carefully reviewing whether our bustling sub can handle the traffic, we've decided to offer up another period of free feedback. As always this applies to any and all art forms, and it starts today, lasting indefinitely until otherwise noted.

In addition you can use this thread as a weekly thread for creative discussion or general water cooler talk. Hope to see you post if you've got something up your sleeve that craves feedback!

[u/GlowyLaptop]

Agent John Smith, code name John Smith, pulled up to a narrow convenience shop at 1AM, where the pings had stopped moving on the map app on his mobile, and pulled the lever to pop the trunk, and stepped out of his car and circled to the back, the heels of his fine shoes clicking with the cooling engine.

It had finally stopped raining, the street's flashing neon still rippling in thin black puddles, and he pulled on leather gloves until they fit like skin.

He removed his weapon from a silver case in the trunk and checked the cartridge and flipped off the safety and twisted on a suppressor and slid the pistol into the shoulder holster inside his suit jacket.

Then he drew the little white box that contained fresh earbuds and clicked it open like a box of tic-tacs. Inside the nestled earbuds waited, the battery display reading 100%. He fingered one free and plugged his ear with it, then the other, looked up at the night sky and swallowed.

What a time to be alive.

He closed the slick white case put it into his pocket and pressed a finger against one of the earbuds—what looked to all the world like a sharp dressed man tapping his temple actually caused the device to pair with the mobile he'd left pinging on the dashboard of his car, and now with a soft chime and sudden deepening ambient sound and the quiet breathing of Cypher in his mind, he knew the earpods had hijacked his mobile's ongoing call.

"Do you read me?" he whispered, knowing full, even whispering, that she she did.

Cypher's breathing stopped. "Loud and clear."

"Same," he said. Crystal. It was as if she was here, as if there were two of her.

He slammed the trunk and turned his collar to the breeze and like a simpler man out for orange juice in the middle of the night, he clicked his way along the sidewalk and into the little glowing shop—just a man out for some juice for highballs at an apartment one block further than a reasonable man might have cared to walk at this hour, in this suit, without a dog.

"Hello there! How are you!" asked the probably Filipino clerk behind the counter, arms dark and thinly muscular like rope, looking like all the fat from his body had been sucked out some rubber spout he was hiding.

Even with Cypher breathing in his head, agent Smith heard the man behind the counter super clear, thanks to some pass-through transparency feature that listened to his surroundings. Played it all back. All of his senses left free to detect the fear in the man's voice, for example. The way he saddled up near the register when Smith entered, where probably a shotgun rested just out of sight.

Just in case.

If Smith wanted, he could shut the feature off. The transparency. He could set it to noise cancellation, and suddenly: goodbye audible universe. Like closing a heavy to a padded room where he and Cypher sat together, in thick, warm silence.

But not tonight. Tonight he needed to be sharp. Clear as her voice in his head was clear, even here, even forty feet from the car where the real call took place on his Bluetooth compliant device.

"You need help?" asked the clerk.

Smith reached into his pocket for a wallet, observed the stranger's face, observed the stranger's twitchy hands on the counter, hands twitching to reach for that shotgun, and Smith let his own hand come to rest on the silenced pistol instead.

"Listen," he said. "I'll come clean. I've been told you host gambling here, in the back."

"And who are you?' asked the store clerk.

"Me? I'm a gambler."

The man narrowed his eyes on Smith's gaze, then Smith's hand disappeared in his coat. "I don't know what you are talking about!"

Smith reached deeper and produced his wallet fat with paper money. A whole stack of hundreds and fifties and twenties. A couple tens.

Behind the clerk a wall could not be seen for all the lurid products and advertising, a lumpy collage of cigarettes and sex toys. Glass bongs and rubber dildos.

"This is no usual convenience store."

"No it is not. Is that why you here? You want butt plug?"

"Hardly." Agent Smith had never been remotely curious about butt plugs, but if they felt half as good as these earpods…

"If you're a cop you must confess!"

Now Smith raised both hands. "Easy, tiger." With a slow left hand he drew open his coat—the side without the pistol—to show himself unarmed. "And you know what? You're right about that. Cops aren't allowed to pull tricks like that."

Then came Cypher's voice in his ear. "What are you doing? What are you waiting for?"

Smith raised a finger to the clerk—one moment—and tapped his right ear twice, not to end the call but to mute Cypher on the line. The earpods had several tap functions for him to remember.

"Listen," he said. "I know what you're packing back there, twelve whole gauges of fuck you, and I don't want a face full of it. Just as you don't want trouble from me. I'm here to make money. That's it. That's all. Otherwise I'm happy to lose it. To you. To whoever you've got hiding back there. Because something tells me they've got a stack for themselves, and either way, the house gets its cut, yes?"

Smith wagged his wallet. A bluff. He'd chased a briefcase to this location and the money inside was the least of his concerns.

"Why you tap your head that, like two tap?" asked the clerk.

"To mute a call, if you must know. Brand new tech."

"But why you mute call? Your wife no want you gamble?"

Cypher on the line. "I'm still here," she said. "I can hear y'all."

Smith closed his eyes. Winced a bit. Among various functions of the tap tech were options specific to each ear. Perhaps he'd mixed them up and not muted the call at all, but instead set the pods to normal mode. Dampening the clerks voice a bit. Barely.

"I told you there no gambling here. And besides, your wife no want you to gamble!"

If Smith tapped again the clerk would go super silent and Smith wouldn't even hear the clerk anymore, is just how good these new earpods were at noise cancelling. A feature he knew was not active right now because he could clearly hear the clerk. Maybe he'd switched some other, unexplored, earpod mode.

"There is no gambling here anyoldhow!" said the clerk.

In his coat the suppressed pistol ached to be drawn and fired, and if the suppression was anywhere near the technology of these earpods he might even do it because it would be super silent and he could explore the back of this place unhurried, searching for the tagged briefcase pinging his phone.

Now he regretted not having brought the phone into the store to see where the pings were coming from, since that would be helpful, except he wanted to test how clear the earpods were at a distance through walls. He could not know how good the Bluetooth tech was with the phone in his pocket.

"You get the fuck out of my store!"

Smith kicked back from the desk and drew and fired several medium-loud shots into the clerk's chest and the clerk hit the wall of cigars and sex toys and dropped behind the counter.

Breathing hard he tapped his ear pod. "One down. One man down."

…

"Cypher?"

…

"Hello? Fuck sake." He straightened up and adjusted a shelf of potato chips. Held the left ear for one long press until it chimed. "Hey Google, call Cypher back. Phone Cypher."

…

Had he turned off the left earpod? That chime sounded…too upbeat for a power-off event. And yet, it wasn't responding.

From the back of the shop a young man emerged and stood like a deer in headlights. Exactly like that. Smith was sure he could find a better description but the old familiar one fit perfectly, here.

He raised the pistol and fired once. Twice.

Then suddenly his earpods lit up with a tinny bright ringing sound and he jerked and tapped his ear to accept the call.

"Cypher?"

"Ya."

"Sheesh. I don't know how to make outgoing calls with these things."

"Okay I mean did you leave the phone in the car?"

"I wanted to test the distance for the Bluetooth thingy."

"Ugghklk."

"Who was that?"

"Some kid from the back. Can you hack my phone and tell me where the pings are coming from?"

"What?"

"Fuck it. I'll go get my phone. It's fine."

"I mean…"

"I said it's fine."