An afternoon sun, while partially obstructed by turn of the century buildings, manages to illuminate a seedy, grimy New York alley. The last place one would ever expect to find Aiden Jarvis running for his life. Now as fate would have it, Jarvis, a low man on the totem pole accountant, with a ruthless ambition to play with the big boys, couldn't leave well enough alone. Jarvis finally landed the big account from mid level drug dealers, he embezzled a little pocket change for himself.
Cause and effect, cause and effect, later Aiden Jarvis winds up here on the run. Two enforcers are chasing after him in the maze of Alleyways. It's only a matter of time before one or more corner him. It's a forgone conclusion of galactic proportions that Aiden Jarvis' number has come up. Jarvis slips on a grime puddle and falters into an old brick wall. Yet he uses his adrenaline burst to push and bounce off the wall and lunge him into the opposite direction, giving him some much needed momentum. Unfortunately, the advantage comes with a drawback as the gunmen hear his fumbling around and now know almost exactly where Aiden Jarvis is located. Now Jarvis, while being of a higher socio-economic status, lacks the knowledge of urban planning as, he would have never ventured into this area under normal circumstances. His assailants, however, having been integrated and cultivated in poverty and this culture, quickly deduce the pattern of the pathways and corner Jarvis. Both gunmen wait at the intersecting path, knowing full well that it's only a matter of seconds before they cross paths with their mark.
Like clockwork, Aiden Jarvis dashes and stops dead in his tracks when he sees them. Now he knows he's fucked!
"Aiden, you knew it would come to this" said the taller gunman rocking the expensive sunglasses.
"Yeah, you brought this on yourself, Jarvis. Had you just kept your head down and moved the money around like Massimo wanted, you could have been a fat cat in a Wall Street condo, getting your potato pounded on a daily basis by New York's most nympho-maniacal", stressed the shorter yet more muscular gunman.
The enforcers reach into their suave suit jackets and pull out their guns. Both of them screw on the silencers. "I guess being a one percenter just wasn't good enough, you had to show your ass and steal from us" said the tall one.
Both the goons take aim in a way that lets Jarvis know via nonverbal communication that his ass isn't walking away from this. "Accountants like you are a dime a dozen, Jarvy. You could have been beautiful".With that being said Aiden Jarvis closes his eyes.
Two muffled gunshots ring out, sounding like a futuristic laser gun going "pew pew". Jarvis keeps his eyes closed. Two out of context screams and thuds ring out, and as much as he dreads it, Jarvis opens his eyes. He finds to his utmost surprise that both his assailants have been incapacitated, and he wonders how in the hell this is even possible until he sees movement out of the corner of his eye.
Out from the shadow in a corner, walks a slender lanky woman with dark black hair. Her movements are smooth and calculated, almost reptilian like a snake. The mysterious woman is holding a handgun with a silencer, as she walks nonchalantly over to Aiden. She merely looks him in the eyes, just long enough to relish in the fact that he's scared. The woman proceeds to walk over to the two gunmen and kick their guns out of sight. Unbeknownst to the three men, their fate has been changed for better or worse, by Sameen Shaw!
"Who...the hell are you?". Sameen Shaw walks off but not to far, almost as if she doesn't care, but on a microscopic level she does.
With her back turned to him and looking at the gunmen she says coldly "Who I am is not important, because if you're seeing me, then chances are you're having the worst day of your life. Now Jarvis, you need to take this, and move to some corner of the country and live out the rest of your days."
Shaw reaches inside her leather jacket and pulls out identification cards and a couple thousand dollars.
"A new ID? I can't take this" says a shocked Aiden.
"At this point you really don't have a choice" Shaw asserted.
"But this is all illegal and incredibly shady!" says Jarvis.
Shaw is becoming slightly irritated now "That's never stopped you before Jarvis. Do you want to know why I WAITED to shoot those two? Because in their little diatribes comes some truth, had you just kept your head down you wouldn't be in this shit, and we wouldn't be having this conversation. You see I am really irritated, because you stockbrokers and accounts are repeat victims and I get really sick and tired of saving your asses, and I really don't want to, to be honest. You will take this new identification and get the hell out of dodge, because if you think I'm terrifying, wait until Massimo Parveccio, hears that two of his finest have been kneecapped."
Aiden Jarvis merely nods and even though trembling he manages to walk away.
As he does the mysterious woman offers some advice "Go home, pack a bag, and make your way to the nearest airport. You have less than two hours before this gets out."
