Chapter Text
March 2, 2024, 08:07 AM, AST / Police Service Area (3), Brooklyn, USA.
It’s not often that the Brooklyn Police Department becomes first responders to Amber Alerts. Usually, most of the kids being kidnapped in their area get transported farther than Brooklyns’ range. Most kidnappers take their victims off to Texas or somewhere in the Southern area of America, and have their cases handed over to the police closer to where the information points to.
While it’s not often, it wouldn’t be uncommon for a mother to come bursting into the department screaming and crying for their missing children. It also wouldn’t be the first time any of the information given to end up completely useless.
Technically, now is one of those times.
A woman barrels through the front doors of the Police Service Area, heels clacking loudly against heavy concrete marble. Her chest is heaving, mascara running down her face and her bunned hair still neatly in place despite the deduce of her running straight to the Police Department from… Wherever she may have been. She’s in a teacher's uniform– a simple button-up. It’s a pale, light, cream that bears contrast to the pencil skirt she’s wearing which is a slightly brown color. She doesn’t have anything on her person, it seems upon first glance.
The woman stumbles towards the front desk, the commotion in her lack of stable mobility louder than she probably intended. It makes several of the officers in the bulletin whip their heads to the source of the sound– Despite a wall serving as a barricade between the loudness and the officers doing their work.
“Sage,” Officer Maya Rodriguez, a black Latina nearing her forties, who sits on the desk a little far out from the door, calls. “Could you go check on that?” She asks, tone of voice not as demanding.
She’s been part of the Police Service Area (3) for longer than anyone else in the bulletin has. Well, aside from General Latvia, who's pushing into his sixties.
Officer Sage Estuesta, a rookie who has only been in the force for a good seven months, gives a brief nod before standing up and making his way towards the door. Before he is able to actually move out of the door, Officer Killian Ha, who might possibly be the closest to him in this particular field, calls out to him, “Ey! Don’t forget the coffee when you get back!”
Officer Sage rolls his eyes, mostly out of habit and for show, and mouths a ‘yayaya’ in response to Killian, sending a noncommittal thumbs up his way, as Officer Sage directly exits out of the bulletin to go to the front desk where Officer Yohan Jean Garcia is.
It’s a running inside joke in the bulletin– mostly from the company intern stereotypes. You get coffee, you give coffee, bulletin happy, bulletin no fire. And since, well, the three of them– Him, Officer Killian and Officer Yohan are the newest additions to the bulletin, it’d make sense to send them on coffee runs the first few months. Them having their On-the-job-training at the same PD didn’t exactly help, either.
That’s not to actually say that they did go on coffee runs: They did not. They mostly were ‘ordered’ for the laughs and gags of it, and not because the bulletin actually wanted them to get their coffee.
As soon as Sage arrives at the front desk, he sees the woman sitting on a chair, her head in her hands as Yohan squats in front of her. Sage furrows his eyebrows, and he gets closer to them. His footsteps sound, and Yohan takes a glance up to look at him. Sage folds his hands as he watches Yohan slowly get up from his squatting position.
“What’s going on?” Sage asks, his voice hushed. Officer Garcia sighs, “Potential Amber Alert, I think,” he answers as he gets up from his position. Yohan looks at him straight in the eye, “I couldn’t get much out of her. She’s a bit hysterical,” he sighs again, and looks towards the woman.
“And what’s the report on that?” Officer Sage asks. Yohan straightens, and looks at Sage again. “Her son, kidnapped. Or so, didn’t say how she knew. Has been missing for seven hours.” Yohan reports. Sage’s eyebrows furrow, “Seven hours? But–” he tries to say, before Yohan cuts him off. “I know. Hasn’t hit the twenty-four-hour mark yet.” he gives a small grimace, “She’s trying to reason that it’s a kidnapping and not just a missing persons case, so.” he continues, with a shrug.
“Should I call Officer Latvia–?” Sage starts to ask, his body already angling towards the bulletin office and an index finger pointing towards the room. Yohan grabs his arm, looks towards the woman. Sage follows his line of sight–she’s muttering things that the both of them can’t really hear, head still in her hands and a slight shaking in her form–and the two officers glance back at each other.
“I’ll go call Latvia,” Yohan says, “You’re better with people than I, talk to her.” he demands, and Officer Sage nods once and, in swift motion, Yohan walks towards the bulletin to talk to Latvia, and Sage is sat down, mirroring the position Officer Yohan was in moments ago.
“Ma’am,” Sage tries, and when the woman still doesn’t give any indication that she’s heard him, he calls out once again, “Miss,” he says, voice a bit harder. The woman jolts up, sitting down in eerie quiet. It’s the kind of quiet that is more awkward than it is intense, and Sage lets out a short breath before talking to the woman.
“May I have your name, ma’am?” He asks. The woman blinks out of her stupor. “Celia Ramirez,” Celia states quickly, before rushing to continue with, “My son. My– He’s– He’s gotten kidnapped,” Celia stutters to say. Before she can continue with anything else further, Sage is quick to cut through, “What is your son's name, Mrs. Ramirez?” He asks. Celia looks out of place, before eventually saying, “It’s Miss,” she corrects, “Ms. Ramirez. My son’s name is Ezra Silang.”
Officer Sage nods, “Sorry I assumed. Son took the fathers surname, then?” At the question, Celia nods in confirmation. “When was the last time you saw Ezra?” He starts asking, going through standard procedure. “We last talked at around two A.M.” She looks a little red when she answers, eyebrows forming a cross in the space between her eyebrows.
Sage takes a quick glance at a wall clock that is situated on the wall behind Ms. Ramirez. The clock reads, 08:23 A.M.
Ah. So indeed seven hours.
“I know it hasn’t been twenty-four hours yet, but he– My son has gotten kidnapped!” Celia shouts, rising up from her seat in rage. “I know he’s gotten kidnapped! He would’ve–” she tries to say, unable to connect words that will be able to form coherent sentences. Officer Sage breathes out a bit, he stands up from where he was squatting and backs a bit away from the woman to give her space. “I’ll believe you, Ms. Ramirez, just take a deep breath and calm down. We can sort through this.” he states, trying to seem as friendly as he can possibly be.
“Let’s go through this again, shall we?” Officer Sage softly demands more so suggests. Celia deflates, sitting back down on the chair, “Alright.”
“Your son, Ezra, went missing seven hours ago, correct? Around two A.M. this morning.” He enumerates, though as he does this, he retrieves a small notepad and pen from the pocket of his police uniform and starts writing away. Cecil nods at the recount. “Do you have a picture of your son?” The officer asks. The woman immediately fishes her cell phone from her pocket, and shows it to Sage. The phone opens in bright light, and the wallpaper is seen.
The wallpaper is of her son, Ezra. It’s a standard ID picture setting, the background is a plain white, with her son dressed up formally and showing off a bright smile for the camera. He looks around the ages of fifteen to sixteen. The picture was probably taken for a yearbook photo, if anything.
