Chapter 3: The Election Job

Hiya folks, on to my mock trivia on references, it's answer time!

Carlos Ramon: He's that Carlos from the Magic School Bus show, known for his really bad puns.

Ella Bries: Della Reese who is known for her role in the television drama: "Touched by an Angel."

English is a reference to the black prisoner of the same name who befriended Clint Eastwood when he was an inmate in the Alcatraz film.

Jansen Largo: He's what happens when you give a teenage Susumu Sazaki the spy skills of Garrod Ran from Gundam X.

If it weren't obvious Stan Cortez is Mr. Shickadance, the landlord who gets headaches from a certain "pet detective," whom in another life would've dealt with his creepier landlord with magical Norse mask that gives him cartoon powers.

BTW, thankyou Nightwing Aurora for following my story, I promise you won't regret it. Please be sure to review and tell me what you like about it.

Jan 2, UC 105

Sat 9:34 AM

Unknown Alley

For a man named Alan Ratokie, known yesterday by the name of "Silver Hound," the spy/journalist business had been a dangerous but thrilling career that paid well and came with plenty of perks. The biggest perk that trumped everything however was making his mark on history like a Hollywood celeb's handprint on the pavement in front of Grauman's Chinese theater. History always needed someone to experience it up close and personal to keep the books honest. Living like a swashbuckler also made him feel alive and significant in the grand scheme of things. Right now he was pressed for a new job, one that would have him set for a while and he needed a little help for it.

He heard a thump of a familiar pair of shoes and turned to see none other than Jansen Largo.

"Hiya boss, heard you needed your trusty sidekick for a new job, and it's big I hear."

"Right you are kiddo, confirmed Ratokie. "What we've got here is a job that concerns the recent mayoral election. I'm sure you're familiar with Mayor Stanley Grugen; that fat leech whose been sucking this can dry and putting the middle class on the endangered species list, bet you'd love to see him booted off his throne."

"More like take a dumpster dive where he belongs, how you figure we make sure of that," Jan asked.

According to our friend English there's a possibility the election is rigged. We may not stop the rigging, but we can make sure the election stays honest enough to elect a more forward thinking mayor, if we can get some evidence or dirt on him; the kind that will make him squirm."

"That's where I come in I suppose?"

"Damn right, your job is to surf his web and find his sunken treasure beneath the waves."

"Only one question boss, where's the tools of the trade?"

"Right here boy," Ratokie produced an earpiece, walkie talkie, a thumb drive and a data phone with a charge cord (it was more than a charge cord, but casual observer was meant to think it was.)

A devilish smirk formed on Jan's face. "Now were talking."

10:34 AM

621 Nicolls Road, High Point

A leathery thump followed by a roll to cushion the landing, and Jan was on top of Grugen's office building. Walking over to the roof entrance with an electronic lock, Jan pulled Ratokie's data phone out of his pocket and jacked it into the lock's socket.

When he opened the phone, Jan scrolled left twice on its screen and found an app icon that resembled a sinister parody of Mickey Mouse dressed in a stereotypical, comic villain, costume with a bomb emblem on its chest. He tapped the icon and a loading screen showed up filling a memory bar like an hourglass. Once it filled, a page appeared titled "Cracker Jack." Cracker Jack was a hacking software, the latest on the black market. It uploaded a virus known as the bane of electronic and digital security systems such as looping camera footage shutting off tripwires and penetrating firewalls. Only the most expensive cyber-security offered protection against it. He typed in an override command and was congratulated by a green light on the lock indicating his access.

Quietly entering he slipped in through the ventilation room then he opened a vent grate with a shortscrewdriver.

Then he crawled through the vents while using the digital map Ratokie had uploaded to the phone to navigate to the right room.

He had to climb up an elevation in the vent tunnel once by removing his shoes and climbing barefoot to gain the friction his shoes didn't have. But he also made sure to tie said shoes by their laces around his ankles so he wouldn't lose them.

After reaching the top of the elevation and crawling over a couple feet and rounding a corner, he came to a grating just above Mayor Grugen's office. It was vacant and empty with no security cameras to protect the mayor's privacy, it was Saturday after all and security was a bit lax.

Jan unscrewed the vent grating and dropped in, and then he got cozy in the ridiculously expensive, leather chair. One could only wonder how much of the colony's overtaxed money was used to buy it.

He booted up the computer and jacked his data phone and thumb drive into the CPU.

"O.K. boss, I'm at his computer, all it asks is the magic word."

