AATC: Territory

Would you believe that it's an APP that's actually giving me an aft-kick to continue typing this? It's like a micromanager of your time, tasks, and sleeping hours in the form of a Role-Playing-Game (RPG) system. It allows you to treat your responsibilities and commitments like missions and points are earned for 'skills' you specify; 'exercise', for example, can allot points to your 'strength' statistic, or doing your homework boosts your 'intelligence'. It's kinda neat. It's called 'LifeRPG', in case anyone's interested.

Took me long enough to get back here. I want to read my own conclusion. Oh… it's not today. But it's very soon.

34.

Brittany tried to be as inconspicuous as possible as she listened at the door, trying to make out the conversations between Valerie and her crush. She could barely catch on to what the woman was saying, but from the sound of things, she was talking to the Seville about the gun she owned. Deciding to put an end to things, she backed up from the door down the hall and called for her significant other. After exiting Valerie's room and closing the door behind him to find her, he inquired what was wrong.

"You know that she's talking about guns, right?"

Alvin shrugged as if nothing was wrong. "Yeah. I guess so. That's why I'm talking with her. I think she's nervous, 'cause she's kinda rambling about it." Brittany leveled him a deadpan stare, wondering if he was losing his mind simply by being in the same room as the woman.

"Alvin… she's talking about guns. Is your head empty or something? They kill people and… and…"

Alvin frowned. "I know all of that, Britt. It's not like I'm trying to learn about it or anything." That wasn't entirely true, but he thought it would be prudent not to tell her that. "She's even been telling me a little about coding. I know that she's a criminal and all that junk and that she's dangerous, but if it makes her calmer, then I'll do it! She's trying to get Simon back!" Alvin took hold of Brittany's wrist and started to pull on her in an effort to get her to accompany him, tugging the unwilling chipette. "You should join her. It's the least you could do, you know? Maybe it'll let her know that you're not harboring any bad feelings about her or anything."

"What?! I can tolerate her. But if you think I'm gonna just start up a conversation with a gun-toting, criminal hacker-" Alvin opened the door right during the middle of her rant, forcing Brittany to correct herself hastily. "Good afternoon, Valerie? Keeping up okay?"

Valerie looked up to regard the Miller, then about the room feigning confusion. "You talking to me? Really? Why would anyone ask a gun-toting criminal hacker how she's doing?" Brittany flushed with embarrassment and laughed awkwardly while Alvin seemingly abandoned her at the door in search for something elsewhere.

"Traitor," Brittany hissed to him as he left before turning back to Valerie. "Oh… you heard all that, huh?"

The redhead fiddled with her stray bullets and magazine, beginning to fill the latter with them. "If you don't want to be in my company, you don't have to be. I'm not forcing you." The woman's fingers continued to slip the cartridges underneath the trap and press them down, feeding the live shells into the magazine. "Besides… I might not be around very long for it to matter."

Brittany gazed on as the woman finished packing the magazine with bullets and then went on to idly slip the magazine into her gun and out again repeatedly. "So… you're scared that you're gonna die?"

Valerie laughed, a forced expression of mirth. "No need to get so morbid with all that death talk! I'm talking about taking a vacation after you all get out of Miami! Hawaii, maybe. Or somewhere in Europe like France." Brittany shook her head to this, seeing right through the woman's dim sarcasm.

"I'd be scared too, Valerie. Death is pretty frightening."

"…" Valerie stopped. "I said 'taking a vacation'. Didn't you hear me?"

"All I heard was a lie..." Brittany answered frankly as she gazed at the woman. Valerie was a strong person, or at least they thought her to be. Seeing how she managed their time, organized their dealings, being able to shoulder their concerns or to even be a friendly ear they could talk to, it was easy to think that she was superhuman. Brittany had seen the red-head in this light and realized that she had been wrong. She, no matter what kind of person she was, had and always will be human, no more, no less. She treated herself well, that was apparent, bearing the personification of fortitude. But now, looking even closer when in her proximity, Brittany saw that the difference. She saw how sleep-starved the woman was. How stressed she was. How lonely she was.