“If you could, send over the picture to us later, so we can post it up,” Sage queries. Cecil puts her lips in a thin line. Annoyed, it seems, but nods anyway. “What was your son wearing when he went missing?” He continues with the questioning. “A blue polo, I believe,” Cecil Ramirez says, though she doesn’t seem to be thinking it over.
As soon as she replies, Officer Yohan Garcia and General Latvia Hrill makes their way towards them, though Sage doesn’t give them any mind. “So, let me repeat this, Ms. Ramirez, your son, Ezra, aged 16, is missing. The last time you heard from him was around seven hours ago– two A.M. estimate, and he was wearing a blue polo. Do you have any reason to believe that your son has been kidnapped, and not run away, or is with a friend?” Sage questions, not harshly.
“I had thought– at first, that his phone had died, and would come back home eventually,” Cecil admits, “So I had left the key to our house somewhere he knew it would be. I slept in the living room waiting for him to come home.” The woman pauses. She seems like she’s about to space out, but she continues. “When he wasn’t home this morning, I called every house he might have gone to, but– they didn’t say he was there, nor did they hear from him either.”
“Is that your reason to believe why your son was kidnapped?” The one who asks isn’t Sage, but instead, Latvia. The man has his arms folded and has a furrow in his eyebrows. Sage kind of wants to smack the expression off of his face– it isn’t helping Cecil Ramirez at all, if the way she jitters is anything to go by.
Cecil is quiet, and she suddenly seems hesitant for some reason. “Ms. Ramirez, we can’t help you if you don’t tell us everything,” Sage tries to say softly. It comes out more like a plea, and Sage cringes at himself for a minute before he remembers that he shouldn’t be focusing on his own embarrassment.
“..I got a message last night.” Cecil says, finally. She avoids their gazes and instead opts to look down on her lap. “It was from an unknown number– it said something about wanting to meet up, get some ‘very valuable information’, and also saying that “no one needs to get hurt,”, as long as I gave them the information they were looking for.”
As Cecil recounts the memory, an old memory of Sage pops out to the front of his mind.
(Officer Beverley smacks a folder onto Sage's desk, startling Sage out of his mullings. “What is this?” He questions, raising an eyebrow at the blonde officer before grabbing a hold of the folder and skimming through it.
The folder has several pages, but instead of typed out words, paragraphs of xeroxed chicken scratches litter the pages. Words bind together, but as Sage reads it through, he can understand the general gist of it.
A necklace of the late mob boss Roman Silang, missing from his possessions. Several operations and family trade secrets are stored in a data chip inside the necklaces’ charm, easily making the necklace an easy olive vine for criminal success, for whoever gets their hands on it.
“Why are you giving this to me? Didn’t Roman Silang die five years ago?” Sage questions.
Beverley shrugs, “He did. But we only got that particular intel now. His family is pretty much on the low end. We couldn’t find them: CCTV camera footages were erased, and log-ins from different establishments have gone missing, too.” The officer states, “I’m showing this to you early because I heard from the senior cops that their planning on handing this case to you if ever we get extra intel on it, and announce it as a reopened case,”
“That’s..” Sage trails, and Beverley smiles at him. “Pretty big case for a rookie, ehy?” She teases. Sage purses his lips together, shy. “Kind of,” He admits. Beverley just continues to look at him, smiling fondly.)
“What is your son’s name again, Ms. Ramirez? The full one, if you please.” Sage requests. “Ezra Silang,” Cecil Ramirez answers.
Yohan and Latvia share a look. They, too, know about the Silang case.
“You don’t happen to be related to Roman Silang, do you?” He asks, cautiously.
“I.. Well,” The woman seems to be at loss for words. She starts to fidget her hands. “Yes. He is my son's father,” Despite the clear fear, Sage would applaud the woman for being so direct and unhesitant with them. It’s a rare thing to come across with in their line of business.
“Officer Estuesta” Officer Latvia calls out to Sage, “Reasoning?” he asks, simple. Sage also replies back, simple, “Valid.” At the admission, Latvia nods his head once. “Request the NCIC to put Ezra Silang’s name on their list,” Officer Latvia orders, “we have reason to put an Amber Alert out.”
“Officer Sage, set out. Tell Officer Ha to go with you. Request a search warrant from a judge.” Latvia orders. “And Ms. Ramirez, kindly accompany them if you have the time.” The officer says, turning to face Celia. Celia, as stunned as she can be, nods, though she looks quite spaced.
“Let’s go, Ms. Ramirez,” Sage calls. Celia doesn’t even argue, instead standing up on her feet and trailing behind the officer.
March 2, 2024, 06:02 AM, AST / The Deck of Cards (MAIN HQ - Agents’ Office), Bayridge, Brooklyn, USA.
A door slides open, a few feet shuffling against the smooth tiles of the Headquarters sound out, and a woman in black appears in the dark room. The woman presses a finger towards a small blue holographic light source, and suddenly the dark office brightens with light.
“..You’re here early,” The woman, Heidi Yamamoto, says dryly. “You didn’t even bother to open the lights.” She states, pointedly, as she shoots an unamused look at the only other person in the room, Tyler Salvacion.
Heidi’s wearing her usual get-up; black cargo pants and a tight black shirt. Her brown hair is up in a ponytail, though it looks kind of– Messy. “You rode a cheetah here or something?” Tyler retorts, to which Heidi rolls her eyes at. She has her black boots on– ones that she bought online. It’s been around.. Three, four-ish months since she started wearing them? Frankly, Tyler is kind of surprised that it’s lasted this long.
Tyler himself is also in all black. He’s not wearing boots like Heidi is– Sneakers are already an appropriate piece of clothing, he thinks. Though maybe the fact that they’re white is kind of.. Maybe not the best color for their job. Especially with all the mucky landscapes they have to be going to. He’ll switch it up sooner or later.
Heidi sets down her bag on her desk, which is adjacent to Tylers own. The bag clunks loudly, and Tyler isn’t surprised when Heidi sits back down in her chair and opens her bag, just to get tons of makeup kits out. “You know you don’t need makeup, right? It’s going to fade away when we get another job,” Tyler states, looking at her.
Heidi, in usual fashion, levels an unimpressed look at him. “Do I look like I care,” she says, more than she actually asks. “No,” Tyler huffs out, but he relaxes in his chair and continues to read a book from where he stopped, before Heidi came in and ungracefully turned the lights open.
“Have you been reading this entire time?” Heidi questions. She has an eyebrow raised at him, and Tyler has to look back at her to reply. “Yes,” He answers.
“..With the lights closed,” Heidi says blandly.
“Yes.” Tyler replies.
“You don’t even like reading.” She states.
“I do,” Tyler restates back.
“The last book you read was Watership Down. You called it boring after three pages.”
“How do you even remember that? I don’t even remember that.” Tyler questions with furrowed eyebrows. He stares into the distance, as if trying to recall the memory. Heidi turns away from Tyler, focusing on arranging the makeup in front of her instead. Though, she still replies, “Because I, for one, actually enjoyed Watership Down, unlike some buffoons who can’t even get through a single chapter without dozing off and calling it a day.”
