The street food was the best way to really get a taste of 0b.
It was the best part of getting to know any city, Scarlet imagined. All those rich putzes would go and eat at the same fancy restaurants or wherever they'd been "told" to go by other fat-headed socialites, and meanwhile, all of the best food in the world would be down here on the sidewalk, getting hocked to locals like they were going out of style.
"Hey Lea, where's my bribe?"
"If my food were bribes, my family and I would be rich by now." the small Asian woman said with the slightest hint of an accent as she rolled her eyes, "Give me just a minute and I'll have it ready for you, officer."
"Yeah, but then you'd be up in some fancy-schmancy tower two cities over." Scarlet chuckled as she leaned against the rickety old cart, "And you make the best xiaobing this side of Chinatown."
"Jianbing." the older woman chuckled, "It's also the best in Chinatown too."
"Yeah, but that ain't my district."
Scarlet's badge caught the reflection of the pinks and blues and oranges from the various signs climbing up the walls like ivy. It flashed in the brightly lit evening, a subtle reminder to even her closest of acquaintances that she was still an Enforcer. Twenty minutes off the clock or not, Scarlet had ways of getting what she wanted in small little Civil Matters like these. And if it had been anyone else but Lea, she might have entertained throwing her weight around a little. But she liked Lea—and if the extra slices of meat she put into Scarlet's jianbing every other night was any indication, Lea didn't mind her either.
"Rough night tonight, officer?" Lea asked over the sound of sizzling oil, "You're usually here a little earlier."
Scarlet ran a hand over the black matte of her metal shoulder. The connectivity sucked on gross wet days like this one. She'd gotten used to lugging around the Big One well enough, but something about the way her socket healed made it ache something fierce when it got too cold. It was almost enough that she had considered wearing her Good Arm for a while, but it didn't quite get the point across. When cracking knuckles weren't enough and cracking skulls was the only option, the added bulk of her current appendage really came in handy.
"Eh. It's just growin' pains." Scarlet leaned into the cart to get a good look at her burger, "Hey, you burnin' that thing?"
"哎呀愚蠢的機器人!"
The smaller woman swatted in semi-legitimate frustration at the intruding redhead. Scarlet laughed, but not without making a conscious decision to put the Big One between her and the vendor. Lea almost certainly could pack a punch if she wanted to—the protection of the local gangs could only do so much, after all.
"You'd better stay out of my cart next time, or I'll start charging." the shorter, older woman laughed more warmly this time, "I'll get a big magnet and get you by that metal arm of yours."
"I'll give you one'a the fingers for free." Scarlet smiled as she flipped Lea the bird as she bit into her jianbing, "Tell that sister'a yours to stop skimping on the egg while you're at it."
"Goodnight officer."
Scarlet waved nonchalantly off as she continued the walk home. Being a beat cop meant that she had to file a requisition to get a ride home, and a lot of times it was just easier to take a walk home. A five-minute stomp to the train station, a fifteen-minute ride, and another eight minutes hoofin' it past the neighbors. And on any other night, she might not have noticed how heavy her left arm felt in the cold and the wet. But the last five minutes of her walk back to her apartment building had her dragging her feet every step of the way...
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