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AARDVARK, PLATYPUS, AND TWINKLETOES: ATTORNEYS AT LAW, SCENE 36: HUNTING DOWN THE FRAT BOYS 1 2 3 4 18
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Anyone else go absolutely INSANE trying to hook into a PIG on a lake or wade a river, smashing Smallmouth all day? -
Well, MOST have a caretaker and they're changed frequently. IF I HAD TO, I COULD "GET BY" with ATNs & super plus contour booster pads. I had to for over a year......no catastrophic incidents!
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I'd meet people, but it would have to be inconspicuous, as I am always dressed.
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HOLY SHIT (pun intended!) Whoever created this commercial HAD TO BE out of a job afterwards!
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By Kitty Angel · Posted
130. Rules of Engagement Isadora sat on the floor, with the little plastic table in front of her. It wasn’t the most comfortable place to eat, but it seemed natural with the way she was feeling now. She was ready to admit that she wanted to indulge her inner child again, and she was done pretending that it was just something that she put on to maintain her cover. Stella Klein was more than just a legend now; she was a pressure valve, making it easier for Isadora to focus on her work. Especially if they could establish some ground rules, so that she wouldn’t be unexpectedly regressed when she was trying to do something mission-critical. “You’re really getting into your role now,” Brock commented, with a dumpling halfway to his mouth. “There’s no way anyone can see you in here.” “It feels like the right place to be,” she answered, squashing any worries she might have had. After what she had volunteered for earlier in the day, it seemed like embarrassment no longer had any power over her. “And it’s not just playing the part of Stella. It’s… this is really something I’m curious to explore. So long as it doesn’t interfere with our assignment.” “Is that where you draw the line?” “Yes. I think so. If I’m finding it hard to cope with the pressure, I might ask if I can be babied. And if you think it would be a good idea, you can surprise me with that trigger. I’m giving you permission, even if you don’t need it. And the mission is the only limit on that. That kind of stuff is for when we’ve done all we can and we’re waiting for the bandits to give us another clue. Or something like that. You don’t surprise me if there’s anything we need to debrief, any reports need writing, or when we’re conducting active investigations. Right? And you especially don’t use my childish side to divert me away from intel you don’t think I’m capable of handling. Or to keep me out of your way because you don’t value my input.” The last sentence had barbs, and Isadora waited to see how her partner was going to respond. “Agreed. You’ve shown me now that you know what you’re doing. Certainly as competent as operatives I’ve happily worked with in the past. I promise, no surprises if the alternative is doing something that could actually move the investigation forward.” “Thanks,” she said, and finally bit down on the morsel that had been decorating the end of her fork while she focused on finding the right words. It was delicious, of course. She could take that for granted when Brock had cooked. But something else came to her mind. “You mentioned Roman in the kitchen?” “They weren’t listening,” he said. “I know their style. Almost certain now that the ULF bug was so they could double check what the Pink Room is all about. They don’t want to get in bed with the Arrencani crime family until they know there’s nothing contradicting their objectives. They needed a double-check to be sure they could trust Roman, we were never on their radar. And Arrencani’s surveillance would be redundant after the day we’ve had. You told him yourself that you’re eager for more regression. He has no need to worry about his hypnotic training being abused.” “Okay.” They ate slowly. There might have been a few moments of small talk, but there wasn’t anything to say. But as more of their plates came into sight, Isadora knew they still needed to talk. There were things they needed to clear up before she could relax and sleep like a baby, or veg out in front of nostalgic childhood cartoons on the TV. “So, debriefing,” she said. “I’m guessing we should still do that in the nursery. Even if we know nobody’s listening in, a formal setting and a routine makes it less likely we’ll miss something. And I think there’s still things we need to discuss. I feel like your impression of Marco’s role in the family has shifted slightly. And you said you confirmed that Lorenzo isn’t a part of it. I’m not going to ask how you found all that out, unless you think it’s relevant. We’re close to the deadline already, and we don’t need to go over every question asked. But I’d like to know, if possible, everything we know that might be relevant going forward.” Brock didn’t answer right away. Instead he refilled their drinks, and then sat down beside her. Taking away anything that might interrupt the conversation later, with the air of someone preparing for an important meeting, regardless of the circumstances. “You checked up on my theory,” Isadora said. It wasn’t really an important thing to say, but she felt she needed to say something to cut through the silence. “I