Tyler huffs, though he sets the book back down on his desk, turning to face her with his arms crossed against his chest. “It’s a different book. A modern-fiction,” he reasons. Heidi doesn’t look at him, she’s removing her hair tie and re-tying her hair again– fixing a bit of the mess. “You said you don’t like Colleen Hoover,” she manages to say.
“I don’t. Hoover is a toxic, manipulative and masoch*st romanticizer. This,” Tyler takes a quick glance at the book, and then looks back towards Heidi, “Is Emily Henry.”
“A book by Emily Henry that’s literally inspired by Colleen Hoover,” Heidi scowls.
“..Is it.” Tyler says, like a fool. Heidi doesn’t reply. “Ah, sh*t.”
The female agent sighs. She’s done fixing her hair. “You can still read it. It’s probably not that bad. For a Colleen-inspired book.” She redeems herself. Tyler grins, “You feel guilty!” he cheers– for what reason, Heidi doesn’t know. He’s pointing fingers at her and prodding her space (he’s half a meter apart, but, still.), as if he’s achieved something outworldly. “Ty, quit with it, would you!?” she scowls, but there isn’t really any heat behind her tone. It’s just the usual bickering they go through on a daily basis.
Eventually, they quiet down, only throwing the occasional side comment towards each other. At different points, fellow agents in the Deck of Cards filter in and out of the big office space– the most of them are on missions, and since both Heidi and Tyler just got off their mission from Venezuela the other week, they’re mostly taking the time given to them before they eventually are given another task, to fill in mission and status reports about their time in Venezuela.
They’re mostly done with that, though, and so unless the other agents in their company manage to f*ck up the reports they’ve submitted, it’s basically free time.
But, wow, who are they kidding anyways?
As timely as one can be, the Headmaster’s Secretary, Mariella Boriale, or whatever her name was– Heidi doesn’t exactly remember, walks into the office. Naturally, Tyler and Heidi’s heads whip towards the center of the noise.
“Heidi, boss is calling you to her office.” Mariella states, with her very known bitch-resting-voice.
Heidi and Tyler catch each other's eye, sharing a quick look.
Heidi furrows her eyebrows, to which Tyler shrugs, lips turned down to a frown. They sigh in unison, before they turn to face Mariella, who looks at them, annoyed. “Right now? Why?” Heidi questions, as she closes the cap of her lipstick bottle and shoves it into her bag. “Urgent matter, don’t ask questions,” Mariella says as she exits the office and goes to wherever else she’s stationed– which is usually her version of saying, ‘Hell, if I knew,’, Which means she’s just as clueless as the both of them are, but isn’t willing to admit it.
Heidi holds in the urge to not rage-quit out of existence, and instead calms herself down to look at Tyler, “C’mon,” she calls, standing up from her chair. Tyler looks at her, dryly, “You’re the only one being called,” he states, as if Heidi doesn’t f*cking know that. She rolls her eyes, “Fine, look after these, then,” she says, pointedly referring to her makeup things and bag.
It’s good to be cautious– even despite how long they’ve known the other members in the company, it’s better safe than sorry. Heidi’s bag has several flash drives worth of classified information that she’d rather not let anyone in the company– aside from Tyler and the higher-ups, of course, to get their hands on.
Heidi already knows Tylers answer to her order.
“No.” He answers.
She rolls her eyes. She expected it. They’ve played this exact song and dance several times before. “Whatever,” she huffs, exiting the room.
She knows Tyler would take care of her stuff anyways.
March 2, 2024, 06:58 AM, AST, the Deck of Cards (MAIN HQ - in front of Headmaster Estelle’s Office), Bayridge, Brooklyn, USA.
Heidi paces a bit in front of the Headmasters office. She’s been in there a dozen times, of course– but most of the time, Tyler would be here with her. He’s usually in charge of easing her nerves in the midst of an Estelle-Encounter, as he so puts it– But honestly, it’s more of Heidi talking to Tyler while going to the office that helps her tear the anxiety away.
Without Tyler.. Well.
She’s kind of restless.
Ugh. Whatever. She’s been in Headmaster Estelle’s office by herself more times than she could count on one hand. Most of those times were before Tyler even became a spy here at the Deck of Cards, so, honestly; there’s literally no valid reason on why she would be getting anxious. She’s just delaying the meeting longer than she should really be doing.
She pauses in front of the door. She takes a deep breath, then knocks.
A chime of affirmation sounds quietly through the hallway, as the lock of the door lights up in green– A sign that Heidi can enter.
She opens the door, getting rid of her nerves and pushes herself inside the office. “Headmaster,” Heidi greets upon entry. The door automatically closes behind her as the agent makes her way to the Headmaster's desk. “Your secretary said you were calling for me?”
Headmaster Estelle, who had had her head in a white folder– a case file from long ago, she thinks, if the ratted edges and the almost faded scratches of black marker on the folder was anything to go by.
The Deck of Cards had stopped producing physical copies of case files a few years back, prompting to instead go purely digital as soon as the agency got their hands on more high-tech equipment.
The only place you would be able to find physical reports now would be at Los Angeles, where a smaller, more secured HQ of the Deck of Cards stands. The Los Angeles HQ is what the members of the Deck of Cards call; the “Vault”, as all pieces of physical evidence and information collected are put. It’s also where the printed copies of all the reports made by the agents go– Just in case their files get lost digitally.
The Headmaster looks towards Heidi, and she puts the white folder down. “Oh, you’re here. Excellent timing,” the Headmaster says, though quite blandly. She gestures towards the chair parallel to her, only if just slightly on the right side of her desk. “Take a seat,” Headmaster Estelle suggests. Heidi takes it as an order.
Heidi sits down, the Headmaster tracks her movement. It’s a bit unsettling. The headmaster has always been calculating, but most of the time, it makes Heidi become weirdly aware of how eerie their Headmaster actually is. The agent tries to pay it no mind.
Headmaster Estelle makes a noncommittal sound, bringing up holographic boards with a single swipe. Heidi surveys the boards in front of her, her eyes following the movement of live coding as the electric blue fills her vision. The Headmaster takes a quick glance at her before handing her a data chip, “I have another mission for you,” as Headmaster Estelle says this, the holographic screens morph from showing casual codings to showing a holographic view of a necklace, while the rest of the boards disappear, aside from mini bullet points extended from the hologram.
“This necklace,” The Headmaster starts, as Heidi takes the data chip. “I need you to find it for me. The data chip contains all the information you need to know.” The agent pulls out a hologlove from her pants pocket and straps it on her wrist. Instantly, a smaller, blue light radiates from out of the glove. Heidi pushes the data chip into the side of the glove, and soon the necklace pops out on her own holographic board.
“Let’s have a little debrief, shall we?” The Headmaster suggests, and Heidi nods. The room light turns a little more dim, as to see the holograms better. The Headmaster stands up from her seat, and Heidi compels doing the same. The agent sets her hologlove to sleep, and she looks at the bigger hologram in front of her.
