A.N.: Short chapter, I'm really sorry. My attention has diverged, sadly, lately, so I haven't really been able to focus on a single fanfic to work on oopsh. Anyway, May will be a hectic month due to school, finals, and concerts and all that fun stuff. Updates will still be late but I'm really really hoping to get a lot of this fic done during summer. Cross my fingers and pray.
"You said he talks," Wolf held up his hand to stop the onslaught verbal train from the officer at his new discoveries, a digital screen balanced in his lap and his headphone lopsided to allowed him audio from both reality, "From the tapes."
"Yes sir," The eager officer nodded, "It's sort of faint but we can surely distinguish the audio from the background with our equipment. Luckily, the security camera installed right along the roof was close enough to capture his voice even amid the chaos."
"That's brilliant," Wolf clasped his hands together and placed it gently on the table. The officer looked as if he was waiting for further instructions, his eyes dumbly holding Wolf's gaze, "What are you waiting for, a royal invitation? Get to it."
"Yes, sir," A hasty nod and the man scrambled out of his office. Wolf watched him go and then watched him turn the corner. The officer left without shutting the goddamn door.
Sighing, Wolf shook his head. No matter, he had more dire business to deal with. Namely Mayford. While Officer Fletcher Lionel looked like a trustworthy man, someone who could hold Mayford's lack-of-reasoning brain intact, Wolf had uneasy feelings about pairing up Mayford with Mayford's buddy. Because, for heaven's sake, what good ever came out of childhood friends pairing? Mayford was a bad influence. Mayford plus his childhood friend would be a catastrophe, to say the least. He had enough of troubles for a lifetime as it was with the suspicious event that transpired during his short absence last time. It hadn't been a great idea to leave Mayford in the same room as Mrs. Jones. Mayford looked like he had been in a heated argument against a bull and Mrs. Jones had a look of irritation. Both of which, Wolf learned, was dangerous. When Mayford became emotionally unstable, things tend to get violent. When Mrs. Jones became irritated, her opponent's life tended to go south drastically.
"Commander."
Speaking of the devil, Wolf must have had the worse luck of all for at the exact moment when he was about to simply recline back in his seat and enjoy an hour off, MI6 bloody Mrs. Jones walked in. Although devoid of her minions, she looked impossibly even more dangerous.
"Ma'am," He stood immediately to attention.
"At ease," She nodded but made no move to sit and Wolf couldn't find any reason to sit at all when his superior obviously had no intention to, "I won't take up much of your time. My reason here is to secure the transfer of Officer Harry Mayford into our intelligence office."
Wolf blinked in undisguised surprise, "Mayford?"
"Do you have any objects, soldier?" The use of his rank was weighed down with open superiority, the use of her authority to simply demand the procedure of no questions.
"May I ask why?"
"It's highly classified," Mrs. Jones did not bother at all, "And I expect to see him in the lobby at the end of his shift today. Don't make me push toward more drastic approaches."
"Yes ma'am," Any bite backs would result only in damage to himself with no better results. Mrs. Jones could easily strip him of ranks or deploy his healing unit out on the fields. He could not risk either of those. If anything, he could pluck whatever it was out from Mayford.
Mrs. Jones left swiftly and just as suddenly as she appeared but her dark moody cloud of peppermint stay lingered in the air for minutes more than necessary. Wolf dropped himself back into his chair and groaned. Whatever the fuck Mayford got himself into, they were going to have a long chat before 6 could whisk him away. He had come a long way from meeting the extremely sarcastic young man on his first week to the ever-cheerful wreck-of-a-lightbulb Mayford and whatever it was between 6 and Mayford, he was going to figure it out.
Reaching for the comm unit, Wolf's first attempt to radio in Mayford's car failed when he received no response after his fifth try, his second attempt to call the damn idiot on his personal radio also, unsurprisingly, failed. His third attempt to contact him through his phone bearing no hope also did not go through and Wolf sat seething as he ended the cheerful 'leave a message after the beep' tone without actually leaving one.
"Goddammit." Just who was it that said their radio would be open
Mayford better be begging to remain on this job when he came back. Wolf blinked. Mayford was coming back to this job anyway.
Shaking his head to pull his thoughts away, his last measure pulled up the location of Mayford's car. The dot blinked sluggishly on the screen. Wolf frowned. Partridge Square. If the square was famous for anything, it was the Partridge Square Auction Center. Everything rare, historical and even black market items could be found there and Wolf remembered almost a call every month from there reporting thefts and violence. The police had negotiated a deal with the owner on a constant police assigned to the building in exchange for the police to turn a blind eye to the smaller black market items. The government hadn't exactly been pleased but with the assignment of police force patrol twenty-four-seven, the number of casualties had dropped drastically.
His attention was stolen away as half a dozen red dots began to speed toward the building, signaling the gathering of the patrol cars just as a short rectangular box appeared. Shots fired, requesting additional backup.
Goddammit.
Thirty Minutes Earlier
"What is that?" Alex leaned over and hissed as they brought up the second to the last auction item, hideously covered by marble rainbow scales. It looked like a rock after tragic make-up tutorial from a two-year-old.
