Disclaimer: I do not own Watch Dogs

Chapter 5: Profiling

The streets of Chicago were busy as usual, people walking up and down the streets, cars and trucks rumbling over poorly-mended roads which still bore the scars of exploded steam pipes.

Amongst the crowd walked a solitary female figure, cap pulled low over her face, blond hair tied up in a ponytail that swished over the leather biker jacket she wore. The woman was looking intently at her phone, so she might have been mistaken for just any regular person walking down the street.

Laura, however, was not browsing the internet like most people would assume. She was looking for someone. A certain Jacob Martinus. That was the target Aiden had assigned her to look for. According to the ctOS files, he actively participated in filming and distributing child pornography. Aiden had decided he had gone unpunished for too long.

Stopping at a Starbucks near where Jacob usually bought his groceries, Laura bought an espresso and sat at a corner table, facing the street. Tapping innocuously on her profiler, Laura brought up a feed from a camera nearby.

A voice crackled in her discreet earpiece. "Jacob should show up any minute. We've got the facial recognition and triangulation algorithms up and running. Just stay cool and remember what we discussed." Aiden's tinny voice fizzed out.

Laura knew her part. She was simply to locate Jacob, hack his phone and obtain his phone number as well as other personal details, then call him so that Aiden and Raymond could lock on to his jailbroken phone's signal and track him to his hideout. She sipped her coffee. Patience was of virtue.

Time ticked by. Laura rubbed her eyes, getting tired from staring intently at the screen for so long. Her coffee cup was down to its last dregs. The facial recognition program designed by Aiden was far from perfect, so she had to rely on her eyepower and try to identify Jacob using the last known ctOS picture of him.

Soon enough, Laura soon noticed a dishevelled man dressed in a dirty, stained shirt and too-tight Bermuda shorts emerge from a nearby alley. His face was partially hidden by his cap, and he seemed to allergic to light, staying in the shadows. Laura's interest was piqued by this man, and with a light touch, she manipulated the on-screen joystick, turning the camera to focus on the man.

Checking the menu for that particular camera, Laura was delighted to find out it had infrared scanning functions. Tapping the screen to enable it, she zoomed the camera in on the man, using the ctOS's inbuilt target tracking system to ensure the camera could get a full scan.

The man then disappeared into the grocery store, but the camera had done its work. Laura downloaded the infrared scan and quickly sent it off to Aiden, who was staked out in a "borrowed" news van nearby.

Moments later, her phone beeped, and a notification informed her that the target was a match. Aiden's voice crackled over her earpiece. "Excellent, we've found him. Now you need to get closer and hack his phone."

Laura nodded, knowing Aiden was surely watching her through another ctOS security camera. She stood up, leaving her empty coffee cup behind, and made her way to the intersection.

The lights changed, and as Laura walked across the road, Jacob emerged from the grocery store, arms laden with groceries. Laura watched as the dishevelled man stopped in front of an ATM and dumped his groceries on the ground, presumably to withdraw some cash.

Laura realised this was a golden opportunity, and quickly tapped on her screen to try and take control of the ATM. In her haste, she didn't look where she was going, and she collided head-on with a middle-aged man in a suit.

Papers and coffee went flying, and heads turned at the commotion. Laura hit the ground hard, as did the middle-aged man, who was in the middle of a call using his Bluetooth earpiece. Laura suddenly realised she had dropped her profiler in the collision, and tried to reach for it.

The man suddenly gripped her arm. "Do you know who I am?" the man bellowed. Laura winced, for he was quite near her ear. "You young people only know how to look at your cursed screens all day, and you never look where you are going!"

Laura happened to glimpse her screen, and to her immense relief, the profiler displayed a successful connection to the ATM. No doubt Aiden was now gleaning all sorts of valuable information about Jacob.

True to form, as the man continued his maddened rant, Aiden's voice buzzed over her earpiece. "Nicely done, Laura, we've got his phone number and registered address. We can go after him now. Let me just quickly solve your problem on the road."

The man gripping Laura's arm suddenly winced and cried out, releasing her arm to cup his ear, furiously clawing at his earpiece. Laura took the opportunity to scamper free, grabbing her profiler in the process.

As she dashed across the intersection with impatient drivers honking at her and the incapacitated man, Laura couldn't help but notice that Jacob had disappeared.

Cursing herself for letting Jacob get away, Laura looked up at the sound of screeching tyres. A news van was pulling up next to her, and as it rolled to a stop beside her, the side door slid open, revealing Raymond sitting in a chair bolted to the bottom, surrounded by high-tech equipment. Laura leapt in, sliding the door shut as the van screeched off the line.

Laura sat in one of the swivel chairs as Aiden swerved through traffic. Raymond was typing away furiously. "We're trying to track Jacob down using the cameras, but he's smart, and he's paranoid. We need you to make that call so we can track him down." Raymond typed a few more commands, and a series of numbers popped up on a nearby screen.

Laura punched in the numbers, then turned to Raymond. He nodded and gave her the thumbs up, indicating the triangulation program was up and running. Taking a deep breath, Laura hit the call button.

*1 hour later*

The news van pulled up outside a dilapidated garage. Aiden, Raymond and Laura disembarked, with Raymond hauling two large containers which held their equipment.

