I really wanted to release this before Christmas but I besides the extremely busy work during December, I was hit by my year-end cold which more or less lays me out for a couple of days. Then came Christmas and that's time with family.
Still, enjoy :)
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters that appeared in the show.
Alfred parked his car several blocks away from the target building, getting out and taking out his cane. While he didn't think he'd need it, it would certainly underline the image of him being old. With measures steps, he crossed through an alley to reach the street in question and closed in on the address, his eyes wandering to see if there was anyone there watching the build or doing anything else that would denote it to be a trap for his boy.
Alfred arrived at the building, slowly walking past it to look at the outside wall. When he reached its end, he turned into the alley next to it, making note of the side entrance and the fire escape. The back of the building and the other side was unremarkable, only a few boarded up windows but no doors.
After reaching the main entrance again, he tried the door, finding it unlocked. He went inside, finding no power inside the building, the only light coming from the windows. He walked the rooms, memorizing their layouts and he also noted that this building might have been a garage or something, due to the room next to the side door spanning the entire width and a third of the length of the building, although there were no trenches that garages usually had, nor was there a rolling gate, but there was a piece of wall that looked as if it one had a rolling gate.
Upstairs were just more rooms, nothing remarkable, and most were filled with debris. He made mental notes for them too and after a last look, he left the building. Upon his exit, he noticed the car with four people in them and chided himself for his carelessness. He couldn't see if one of them was Yorinobu, however, even if that was the case, the other three would be part of the crime organization that Yorinobu worked for. He started walking back to his car, deliberately not hurrying to avoid any more suspicion.
"Is that him?" Mark asked Kenta, who was sitting in the passenger seat, while pointing at Alfred.
"No." Kenta shook his head.
"We should question him anyway." Mark suggested.
"No." Kenta stated definitively.
"You told the boss that the man you suspect has killed his son will be here and there's someone who clearly cased the joint." Mark argued. "We need to question him."
"If you touch him, you will die." Kenta threatened and his look told Mark enough.
"I'll tell the boss." Mark said, sounding like a petulant child in that moment.
"Do that." Kenta shrugged. "But this is not the man I suspect and we do not hurt or kill the innocent."
"Speak!" Parick's voice came from the speaker after Mark had dialed the number.
"Boss, we have a man in our sights who might be connected to your son's killing but Kenta doesn't want to question him."
"Why not?" the boss asked.
"Because I know for a fact that this man has been in the city for less than a month." Kenta stated.
"Mark, why do you want to question him then?" Patrick wanted to know.
"Kenta said that the guy might show up here and this old man clearly cased the joint." Mark replied.
"Then take him." Patrick ordered.
"I will not be a part of this." Kenta refused.
"Then why don't you just get out?" Mark huffed.
"Fine." Kenta grumbled and exited the car, slamming the door shut.
"Any idea what to do with him?" Mark asked.
"Let him cool off." Patrick ordered. "I will talk to him later. Kenta is too valuable to push away. In the meantime, grab that old man and question him."
"Got it, boss." Mark nodded and ended the call. "Martinez, Stevens, go get him."
"On it." Martinez nodded and got out of the car, Stevens following him and both walked briskly towards the alley Alfred had turned into.
As he walked through the alley, Alfred noticed the two men entering it behind him. He kept walking at his pace, not showing that he noticed them but he felt his heart rate go up and his adrenaline going, his body getting ready for combat.
"Yo, old man!" one the two shouted at his back, making him stop and turn around.
"Yes?" Alfred asked, sizing both up and watching their body language.
"You come with us." the other guy said.
"No." Alfred shook his head after a few seconds of silence during which he turned a small knob on his cane. "Please leave me alone."
"You don't have a choice, old man." the first guy told him and both came at Alfred to grab him.
When both were close enough, Alfred took a step to the side to get both in line with him. He pulled at his cane, producing a blade attached to the handle and when the left guy reached him and grabbed for his collar, Alfred stabbed forward, pushing the blade between the man's ribs straight into his heart.
The man gave a pained grunt, his face contorting in shock as his brain tried to reconcile with the fact that the heart was mortally wounded, trying its best to keep the muscle beating. Alfred stepped sideways and turned, moving the man he had his knife plunged into around with him to keep the second guy off of him.
"Martinez, stop dancing with the guy." the second man said as he tried to get around Martinez.
"Your friend can't really hear you right now." Alfred said and finally pushed his first attacker away, Martinez slipping off the knife and collapsing against the second man.