“You do know Roman Silang, do you not?” The Headmaster asks without turning to face her. “Former mob boss, died due to a cardiac arrest in 2010.” Heidi says, relaying information that she learned years ago, after the senior agents in the company attempted to infiltrate his bases of operations. By then, Roman had already been dead– though his operations had still been carried on by his underlings.
A holographic blueprint of the former bases of operations popped up, turning itself around for seeing. It was a run-down collection of warehouses disguised as a baby powder importing company in a particularly bad part of brooklyn. The information never reached the police or the government, it’s still a tightly-wrapped secret in the criminal network. The police were never able to find the operations, nor did the FBI. They refused to accept Criminal Informants after the stint that Ceal Naffery, the undocumented pro-art forger did back in 2009.”
“Correct. Do you know what type of drugs he handled?” The Headmaster questions. Heidi shakes her head in a no. The holograms around the room expands, and suddenly bright blue pieces of pictured drugs form in front of her in a flash. “Heroin and Krokodil were his main shipments,” Headmaster Estelle says, “though, he also had smaller, side-shipments of illegal amounts of Oxycodone, Vicodin, Fentanyl and Morphine. Oh, and he supplied Naloxone, too,” she added.
“Naloxone?” Heidi repeats, befuddled.
Naloxone. It’s a common drug– for overdoses. It’s become more popular in recent days, though it’s just rare for an illegal drug operator to even dare ship Naloxone. All of Silangs’ supplied drugs are Opioids.
Opioids are, well, as one may call it, pain relievers. Just, a really really addicting pain reliever. The amount of people who died on an Opioid drug overdose is more than the average overdose of people on Cocaine– which is saying something, considering how popularized and taken Cocaine is across countries.
“Yes, Naloxone. Quite confusing, isn’t it?” Headmaster Estelle states with a small tilt of her head. “Naloxone, a drug used by the E.R., First-Emergency responders, police officers and medical technicians.. A drug of which is to cure or reverse the effects and save the lives of people from an Opioid overdose.” The headmaster finishes, a small bemused smile on the tip of her lips. “It’s a genius strategy, if I do say so myself.”
Heidi eyes the Headmaster, opting to stay quiet as she gives more inward information about Roman Silangs business.
The holograms of the drugs are put aside in a far corner, scattering. A new hologram model appears, old case files of drug trades appear in front of the Headmaster. The Headmaster eyes the details of the case files before she haphazardly flicks them towards Heidi’s way, where they settle down in front of her to read.
‘90% successful … Fentanyl shipment successful … receive a new batch of Mg on … unable to contact Krokodil supplier …pints of Morphine to be tested ..’
Heidi isn’t able to read the whole thing. Headmaster Estelle continues to speak. The agent quickly checks to see if she has the same sample information of the manuscript on her hologlove, which, she does have. She’ll read more on it later.
“Roman Silang started to supply Naloxone as part of a starter deal with a bunch of highschoolers. A Naloxone injection treatment came with every first purchase of an Opioid drug he supplied– He figured out, more people would buy from him if he had them on the ruse of not being addicted to the Opioids because of the Naloxone.” Headmaster Estelle hummed thoughtfully, before adding, “He was correct. It was a plebian, risky move. But it worked.”
“More people came in for purchase after the first bundle, but now that they had their starter pack of Naloxone, they had to actually buy the Naloxone with the Opioid. He had their buyers convinced that the Naloxone would easily stop them from overdose, so, the consumers bought more equal amounts of Opioid and Naloxone from Silangs’ smugglers. They didn’t have any more fear about dying, as long as they could get as high as they wanted.”
A soundless notification came through Heidi’s hologlove, brightening as it popped up before her face. The Headmaster wasn’t able to notice, only because she had her eyes on the holograms in front of her. Heidi took a peek at the comm. message– it was from Tyler.
[ AGENT 43: WHTS TAKING U SO LONG ] Sent at 0728, stable network.
Heidi rolls her eyes, swiping the notification out of her face, and tunes into Headmaster Estelle’s information yet again.
“--Though, the thing is, Roman Silang had all his drugs, only aside from the Krokodil and Fentanyl– Which were supplied and exported from an east-russian ring in Moldova– manufactured in Keystone, by his own hired scientists. Including the Naloxone.” Headmaster Estelle continued, and, frankly, Heidi was starting to see where the story was going.
“The consumers didn’t know that after the second dose of Silangs Naloxone, their body would become tolerant to it. The Naloxone would work, but only because they had it mixed with a milder aphrodisiac of Ecstacy– it had people thinking they would survive an overdose, and have them hooked and addicted to the Naloxone too. Roman wanted to have the longest time before overdose, which is why he approved of the Naloxone in the first place– it made him keep regular customers for over seven years before their bodies eventually gave out with the amounts of drugs in their system.” Headmaster Estelle finished. She faced Heidi with a look, one that seemed degrading, yet at the same time prideful.
“That necklace, I need you to find it for me.” Headmaster Estelle says, echoing a statement she's already said earlier. The hologram of the necklace glows brighter in the distance. “It has the information we need to make Roman Silangs drugs. The Morphine, the Naloxone, all of it. Including the contact information of the shipments they used to make in Moldova.”
“I need you to work on this ASAP, word has it that a rival agency is already looking for it,” The headmaster says with a thoughtful look. Heidi nods. “You may excuse yourself, Agent Five. Don’t fail this mission, don’t disappoint me.” She demands.
The agent has the pure will and strength to stop herself from rolling her eyes. She and Tyler have not had one failed mission yet– and this task isn’t the hardest one that their Headmaster had assigned to them. Is it too hard for her to have just a little faith in us? Heidi thinks dryly. Despite this, Heidi nods “Yes, Headmaster,” as she starts to make her way towards the door. Before she successfully exits, her Headmaster suddenly says, “Oh. And bring that.. Partner of yours with you.” She adds.
Heidi resists the urge to throw a dagger at her Headmaster. “Yes, Headmaster,” she says, as she fully exits the office and gently closes the door behind her. “Obviously!” She loudly mutters to herself as she walks down the hallway.
Since when the f*ck did Tyler not accompany her on a mission? They’re partners, of course she would bring him along. Insufferable bitch.
March 2, 2024, 07:42 AM, AST / The Deck of Cards (MAIN HQ - Agents’ Office), Bayridge, Brooklyn, USA.
‘(--Wyn crosses the kitchen, ropes an arm around my waist, and hauls me up against him. Stomach to stomach, ribs to ribs, nose to nose–)’ “Palm to palm, we were always just thaaat close-” Tyler sings quietly as he reads, the words in the book aligning somewhat with Rihanna’s California King Bed.
‘(The taste of cinnamon toothpaste. The quick thrum of a heartbeat. The rasp of an unshaven cheek. The soft brush of lips, once with purpose. HE’S KISSING ME,--)’
Oh. Eeeew. Nasty.
“Urugh,” Tyler fake barfs as he reads the twentieth page of Happy Place by Emily Henry. “This sucks. Why is Wyn acting like this?” Tyler rants to himself, eyebrows furrowed as he continues reading.
‘(Welcome to Hell; I’ll be your host, the Devil.)’