"The River's Heart," The man called out, "An ancient artifact believed by native Americans to be able to channel the power of the river. Starting bid at two thousand."
Some idiot called out three thousand.
"These are all appetizers before the main object, the last object," Fletcher remarked dryly as his apparent lack of interest, "And trust me, the majority of them are fake. Only those new to this auction house will ever think of buying it. It's a way for the more experienced to determine the level of others and to see who they should be careful against."
"What if-"
"Be quiet for a moment, would you?"
Alex obediently shut his mouth. Fletcher could be very un-Scorpia-like sometimes but there was always an invisible boundary line that could only be stretched so far before he was over it and Alex certainly had no wish of being on the receiving end of Fletcher's wrath. When facing two evils, it was best to have one of them siding with you.
It was another ten minutes before the jewel finally made its appearance. It was a small triple Hi-Polymer eraser size jewel but although it radiant brilliantly underneath the overhead light, Alex couldn't bring himself to marvel at the beauty of it. There was simply nothing exotically beautiful about it when it looked exactly like plastic replica diamonds sold for two dollars in cheap stores.
The starting bid was fifty thousand and Alex wasn't surprised at the steady rising of the prices being called out. Everyone merely being here shown their love and enthusiasm for arts and artifacts of rarity and they certainly would not forego their chance at scoring something of such 'beauty' and blah blah blah. Alex really couldn't find anything wishes to claim the diamond as his own. Didn't people die over scrabbling for ancient paintings of squares and rectangles and unrecognizable shapes simply because they were dated over four centuries ago? Was it really appreciations of art or was it just plain greedy yearning for an egocentric display to show-off their riches?
Fletcher snapped a finger before his eyes, "Pay attention."
The gentleman two rows down pushed the bid up to two million, breaking the steady trend of augmenting at an interval of five thousand. The house was silent for a moment before three million broke out. Then three point five.
"Get ready," The Scorpia agent smiled with dry humor and amusement, "The last man to bid will either be a Scorpia agent not knowing how to deal his hands or a rich man whose life will probably end tonight; though if he's lucky, perhaps a trip to the ER will save him and he will probably never walk near an auction house ever again."
"You find joy in people's suffering."
Fletcher looked surprised for a moment and Alex almost thought it was out of genuine concern that the man had not realized his own characteristics. It took a complete nosedive when the man turned to him with a withering look, "How nice of you to finally notice."
That killed off all Alex's planned attempts at a normal conversation. Let's face it, there was no way he could stomach a conversation with a cold-hearted assassin who had just admitted the most generic characteristics on the Must-Have list of assassin traits. He had expected it, he just hadn't expect the brutally honest remark.
The auction house began to file out as it drew to an end and Fletcher followed the crowd with ease, buttoning up his suit and gestured for Alex to follow along to the backstage where the diamond would be stored for temporary safety. They would have a window.
"Careful," Fletcher said softly as he slowed down, forcing Alex to follow suit to not crash into the assassin, "Stay with the flow but edge your way towards the back. Do you notice anyone doing the same?"
Alex scanned the sluggishly moving crowd flooding towards the exit, his eyes flickering in views without blatant staring or conspicuous searching. If the people were the fur of one of those fluffy dogs, the other Scorpia agents would be the few stray hair that stuck out. His mock sense of needing perfection did not fail him on his third scan. Although almost everyone was wearing suits that only varied in price and nothing else on the outlook, the agents did stand out once he knew what he was looking for.
"I found two."
Fletcher shot him a quick glance, "Bald head and the other has a blue striped tie?"
"How did you know?" Alex arched an eyebrow in mild astonishment at the accurate description that made each of the two stand out amid their surrounding.
Instead of answering his question, Fletcher sighed, "Great. There's more than two, keep looking."
Alex did but perhaps more grumpily than previous, "You know, if I can spot two, I'm already really good at this whole I-Spy game."
The assassin on his side had a look of utter condescension and contemptuousness, "Those two are the worst out of all of us in concealing themselves."
"So they're bad?"
"They can still kill you in a heartbeat fifteen different ways."
"...Thanks."
"Glad to be of service," The ghost of a smile lingered when Alex turned to face the assassin but before the much-preferred conversation could progress any further, Fletcher lowered his tone, "They're not the one you should be focusing on. This job has to be accomplished by both Mentor and the Recruit."
"Which means there's a chance that I have to go in and steal the jewel?"
"No, this is best accomplished by the Mentors. Recruits will only mess things up and result in a bloody mess," Fletcher snorted without humor, "While I attempt to feat, you'll stay outside and stay alive."
"...Will there be zombies?"
"The other Recruits will try to kill you, it's a last-man-standing game among the Recruits. If you're killed, our team will lose. I will lose. So please try to stay alive and if you can, take out some of the bastards too."
"You want me to kill people?" Alex had expected it, but he hadn't expect Fletcher to simply put it out there.
Fletcher pulled his gaze away from the door and watched Alex intensely and silently for a moment before he pronounced, "Yes, I do."
Alex opened his mouth to object but Fletcher clearly wasn't finished, "But I'm sure you can find a way around it."
He shut it.