How afraid she was…

Brittany could identify a lot of stress-related disorders and habits in people. Biting nails, writing a sentence over and over, grinding teeth. Repeatedly fiddling with her gun by offhand reloading it, unpacking and repacking her magazines fell into the same category, as bizarre as it seemed.

"It doesn't matter, okay? Besides…" Valerie went on to smile weakly. "That vacation could still happen." Brittany nodded in response. It helped to stay positive, although it was rather pitiful. There were other ways… Brittany decided to be more empathetic.

"I'm scared of dying too. I don't know what so mystifying about it when I read about it in books. When you realize about you're gonna die, all you can think about is… all of your mistakes." She recalled how she and Alvin used to be at each other's throats constantly like wild wolves, especially leading up to week when she was going to catch her 'Big Break' with her sisters in another state. It was rather strange, Brittany mused, that she had been so regretful of keeping bad relations with him when she'd had her near-death experience in the car crash, the very same she lost her mother in. "It's like death's trying to show you how much of a screw-up you've been."

Valerie snapped her fingers. "Uh huh. Exactly. I've had that feeling before. It's not like you're seeing your life flash before your eyes in the movies. You just start thinking about all the mistakes you made and how much time you've wasted. Then everything just starts spiraling and you realize how scared you are of dying."

"You sound like you've been at death's door quite a few times," Brittany observed quietly.

"Nah. I've only been there once to prank-ring his doorbell and run away," Valerie jested in dark humor. "Old Man 'D' couldn't catch me!"

Brittany could help but chuckle. "Yeah. He didn't catch me either." She looked on as Valerie became more relaxed and sighed. "I guess I'm trying not to make those same mistakes anymore."

"Me too. I mean, I've done some of them again…and again… and again…" Valerie heaved a large exhale, though her expression hardened. She eased the magazine into her gun for the final time before slamming it in with the butt of her palm. Pulling back on the chamber, she let it snap shut with finality. "But I'm gonna fix the biggest one."

Brittany's eyebrows nearly lifted completely up to her hairline when she thought of the implications. "I thought that you were going to do some sort of 'blackmail-type deal' to get Simon back. What're you going to do with that gun-"

"That's a dumb question, Brittany," Valerie chastised. "I'm not going to take the risk of going to his house unarmed. Did you forget about this morning? He wants to shut me up too. After this, he's probably gonna want me dead, not only because I 'betrayed' him by helping all of you, but because I know all about his dirty work. We never did trust one another to begin with, but my services were very useful to him. He extorts or threatens all the singers that crop up here, makes a fortune by a monopoly and I use my 'expertise' to keep him clean. I just happened to keep all of his 'dirty laundry', so to speak, so I'm even a bigger liability than the lot of you. it's clear that he's impatient, and he's cutting his losses."

"Then why would you help him from the start?! Huh?" Brittany yelled in exasperation. "You knew what he was like before you worked with him, didn't you?!"

"I did," the redhead replied calmly. "But I owe him. Just like I owed you guys too. Guess you can't always try to play both sides of the fence."

"So that's why you helped him? Because you owe him? Then just pay him back!"

"How do you repay someone who's saved your life?" Valerie asked rhetorically. Brittany sucked air sharply between her teeth in a gasp, trying to think of a response but could not. "That's right. You can't."

"Well…" The chipette decided to sway to the adjoining point in the woman's argument. "You said that you owed us too? Is that why you're trying to help us?" Brittany's mind began to race with unanswered questions as her own rapid-fire queries only served to make Valerie appear distraught with each one. "I don't know you and I can't remember any money dealings with you… We're kind of broke… wait… did you steal money from us-?"

"No, Brittany. I didn't steal money from any of you…" Valerie hemmed and hawed, trying to think of an admission without upsetting her companion. "It's just that Ravin' Raven committed the 'Perfect Crime'."

The Miller raised an eyebrow. "…Huh? What's that supposed to mean-"

Valerie had already turned away from her, going over to the telephone. "Soon, it won't matter anymore. I'll be out of your lives, one way or another." She picked up the phone and began to punch in Ravin' Raven's phone number. "Better now than later," Valerie mumbled to herself before she heard someone pick up the call on the other line.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Vincent. It's Valerie. We need to talk."