Jarvis takes the information to heart and walks away frantically.
Sameen Shaw is unphased by the turn of events and simply looks down at the two bleeding bodies. She then walks away and retreats back into the shadows. Shaw thinks to herself, she could have killed them if she wanted to, but deep down she remembers what the few people she truly cared about, her old allies, taught her: that all life is valuable.
Sameen Shaw walks out of the maze of alleyways, once Shaw reaches the main road, something catches her attention out of the corner of her eye!
"That motorcycle" she thought.
Becoming more intriguing to her, because she witnessed what appeared to be a man on a motorcycle following her and Bear, the day she took Bear back from Fusco. She didn't think much of it, but then she caught a brief glimpse of the same rider and motorcycle a month later, and now for a third time.
"Who is it, it can't be Reese?", she wonders again Her curiosity is overcoming her, and Shaw wants to investigate, but she remembers that she has more pressing matters; she flicks her earpiece.
"I've got two more for you Lionel, they're in an alley on 12th street." she says.
"Alright Miss congeniality, I'll get right on it" Lionel Fusco says from his desk back at the precinct.
"They're two of Massimo Parveccio's enforcers" warned Shaw.
"Goddamn Shaw, what kinda number were you working? "
It was just an accountant who stole from Parveccio" she said.
Detective Fusco laughs and says "lemme guess...Leon Tao?"
Shaw smirks "No, that would almost be refreshing if it was Tao."
What follows is about a minute of awkward silence before Fusco decides to break the ice "you should really take some time off to relax, Broody! You can't do this forever, have you considered taking a vacation?"
Shaw quickly responds with "I don't do vacation, Lionel".
"Alright, well I'll have them pick up the bodies, take care of yourself, Shaw, let me know if you hear any word from Glasses, or John" says Fusco.
"I will. Goodbye Lionel, thank you."
Sameen Shaw flicks her ear, and keeps walking, she strolls around Manhattan for what seems like hours. She wonders what she'll do next, the machine hasn't sent her any more numbers, in fact there's been an unusual scarcity of them in the past month. She gathered deep down that something had to be wrong, the main clue is that she rarely hears it use "her" voice. "Its" voice, Shaw corrected herself in her own mind.
Sameen wondered why this still bothers her, she had moved on from "Root"; there it is again, that name. She tried to avoid saying it or thinking about it. Shaw pondered about the usage of the proper pronoun, and why she corrected herself. Was it because deep down she knew that the machine will never be "her", and using "her" voice isn't the same?
Then shaw realizes she's doing it again, the self diagnosed sociopath is referring to the ASI as "her". Meaning someone that she really cared about, the only person who truly understood her, a person who was the complete opposite of her, yet somehow that brainy hacker, hacked her way into Shaw's brain and brought out emotions in her that she never knew she had.
The only person she expressed a genuine emotion for, a woman who caused the Persian sociopath to shed a tear for the first time in her life, when the machine relayed a message to her a few months ago.
A message that she'd known for a long time but hearing it in her voice finally touched her heart, "if I was a shape, I'd be a straight line, an arrow". The arrow to Root's heart. Shaw snaps out of it, and realizes again, what she's doing and who she's thinking of. It bothers her sometimes, but only for a few seconds, and sometimes Shaw hates that.
Out of the seven billion people on planet earth that Perky Psycho chose her, wanted her. Yet deep down there is a tiny ember of emotion, an ember which never spread enough to the point where Shaw could tell Root that she felt something for her as well, something deeper than care or friendship.
A yellow box appears around Sameen Shaw as the all seeing eye of the machine shifts focus and bounces to another corner of the city, where another figure illuminated in a yellow box slides out of a black SUV accompanied by NYC's finest. Lionel Fusco and three other officers walk into an alley, like clockwork, this is another day on the job.
No stranger to putting himself in charge Lionel Fusco orders "Wilson, Steppes, you two clean 'em up and process them, Detective Morales, wait here for forensics. Alright gentleman these are two of Massimo Parveccio's golden boys, so be careful, take them down to the precinct, and don't get your hopes up. I have a feeling they'll make bail before dinner time."
"You sure you're ready for the desk, Fusco? When you've been a shield as long as I have you acquire a sixth sense for sniffing these things out, and if you don't mind me, saying, you're niche seems to be out here in the field" says Morales.