did. And you were right. I suspect the Pink Room came first, but haven’t fully confirmed that. Marco saw the clandestine shipments Roman and Enzo were handling, and assumed the family was in the narcotics business. He’s the heir, he demands to be involved. He didn’t know what he was really seeing, but once he mentioned it, Roman probably thought it was a good idea.” Isadora just nodded. That lined up pretty closely with the conversations they had already overheard. Suddenly she felt she could understand everything a little more, unless she was just looking back and seeing what she wanted to see. But she was sure Brock would have eliminated other possibilities before saying he bought the theory. That was everything she needed to know. “So…” she started, not sure what to ask next. “Roman Bercher is the supplier,” Brock said. “I don’t have the details, but I suspect Arrencani asked his brother first. He might not have known for sure whether he could find anything, but he was curious about something which led to asking about truth serums and combat drugs. My best guess is that Arrencani was starting to wonder whether Enzo knew something that would help Alessia Strong get more deeply into her headspace. Maybe a quest started after observing how painkillers or other prescribed drugs affected her. Enzo didn’t know, but he could refer Arrencani to one of his friends from his army days, who knew people in all kinds of research facilities.” “Roman,” Isadora nodded. It explained perfectly how a man like that could have gotten a job in a place like the Pink Room. “Exactly. And once he was here… another part I’m not sure about. But maybe Marco pieced together enough to conclude that Roman was supplying his father with pills, and assumed the whole crime family thing. He was completely wrong, but Roman and Enzo thought it sounded like a good idea, and the Arrencani Crime Family was born.” “So he started shipping street drugs with the other stuff.” “As far as I can tell. Branching out into vice, gambling, protection, and all the rest came later. But arms dealing was at the core of it. Because if you’re buying anything from a secret military research lab, sooner or later guns are on the table. Something to let the fake Arrencani family make a name for itself, and then something bigger. Something the ULF would grovel to get. Something that can neutralise all civilisation within a hundred miles of the pacific coast if they don’t give in to his demands… That’s got to be a pretty serious weapon.” “A lot of people are saying it might be a bluff,” Isadora said. “But the ULF don’t bluff, do they? They wouldn’t announce an attack like this if they didn’t have the capability.” “They did once before,” Brock reminded her. “When Dr Jambalaya let them down. Maybe they’re trying to keep a closer eye on him this time. That would explain why Malik has found a way into the Pink Room.” “You don’t know how he ended up working there?” Isadora asked; just a little surprised by the gaps in Brock’s knowledge. But she quickly told herself that it was understandable; the ULF were experienced in subterfuge, and until just a few days ago, Brock’s understanding of the situation had been based on misinformation. “I know how,” he answered. “Harrison Wells, and a few others. People with some moderate degree of influence on the Yaxley Club board were blackmailed into hiring him. They thought they were doing it for Arrencani, but the man delivering the threats was usually Roman, one or two of them heard something from Marco about it. Once he was working at the club, Roman had the power to hire him onto the security detail for the Pink Room. He has some autonomy there, so long as secrecy and safety are maintained, and Arrencani would trust anyone who’s already been vetted for the club. I know how Roman got him the job, but his motivation and intent is harder to dig up.” “Weapons for the ULF,” Isadora said, pausing just a second. She was getting more confident that Brock would give her all the information she needed, but she didn’t want to be a passive recipient here. She wanted to be the one asking the questions, so she could feel like a participant rather than an observer. “Is that something you know? Or assumption based on the ULF presence in Fairhaven and Roman’s history?” “We can’t be certain that he’s Jambalaya,” Brock admitted. “But I’m certain that it’s arms dealing. I’ve got enough surveillance fragments, augmented by a couple of discreet interviews with his old military buddies who have been working with him. And I saw him bringing one of the weapons into the facility.” “What? That wasn’t on any of the tapes!” “I know. We missed a trick there. Think he might have been using Arrencani’s nursery facilities to smuggle things in and out. Once, I saw Roman bring a case to the daycare, taking more care than he does for anything else in that place. Came from a research laboratory, the details line up for that. I know he got it from some of his old navy buddies, pretty sure the drugs were in that shipment, fresh off the production line, but that wouldn’t need such a big box.” “Not on any of the cameras?” “Couldn’t establish a stable observation point in the woods. They use the daycare entrance at the Yaxley Club. I looked on the nursery cameras, as far as I had access to them, and there was never a clear view. I think Roman got multiple deliveries together, because he took a big case into one