…

…

"You get all that, Vincent?"

"F*ck you, bitch!" Valerie only sighed at the man's outburst, wondering if he was far more prone to curse than to behave sensibly. Regardless, she had to keep her senses about her; it could have been a façade of belligerence by the man to get her to drop her guard. He wasn't the smartest, sure, but being clever was in a class all of its own.

"I want to see Simon unhurt, you bastard! You hear me! I'm sending a taxi out to your house to pick him up at five pm and if he's even got a scratch anywhere, I'm leaking all the evidence that'll make you look worse than Hitler! Your Godfather-type shit that you've been doing until now is gonna get you a lethal injection, you hear me?"

"You've got nothing, Valerie! You have a hand in nearly everything I've done! Even if you manage not to implicate yourself, I've still got video evidence that can stand up in court! You can hack all you want, but this DVD has a lot of copies, and they're in a lot of hands. If I go down, I've got people who'll make sure that it makes the news. What will all those rats think when they see it, huh?! What will they think of the person they look up to?! Act tough all you want, but your scrawny ass is gonna get molested in jail, and that's if I don't get you first!"

Valerie sighed in a mixture of anger and disappointment, trying to think of a way to outsmart the rapper. "I don't care for your empty threats! I've already wiped all the blackmail you have on the police, so they're not gonna turn a blind eye to all this crap anymore! Not even you can bribe the commissioner once he sees all this evidence I've got on you! It's time released, and I'm the only one who can stop it if you meet all of my conditions! If Simon… hell, if any of the singers get hurt… even if I die, you'll still lose… and that's F*CKING GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME!" Valerie screamed into the phone before slamming it down on the hook. "Damn!" Taking in deep breaths to come down from her emotional high, she gave herself a minute to comprehend that she'd just told the man that she was alright with dying. "Oh good Lord, I'm gonna… Oh geez…" Glancing at the clock, she realized that it was now four in the afternoon. "I'd better get my shit together," the woman muttered to herself, before heading outside to find the others.

They were all seated in the living room; in and of itself, wasn't strange at all. It was where the second telephone was, and they were most likely eavesdropping. She'd known it would happen and had intended it to happen, though she hadn't accounted for the rapper to insinuate that she was even worse than himself. They'd most likely started to doubt her, although she was hoping for the better. "So umm… I lost my patience at the end there…" Valerie grumbled sheepishly, "sorry about the language at the end."

"Me? I don't know about the others, but I've heard worse when I watched 'Scarface'," Alvin pointed out. "Besides that, I can't believe that I used to look up to him. That rapper's a prick-"

"Alvin!" Dave hissed. "We've gone through a lot, but our language isn't going to stoop!"

"Language?" Brittany gawked. "Are you joking?! We've been threatened, nearly killed in random accidents and we've been shot at and you're worried about our damn language, Dave?!" Before Dave could rise to her argument, Jeanette yelled for order; she was usually diminutive in a voice akin to Theodore himself and resulted in getting everyone's attention, mostly by surprise.

"Hey! Guys! Simon! You know, the guy we're trying to save? Did you all forget that?!" Looking around and was satisfied to see them cowed, she settled back into her seat. "The language doesn't matter. What we know Valerie's done doesn't matter. What we've gone through doesn't matter, at least, not anymore. What matters is what we're going to do, right?" Receiving unintelligible confirmatory responses, she nodded. "Good. Valerie? We all heard what you told Ravin' Raven, but I've got some concerns. You said he's rich, right? What if he bribes the police like you said he's done before? Won't he get away with what he's doing and hurt you and Simon when you try to pick him up?"

"I'm counting on it," Valerie remarked strangely. "He's going to need to liquidate all of his electronic money into cold hard cash. That means that he's going to need a withdrawal from the bank." She stopped here, causing Eleanor to wind her hand at the wrist, signaling her to continue.

"So? What's that supposed to mean?"