“Now that’s just f*cking cring–”
His live reactions are interrupted by the door to the agents’ office flickering up in green light, and the very very annoyed face of Heidi Yamamoto, Agent Five, greets him in hello. She practically stomps into the office, and Tyler has the very off-putting thought that maybe Heidi bought the boots not for active and effective stealth, but to sound like a f*cking dinosaur as she walks on land angry.
“Let’s go,” Heidi calls, exiting the office upon entry. “What? Where–?” Tyler questions, quickly closing the book and shoving it into his backpack. He quickly slings his backpack along his shoulder as well as Heidi’s sling bag from her desk– He already arranged her makeup safely inside her pouch, as soon as she had gone to Estelle’s office. He moves the chairs in the office away as he makes his way through, trying to get to Heidi faster.
He reaches Heidi, who is scourging through something on her hologlove. “What’s that?” Tyler questions, peeking over her shoulder to get a good look at the hologram as the two make their way towards god knows where. “Something,” Heidi replies, “What something? Where are we going?” Tyler questions, yet again, and jogging up to Heidi. The agent who is decidedly not talking to Tyler continues speed-walking through the hallways. Tyler huffs in very shallow irritation.
They reach the lobby, where Bianca Zamora, their resident communications agent, is snacking on some ice-cubes in a glass. Tyler, who is still jogging up after Heidi, has to hold onto his f*cking recoil and hit the brakes because he almost bumps into his partner after she stops without warning to face Bianca.
Tyler mutters a bunch of curses that he doesn’t actually mean underneath his breath. He knows Heidi can hear him, so to f*ck with it if she cares.
Heidi pointedly ignores him. “Bianca, get ready in about half an hour.” she states, suddenly gentle. Tyler makes a face. Bianca, though, the poor hacker, looks like a deer caught in headlights; with her cheeks full of ice cubes and looking at both the agents dumbfoundedly. “..Alright. With what though?” She mumbles through the ice cubes.
Tyler stares at Heidi while she expressively motions towards her hologlove then to Bianca, saying, “I’ve sent the file to you on my hologlove. Roman Silang case file,”
Bianca goes wide-eyed, “Oh, that important of a case–” she chews through the last ice cube, “I’ll get the screens ready. Just put your communications on and I’ll grant myself access to your database,” she says, suddenly serious. The two girls wave bye to each other, Bianca trekking to probably her computer station at the satellite tower.
And Heidi, well, she starts speed-walking again.
God damn it. Tyler thinks, as he tries to fix both of the bags slung on his shoulder.
March 2, 2024, 10:32 AM, AST / Brooklyn Ave Road, from Civil Court of the New York Counties on the way to Little Haiti, Brooklyn, USA.
As much as awkward police cars can be, it’s about as awkward as one can get.
Officer Sage Estuesta closes his eyes as he tries to block the sounds of The Weeknd’s Die For You FT. Ariana Grande on the police radio. Officer Killian Ha, absolutely no shame, put it on blast as soon as they had boarded the car and made their way towards the Civil Court. It’s been on repeat for more than what seemed three hours, and his head was starting to ache listening to Ariana Grande belt lyrics.
Sage sighs, and turns his head to look at Ms. Celia Ramirez, who has just been staring out of the window ever since the boarding from the Civil Court.
They had already come to an agreement– Had talked about it with Judge Evan Louise, who was thankfully available even with the surprise appointment.
Ms. Ramirez would go on a ‘Vacation’ in the upper town of Little Haiti to the public. Though, while in fact she would be there, she’d be under the guidance of the CIA as they waited on news for Ezra Silang and his abduction. That’s another thing, in the span of only four hours, the CIA had already been informed about the abduction of the son of the late mob boss Roman Silang.
A group of people had already confirmed the disappearance of the kid– some bystanders who saw the kidnapping from afar. The plate number of the van they had used had been a fake, of course. Though, the coordinates and the meridian width had already been calculated by a bunch of higher tech analysts from the CIA themselves– and were planning to call the FBI once they had tracked the location of the child.
The request for the search warrant on Ms. Ramirez’s property had been granted, more so with Ms. Ramirez being directly with them in the line of trial. Officer Killian Ha would drive Celia to Little Haiti where she would be escorted by a few CIA agents to start her alibi. Though Killian would stop just at Myrtle Ave, Ridgewood, to drop Officer Sage off so he could start his search for the necklace in her house.
“I didn’t think it’d come to this,” Sage hears Celia mutter over the bridge of Die For You. The officer casts a sad look on his face, and sighs. “It’ll be okay, Ms. Ramirez. Your child will be fine.”
“I thought he’d.. I thought we’d be away from everything. I thought we’d escaped.” She states. “We faked his death in 2010. Said the mob boss Roman Silang, the Almighty, unstoppable drug lord died out of a pitiful cardiac arrest– He left everything, everything he had ever built from scratch, everyone he ever knew, just to start a family with me. He sacrificed his entire empire. Everything.”
Killian had lowered the volume of Die For You, and the two officers shared a look with each other, quietly listening to Ms. Ramirez spit out her silent mournings.
“And it was good. It had been a good, wonderful eight years with him. He even changed his first name for us, even though he kept Silang.” She reminisces. “He promised us he removed every single connection he had with his empire, he even killed off–”
Both Officer Ha and Officer Estuesta winced at the not-so gentle reminder that the woman in the backseat had also been the girlfriend to a very well known drug lord.
“--all his lackeys, and replaced them with unanimous new ones that didn’t know an inkling of his identity. And then someone in 2018 places a bounty hit on his head– using his new name, and he dies with two shots to the back of his head, and a dagger carved down to his chest. I didn’t even know how someone had been able to find us. We hid so well.”
Celia doesn’t cry over her late lover, instead, she sounds furious. Molded with rage.
“I don’t regret being with him. I really don’t,” she admits. “But sometimes, sometimes I wish Ezra didn’t have to get involved with his fathers’ business. But that’s a wistful thought, isn’t it? He’d be involved no matter what. I wouldn’t be able to stop my son from knowing the truth eventually even if I tried.”
A silence lapses through the police car. Sage breaks it, “Ezra, your child– How old is he?”
“He just turned sixteen last week.” Ms. Ramirez states.
“Sixteen–” Killian starts to say.
“I know. I gave birth to him in 2008, two years before we planned to fake Roman's death.”
“He really doesn’t know anything.” Killian states, the anything about his dad’s work goes unsaid. Celia can read through the lines anyways. “No,” She settles on, distant and cold. “He doesn’t.”
March 2, 2024, 08:39 AM, AST / The road from Bay Ridge to Homecrest, Brooklyn, USA.
Heidi and Tyler take a car– With Tyler in the driver's seat and Heidi riding shotgun.
Heidi, now Agent Five, Tyler guesses, looks through her hologlove as Bianca chatters in their comm units.
“You’ll be able to hitch Agent Fourteen's motorcycle on fifth avenue later. I’ve already told him that you both are going to borrow it for a mission,” Bianca’s voice sounds through their earpieces.
