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>>“”There’s no guarantee. What I got from them sounded legit, but it’s entirely possible it was another trap. Either way, we’re not going to depend on a rescue.”

Right. There were no guarantees about anything at this point. Rescue might be coming, or it might not; they might be on time, or they might not. Or they might come with guns to finish the job. None of those options were very reassuring.

>>”Okay, inflatable boats stashed below. You’ve done great, but let’s hold off on you doing that again if possible.”

"Sounds like a plan" Pippa muttered, a bit slurred, as they moved to the entrance to the deck below. The water was rising now as the ship tilted, and Pippa steadied herself on the door frame. "Whooo, always hated that ship movie..."

Sabine took it upon herself to descent into the water to search for a boat. Pippa watched, leaning against the door frame. It suddenly dawned on her that if Sabine did not come back up, she would be all alone on a sinking ship. In a dress with undrskirts. Such a bougie way to die.

>>”Hey, Pippa, you’re okay up there, right? Can you talk to me while I search? Tell me things about you. I’d like to focus on something other than the cold.”

Yikes. The water was indeed cold. It had to suck, being waist deep in it. Pippa searched her foggy mind for something to say. "I think two sailors hooked up in the captain's office once. You'd be surprised, the things objects remember..."

Pippa was not entirely comfortable with being out in the open like this, but she trusted the agents to know what they were doing. And she trusted Sabine, whom she was a part of her job to show off in a more human capacity.

>>"I am acting natural. Or I will be. You've managed to drag me to a place I'm actually excited to spend the day enjoying. Even if I could have caught this game from my balcony."

"Yeah, people don't like a showoff, especially when she has cash to spend" Pippa smirked, taking a seat. It was the reason why they didn't just get the best seats in the stadium.

>>"Speaking of acting natural, you look way too pretty for a Yankees game, you know."

"Thank you" she grinned, adjusting her gloves. "But hey, I'm naturally pretty."

The game was about to start. Pippa didn't know as much about baseball as Sabine used to. "Are you going to jump and yell?"

Some PR assignments were more fun than others.

Pippa was still putting a lot of her work effort into making Sabine seem more... human. (Irony.) It got easier after they shared a watery near death experience, because now she knew Sabine was indeed not a bad person. (Also, capable of human emotion.). Still, in the world of Public Relations it was never enough to be a decent person. You had to look like one too.

Which is why they were going to a baseball game.

Having the director of SUPER out in the open without a security detail was a risk, especially in the light of recent attempts. Which is why two lucky undercover agents were also going to the game, in civilian clothes and strict orders to purchase hot dogs. But Pippa wanted this to look natural, and in order to do so, it also had to feel natural. No media attention, just some guerilla social media. Hey, is that the lady that runs SUPER? Well, she's SUPER hot.

Influencers.

Pippa accompanied Sabine purely as a professional courtesy. And because it would have raised a lot more questions if she went alone. She was dressed semi-casual, with lower heels than usual and a 50s style skirt, more "girl on her day off" than "professional PR person." It had been ages since she had been to a game. Maybe this one would be fun.

"Try to act natural." she told Sabine as they took their seats (good seats, carefully chosen, but not the best, no need to show off). "Stop trying to find the agents. You look like you are casing the joint."

>>"Well, maybe you don't, but most people need the anchor for muscular control."

"Showoff." Pippa smirked. She was not going to make an innuendo, but it worked out that was anyway.

>>"I'm chugging through one or two classes a semester so I'll be done with med school approximately when we reach the heat death of the universe. I'll need to quit my job when I reach my practicum and I can't exactly afford to do that yet."

"Med school costs an arm and a leg, huh" she noted. She had friends who had gone that way, and the costs were almost as legendary as the workload. No wonder he was thinking about taking up other professions. Something that paid more than being a paramedic.

>>"What about you? You like being the wicked PR witch of the East?"

Pippa thought about that for a moment.

"I think I'm developing a nice little Stockholm syndrome about it" she noted finally "As cliché as it sounds, the people I work for are really trying to change for the better. Which is saying a lot, because I thought they were a bunch of prejudiced assholes. Low bar."

>>"Uh. No. The ninja cut out the tires from under our wagon, pried open the back, and killed our patient. Some kind of revenge thing since she didn't kill either of us and easily could have. Kind of a sore spot, actually."

Pippa blinked. Apparently, she was not the only one with the out-of-the-blue adventure movie story. Yikes. EMTs encountered a lot of traumatic scenes and situations, but a ninja breaking into the vehicle was still not something that should have been part of the everyday job. Sore spot, indeed. "Uh. That sucks. Sorry you had to go through that."

>>"I could see myself working in an ER. Maybe a morgue. Chiropractor? Massuer? That's what man-ssagers are called, right?"

Yeah. Because morgue was definitely a step up from that.

"I think it's just called massage therapist now." she mused. Since AJ was done with the snacks, she felt awkward looking down at him, so she turned around to lay on the carpet too, resting her feet on the other end of the couch. "Some of those sound definitely less stressful than others... What did you want to be when you were growing up?"

They peacefully shared the tomatoes. They were good tomatoes. Pippa especially liked the little yellow ones that looked like light bulbs. She was glad he did not land on those.

>>"You'd think we'd pay teachers and value education as well as health, but here we are. Not. Doing that."

"Fair point."

>>"Sorry 'bout your soul. Any chance on getting that back?"

"Jury's still out" she shrugged, she pauses "... figuratively. I'm working on it. Someone tried to blow me up recently so I might be on the right track." she added as an afterthought.

>>"Y'know, I can accept donations on behalf of the righteous few underpaid. Say, in the form of one plate glass window replacement."

The sheepish look on his face made her crack up.

"Smooth play. It's not really up to me, but I can appreciate someone being practical..."

She did make him look. Pippa smirked. From his floor-level vantage point, one of those features was definitely more obvious than the other. And she did have to give him a hint about the gloves too.

>>”Oh cool. Like a mutant or something?”

"Yeah." she watched him cautiously, waiting for some kind of a reaction to gauge how disappointed she should be in him. He ate the tomato. Good sign. She mentally crossed 'bigoted enough to believe in mutie cooties' off her list.

>>”That stuff never worked on me. My brain’s probably too smooth.”

"For a paramedic you seem to have a loose grasp on how brains work" she noted, popping another tomato into her mouth and handing him one too. "So, what else do you do? When you are not jumping around buildings or riding a cool life saving car? What do you do for excitement?" she asked with a grin.