"Most of his money's overseas. He's going to need to have it wired here, then make the withdrawal from his most trusted banks, the only one that allows him to withdraw gobs of money without asking any questions. If I kill the power to the city, it'll freeze the transaction for the money to get here, or for the bank itself to operate. I'll also need one of you guys to be standing literally inside the bank with another blackout exploit to kill the power to their generators in case the bank still tries to come through with the money. I can't kill the generator from here."

"What?" Dave asked. "One of us will be helping you to hack? For starters, we don't know how to. Second, why would any of us want to commit a federal offense?"

"You really want Simon and I to die, don't you?" Valerie asked simply. "We need to stop any money withdrawals that he can use to bribe the police! The bank needs to go 'dark'!"

"Why don't you just hack the bank account instead, like you said you've done before on a small scale for everyone else?" Theodore asked. Getting stared at by everybody in the room only caused him to get self-conscious. "What?"

"No, no, it is a good idea," Valerie replied, "but I can't touch overseas money, and up until now I've kept myself discreet. That much money disappearing has to go somewhere, and if anyone investigates, the person that's suddenly millions of dollars richer will end up going to jail. Even if the account just drops to zero and it didn't go to an account, the bank will have to go to an inquiry for losing all of that cash in the first place. I'm not pulling any more innocents into this. As for the power outage, I'm voting that either Dave goes, or two of the kids. It's simple. Just use one of my phones and run my main exploit on it. It'll run for a search for the generators on the network, run an auto-hack and turn it off. Easy!" She hoped that her voice was more confident than she was."Just make sure you wear shades and caps because the person working for Vincent might be there at the time and recognize you."

"As if it wasn't risky enough," Brittany muttered. "I guess we're drawing straws to see who goes…"

"I'll do it," Alvin said suddenly, "because Theodore needs to support Eleanor, and Dave still doesn't even know how to use the camera on his phone."

"Done!" Valerie exclaimed, interrupting Dave before he could make an objection. "It's true, and the person had better be able to run away if anything happens. You're quick, right Alvin?" The chipmunk nodded. "Alright. Dave? You're staying behind the wheel."

"Behind the wheel? The wheel of what? The van that looks like swiss-cheese?" the man asked in exasperation.

"I've got a car, don't worry," the redhead reassured. "You're going to drive everyone in the car to the bank, Alvin hacks the generator to keep their power out and then you'll all go straight to the airport. I'll… 'get' you all some tickets," she said pointedly, hinting that she might be up to some mischief in order to procure the travel receipts. "And I'll be there a little later to drop Simon off with you, and I'll take another flight out of Miami. Easy as pie."

"Nope…" Theodore stated. "I know pie, and this is not going to be easy."

"I know, right?" Eleanor agreed. "So many things can go wrong! What if Ravin' Raven already has a lot of money that he's sitting on at his house? And would he really just leave us alone even if we get home? He knows us! It's not as if the whole world doesn't know about us, huh?" she asked sarcastically. "Oh wait… they do. And he knows you too! We don't have any guarantees that he'll ever leave us alone. Anyone with access to the internet can find out our address!"

"This plan's got too many holes-"

"This is not going to work…"

"…Gonna fail…"

There were no mixed reactions. Valerie could see that they were all on the same page, agreeing with one another. Who wasn't speaking was listening to the others, already trying to formulate plans of their own to rescue Simon at the exchange. Yet in all these things, Valerie heard the one voice who still wanted to know what she thought.

"Valerie?" Jeanette spoke softly, her voice somehow carrying above the din. "Are you sure that your plan will work?"

The woman was taken by surprise but still found it in herself to answer. "I'm sure," Valerie replied. "We'll get Simon back."

"If you're sure," Jeanette said, her own growing confidence causing her voice to swell, "then I'll go with your plan. Even if no one else agrees with your plan, I'll hack the generator, I'll drive the car, I don't care! I'll do ANYTHING you ask!" Taken aback by the girl's newfound esteem, Valerie nodded. The chipette's attitude had influenced the others as well, allowing for them to draw confidence from her.

"Okay. Let's get started. I"ll get to coding for the power plant to cause the main blackout. Jeanette… or Alvin, whoever is doing the generator-hack, come with me."

"I'll just do it," Alvin mumbled as he got up from his seat to follow the woman.