"What the fuck!" he heard the man curse as he looked down at his dead partner. "What did you do to him?"
"Never take your eyes of your enemy." Alfred stated and pushed the other part of the cane against the chest of the second man who began twitching as the taser built into the cane's bottom end did its work.
While the man lay twitching, Alfred cut his carotid with his knife, then wiped it off at the man's clothes before sticking it back into his cane, turning the small knob again to lock it down. He exited the alley, faster this time and crossed the street before walking the remaining distance to his car at a normal speed. When he was sitting in it, he cursed himself once again for his sloppiness at not seeing the car with the two in it before going into the building.
"Leonard?" he spoke into the phone after dialing his son's number.
"Yes, dad?" Leonard asked. "How does the building look?"
"I'll brief you when I'm back. For now, call Howard and tell him to check the CCTV network."
"Why?"
"I had a little run-in with two guys who wanted me to come with them." Alfred explained. "There's an alley two blocks away from the building that I used. Tell Howard to check if there are any cameras, municipal or private, that can see the alley entrances on both sides. If so, he needs to delete me from the footage."
"On it." Leonard promised and Alfred ended the call, then drove off.
Meanwhile, Mark was sitting in the car, wondering why it took so long for his men to bring an old man back. Just as he was about to get out to check, the passenger door opened and Kenta sat back down on the seat, closing the door and looking ahead.
"Drive." Kenta ordered. "Back to the hotel."
"I told my men to get the old guy, they'll be back soon." Mark argued.
"Your men are dead." Kenta stated. "We should leave the area."
"What are you talking about?" Mark was taken aback. "Stevens and Martinez are pros, what can an old man do against them."
"We should leave." Kenta said again.
"Screw this." Mark shook his head and got out of the car and walked briskly over to the alley mouth, not seeing anything.
Looking ahead, he couldn't see anything due to the buildings on each side blocking too much light. He carefully walked further until he could see a set of legs and he increased his pace, wondering if his men had accidentally killed the old guy and then fled the scene.
"Shit!" Mark cursed when he saw his two guys on the ground, a large pool of blood next to Stevens' open throat while Martinez's shirt had a distinctive knife mark in it, only a comparatively small amount of blood having soaked into the fabric around it.
Mark looked around a bit more, trying to figure out how an old man walking with a cane was able to kill his two men. He cursed to himself, less for the old man doing it but more because Martinez and Stevens had been two of the few lower level dealers that were left from the bosses son's gang he was able to identify. After a last look, he exited the alley and returned to the car.
"I told you." Kenta said when Mark got back in.
"Who is that old man?" Mark asked.
"Someone who I knew since I was a kid." Kenta replied cryptically. "Now drive, we should be gone before someone finds them and calls the cops."
"Right." Mark nodded, still a bit shaken and drove off.
As that was transpiring, Alfred was driving home as fast as traffic would allow. He parked the car next to the others and quickly got out of the car, opening the security door and using the elevator to get up. He entered his son's apartment and found him, Penny and Howard in the living room, the engineer typing furiously on his computer.
"Hey, dad." Leonard greeted him.
"Alfred, care to explain why I have to do this?" Howard asked.
"There were cameras?" Alfred looked over his shoulders.
"A store on the other side of the street has a camera that has the alley entrance in its field of view." Howard nodded. "No CCTV or any other camera I could find."
"Good." Alfred was relieved.
"What exactly happened?" Penny wanted to know.
"I parked my car on the parallel street and several blocks away." Alfred explained. "To get to the building, I walked through that alley. On my way back, I was followed by two men who wanted me to go with them."
"You killed them?" Leonard asked.
"Leonard." Alfred looked at him.
"Right." Leonard realized, since there wouldn't be a reason for what Howard was doing right now.
"Done." Howard proclaimed. "Re-uploading now."
"That was fast." Leonard said.
"Yeah, this time, I didn't have to create people going into the alley." Howard shrugged.
"What do you mean?" Alfred asked.
"Look." Howard pointed and played the original video.
"Okay, there I am entering the alley and there are the two guys I killed." Alfred nodded.
"Just wait." Howard chuckled and a few minutes of fast forwarded video later, someone else walked into the alley before coming back out two minutes later.
"Do you recognize him?" Leonard asked.
"No." Alfred shook his head.
"I tried comparing his face to the DMV and FBI databases but either he's not in there or the picture's resolution is too bad." Howard added. "But his presence gives the police a better, more believable suspect than a old man with a cane would."