“We’ll reroute for fifth later, we’re going to get some more ammo at home,” Agent Five states. Agent Forty-three, Tyler– looks at Five in the corner of his eye, “We could have re-charged at Cards earlier,” he huffs. The other agent crosses her arms, “I don’t want to stay in the same building as Estelle more than I already have to,” she says, infuriated.
“What did Estelle even do this time?” Tyler questions, a frown to his lips. Heidi narrows her eyes at him, “And since when were you on a first name basis with her?” She says, completely focusing on the wrong thing, Tyler thinks. He purses his lips into a line, “Since, uh, forever?” He retorts.
Heidi lets out an annoyed breath, “Whatever.”
A momentary silence passes, one that Bianca interrupts, “Uh.. Anyways, if both of you are done with your lovers quarrel–” As if scheduled, the two both go red in the face, “--ETA onwards to your block is two minutes. I got a security ping of officers down third ave, so void that area– enroute to seventh.”
As Bianca orders through the comms. unit, Tyler stirs out of second Marrissa Avenue, and soon they’re driving into area seven. “What’s the mission?” Tyler asks, and at the question, Heidi pulls out a hologram from her hologlove– not that Tyler can see it anyways: His eyes are on the road.
“Roman Silang, late drug lord– Headmaster Estelle had been reviewing a former case.” Agent Five states, “Our job is to get the recepies they used to manufacture the drugs by retrieveing an old necklace of his.”
“Oh?” Tyler sounds, “We going to interrogate a fry for information? I thought they were all dead,” Agent Fourty-three says, both confused and curious. Agent Five shoots him a look, “Are they? Headmaster Estelle never told me what happened to his lackeys.” she says, a twisted expression clear on her face. Fourty-three shrugs, “That’s the news I heard. Everyone in Silangs’ empire had been killed, replaced with other Henchmen who solo-ed the job practically for free.”
“sh*t, that must’ve been a lot of mercenary hirings.” Five shakes her head at the image that pops in her mind. “I can’t imagine the money that would go into that, especially if rates back then were 7,000 dollars per lacky head.” She explains. Tyler looks at her, purses his lips and nods, “Though,” he says, “It could’ve been by a gang. They don’t usually get money for killing.”
Heidi thinks, before she eventually replies, “I guess. But, whatever. The thing is we’re going to Roman Silangs family residence to look for the necklace.”
“Necklace?”
“Yes,” Heidi nods. “It has a chip containing all the files on Silangs’ criminal network. Every detail of it, if I assume Headmaster’s words correctly.”
Agent fourty-three whistles, “Must pack a tetra.” he states. “I know!” Heidi groans, closing the hologram and looks into the radio speaker of the car. “I envy it. Don’t you, Bianca?” She calls.
“Tell me about it. I have several card spaces overflowing on only one program– I probably need to request to avail more cloud storage from Estelle.” Bianca sighs.
The ride home, as it is, is more or less Heidi telling them more about the necklace and the backstory with Roman’s drug empire and such. Tyler makes a weird face at his backstory. “Okay, despite his intelligence with the whole.. Drug.. thing,” He makes a face, “he’s kind of dumb for not changing his family name. Why on earth would he still go as Silang? That’s literally the name he’s known for.” Tyler shakes his head disapprovingly.
“Beats me.” Heidi shrugs, then sighs. She stares a bit at the road before looking at Tyler. Tyler, who’s driving gives a quick glance back at Heidi before turning back to the road. “What? Captivated, any chance?” He asks, jokingly smug. Heidi scrunches her nose, squinting her eyes and continues making a disgusted face at him. “f*ck no,” she says, heaving.
Tyler rolls his eyes at Heidi and her attempt to heave. “Now that’s just dramatic,”
“You’re assuming,” She fires back.
“Har, har, har,” He says, with little head motions.
In a few minutes, they arrive home. Tyler stays in the car at the parking lot as Heidi returns to their apartment to get ammo for their guns, undetected, of course.
“You know,” Bianca starts, her voice passing through the earpiece. “Heidi doesn’t actually hate you.” the way she says it makes Tyler freeze. He quickly shakes himself out, and presses a finger to his communication unit. “Heidi on call?” He asks, quiet. “No, secured line. I placed us in a different server.”
Tyler breathes out a small sigh of relief, but smiles, though he knows Bianca won’t be able to see it. “I know that,” he says.
He and Heidi have talked about it before– or, well, Tyler talked about it. Heidi listened. Sometimes, he can’t actually tell if Heidi’s seriously annoyed with him or is just acting annoyed. Heidi, despite her pride, had assured him, that, no, while she doesn’t exactly have fun with Tylers antics, it doesn’t mean she’s going to hate him because of it.
And another thing: She also rarely has fun. That’s not to say that she doesn’t have fun, no– she just.. Doesn’t do the same things as Tyler does. Never has little happiness sprouts.
Once, during their second or third mission together– a little over a year ago: Tyler had wanted them to stop for ice cream during a trip back from Afghanistan, and Heidi had lectured him for two hours straight. Threatened to tell the Headmaster how much of an indilligent agent he was and how he never took his job at The Deck of Cards seriously.
Despite that, Tyler looks back on the memories fondly.
As Heidi appears back into view, bag ready with equipment, Tyler wonders if Heidi ever looks back on their memories the same.
Heidi opens the door on shotgun, tosses the bag into the backseat and climbs into where her seat is. “Let’s go,” She says. Tyler replies, “Aye, aye, boss,”
“Don’t forget the motorcycle, guys,” Bianca chimes, to which Tyler and Heidi voice back in assurance.
He starts the car and they move towards the house where– presumably, Roman Silangs necklace is. Oh, and switch to a motorcycle. Of course.
March 2, 2024, 11:00 AM EDT / House of The Late Roman Silang, Brooklyn, USA.
Officer Killian Ha had dropped Officer Sage off at the house of the late drug lord once they had reached homecrest, greeting eachother goodbye and having to watch Officer Killian and Celia Ramirez go to the public safehouse.
Sage sighs, turning back to face the house. The house itself has two floors– the bottom being a generic pharmacy (and, wow, isn’t that ironic for a family of a former drug lord?), though Celia had assured that there were no illegal loggings associated with the pharmacy at all, and the bottom floor itself was formerly an empty space that was rented by a pharmacist for their business. The second floor of the house was the main home that Celia and Ezra lived in, paying no mind to the pharmacy below them.
Trudging towards the side of the house, and stalking up the staircase, he reaches the ‘porch’ (no fences– as like all the other houses in service area brooklyn) and testing the door open. He holds the handle and turns, and, as expected, it doesn’t budge. The officer picks out a key from his pocket– courtesy of Ms. Ramirez, who had given the key to their house to him without much of a doubt– and slipped it into the lock. He turns the key, and the door unlocks with a loud click.
He gives a slight push, and the door swings open by itself. His eyes cast around the interior of the house– it has a homey feel, with more (what looks like) authentic wooden furniture and a slightly autumn color palette.
The house itself is organized, clean– if not for the random stacks of books and papers scattered on coffee tables and sofas.