"Fine." Valerie made an about turn and headed back to her personal room where she kept all of her computers, Alvin close in tow. Once there, she closed the door behind Alvin and walked over to a case in the corner of the room. The chipmunk could see that it had some sort of special purpose for it to be stored like that, and he wasn't disappointed when he saw the woman open it to remove a gun from it.

"You know?" Alvin started, "I think I'm getting used to seeing these things. After getting shot at, and all. Hell, even after how you've been talking to me this afternoon about how coding and weapons are alike-"

"I told you those things for a reason, Alvin, not just because of my nerves," Valerie mumbled. "I know that out of all the others, you're the only guy who can think on his feet and roll with the punches. You adapt easily, and frankly, Jeanette can put up a brave talk but out there on the street, she might hesitate and screw up. Mr. Parkour man," she said easily, "Mr. Never-hesitate…"

"I don't hesitate anymore!" Alvin exclaimed. "I learned all of that the hard way!"

"I know. I told you about coding and about guns because I was counting on you from the start," she said matter-of-factly. "You'll know how to run the Auto-hack. It's basically a step-by-step script. You'll connect to the network you think has the generator and then you'll 'search' for it. After that, you're going to select the generator controls when you find it. After that, select 'Off' or 'Disable', whichever one that shows up on the screen. It's really easy to use these Auto-hack programs I've made. If even a muscle-head like the guy you met on the bridge can use them, then so can you. Are you an idiot, Alvin?"

"No, ma'am!" the chipmunk mock saluted. The task sounded easy enough. The woman had already shown him how it worked earlier whenever she needed to run general hacking exploits without her laptop. "I can do this! Besides… I mastered 'Snapchat' when it was still hard to use."

Valerie grinned at the boy's attempt at humor; she was grateful for it, as her nerves were starting to get to her again. Not to mention, he'd need his own conviction for what was about to follow. "Here comes the hard part," Valerie mumbled gruffly as she gestured the gun. "You saw me reloading it and taking off the safety, but using it is a lot different and harder. You saw Dave this morning. It's a wonder he didn't put a bullet in his own leg. When it comes down to it, you're the only person I can count on to defend your family." She handed the gun to the chipmunk, who took it from her with only the slightest trepidation. "I'm not telling you to kill anyone. Maybe even fire a few warning shots or something. But shooting at someone… I'm gonna be honest… you might end up doing it if the situation goes perfectly wrong."

"I'm not gonna kill anybody!" Alvin protested. "Maybe… the most I'll do is fire at their feet?" he asked hopefully. "On second thought, I shouldn't take this. I'll do without the gun-"

"They are not going to be shooting at your feet, Alvin. They will be aiming everywhere above the feet." She started pointing at Alvin's body parts, working her way up from his stomach. "They'll shoot you in the gut. They'll shoot you in the heart. They'll shoot you in the face."

"But-"

"They'll kill you if they get the chance," the woman said quietly. "They'll kill Dave. They'll kill your brothers. They'll kill the Millers. They'll kill Brittany." The woman knew that it was low for her to try to instill pre-vengeance in Alvin, but it was worth seeing his expression become steeled and gripping the weapon even tighter in his hands. Pulling out her own gun from out of her jacket, she showed him how to operate the ballistics weapon. "You know how to reload it, right? You saw me earlier. You press your thumb over the magazine release to dump it, then you slide a new one into the 'house', then slam it in. AND not too hard. Then, you pull back the chamber by pushing the gun itself forward. It's more reliable and takes less effort."

"I saw you do all of that already-"

"Firing it, though, is different. It's not that hard to pull the trigger. The hard part is keeping the blasted thing steady in your hands. Just keep your arms almost fully stretched so you don't strain yourself."

"So… reloading-"

"Yes." Valerie took out another magazine and gave it to him. "There are at least two dozen people working for him, and it's really easy to miss. Alvin… this isn't a game. You're not going to kill anyone and expect to get away with it."

"Warning shots, Valerie!" the chipmunk insisted, "and I don't even want to use this at all!"

"And I hope that you won't have to. But just like how this isn't a game… you can't come back to life if you get shot to death. If needs be… to keep yourself safe… to keep everyone safe… to keep Brittany safe…" She let the last statement hang in the air. "I hope you understand."