Whatever that meant. It sounded like an option between killing people and not killing people and he sure as hell wasn't going to go on a killing spree for an organization that he had no intention of joining.
"Got it?" Fletcher asked.
"Yeah, I think so, but one question."
"Shoot."
"This whole Scorpia game, did your boss pull it from some creepy dystopia drama?"
Fletcher eyed him, "If you put your mind on something more useful, I'm sure you can be successful in the future. But that aside, here they come. Deal with it."
The crowd had thinned drastically and only a few still loitered around. Alex bet half of the remaining, or more, were Scorpia. Agents or not. They were all messed up, to even want to participate in this game and wanting to sincerely join Scorpia.
Was that how they would view him as well?
Before he could bring more attention to himself, Alex moved next to the bench occupied by another man on his phone, "'Scuse me, can I sit here?"
The man looked up mildly, his blue eyes flashing in unrecognizable emotion, "Go ahead."
Plopping himself down, he crossed his legs, stuck one end of his ear-bud on, letting the other dangle in the air, and scrolled mindlessly through his phone. Every sense was screaming at him to edge away from the man but he chided himself to remain still. Hopefully, he could escape unscathed from right underneath everyone's noses.
"You are here by yourself?" The man broke the silence as a group of staff walked by mixed with more customers. The quiet voice held a touch of a Russian accent.
Alex glanced up sideways, "Um, no. I'm waiting for my dad."
"Your dad," The man nodded thoughtfully, "Do you like auctions?"
Laughing slightly, Alex shook his head with a genuine grimace, "Not particularly, art isn't really my thing. It's my dad who's obsessed with auctions."
The man shifted in interest, his pale frosty feature moved in a half-hearted attempt to smile, "Huh, so what's your thing?"
"Tech definitely," Alex nodded, "Contemporary trends. What 'bout you?"
"I love traveling."
Traveling, huh. Sure, Alex could deal with an assassin who loved traveling, "So what are you doing here? Sightseeing?"
"You can say that. I came because of the jewel auction."
The utter lack of elaboration and the unwillingness to speak anymore than necessary was not lost on Alex. Definitely a Scorpia agent. Definitely a Scorpia agent testing if he was one of the Recruits. Well, he'd just have to speak the truth, "Some collection, I think. It was beautiful, alright," He shrugged, "But I don't really have the eye for jewels. Just because they're a different shade of the same color doesn't mean they should be worth a decades worth of wage of others."
The man was quiet for a moment, "Interesting."
Alex suddenly had the feeling he had accidentally discovered one of the secret doors in games. He could either be facing the boss he could never defeat or the treasure box he could never find the key to open for. Tom had always commented on his bad luck and how Alex always ended up trapping both of their characters in the cave with no way out.
"My name is Yassen Gregorovich," The man's eyes followed him, "You must be Fletcher's Recruit."
It took all he had to not leap to his feet and get away as far as possible but his barely disguised look of horror was enough to confirm the man's statement, "No worries, I won't kill you. Fletcher's a good friend of mine and I don't kill children."
"I think you have the wrong person," His meek attempt was nothing more than filler for the silence.
The man ignored him, "However, I will not stop anyone from killing you. If my Recruit run into you again, she will kill you."
"Your Recruit?"
"Claire."
Ah, that explained a lot.
"She should have killed you last time," Yassen continued, "But she didn't. She told me you spared her life and in return, she did as well. However, your fling will only achieve as far."
"We didn't have any 'fling'," Alex objected, "We talked, that was all."
Yassen didn't reply instead he turned his head slightly to the backdoor and before he had a chance to reply, two shots rang out. Instinctively, Alex ducked then jerked up to search for a commotion. The assassin not on his side remained calm in his seat and the only acknowledgement he shown was the slight shift in his direction.
Bloody creeps.
"Claire isn't here, is she?" Alex asked quietly as more gunshots rung out. He wanted to run in there, his adrenaline was kicking in and he was doing his best to remain seated. There were a billion and three ways things could go wrong and he would be gunned down before he could reach the back door.
Alex could, after all, only trust Yassen enough to share a bench with him but he could definitely not entrust his life in that man's life. 'I don't kill children', what kind of assassin would that make? A friendly charity run-away?
"No, she isn't," Yassen nodded, "The jewel is not the item."
Alex turned in surprise, "What?"
The assassin refused to repeat himself twice and chose instead to plow on, "This is to eliminate my competitors."
"What?"
"If Fletcher makes it out alive," Yassen stood up and buttoned his suit neatly, adjusting his tie by gently pushing it upward, "Tell him I said hi but I suggest you leave immediately."
"I'm not leaving Fletcher," Alex stood up as well.
Yassen regarded him strangely then nodded as if somehow Alex's decision was very important to him, "The cops are here and any moments they will be storming in. You should change back to your uniform by then."
A sharp gunshot and a pained grunt accompanied the thudding against the closed door. Alex turned, half expecting the door to open and someone, anyone, walking out. When he turned back, Yassen was gone. The lobby was empty and the screams moments ago from the innocent bystanders had long faded to uncomfortable memory. He could hear the siren better now and the sharp cut-off as they all screeched to a stop.
More shots ran out and then the door did swung open.