of the rooms, then came out with a small consignment of pills. I could see that much, but those cameras don’t save footage for long, and I didn’t catch what else was in there. He presumably retrieved it on a different day, or Okafor did. Going down there to change the baby’s diaper when I picked you up gave me a chance to look, and if the case was still there it was no longer in the same place.” “I think I remember,” Isadora said slowly. “I got a brief glimpse once. Not long before you came. When he was putting something away. They had an argument. Big metal case, he took something out of it. Must have been the drugs.” “I assume so. But the drugs were just the cover, I want to know what was in that case that Arrencani didn’t know about. Did you see?” “Not much. I couldn’t… whatever was in there, I think there was more wrapping around it. Didn’t look much like a weapon, though. Just a small bundle in the middle of a big case. All these glass rods sticking up from the bottom of the case, with something wedged in between them. So it doesn’t move around in transit?” “I hope so,” Brock said slowly, but his impassive expression had flickered for a second. He took the laptop from her, and searched quickly for something. A couple of times he asked little questions about what she had seen; but when she confirmed that she couldn’t even guess the shape of the package, he still had questions about the case itself. When he turned the screen towards Isadora again, there was a picture of a case on the page. Brushed aluminum shell, with glass rods sticking out of both sides so they might hold something. It looked like a technical drawing or a 3d rendering, rather than a photo. The kind of thing a manufacturer might show off on their website. “That’s it,” she said. “Exactly. No… the latch was a bit closer to the centre, but aside from that, I’d say that’s identical. But why does it matter?” “This is a burn box,” Brock explained. “It’s a very special security feature. Try to open it without the key, whether you force it or trip the anti-tamper precautions, the glass will shatter. Puncture the case, or if it’s damaged by an impact, it’s the same. The tubes break, the chemicals inside them combine, and a second later you’ve got a three-thousand-degree firestorm in a can. Heat change shatters any other cylinders that are still intact, guarantees that the contents are incinerated.” Isadora thought about that for a long moment. “That seems like overkill,” she said eventually. “Unless what you’re transporting is the biggest secret the world has ever seen. I mean, detonator caps would probably be enough to break up most things he might be carrying.” “It’s not about theft,” Brock explained slowly. “Or, not just that. Even the best operatives could get in a car wreck, or a drive-by, or a bunch of other things. The burn box is designed to ensure that the contents is destroyed entirely, to negate any risk of a leak in a million-to-one accident. It’s designed specifically for the safe transfer of biological agents, when you can’t risk any kind of uncontrolled release.” “Bio warfare?” Isadora asked, and Brock just nodded slowly as she continued. “Everyone said the threat is impossible. What Zulan Chen promised in his video. But with some weaponised virus… It might be for real.” “We always knew it was real,” Brock corrected. “Chen doesn’t bluff. But now we know how, and we know what we need to do. This weapon needs to be destroyed, by any means necessary.” “We’ve got evidence now,” Isadora said, thinking aloud now. “We can report this, and have a full team scouring the countryside around here until we find where it’s being stored. Assuming Chen hasn’t got it yet.” “No. We can’t.” “Why? This wasn’t our mission, but the scope is too big to ignore. We need to keep that… that box out of the wrong hands.” “And in the right hands?” Brock said, and turned to properly meet her eyes this time. “If we tell Kane it’s here, he’ll want to make sure we’re the first to get it. Make sure the Agency is the only organisation with a weapon like that.” “But it might get stolen again, right?” Isadora said. “Whoever created this thing already lost it, and I’m sure they must have some kind of security. Can we be sure the Agency will do any better?” “Exactly. We need to destroy it, not capture it. But Kane won’t allow that. Everyone higher up the chain of command, the ones who keep the street work at arm’s length, they’ll be sure they can keep it for themselves. Which is why it needs to be us. We find it, and we destroy it. Don’t let anyone else get careless.” Isadora nodded. There were a few minutes of silence then, but there were still other things to discuss. Like putting together all the clues they had missed. She started out with the things they already knew; as if saying it all herself would reveal any holes in the theory, or fill in some of the details that Brock had skipped over. “Marco’s loud,” she said, slowly. “He’s all over social media, hinting at a mafia background to people who don’t know him. But when he talked to you, he feels like he’s got something to prove. It was his idea, I’ll bet. Lorenzo wanted to know where to get a truth serum, or something like that, for the Pink Room. Asked Enzo about his military contacts, and Enzo put him in touch with Roman. Marco overheard mixed bits and pieces, a couple of words out of context, and thought about organised crime. A mafia family, or