"The magic word is "iluvmonroe, no space, no capital, zip, and by the way "love" is spelled with a capital, L-U-V."

Jan entered the password and found himself inside Grugen's desktop.

He looked around the desktop and brought up Grugen's e-mail account. He searched through the inbox and trash sections of the mail site for any suspicious looking message, but his search came up nil.

"Weasel to Silver Hound, I gotta give Grugen credit, he knows better than to leave evidence lying around for the internet to see," he sighed with disappointment for Ratokie to hear.

"Keep searching through his files, he has to have information to keep track of his election plans."

Jan looked across the screen for over half an hour, until he came upon a suspicious enough looking file. He opened the file, but it was encrypted. He tried using the same password to access, but it got rejected. Then he tried uploading the Cracker Jack program, but only the most expensive security systems could rebuff it, and Grugen's cyber security happened to be one of them.

"Damn," he knocked his head against the keyboard in a defeat.

He had just about given up when suddenly, he heard voices, voices from several people that weren't in the room, spamming his head. He could hear a dozen voices that sounded like conversations that took place in this very room. Only one voice was consistently the same, talking about political subjects, such as taxes and press coverage. However when it reached the awful subject of "keeping niggers in their ghettos," Jan realized it was Grugen's voice. His demonic sense had never done that before. First he had superhuman reflexes and coordination, but now he could turn places of interest into vocalized museums? He needed professional help.

Suddenly he heard a quote from Grugen's voice, a quote that sounded like a something to do with mirrors, but with a different vowel that brought internet slang to mind. Then the words abruptly "spelled" themselves out in front of him. "ROFLection," that had to be it; that was the password! Jan snickered at the absurdity of the password's meaning.

"Heh, Grugen you walking snot-bucket, could you be more cocky than this."

Entering the password he was immediately granted access. He opened the file and saw IDs belonging to what appeared to be various city officials. Apparently these men were benefactors of Grugen, on his bribe payroll or intimidation racket, but that was barely scratching the surface. Jan looked into other file folders. In them he saw over three-thousand people singled out for disenfranchised voting, including the Sesamo Plaza apartment residents, and himself. He also looked in another file with forged ID's of people plotting voter impersonation.

Jan smiled with jubilance, this was all the evidence he needed to keep Grugen sitting on his throne for another term. Suddenly his earpiece beeped.

"Silver Hound to Weasel, did you get some hard evidence?"

"Damn, right I did! Apparently Grugen's got a lot of city officials in his pocket, voter impersonation, and plenty of disenfranchised voters including moi."

"How did you get it," asked Ratokie.

"I found a suspicious-looking file, but it was encrypted even Cracker Jack, at first."

"At first," asked Ratokie. "You cracked the code, without even knowing it or without using Cracker Jack?"

"Yep, believe it or not, I got it right down to the exact grammar and spelling. I don't know how exactly, it's either a miracle or my demon sense at work, but the password just "typed" itself into my head."

"Interesting, looks your gift is getting bet- . . . uh oh."

"Uh oh? Talk to me boss that phrase always means bad news."

"It's the blues, they're onto you!"

"What, how'd they know?!"

"Grugen's computer must've been wired to some silent alarm set in his absence. Blues are gathering outside the building, they've blocked every exit on the ground floor, and the best part, they're sending in SCS."

"SCS, all this for surfing the Mayor's personal website," scoffed Jan, "Just keeps, getting better, the pig man sure payed through the nose to keep his secrets safe."

"Just get the data and amscray."

"Roger Silver Hound, on the double," Jan quickly grabbed the data with the mouse and dragged it to his thumb drive window and began the transfer process, it would take a while to fully download though.

Outside the office building, a police barricade had been formed to secure all possible exits. Nearly half of Prometheus's police force had shown up to contain any possible leak that would mean a scandalous blow to an important city official.

A limo drove up to the barricade and out stepped an obese middle-aged and balding, man in a gray suit. He swaggered up to the police chief. "Chief Redmond, what's this I hear about a breach in my office!?"

"The exact details are unknown Mayor Grugen, sir, but apparently there's a hacker looking through your database," answered Redmond.

"What," Grugen was flabbergasted.

"Well why haven't you busted in and arrested that street punk. He is obviously working for my rival candidate! He's looking for some dirt to use against me in the election, I know he is!"

The Chief put a hand on his shoulder to calm Grugen down and answered, "Apparently were dealing with a roof-runner, sir."