The rusty garage door rolled upwards slowly with a painful creak, and a small, bald man stepped out from under it.

Aiden waved absently to him while fiddling with something on his profiler. "Hey Tobias. Bring this stuff back to the Bunker, will ya?"

Tobias grunted. "Yeah, sure. I'll get it done."

Aiden nodded. "Good man." Aiden then waved to Laura and Raymond, beckoning them to follow him. He led them a few garage doors down, and then yanked one door up to reveal a black van. The old, yellow fluorescent lights flickered on.

Aiden wordlessly led them around the back, and flung open the back doors of the van. Inside was every manner of assault rifle and shotgun mounted on racks welded to the sides of the van, with pistols and grenades in a glass-covered compartment on the floor of the van.

Aiden and Raymond set about arming themselves, with Aiden grabbing an M4 rifle, tucking spare magazines into his coat pocket, and slinging a combat shotgun under his coat. Raymond opted instead for a 12-gauge pump action sawn-off shotgun and twin 0.50-calibre Desert Eagle pistols.

Laura was confused. "Why are you so heavily armed?"

Aiden ignored her question and went on one knee to open the glass compartment. Raymond turned to her and explained. "We tracked him to an abandoned apartment complex. The whole place has been taken over by one of the gangs that popped up a while back, and he's under their protection. Turns out more than half of the money he makes from selling child porno goes to the gang. In return, they give him a place to stay that even the cops won't dare go."

Aiden turned to her, slipping a few grenades into his pockets. "We'll go in to take him out, and we'll be more than happy to dispose of any gang members that get in our way."

Laura's jaw must have dropped, because Aiden sighed and turned back to the glass compartment. Raymond's jaw tightened. He turned to Laura and said, "Listen, you don't have to come if you don't want to. There's gonna be blood, and there's gonna be people dying. It's inevitable, but it's okay if you feel uncomfortable with all that." He laid a hand on her shoulder.

Laura shrugged it off. "I can handle myself."

Aiden turned to her. "Are you sure?"

Laura nodded. "You could always use more help."

Aiden looked at her for a while, not saying anything, and Laura was wondering if she had gotten more than she had bargained for.

*45 minutes later*

And that was how Laura found herself behind the wheel of an inconspicuous Japanese sedan, with two heavily armed men in the backseat, driving to one of the most dangerous neighbourhoods in Chicago. This was not what she had planned when she had decided to help. Still, a getaway driver was one of the most important parts of any operation.

She dropped Aiden and Raymond off a few blocks away, and drove to their designated pick-up point, behind the apartment complex at a Seven-Eleven carpark that was separated from the apartment complex by just a thin metal fence.

Laura knew it would be a while before the assault began, so she went in and bought herself a coffee. She sat on the bonnet of the car, sipping her coffee.

Suddenly, distant shots rang out, followed by muffled explosions. Laura quickly hopped into the car and started the engine. Pulling out her profiler, Laura was surprised to see that the ctOS was still active in the apartment complex, so she decided to try and see if she could track Aiden and Raymond using the cameras.

She found them on the third floor, carving their way through the gang members. She wondered why the floor of the corridor was painted black, before realizing with horror that it was actually covered in blood.

Fighting the urge to retch, Laura continued to follow the duo's guns-blazing trail as they made their way to the fourth floor, sweeping every apartment methodically for Jacob.

Finally, they found his apartment, bursting through the door with bravado. Laura watched as they disappeared inside. All was calm for a moment, then there were two flashes in the hallway, with the muffled gunshots sounding tinny over the camera's microphone and her profiler's speaker.

Aiden and Raymond came rushing out, and as the gang members began to recover their senses and try to organize a counterattack, the two began shooting again, and Laura knew they were shooting to kill. She couldn't blame them though, for it was kill or be killed.

Soon they made it to the first floor, and more explosions rang out, both through her profiler's speakers and through the air. The next grenade blast took out the camera that Laura was looking through, and the sudden static jerked her back to reality.

Horror flooded Laura as she suddenly realized that she was parked the wrong way, meaning that she would have to reverse. She quickly jammed the gear lever into reverse, and began a three-point-turn.

Just as she got the car pointed the right way, Aiden and Raymond came vaulting over the fence and sprinted towards her car.

She revved the engine, and as the two got in, she floored it. The little sedan's engine screamed as the car shot off the mark, leaving tyre marks on the tarmac.

Laura swerved through traffic, drawing the ire of many other drivers. She kept looking in her rear mirror to try and see if anyone was following them, as Aiden and Raymond tried to catch their breath. Thankfully, there was no one.

Laura knew it had been a long night, but she had to ask. "Did you get him?"

Aiden, still breathless, simply nodded.

Laura continued driving.

A/N hey guys, whats going on. sorry for the long hiatus but school is really hectic, and that coupled with a pretty bad writer's block meant this chapter took a while to get up. many apologies for keeping you wonderful people waiting, and i hope you enjoy this chapter

as always, feel free to leave a review commenting on my writing and the story, any advice is greatly appreciated

remember to enjoy the story, and happy reading!

peace, Darkrai