Sage breathes out a sigh, and realizes that searching for the necklacein this house by himself would be a very, very, dutiful task.
Good thing the rest of the officers are going to be on their way sooner or later to help with the search.
(…Sooner or later being like, around an hour later.)
Not that Sage blames them. The drive from the bulletin towards Roman Silangs house in homecrest is already a solid 37 minute drive, and with the rise of cases from across brooklyn, it’s actually a wonder that they still have enough officer staff to work as his acompliances in duty. But, then again, they’re not exactly understaffed– it’s just been a busy few weeks.
One of which he curses The Deck of Cards for.
The Deck of Cards are an illegal black operational group– based here in brooklyn as well, if any of the CI’s are correct. The Deck of Cards, while being mostly on the low in the past decades, have been behind stolen properties and the hosts for multiple bidding stands. While it’s unclear what their motive behind the operational group is, it’s clear that they’ve been the one’s causing havoc in the criminal underworld.
And with that, it’s a given that most of the cases being sent to the Brooklyn Police Station have been either reports of stolen property and death, or alleged sightings of members in the said black ops group. Frankly, Sage hates The Deck of Cards so much for it. He mostly just wishes some great outside force to will them away.
But nooooo, it doesn’t work that way, because their agents are painstakingly human (read: Goddamn stubborn) and the police are also painstakingly human (read: him. And also very much lacking information).
But it’s.. Mostly whatever.
He’ll just have to start searching for the necklace. Wherever the f*ck it may be in this goddamn big of a house.
Sage sighs, once again, and gets to work.
He takes the key out from the keyhole and pockets it once again, closing the door but not botheing to lock it on his way inside. He scans his surroundings, picking the wide, wooden cabinet in front of the hallway. The cabinet stands at six feet, and while it had wooden frames, glass panels dawn most of its plane space. Below the pull-cabinet is a drawer. Sage looks at it once and he squats down to pull on it’s handle.
The handle makes a small screeching noise as it gets pulled, but the officer continues to open it without a second thought. Sage furrows his eyebrows at the content of the drawer. There are several film pictures– most being random flash photography that seems to date a bit of a long time ago. Sage takes the pictures in his hands, carding through them like cards.
He finds nothing, really, and closes the drawer again to search.
Celia had told them, back in the car, that the necklace had been given to Ezra when he was a child. She had never really asked her son about the necklace after it disappeared from public sight after Roman Silang died, and she assumed that Ezra had it stored away someplace in his posessions.
And so, Officer Sage hefts himself up and makes his way to Ezra’s room.
His room isn’t hard to find, even considering the house only having three bedrooms to look at. The kid has a big poster of several music artists and magazine models taped to his door, and what seems like DIY’d flowers stuck on them. It has loads of trinkets and drawings etched onto it, and Sage feels a slight emotion of amusem*nt course through him.
He tries to turn the door knob to the room– unsurprisingly, that stays locked as well. He frowns but he leaves the door as it is to check on other things in the mean time. Actually, he might as well call Killian just in case he’s with Ms. Ramirez to ask where they keep the house keys at.
He spots another closet parallel to Ezra’s room, he moves forward and opens tha closets doors with a swing. It’s filled to the brim with clothes– mostly school uniforms and other cloths such as bedsheets and curtains, some rags and whatnot. He scans it with a blink, but closes the closet yet again.
He brings up his police radio from his utility belt, about to radio Officer Killian Ha, when he thinks better of it. He makes a face and puts the police radio back to where it was and brings his phone out of his pocket instead. He dials Killian on the emergency, and he brings the phone to his ears as he waits for the ringing to connect.
The call connects after three rings, and he hears Killians voice fill out the speaker, “Hm?” The other officer questions. “You still with Ms. Ramirez?” Officer Sage asks, putting the phone between his shoulders and his own ear and holds it like that.
“Yeah, why do you ask?” Killian voices. Theres a bit of a rumble in the background, voices blending in together that Sage doesn’t have the ears to pick up on clearly.
“Mind if I talk to her for a sec?” He prods. “Oh, well–” The line goes slient for a few seconds on Killians side before it bursts back to life, “Alright. Make it quick, though. The commissioner should be here any second. Not to mention the CIA already being here.” Killian states, a part of his voice sounding with annoyance, a 98.9% chance it being directed to the CIA. Sage never really understood his small feud with the internationalists.
“Got it. I’ll make it quick,” He answers. Sage can almost imagine Killian shrugging and wordlessly handing the phone over to Celia, as the womans voice starts to filter over the phone. “Is something wrong?” She asks quickly, “No, no, don’t worry. I’m here to ask about where the house keys were? To your sons bedroom, specifically.” Sage says, getting straight to the point.
Celia breathes out an audiabble sigh of relief on the other line. “Oh, thank god. I thought it was something else,” She sighs, before continuing, “The plant pot hung on the door frame in the kitchen, the keys are in the compartment beneath it. You’ll know what I mean when you see it.”
“Alright. Thanks, ma’am.”
“No problem. Contact me when you can.”
The line quickly cuts off after that.
While he’s a bit baffled she didn’t bother to give the phone back to Killian before she cut the line off, he’s not exactly bothered by it. He doesn’t pay it any mind, and instead follows Celia’s directions and goes to trek his way towards the kitchen.
He sees the hanged plant pot immediately, it’s suspended by white ropes that curl itself protectively on the small white vase of the plant. It’s hanged on top of the sink, attatched to where the clean dried dishes are pilled. He stalks forwards, scanning the plant pot. He tilts his head and looks beneath the pot, and he sees a detachable cylinder under it. He presses the cylinder and instantly, the wide vial falls into his hands.
There’s a cap on the vial, and he twists it open to reveal several house keys. He looks through them before eventually picking out the key to Ezra’s room, which has a blue to purple gradient ‘E’ keychain. There’s a small paper taped to the side, which looks to be in Celia’s writing, Ez’s Room, it reads.
Officer Sage puts the rest of the keys back in the vial, save for the key to Ezra’s room, and closes it up. He presses the cylinder back against the bottom of the pot and it sticks back with a small click.
He walks back to Ezra’s room, slotting the key in, and it easily makes it’s place. Officer Sage turns the key and the door swiftly unlocks itself. The cop pushes the door open– The door is heavier than usual, but Sage chuckes it up to the multiple trinkets hung and stuck to the door.
Ezra’s room looks straight out of a teen magazine– posters hung everywhere and hot pink spray paint lining the walls in big hearts. A bunch of crocheted plushes scatter against the bed and desk, and a crocheted pink and green heart rug greets him by the foot, and suddenly, well, Officer Sage gets a little bit embarrased to walk in the house with his shoes on.
He sidesteps the rug, and he looks around the room before his eyes land on a vatility mirror. He walks towards it and opens up the drawers. There’s a bunch of jewelry boxes, and he brings one up to him and opens the box. A bunch of earrings, pearl necklaces.. Nothing much that looks like the necklace shown to him in the case file. He brings up another box– the same, still empty, just full of foldable metal and string bracelets.