"Lets assume the guy belongs to the same syndicate, have you seen Kenta around?" Leonard asked his dad. "Do you think he might have told them who you are?"
"No, but to my shame, I didn't see the car with them in it either." Alfred shrugged. "And if he did tell them, don't you think that we would have gotten a visit from them already?"
"True." Leonard accepted. "Can you make a model of the building?"
"I can draw you a floor plan." Alfred nodded.
"Or, you make a 3D model." Howard suggested.
"How would I do that?" Alfred asked.
"Wait a minute." Howard grinned and jumped up from the couch and ran from the apartment, only to return a short while later.
"VR headsets?" Leonard looked at them.
"Yep, I got some design software that works in VR." Howard nodded and gave Alfred one of the sets. "Let me help you put this on, take the two control sticks."
"Okay." Alfred said and let Howard help him. "Oh, this is new."
"What is he seeing?" Leonard wanted to know.
"Just the loading screen." Howard shrugged and put the second set on, also booting it up."
"I'm standing in a blue room, what do I do?" Alfred wondered.
"Wait a second." Howard told him and fiddled with something.
"Some other character just showed up." Alfred said.
"That's me." Howard chuckled. "Now, let me introduce you to the wonders of virtual reality."
For the next several minutes, Howard taught Alfred how to work the controls of the VR sets, explaining that he couldn't really move around the place due to furniture being in the way. Howard then loaded up the software and and explained to Alfred how to erect walls and create rooms. Once he had it down, Alfred went to the task with relish, using the controls to recreate the building he had scouted out from memory.
"He seems happy." Penny commented after several hours of Alfred doing it.
"He can hear you." Alfred pointed out. "I may not see anything outside these goggles, but my ears are open."
"What are you seeing in there?" she wanted to know.
"Nothing really." Alfred shrugged. "Imagine a white room where you build walls and floors and roofs and windows and everything else with preset parts."
"And once he's done, I can use it to plan my approach with Robert." Leonard added. "What room or rooms to use, the entry, exit, possible escape routes if needed and so on."
"Why escape?" Penny wondered. "You think he could best you?"
"I never expect anything to go as I think." he said. "If you do that, you just invite failure because something always can go wrong. You know that."
"I do." she conceded, gently touching her hip, where the bandage was off now but the stitches still in for another day.
"Also, Robert could bring backup." Leonard continued. "He could hire someone, like Caspar did."
"That means I'll be coming with you, as backup." Penny said.
"Not in a million years." Leonard shook his head. "The last thing I want is put you into danger."
"I don't care, I love you and I will not sit here while you are out there and probably get killed."
"But..."
"Leonard." Alfred interrupted, while not stopping to work. "You will let her come with you. I will come with you as well."
"Why?"
"Son, remember when you told me that you tried to get her to back off from wanting to become an assassin?" Alfred asked. "And you said that she wouldn't budge?"
"Yes." Leonard replied, not quite sure what the connection was.
"What makes you think she won't follow you to the meeting place anyway, no matter what you say?"
"Ugh, point." Leonard accepted, with Penny just grinning. "Still, you need to hang back."
"No problem." Penny agreed. "We'll just be there as backup."
"How far are you along, dad?" Leonard asked.
"Give me a second, and I'll hand you the thing."
"No need, I can just join." Leonard said and put the second headset on, his world changing to the virtual one that his dad was building in.
"Does the building have that many holes?" Leonard asked.
"No, I haven't finished everything yet." Alfred shook his head, even though Leonard couldn't see it. "The doors are still missing and some windows are boarded or walled up."
"Can you already see something that will help?" Penny asked.
"Yes, there's a large room here that was either a garage, even though there's no garage door or it was a kind of warehouse room." Leonard nodded. "Lots of space if needed."
"The large gate was walled up, the wall color was distinctively different there." Alfred pointed, his virtual character doing it as well.
"Was there something in this room?" Leonard asked. "Cabinets, dividing walls or shelfs?"
"A few." Alfred confirmed. "As I said, not finished yet, give me a few more hours."
"Then I'll wait." Leonard acquiesced to the inevitable. "What do we do in the meantime?"
"I have an idea." Penny grinned and wiggled her eyebrows.
"If that idea is going to the gym and training some combat routines or going to a firing range to practice your marksmanship, then good." Alfred spoke from his perch at the book shelves.
