.

.

CHAPTER 6

Jackie came back to her shop to find Hans and Aria playing cards on the living room. She slumped inside, kicking the door shut behind her as she walked into her home and listened to their card game going on. She was just exhausted from today. She didn't do too much work but maybe her tiredness is coming from all the tension and stress from yesterday. She could only handle so much before dropping.

"Did the interrogation went fine or did you blow up?"- Aria asked without looking at Jackie but the tension could be sensed in the air coming from both card players and it was completely directed towards the mechanic.

"It went fine" -Jackie said as she walked passed them, not letting them see the giant welt on the side of her face from getting slapped and having her head hit the hard metal table. It wasn't hard but it was enough to scare the hell out of her. Yet it isn't as scary as what she had seen these two do.

"Go and put some ice in that hit"- The mercenary said while lowering her hand of cards on the table and causing Jackie to stop her pace and raise an eyebrow in her direction.

(How did she know?)

Without regarding her, Aria responded the unanswered question -"Relax woman. I hijacked their files. I know what happened today and what they know about you... or think they know"

Jackie paused. - "Just that one tape, right? They don't have anything more, right?" -Jackie asked, holding her head as she looked at Aria, knowing that it would be a lot of trouble if they caught her.

Aria put her cards down and Hans did too. Aria cussed and passed some oreo cookies to the perfect poker faced man, they were using the cookies as their currency rather than real money.

Jackie sighed before walking into the kitchen and pulling out some frozen peas before laying it on the welt on her head. -"Aria, tell me. What else do they have on me besides the tapes?"- Jackie asked, contemplating on using the officer Robberts to get the inside of what they know.

"They have street cameras records and a couple of testimonies saying you were near the area of the fire but nothing definite. I could erase those videos but it would be too suspicious at the moment. However I made sure to miss-salvage the testimonies"

(What's going on here? What did Aria mean?)

"Of me? Crap" - Jackie heavily sighed as she rubbed her head. Great, how is a walk for fresh air going to cover that? "Yeah, nothing definite but it's enough to bring me in for questioning. But … after what happened in there they probably won't be able to get me in again" - Jackie thoughtfully said. But what the hell happened? The officer seemed pretty calm before snapping. "Do you have anything on the officer interrogating me? And Officer Michaels?" Jackie asked, curious about those two now. She's under their radar for sure and she wanted to know more about them.

"Yeah, I checked, but it's pretty boring... unless you want to see some photos of the cute Officer Robert Michaels" ;)

"Of course not. They're suspicious and now I'm under their radar. That's bad considering I've got you two here with me" - Jackie pointed out before blinking. - "Do you both have social security numbers? Or green cards? Or any kind of identification?" -Jackie asked with wide eyes. They need to have some form of identity especially if the police are going to be coming around here more often.

"Oh? All that and even more. You want photos? I got one during Michaels graduation and he looks cute wearing only those cowboy pants fu,fu,fu" - Aria snickered- "However he seems to be clean in his profile. The other guy however... abuse, corruption and various nasty things that obviously are not in his official folder"

"Is he … a dirty cop?" Jackie asked. Maybe he was involved with the … no, she shouldn't jump to conclusions. - "look more into that for me. Anyway, tell me, what forms of identification do you have? Hans, do you have any?"

"Like most of them. I have his social security ID, his elector card, the number of his insurance, the police officer number, his credit card numbers... and he spends way more than what he earns as a cop"

"ARIA," - Jackie firmly stated, making her stop short. - "what identification do YOU have about you?" Jackie said with an annoyed tone. - "they'll probably be trying to look you two up as well"

"Tell me what you want and I'll get one forged. But don't worry. They wont find anything on us. Captain wolf is probably dead before ww2 and I don't exist on any record anymore anywhere. Plus we aren't from this shitty country" - the mercenary said with mysterious calm on her tone and complete confidence in her words.

Jackie blinked, speechless. - "so neither of you have any fucking birth certificates or passports or anything for the police to look up? Don't you think they'll find that suspicious?"

Aria laughed heartlessly -"To what human law and countries consider we don't exist. And they haven't seen us. Unlike you, we are careful "

"THAT'S THE PROBLEM!" -Jackie shouted, losing her patience before taking a deep breath to calm herself. - "you've both been seen around my shop by people. Without any documentations as to who you are, or supposedly are, they can have you deported or arrested here in America" - Jackie said.

"First of all. America is a continent with more than 30 countries. You can't be deported from a continent. Second. Deported where exactly? Han's country stopped existing after ww2 and I don't even look like my heritage is supposed to look, so it's impossible to know where I'm from unless I let it on. "-Aria kept continued her mocking laugh as if it was really funny.

"This is a problem for me, Aria! Right now I am employing two illegal citizens living under my own roof and I can get majorly fined for that, that's the problem! You two need to scrape up some forms of identification and put yourselves into the American data system somehow so if one nosy officer decides to look you up he can find something"

"We aren't even citizens idiot. That would be worse for you. I can hijack the data of your old worker and mix it with a couple forged ID's, but it's better if no one knows of us. You think how exposed you would get towards non human threats?" - Aria sneered and rolled her eyes - "And I would only be using USA's records… I don't know if I should mock you or abandon you… after getting involved with creatures that your mind tells you shouldn't exist you still think on 'abiding by the law' ? How stupid can you be?"

