increasing my digital footprint

His grip on the gun doesn’t flinch.

“Who are you?” he repeats.

“Why should I tell you?”

He shakes his head in frustration. “How could you possibly know what that chip has on it? Are you in it for money?” 

“Oh. You don’t know what’s on that chip, do you?” 

You can see the muscles tense in his jaw. That’s all the answer you need.

“Trust me,” you say softly, “there’s a reason you don’t know.”

“And how do you?” 

You look down at the pistol. “Okay, can we lose the gun now?” 

His eyes trail down your body. “Not until you can get rid of this.” 

Your heart stammers, but your face doesn’t flinch. Right, he meant the knives.

With a small sigh, you reach down slowly and let the blade strapped to your thigh clatter to the ground.

“Happy?” 

For the first time, a smile tugs at the corner of Hunt’s lips. 

“You’re not finished.”

He’s not an idiot. He’s actually a genius, a highly trained spy, assassin, asset, agent, mystery, whatever you want to call him. You reach into the side of your bra, and retrieve another knife, and then toss it aside. Only then does Hunt flick the safety and lower the weapon. 

“Finally.” You exhale, relaxing your shoulders slightly. “But if you were going to shoot me, you would’ve already.” 

He doesn't argue.  

“Who do you work for?” 

“No one.”

His brow lifts. “You’re alone? I don’t buy it.”

You shrug. “Wish I wasn’t, I’d have the chip in my possession if I had backup, like you do.” You nod your head to his left where you can see a thin wire hanging behind his ear. 

“Well it’s not yours to take.” He says.

“It’s not yours either. What does the IMF want with it, anyways?” 

Now that gets his attention. You read the flicker of surprise on his face and you lean in. 

“Yeah. I know who you are. I’ve done my research. But I guess I missed the part where you planned to show up tonight and ruin my op.” 

Hunt’s grip on the pistol tightens slightly.

“Don’t you have nukes to stop or something? The chip is… tiny, for someone like you.” 

He takes a step closer, his presence cold and quiet and utterly in control. “I’ll ask one more time, who are you? I don’t have time for games.” His voice is low now.

“No point in telling you my name. It won't show up in any database you got and I’m sure your comms team has already tried looking me up. I’m on my own. It’s been this way for a while now. And honestly, you’re making it a lot harder than it needs to be.”

A second of silence.  

“I don’t need your IMF protocols getting in my way. You’re just slowing me down.”

Hunt’s hand reaches up and loosens the tie on his neck. “What’s your goal?”

You daringly take a half step closer to him. “VANTAGE erased me. So I’m planning to erase them.” 

He sighs. Actually sighs. 

“And you’re really planning to do this, alone?” 

You wave a hand in the air. “Do you think I had a choice?”

Your eyes flick back up to his. “Besides, when I say I’m the only one who can decrypt that chip, it’s because I wrote the encryption.”

That lands. You can practically see the gears turning in his head. 

“You wrote the code?” It’s not disbelief, it’s reevaluation. 

A sweet fake-innocent smile spreads across your face. “Surpriiise,” you sing. “I’m not just some freelancer agent in a dress” 

“How do I know you’re not lying?” 

“Well I guess there’s only one way to find out,” you turn your head, looking over at the computer sitting on the coffee table. You noticed it when you first walked in. 

You can hear a vibrating noise coming from Hunt’s pocket, and he quickly grabs a phone out, answering it immediately. 

“Yeah. She’s with me here, not yet, but -” he stops talking for a brief moment, and you barely make out the words on the other line. 

“Ethan, I don’t think we’re going to be able to decrypt the files, there’s a safety feature attached to everything that will instantly delete it all if someone tries and is unsuccessful. I’ve done all we can, but, wow, I’ve never seen anything like this before.” 

“I think I might have figured out a way, actually,” Hunt looks back to you, and you pretend to not be paying attention, looking around the room at the bed, the furniture, the walls -

“Oh. Okay. Wait a minute, is it the girl you kidnapped?” 

You turn around in surprise, giving away that you could hear the conversation the whole time.

“Kidnapped?” You mouth to Hunt. Maybe in a way, you were his hostage, but also you weren’t leaving Prague without the chip. You were following him… in a way. Not the other way around. 

He rolls his eyes. “I’ll let you know soon. Just, hang tight.” 

A short beep cuts off the call and Hunt slips the phone back in his pocket. 

“You’ve got an assignment to do.” 

A clock on the nightstand glows the time. 04:15 AM.

“Can this wait till tomorrow?” You whine. You weren’t that tired, just wrung out from all this… emotional tension, and having your night totally ruined by some IMF agent in a shiny suit. 

Hunt shakes his head. “No. Now. At least get us in. Prove that you can decrypt it, and then we do the rest in the morning.” 