"Okay, we can do that too." Penny conceded.
"Alright, lets go." Leonard nodded and whistled, his two dogs getting up and running over. "We'll go to a shooting range and then to the dog park."
"Hey, Ricardo." Aaron smiled after opening the door.
"Dude, I know you're boning my sister but could you at least not wear her robe when opening the door?" Ricardo grumbled and walked past Aaron before flopping down on the couch.
"Fine, next time, I'll open it naked." Aaron shrugged.
"Thin ice, buddy, thin ice." Ricardo said through clenched teeth. "Where's Carmen?"
"Where do you think?" an appearing Carmen replied.
"Jesus, put on some clothes!" Ricardo made a face and looked away.
"I am wearing clothes." Carmen argued.
"Clothes that I can't see through!" Ricardo added.
"Mojigato." Carmen rolled her eyes and went back into the bedroom, to return wearing shorts and a proper shirt. "What are you doing here?"
"Apart from making sure that you don't die from dehydration because you keep fornicating all day?" Ricardo huffed.
"Fornicating?" Carmen rolled her eyes. "Hermano, we're adults, say sex. Or doing it like rabbits, blowing each other's brains out."
"Fuck, stop talking like that." Ricardo tried shutting his ears.
"How's your hip?" Aaron asked, changing the subject, while also changing clothes from her robe to his regular pants and a shirt.
"It's fine." Ricardo waved him off. "The reason I'm here is that in a few days, you're supposed to be returning from CalTech with information for Robert."
"I know." Aaron sighed and sat down. "I had hoped that by now, he would have set the trap."
"Maybe he was busy with this protege of his you mentioned?" Ricardo suggested. "Have you heard about the events at the old container yard a few days ago?"
"Sure, it was all over the news." Carmen nodded. "You say that this was him?"
"No, it might have been the final exam of his protege." Ricardo said. "According to police, some of the attacking criminals have mentioned a woman in black who killed a few of them."
"I also read that they dismissed that as nonsense, since there was nothing anywhere of a woman entering or leaving the area, except those that ran away when the bullets began flying." Aaron mentioned. "But you're right, it could have been the exam."
"Maybe you should go and visit him at the university again so..." Ricardo began but was interrupted by the apartment door opening, with another woman entering.
"Um, hello." she greeted him, and turned to Carmen. "Who's this? Don't tell me you got another temporary roommate? Or am I going to have to suffer the noises of you having threesomes now?"
"Don't worry." Carmen laughed. "He's my brother, he moved into the apartment on the top floor for a few weeks."
"Nice to meet you." Ricardo stood up to shake her hand.
"Likewise." the woman smiled. "I'm Sidney."
"I've been here a few times, why have I not met you before?" Ricardo wondered.
"Because she's a nurse too and works the morning shift this week." Carmen shrugged. "Not my fault that you only come down in the mornings to nab breakfast and lunch."
"Saved me some?" Sidney asked.
"Fridge." Carmen nodded.
"Thanks." Sidney said and took it out from the fridge and put it into the microwave. "I'm gonna take a shower."
"She's cute." Ricardo remarked.
"And completely out of your league." Carmen chuckled.
"Yeah, because Aaron is in the same league as you." Ricardo scoffed.
"Hey!" Aaron objected. "I may not be the best looking man in the world but I do okay."
"Okay enough for me." Carmen grinned and gave his neck a gentle bite.
"Ugh." Ricardo looked away. "But back to my point, could..."
"Another roommate?" Aaron laughed when someone knocked on the door and Carmen got up to open the door.
"Hello? Do I know you?" she asked the man she saw standing in the hallway.
"No." Leonard said, his voice making Aaron and Ricardo jump up. "Easy, guys."
"What are you doing here?" Ricardo asked. "How do you even know we were here?"
"Really?" Leonard looked at them.
"Yeah, okay." Aaron shrugged. "What is it?"
"Give this to Robert." Leonard handed a piece of paper to Aaron. "Tell him I'll be there the day after tomorrow."
"Will you kill the guy?" Carmen asked.
"Who are you?" Leonard looked at her.
"She's my sister." Ricardo replied, a bit apprehensively. "She knows."
"Goodbye." Leonard simply said and turned around, leaving them alone, all three of them standing around until the microwave dinged.
"Hey." a showered and changed Sidney came back, taking her food and seeing the others standing at the door. "Did I miss something?"
Sorry again that this took so long but it really can't be helped these days -.-
Still, review please :)