The mayor, already stressed from his jeopardized career wasn't having it, "Dammit, I don't care who you're dealing with, or what it takes, just catch that roof-rat, or it's your job!"

Just then a shiny, white sports car pulled up and out of it stepped an impeccably handsome, white-suited man in shades, whose sharpness was contrasted by his oddly, green hair. "Mayor Grugen," the man addressed, flashing an ID in his open wallet (stereotypical, agent's introduction), "I'm agent Hallmark with SCS regional bureau. My superiors sent me to look into these matters."

Sarcastically, the Mayor sighed, far from relieved, "Well how about that, the regional governor sends me their angel to bring me and my electoral campaign salvation. So what's your sermon agent?"

"My professional analysis is that you're dealing with a highly skilled and particularly, dangerous roof-runner. If you need me to apprehend him, I'll require command of all available police forces on this colony, and the liberal application of lethal force when deemed necessary, all this angel requires is your blessing."

Mayor Stanley Grugen had a momentary pause of consideration, his campaign was in jeopardy, and he had to stop the perp from getting away no matter what to save face. However, giving power to a stranger who does things the hard way was a gamble. The city would likely be torn apart in a deadly, game of cat-and-mouse beyond his tolerance. "Reliable" tax-payers would likely be injured or killed, and there'd be a considerable amount of property damage to the surrounding area. Then again, as far as the public was be concerned, he was a politician who was only guilty of taking the leashes off the local, guard dogs, and agent "green hair," would be guilty of the execution of the chase. If anything went wrong, he'd at least have a few scapegoats to hide behind. With a bit of reluctance, the mayor answered, "Well then, agent Hallmark, you are authorized to use any means necessary to catch that roof-rat and retrieve whatever dirt he has on me, but if I get complaints on how you do your job, you and SCS will be taking most of the heat for it."

"I understand sir," said Hallmark.

A few moments later four APCs drove up and men in SWAT-like, kevlar armor poured out, toting assault rifles, SMGs and shotguns. They were SCS: Special Colonial Security, aka Sec Troops. The troopers carefully moved into the building intent on denying their prey a chance of escape. Despite the odds looking their favor, Hallmark frowned and walked up to the shade wearing, Captain with a buzz-cut who was smoking a cigarette.

"Captain William Durmov," hailed Hallmark, "I would like to ask, what is your plan for apprehending the roof-runner?"

Durmov simply scoffed at the question, "Who do you think you're talking to, agent," he smugly retorted not bothering to hide his cockiness. "We've got every exit covered, every door, every staircase, elevator, air vent, laundry chute, and garbage chute. No way is he getting out. In fact there are only two ways out, in handcuffs or in a body bag. Besides catching roof-rats ain't nothing remarkable, in my career I barred up over two-dozen roof-rats dumb enough to mess with politics."

Hallmark wasn't impressed by Durmov's last comment, "If that is true, I must assure you they are nothing like the one loose inside the mayor's office, which is why I'm here Captain, to offer you most, helpful advice for your career and your men's sake."

Durmov however didn't like being nagged like a petulant child. "I can't believe this, is command headquarters really scared of a kid just because he busted in right under office security's noses. He's trapped like a rat; my men are more than enough for one kid."

But Durmov's bluff didn't faze Hallmark in the slightest, and the latter brutally came back at him in a way that shocked him, "Your men are already on their way to the hospital, and some to the morgue at the hands of a kid."

Time for a little info dump about the lore I just stretched.

SCS: Special Colonial Security: a commando-style police/counter-terrorist force formed in UC 93 after the Second Neo Zeon War as an alternative to another Titans task force. It was modeled after similar pre-space era, organizations such as America's SWAT, Japan's SAT and Germany's GSG9. Since then it had proven itself the most effective defense measure against any domestic crisis on the colonies that didn't involve mobile suits, so don't expect them to take on any Titans/A-Laws role.

And yes, this chapter's plot is kinda inspired by the 2016 election, not to mention this was written before the reports of Russia hacking/rigging the election in Donald Trump's favor (BTW Mayor Grugen is no way a reference or expy to Donald Trump himself in case you got the wrong idea). Life imitates art, go figure. Anyway reviews are welcome.

As for Jan's newtype abilities; they are very developed and sometimes do things for him on a subconcious cue. In this case he's briefly gained a shot of psychometry: a psychic ability to see the history of objects ala Stephen King's "The Dead Zone." Next three chapters you are going to see how badass a Newtype can be without a Mobile Suit.