"Well excuse me for not really understanding how the hell I'm supposed to do any of this it's not like I know how to slip through the cracks" - Jackie snapped towards her. - "right now we're under human law. You need to … forge or go into the black market" - Jackie said, hating that she's ordering them to do something highly illegal. - "and get some identity for yourselves. I don't care how or what names you choose or what backgrounds you both want but you need identification here. Particularly since the police are sniffing at our backdoors!"

Aria rolled her eyes. - "fine. I'll get some adoption certificate from the pound"

"Aria, stop dancing around what I am saying and get some sort of identification, legal or otherwise!" -Jackie growled. She really had no idea what to do in this situation. All she knew is that they are going to be considered to be illegal aliens in the eyes of the US.

"Fool. Do you know just how many illegal workers are here that merely use some security number from someone else? We can always bribe that cop too. He is a regular for that" – Aria shrugged her shoulders.

"Then do exactly that" - Jackie desperately snapped. - "and no, don't bribe cops … wait, which is a regular?" -Jackie asked, puzzled.

"The one you wanted info from. The one who hit you. But so are a bunch of them. The different ethnical or local mafias have their deals established already with the cops and immigrations agents. "

"So he is a dirty cop … anyway, that's not the problem. Aria, just go and get some form of identity off the black market. I have no idea how it works but I will give you $20,000 to start on this assignment" - Jackie said, pulling out the money. She was done arguing with the woman.

"Okay!" :3 Aria immediately beamed at the prospect, knowing that it would take her only a couple hundreds to get the IDs and documentation.

"Get as much identity behind both you and Hans with fake names or whatever the hell you want. I don't care. Just don't tell me how you went about it. I just need some identity to show the cops if they ever demand to see some ID from you two" - Jackie really had no idea any more except for they needing some ID.

Aria gleefully took the money from her and took out her laptop to start sending some emails. Then a sort of sinister gleam reached her eyes- "By the way. I might have discovered something about those cops that you won't like.. "

Jackie rolled her eyes and rubbed her head. She was tired from today's craziness but she had to go open up shop.

"What else is it?" -Jackie asked, looking over to Aria. A tiny part of her at least prayed that Officer Michaels wasn't a dirty cop too. He seemed like an honestly sensible, kind guy.

The merc or spy watched her nails with sudden interest -"Just the building where they seemed to have taken the disappeared people that they've been using for experimenting on the chips"

"Don't tell me it's owned by the city" - Jackie asked, flickering her gaze over to Aria. Just how far up in the chain of command does this go up?

Aria chuckled evilly (You seriously thought that their higher ups weren't involved?) - "How stupidly naive of you girl. Didn't you hear of London?"

"It was a small, hopeful shred of thought. How far up does it go? Tell me, Aria, how high … what does London"- Jackie started before freezing as everything began to add up. - "you mean that giant fire that took out half of London was part of the man-made chip business?!" ackie gasped, shocked. This is bad. This is really, really bad.

Aria twisted her lip and sneered - "Now this so pathetic. You are really stupid if you believe that crap, you just proved yourself to be so estulta . De veras crees que un pequeño incendio mataría a tantos miles de personas y dejaría sus cadáveres pudriéndose en las calles de esa forma? (that you really think a mere fire could kill so many thousands of people in this era and leave the corpses rotting in the streets like that?) what else could one expect of a gringa" - The green eyes woman saw Jackie with clear disgust.

"The whole thing was hushed up pretty fast and I was working when I saw it on the news. I suspected terrorism that London didn't want getting out but this?" -Jackie said, now feeling her heart ache. How far up is the man-made chip business in her precious country of America?- " … tell me, Aria, -"how far up does this entire operation go? To the president? To the senate? House of representatives? Oh good hell don't tell me it got to the Supreme Court! Or the FBI o-or CSI or whatever the hell else is out there?!" -If people in the FBI were infected with this chip business Jackie might as well go walking around with a target on her back for consideration for the snipers.

Aria's sneer was even more harsh towards Jackie (Your president is a puppet. Your senate is full of big companies interests. Your electoral system is a joke. What did you expect? that all this was happening only in very remote cases? Bha! Your economy is full of debt and the dollar has lost its value and its only sustained by oil markets hold by wars in middle east that you cause or support.) Yet her smile turned into an evil smirk - "Why don't you find out about that building? I'll give you the details and you can check for yourself? If you can't even do that alone then it's not worth for me to remain here for long because you will get killed anyways in a stupid way"

"Shut the hell up" - Jackie snapped as she got up and headed towards the door leading to her shop. - "I'll go check it out but just to verify if what you are saying is true. For all I know you're lying through your teeth to get more money out of me. At this point and time I do not trust either of you and have not this entire time" - Jackie said, sounding sour.

"Oh! At last I hear something smart coming out of your mouth"- Aria mocked her and threw a paper to the floor at Jackie's feet before turning away with her head high, retreating towards her room. The antics and ignorance of Jackie Penske were truly pathetic and deserved death at best. She would see her actions upon her little taunt. It was almost laughable that the girl though that she had any kind of authority here or that such small amounts of her money could put a merc like her on her side. No, that was just a charade from her part. She had her own reasons for being here, and they lingered with the werewolf that had oddly decided to lay down here for a while.

Jackie rolled her eyes, but got down to lift what Aria had thrown. It was an address and the print of the photo of a building. She headed down to the shop and shut the door behind her, pissed off at the conversation with the mercenary. After a few moments or swallowing her discontent, she fell silent as she turned towards the table and rested her forehead on her fists.

So this is one very large operation just like the one in London. And if nothing is done … if nothing is done her country was going to end up in flames, just like what happened to London. If everything Aria is saying is true … what was she going to do?.

.