It’s no use fighting with him. You’ve already lost the chip to him. Might as well win back some points by getting into the drive and figuring out the coordinates, for yourself at least. 

He looks over your shoulder and nods his head towards the computer in the sitting area behind you. You shuffle your feet over to it and plop down on the couch. Agent Hunt puts his pistol on the small table by the door and takes off his tie, following you. 

You reach for the computer. 

“Ah -” Hunt lunges forward and grabs it before you can. 

You fold your arms and sit back on the couch, pouting. “Can you just maybe not treat me like a threat for like five seconds?” 

“Are you not?” He says haughtily, but slides the computer over to you once it’s unlocked. 

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out what looks like a black thumb drive, the vessel for the chip that has the information that we both so desperately want. The second he plugs it into the computer, a black terminal window pops up on the screen and a little white line in the top left corner blinks. 

He moves behind the couch to watch. And maybe to stop you from going anywhere. It was easier if he was already on his feet. 

You ignore his intimidating presence behind you and type a few lines of code. 

cd /mnt/drive

ls -a

A list of oddly named files flashes across the screen, numbers and letters combined in gibberish to the untrained eye, but not to you. 

The encryption interface loads after a few taps. It’s sleek, custom, multi-layered and definitely not something the IMF has seen before.

You lean in closer to the computer, fingers clicking rapidly across the keyboard. 

./decode --override-lock --key="Vale.008"

The screen stalls for a moment. Then - 

ACCESS GRANTED. 

WELCOME, AGENT Y/L/N. 

Hunt says your last name under his breath. 

You almost swear under your breath, dying a little inside from embarrassment. You were trying to stay under his radar, but it was inevitable that he would eventually figure out your name.  

A file tree displays underneath the welcome message. One of the files says 

/relay_nodes

With two keyboard clicks, you open it, and five coordinates display on the screen. 

39.0438° N, 77.4874° W

50.1109° N, 8.6821° E

1.3521° N, 103.8198° E

43.2965° N, 5.3698° E

64.1466° N, 21.9426° W

You hear a sharp inhale behind you. Hunt’s crossed arms drop. 

“Well?” he asks. 

Glancing back at him, you smirk. “Glad you didn’t shoot me?”

Although he’s serious, you can see that he’s impressed. Maybe more relieved that you’re in the mix and could break into the files so easily. 

“Since I wrote the code, I wrote a backdoor. They had no idea, of course.”

“And you wrote a welcome message to yourself?”

Wait. Yeah, that’s odd. 

“Not sure what that’s about. I don’t remember putting that into the program, but since a lot of the code is artificial intelligence, it might have just happened randomly,” you lie. 

There’s a pit in your stomach. Part of you fears that they now know you got into the drive. 

Before Hunt can ask any more questions, you yawn. Not overly dramatic, but enough to sell your next line. “So are you gonna tie me to the chair until the morning?” 

He circles around the couch and heads to a cabinet on the other side of the room. “No. But you’re not going anywhere. Get some rest and we’ll continue in the morning.” 

He grabs a t-shirt and sweats out of one of the drawers and tosses it to you. You catch it, noticing the smell of clean laundry and cologne on it. They’re his. 

“Make do. You can use the bathroom now if you want.” 

You take out the drive, placing it on the table and shut the laptop, slightly paranoid now that someone could track your location on it. You can feel Hunt’s eyes on you as you make your way to the bathroom, and now you’re painfully aware of how sweaty, tired, and uncomfortable you’ve been in the dress all night. 

He turns away now and you shut the door. Your shower only lasts a few minutes, thankfully there were some basic toiletries on top of the toilet, and you quickly change into Hunt’s borrowed clothes. 

Wow. IMF agents are spoiled. 

As you walk out, you see Hunt back over by the computer, typing something away. He's discarded his navy suit jacket and rolled up the sleeves to his white shirt, revealing his muscular forearms.

He glances up at you, does a double take, but says nothing. Something about you, undone, hair wet, and in his clothes makes him feel something unfamiliar in his chest. Dangerous. 

You walk over to him and fold your arms. 

“I can take the couch,” you say before he can argue with you. “I don’t need IMF thinking I tried to seduce you in your sleep.” 

He doesn’t look up from the laptop. “You’d fail,” he says. But his tone is lighter. “Take the bed. I got some more things to take care of here.” 

You sigh and walk over to the bed, not even bothering to get under the covers. You could sleep on a cobblestone road right now. 

"I’m shocked you’re not handcuffing me to the bed. You’re getting soft, Agent Hunt," you say loud enough for him to hear your final words for the night.  

He doesn’t laugh. But his mouth twitches like he wants to. 

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