something similar. His understanding was stylised through the lens of what he’s seen in movies. And when they told him he was wrong, he… maybe he said something, or maybe it gave Roman an idea. But from the way Marco talks, I think it was him who prompted the bridge from secret, experimental medications from a lab to actually dealing in street drugs. Roman would be out of his element, but he learns fast. Probably took a month before he understood the local underground better than Marco could ever dream of. So that’s why Marco thinks he should be in charge, all while Roman and Enzo are debating whether or not to give him…” “Just what I was thinking,” Brock said, as she slowed down. “It’s a vaccine for whatever weaponised disease they’re talking about, isn’t it? They said they weren’t going to give Marco the shot, and I thought it was like drug dealers dipping into their own supply, but it was…” “It could be,” Brock said. “But that’s all just conjecture. We can only guess that Roman has some kind of inoculation as well as the payload. We can only guess that he would find some pretense to give Lorenzo the shot, in order to stabilise the family he’s using to cover his business, just in case it spreads. And we can only guess that he would rather avoid Marco muddying the family’s imaginary line of succession.” “We don’t know that part,” Isadora agreed. “We’re only guessing, but it seems like what I’d expect from Roman. Even the weapon… I’d like to think nobody would deal with the ULF without a second thought. But… we’re sure that’s the contract? With that video shot in Fairhaven, it would be too much of a coincidence.” “Your analysis of the bugs confirmed it before that,” Brock said. “National intelligence agencies wouldn’t be looking into the Pink Room, which only leaves one viable candidate. The bandits wanted a look inside the Pink Room before they put their money on Roman’s table. They were vetting a business partner. We were only ever background noise in someone else's due diligence.” Bandits. The word made Isadora shiver. Agency shorthand for hostiles with no flag behind them, the ones who had no civilian population to defend, nobody you could threaten as a last resort. The enemies with no reason to hold back. She'd used the word herself not an hour ago, half as a joke. But when Brock handed it back as a simple descriptor, the facts that she already knew suddenly felt real. This wasn’t a hypothetical situation in some fieldcraft class now; this was the real threat that Operatives like Brock had faced so many times. She didn’t know how he did it. “So how do we stop them?” It was the only logical next question. “There has to be a way. Even if we have to call in a report, it’s better than the alternative.” “Not yet,” Brock said. “We can still do this. I’ve been tracking their movements, as best I can. And Malik Okafor is out of the Pink Room now, so I can thank you for that. Roman brought him in on the security detail, he has enough autonomy for that. Someone who’s already working at the Yaxley Club, Arrencani wouldn’t need to approve every hire. But after what happened… that makes it harder for them. Okafor is still in town, though. And that means Roman didn’t hand over the goods yet. Maybe they were planning to do it inside the basement. There’s only a half-dozen places he could be storing something like that, and we should have time to check them all before the equinox. Now we know what we’re looking for.” “Okay. I’ll set the cameras scanning for that case, anyway. Even if they just show up in the corner of someone’s doorbell camera, somewhere in the Estates, we can catch it. I’ll start work right away.” “Eagerness is good. But I’ll need to use the laptop for a little while first. There’s someone I need to contact.” Isadora didn’t stop to ask who. She was starting to feel like she could trust Brock now, and that he actually trusted her. She pushed the laptop towards him, and tried to work out what else she needed to do. She couldn’t start the search yet, so she wasn’t actively contributing, but that was okay if it was only for a short time. She hesitated, and let herself sprawl out on the floor while she waited. She reached for one of the toy chests too, but when she glanced towards what Brock was doing on the laptop, her thoughts about the scene changed completely. She didn’t have a good angle to look at the screen from here, and she couldn’t make out the name of the site that Brock was browsing. But she could see a site that was mostly shades of pink and peach; and soft-focus photography that seemed to be showing images of flesh and lace. Would he really be looking at adult websites on the Agency laptop with all their specialised software on? She didn’t think so; there had to be some kind of reason. Maybe it was a message drop. Then he angled the screen away for a second, but his fingers danced across the keyboard. It looked like he was leaving a comment on a video, perhaps. “Someone who might have useful information for us,” Brock said under his breath, and Isadora realised she might have been staring. “It’s amazing what a performer can overhear, if people think she doesn’t speak the language.” “I guessed,” Isadora answered. Really, it was just a confirmation of what she already thought she knew; that Brock would always do his job, even if the way forward wasn’t immediately obvious.
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