Alvin looked down at the bulky gun and the second magazine in his hands, suddenly far heavier with the gravity of responsibility. "I… do…"

=X=X=

Vincent started to pace in his living room, trying to think of a way out of his situation, but could only think of one. "Damn! She's got me by the balls, Lamar!"

The giant of a man didn't say anything. Like the man he figuratively looked up to, he too was at a loss. He could readily concede that this was a bit of a dire situation; usually, Valerie was the one who'd guaranteed their safety in all that they'd done, and now, she was the one threatening it. Vincent had long been on the rise, bribing his way out of trouble that he could've been implicated in, long before he even knew of Valerie's very existence. Ever since they dug her out of a car wreckage, indebted to them, they'd used her obligated services to procure massive amounts of evidence of police corruption and law-breaking; it plugged the hole in their finances that regular bribery made and even went as far as to keep all of their slates clean in anything even remotely illegal. She was soon ready to back out of their covenant after only a few months but once Vincent had realized that the woman had the potential to keep him 'clean' for life, he presented to her that he had evidence of her first major high-profile crime.

She had to stay. She had to continue. They were now even more than just people with an understanding; they were partners. Of course, they never did have an ounce of trust for one another but they've been doing this for a little over a year. Vincent was more successful in this time period than he'd been for three years put together. He had no intentions of giving this up.

Now, he had no choice. A monkey would keep its hand trapped in a lock-trap just to hold onto its prize, but Vincent knew better. He was no dunce and he knew when to cut his losses.

"Lamar, I'm going to need you to make a withdrawal at the bank. A big one. The assistant commissioner is a good friend of mine, and he's a spendaholic. If he gets enough money in front of him, he'll still stay on my side and make sure that no two-bit cops come out here to investigate. No squad cars, no walk-patrols, nothing."

Lamar nodded. "I understand. So I'm going directly to the assistant commissioner's home to drop off the money?"

"Yeah. A lot better than dropping it off at his office!" Vincent said with a laugh. "So I guess you're sitting this firefight out. I'd want you here, but I can't trust anyone else with that much cash without them trying to take a little for themselves," Vincent explained. "We're going to wait on whoever's picking up Simon to come for him; I can bet that Valerie will come for him because she'll want to verify that he's alright. When she does come, we're gonna heat 'em both up." At this, the big man left to make do on his errand, leaving the metal-rapper alone in the room by himself. "She's going to send the evidence to the commissioner," he mumbled, "not the assistant-commie. We might have to kill the commissioner first, just to make sure. After that, the assistant can step up to bat!"

The man began to laugh to himself, sure that his logic was sound. It made sense, he presumed, suddenly at ease with himself. "Why try to keep myself clean when I can be as dirty as I want when the new commissioner himself will be in my backpocket! I should've done this from the start! Valerie is redundant…" His mood was now greater, now feeling confident that his odds were far greater than whatever Valerie would try when she came to pick up Simon. "Oh yes… hell…" He went over to his television, took out a DVD out of an unmarked case and looked at it. It'd been his mainstay of keeping Valerie working for him this long, and it was his final leverage. He'd still use it against her, even she somehow got away. After all, he didn't count his victories in winning… he fought his battles because he loved to see all others lose. "Come on, Valerie. When this is all said and done, we're going to need a bunch of body-bags for you and your pack of rats…"

Done. Everyone's hatching plans, but I have a few surprises. We need a climax, after all. I'm even making some musical scores/themes for anyone who wants to listen to them. It should help to set the mood…? I'll leave links in my profile to where you can find them.

For anyone reading this, thanks for sticking around. I should have another update in exactly a week. I'm kinda itching to wrap up this fic, but I don't want to rush it. Also, yeah, I know you all came mostly to see romance for Alvittany. Adventure comes first, I'm afraid, with mostly friend-shipping between them until now. But I hope that when the fluff happens, you'll all grin like Chesire cats and say…

"This was worth two years of my life." (IT'S BEEN THAT LONG?!)

I pray for strength and inspiration…

Valete omnes,

MRAY 4TW.