A moment of privacy - Eddie

With a click, Eddie closed the message window on his screen. Por fin. His first orders from Carmen since he had joined VILE. He stretched his back muscles as he considered his next move. The orders were simple and already a score of voices plotted away inside his head, arguing among themselves. Here and there a foreign swear-word echoed inside his head as a plan started to form until they finally died down as Portuguese emerged victorious. Isto vai ser divertido. Humming a gentle bossa nova, he stood up and moved towards the large dressing area that dominated the wall of his VILE quarters. Stepping between the three full-body mirrors in the centre, he smiled at himself; he had already come up with the perfect disguise for his destination. The control panel in the corner buzzed as he input the commands and parts of the mirrors stopped reflecting him, instead lighting up and showing the faces of different men. Edgar lifted an amused eyebrow at the number of beards and turbans showing up, but finally decided against neither. To the left of the mirrors stood a shower, a wash-basin and some cabinets. He opened one, took out a bottle of black dye and stuck his head under the tap, still happily gurgling his bossa nova. Once dried and combed, he looked at himself in another mirror, making sure his hair and eyebrows were now the right colour and he could move on to the next phase. It was there, on the far right, where the real magic happened. Row upon row of wigs, fake noses and multicoloured contact lenses waited on the shelves surrounding the dressing table, which itself was covered in all manner of cosmetics. The female VILE electrician who had helped him rig the whole thing up had wondered in passing whether he could really have more make-up than Patty Larceny, but this wasn't something he did for frivolous reasons. Blending in was an invaluable skill in his job as a sociologist, and it was something he had talent for. As he molded and added paste to his face, giving himself a broader nose and ruddier features, he wondered if it was because of Carmen's sense of humour that he was being partnered with the one VILE agent that always stood out in any crowd. VILE's most visible and most invisible working on the same heist. All that was left now was adding colour to his skin. Choosing the exact degree of pasty light brown pigment took a minute or too, but when he finished air-brushing his hands, a decidedly Punjabi face was looking back at him in the mirror. He would be just another local at his destination. The Indian young man finally packed some pre-made faces into a rucksack and turned off the lights in the room as he went out. It was time to meet Sir Vile.