Fusco understands where his fellow blue blood is coming from "Its one of them things you know? Lee is going to be a teenager soon, and the bullet I took three months ago, along with my partner Det. Riley's disappearance was the coup de grace. I need to take it easy, I'm pushing 45 and I want to see Lee grow up, teenage years are when they need you the most, am I right"?
"Indeed you are Fusco, I'll be sad to see you go" say Det. Morales.
"Hey now, don't be going soft on me, I'll just be at the precinct more, and plus I won't be so out of shape for league night at the bowling alley" Fusco says jovially. Forensics shows up and march into the alley to tag and bag evidence. The box reappears around Fusco and quickly fades out, and the Machine's point of view bounces back to a familiar hero.
Shaw is standing in front of the building she lives in now, realizing how quickly time has passed. She walks into her apartment, hangs her leather jacket in a closet, a closet full of leather jackets, jackets that used to belong to someone she once knew. Shaw refused to assign a name or pronoun in her mind and closed the door. Her apartment was pretty bare, only containing a bed, small television, a chair, some reading material, and cupboards. Cupboards stocked with minimal food, mainly Cocoa Puffs and Fruit Loops. Shaw bought mass quantities of them, they sooth her in some way.
Shaw strips off her clothes, walks over to her nearly barren fridge/gun safe, pops open a bottle of whiskey, and takes a few large sips. Then she proceeds to walk across her loft, naked, then walks into the bathroom. Glancing in the mirror Sameen eyes her most recent tattoo in her mirror, one near her shoulder, a tattoo, that she had done on an impulse in one of her rare vulnerable moments, it was a tattoo of a small arrow! Shaw's eyes quickly dart away from it and she turns on the water and takes a hot shower. She showers for almost two hours, and she doesn't care. Boredom is unbearable for a shark like Sameen Shaw, and yet she just stands there without purpose in her makeshift sauna.
After what seems like an ungodly long two hours, Shaw finally steps out. She dries off and tries to find something to keep her mind occupied. She's desperate and hopes that the machine will spit out a new number, that would be ideal. Shaw looks around to see if there's anything that can keep her mind occupied. She goes to put on a black shirt, nothing else.
Shaw weighs her options: food, reading, couple hours of masturbating, or sleep. "Cross off reading" she thought. Shaw looked down, and acknowledged that she was naked from the waist down, her desire to feel something, anything, was overpowering her. After a few seconds of consideration she rules it out, besides she hasn't been able to get off the last couple of times she tried, since taking up the sole mantle of vigilante three months ago. Sameen, puts on pants, grabs a gun, and walks out and out of her apartment building. Her idea is really a grasp of the last straw, however it's the only thing she can think of to crush her boredom.
The great warrior intentionally takes long convoluted routes in hopes of stumbling across a crime, Hell, at this point Shaw will settle for catching purse snatchers. Much to her disappointment, but not her surprise, however Shaw finally reaches the secret entrance of the abandoned subway station. Prying open the janky ass vending machine, Shaw lumbers down the steps and flips an old light switch. Sameen Shaw stands there transfixed at her team's old headquarters. Memories flood back, and this time she's too powerless to fight them. She looks at the old bed, the desk, the pay phone, the recently patched up hole in the wall from when the subway plowed through it to escape Samaritan agents. Shaw walks over to the hole, clenches her fist and lays a few punches into it. Reasoning that since the patch job cost her the better half of a day, it damn well better hold, and sure enough it passes her tests. Then finally Shaw, eyes the computer, AKA the machine, her only hope for mental stimulation.
Sitting down she stares at it for a few minutes, then finally gives into the ridiculousness and asks out loud. "I need a number, please. You can send me to any part of the country, steal a number from Logan Pierce's group in DC if you have to, but I need this."
Leaning back into the chair, Shaw eyes both the monitors and the old pay phone, not caring which medium it chooses, as long as the Machine provides.
"NO THREAT DETECTED" crawls across the monitor.
"Sleep it is then".
Giving in, she walks over to the small bed in the corner. Reluctantly she strips down to the bare essentials and crawls in the bed.
Realizing that fighting it, will only prolong her purgatory, Shaw allows herself one out of character thought, and acknowledges that the bed still carries "her" scent. Root's scent. After allowing her thoughts to betray her, Shaw turns over and attempts to fall into slumber. A small yellow box materializes around the sleeping Sameen Shaw, only to fade out and pan out to an outline of New York. Then the Machine's point of view slingshots to the state of Connecticut, then fades into the town of New Haven of all places.