Charlie did not even glance at the woman trying to seduce him. He kept his attention on his fishing rod. "Sorry, this is private time. If you have business with me, you can contact my secretary. He'll help arrange an appointment."
Charlie's refusal was clean and decisive. He was at a critical point in his career, when every word and action would come under intense scrutiny. No one could criticize him for going fishing; fishing was a private hobby and had nothing to do with party politics. But a woman who had appeared out of nowhere was a different matter.
His guard was at its highest right now. Trying to seduce him at a time like this? How stupid could she be?
Besides, Charlie's wife, daughter, and stepdaughter were all beautiful women. And before that, even his ex-wife—Bella's biological mother—was beautiful. Charlie's standards were far above average. The woman in front of him couldn't arouse the slightest interest in him.
The beautiful brown-haired woman pleaded desperately. In the end, tears even streamed down her face, as if she would die if Charlie refused to help her. Charlie remained completely unmoved, and she had no choice but to get up and leave.
After leaving the riverbank and passing through a patch of shade beneath the trees, Natasha suddenly sprang out from a corner and swung a vicious slap into the right side of the brown-haired woman's face.
"Bitch! I knew something was wrong with you!" Natasha showed no mercy to a woman who was trying to wreck her family. The famous Black Widow had never been softhearted, and she put her full strength into the blow.
Natasha moved fast, but a blue light also flashed through the brown-haired woman's eyes. She twisted aside to dodge while reaching for Natasha's left arm.
Unfortunately, she had overestimated her own strength and underestimated Natasha's. Her attempt to block the blow accomplished very little, and the heavy slap still landed squarely across her face.
With a sharp crack, a burst of electricity erupted from the brown-haired woman's cheek and sent her staggering back two steps.
Beneath the skin Natasha had slapped lay densely packed electronic components. The woman's eyes held no warmth at all. The skin around her nose and lips folded back, and her originally pretty, seductive face was instantly replaced by a mechanical one. She dropped prone to the ground and extended a metal tail more than two meters long from her coccyx, stabbing it viciously at Natasha's face like a scorpion.
"Oh? Now this is interesting! An alien?"
A suction cup carrying a high-voltage charge shot from Natasha's wrist and knocked the brown-haired woman's mechanical tail aside. The woman's head snapped up and a mechanical tongue more than a meter long shot from her mouth. Then her tail whipped twice in quick succession, shaking off the suction cup, before working together with the long tongue to attack Natasha from both sides.
Tongue in front, tail behind. Faced with attacks from both directions, Natasha was not afraid. If anything, she was a little excited. She had not experienced a fight this thrilling in over a year. It was all Bella's fault!
Darting left and right, she constantly used her speed advantage to probe the enemy. Once she realized the woman only had these two tricks, disappointment set in. Too weak!
Natasha stepped on the tongue the woman had shot out. Worried about drawing the attention of Charlie and the others in the distance, she did not use a gun. Instead, she pulled out an electric baton and jabbed it at the brown-haired woman, who had already transformed into a half-machine, half-human state.
A 30,000-volt electric shock knocked the brown-haired woman unconscious, and Natasha called Bella.
Two minutes later, she joined the Autobots' meeting with her prisoner in tow.
The moment Jazz and Arcee saw the brown-haired woman, they cried out in surprise, "A Pretender!"
"She's one of your people? She's pretty... pretty compact." Natasha was surprised. She had thought Transformers were all towering robots.
"She's a Decepticon, but... how did she get to Earth? What is she doing here?"
The Autobots were baffled.
While they discussed it, Bella finished her Divination. The result was terrible. "Optimus Prime... It looks like Optimus Prime has been captured. His life is in danger, but he's still alive for now. I can't see exactly where he is."
Arcee still did not have much faith in the mysterious methods of humans, while Jazz and the others were nearly frantic. They had a prisoner right in front of them, so they needed to interrogate her quickly.
Ratchet pulled two cables from his body, connected them to the Pretender's brain, and forcibly read her memories.
Bella stood to one side with her hands behind her back and watched.
Natasha, on the other hand, was extremely interested in the Pretender's synthetic skin. She kept using the instruments at hand to test various readings and occasionally stopped to make notes.
Her scientific knowledge was considerably better than 006's, and she was also more inventive. Using the data from the synthetic skin, she quickly designed a piece of equipment called the Electrostatic Camouflage Veil. Many details were still incomplete and would require verification and calculations from numerous specialists, but the overall concept was already there.
"What's this thing for?" Bella asked.
Natasha answered excitedly, "Reconnaissance, camouflage, intelligence gathering—there are tons of uses!"
She stole a glance at Bella's expression. Seeing nothing unusual, she finally patted her chest and chuckled. "I'm a desk worker. I know. This is mainly for frontline agents. I'm just designing and researching a piece of high-tech equipment. That's not too much, right?"
Bella pointed a finger at her. She knew perfectly well how infuriatingly mischievous her wife could be. "Be serious! You can invent high-tech equipment, but you're not allowed to go back into the field as some kind of agent. And no matter what that Nick Fury guy says, don't agree to anything. He's using you. He's lying to you!"
"I know, I know!"
Natasha pouted, then suddenly seemed to remember something. She studied Bella's face carefully and asked, "Oh, right. MI6 got some news recently. Apparently a female employee from the British Treasury went to some casino and made several million euros in one shot. Just how lucky do you think someone would have to be for that?"
Bella's expression did not change. "You people even gossip about something that trivial? See, you're way too nosy. That S.H.I.E.L.D. of yours is doomed sooner or later!"
The Secrecy Portfolio was no joke. As long as Bella did not want one of her secrets to be known, no one could discover any clue unless they were stronger than she was. It was an effect rooted in the rules governing reality.
Natasha really had only mentioned it in passing. She simply felt that the incident resembled a certain person's methods, and after saying it, she did not pay much attention to it.
"Is Little Elsa asleep?" Natasha looked toward the second floor.
"No. She's watching TV with Little Kitty."
"Watching TV when she's this young? It'll ruin her eyes! Did she finish her milk? Oh, and let's buy her a couple more outfits later. Kids grow too fast. That top you bought before is already a little small."
The two of them chatted about ordinary family matters until a muffled boom suddenly came from the side. The Pretender's head exploded from the inside out, spraying fragments everywhere and even sending Ratchet tumbling.
"What happened?"
"Did you see any useful information?"
The two asked at the same time, though their questions focused on very different things.