The next two boxes are.. Still the same. He frowns, putting all the jewelry boxes on top of the vatility mirrors desk so he can survey them again later. He makes his way back to the closet he was at earlier, and opens it once again. He starts from the toop of the cabinet, which is just a bit higher than eye level, and sorts through that first. It’s a bunch of caps and sashes, paper holders which Officer Sage brings out to inspect only to find it as official birth certificates and multiple school forms and other important stuff. He cards through it, but ultimately puts it back.
He stumbles on another photo album of Ezra Silangs old baby photos, some of which have Roman Silang in them– along with Celia, and some german shepered, posing like a family portrait. It’s a cute album, though the first five pages are purely formal family pictures and self portraits of the family members. As it progresses, though, the pictures of the Silang kid get a little bit more natural, with the baby giggling and a bunch of blur shots where Ezra is running and laughing.
The wind makes a noise, lightly slamming the door open and closed. Sage furrows his eyebrows, but focuses back on the photo album.
Sage turns a page, and is greeted with Roman Silang balancing a little Ezra on his hip, both of their gazes on eachother as they laugh at something the camera didn’t seem to pick up the context of. The officer stares at it for a while, and he tilts his head as the observes Roman Silangs body language.
Happy. Free. Love.
It’s different from the rest of the pictures he’s seen of Roman Silang– them mostly being mugshots, or candid pictures of him in the midst of criminal activity.
Sage admits, it’s a bit weird to find himself staring at a mob bosses family to find himself smiling, but, then again, he guesses that’s not exactly what they are here in the picture. It’s father and son.
He blinks away the inwards mullings, and continues to professionally scan the pictures. When he reaches the end of the album he tucks the album back into it’s place at the top and moves back down to another space.
It’s, again, the school uniforms hung on hangers, and he only haphazardly looks through those before deeming it unworthy to investigate through.
He moves back down another level, where it’s just bedsheets and blankets and other cloths. He removes them from their place to see if there are any feels of the necklace, and puts it back in place when he comes back up again with nothing.
Something falls with a loud thud in the distance, and he feels his hackles go up and he slams the doors to the closet closed, and quickly puts himself in a defensive stance. His back is on the door of the closet, and he fishes out a gun from his utility belt and brings it adjacent to his face, with the gun itself pointing up.
He hears a voice mutter something, and his eyes become sharp as he starts with a, “Who are you? I know Ms. Ramirez isn’t home,”
…Okay. He might’ve been a little dramatic– it could have been his fellow officers for god knows, but.. He’s already committed to the bit anyways. Might as well roll with it until proven wrong.
March 2, 2024, 11:28 AM EDT / Silang Residence, Brooklyn, USA
Agent Five and Agent Fourty-three reach homecrest on their motorcyle, and look up towards the residence.
“You know,” Agent Fourty-three starts, looking at Agent Five with a mockingly wistful look. “I kind of expected it to be a manor. An old looking one. An Addams Family looking one.” At the statement Heidi looks at Tyler unimpressed. “A manor. In cartoon-copy building Brooklyn.” She stresses.
Tyler throws his hands above his head. “Yes!--” He cries, “--Gargoyles and, maybe, like, roccoco statues!”
“Why the hell do you think it’d be a manor? He’s not Bruce Wayne,”
“Roman. Sionis.”
Heidi looks at Tyler, lips pressed thin among themselves. A momentary silence rings out, before Agent Five sighs sharply. “That’s not a topic I want to be privy to. Let’s not compare real life mafias to comic characters.”
“You’re no fun,” Tyler says with a scrunch of his nose. “Har, har, cry as you wish.” She ticks her head side to side mockingly, with a roll of her eyes. She brings up her hologlove and levels it towards the house, giving it a quick scan.
The results load on the hologlove, swiftly swirling on the screen before it disappears completely. Bianca’s voice rings out, “I got the data. It seems like there’s no traces of elect energy. It might have been tampered with, though. My thermal doesn’t seem to be working on the house.”
At the statement, Heidi and Tylers eyebrows rise up, and they share a look, “Your thermal isn’t working?” Heidi questions. “Possible EMP?” Tyler proposes. Bianca huffs out, “Couldn’t be. Not if communications are still up. They did use a blockage though. I’m just not sure what.”
Agent Five sighs, she turns to look back at Tyler, “I’ll go up.”
“And I’ll get us lunch!” Agent Fourty-three cheerily replies, as he climbs back on the motor.
“That’s not–” Heidi cuts herself off, and looks at the time on her hologlove. 11:36. She glances at Tyler and deflates. “..Fine.”
“Ring me and I’ll hop on ‘ere quickly” Agent Fourty-three says with finality. Heidi blinks steely at him, “Alright.”
They make each their own way, Heidi running up the side of the house and onto the staircase towards the second floor as Tyler zooms away on the road and out of Heidi’s sight.
She stalks her way up on the staircase, pausing for a bit before talking into her comms., “Bianca, are you getting feed?” She asks, then furrows her eyes when she just pushes the door open without any resistance. Do they really just leave their door open?
Bianca hums after a while, though she makes a quick tick of her tongue. “Tch, no.. Even the hologlove doesn’t seem to pick up on anything from inside. Signal waves for advanced tech don’t work here,” The hacker says, rightfully annoyed.
Heidi makes a face, but doesn’t say anything else.
She steps into the house, and haphazardly closes the door behind her. She scans the area with her eyes before ultimately coming to the conclusion that: It was f*cking hot.
What the hell is with this house? It feels like Texas.
She contemplates a bit, before eventually moving towards an electric fan standee to turn it on.
No point basking in hell if you can give yourself free load wind.
With the electric fan on, she trudges towards the kitchen– an unlikely place to start, though on her last mission with Tyler she realized most of hidden property could be guised into food cabinets and drawers. It’s practically why they spent a good to weeks in Venezuela– scourging for things no where near where they really were.
She moves over to the kitchen island, and makes succession in drawing the drawers open and raffling through them. There’s a bunch of medicine– not as weird, but she’s did enough research on drug based psychology to tell anti-depressants and anti-pscyhosis drugs apart from regular Paracetamol and Mefenamic.
She grabs hold of the bottle, turning it around in her hands.
EXP 011920
..2020..??
Heidi stares at the expiration date dumbfoundedly. That was four years ago, she thinks, before she continues to devulge into scattering the drawers even more in search.
She finds medical receipts dating from six years ago, most of them being medicine suggestions and in take demands, and the agent flips the clear ziplock bag to see that the receipts are booked to and given to the name Roland Silang.
“Roland Silang..” Heidi mutters quietly to herself.
Probably an alias Roman used to go under to get medication.
She continues the search, removing herself from the kitchen to make her way to the dining table. Only narrowly, she isn’t able to side step a tissue box which had been right at the edge of the table, and it topples right down to the floor with a soft thud. She doesn’t think too much about it until somethings slams from down the hallway, and Heidi feels herself stiffening in realization.
The motor parked up front. The door open. f*ck, someone got here first.
“Mierda,” She curses, spanish dripping from her tongue instinctively.
She immediately gets into stance, her back to a wooden cabinet at the start of the hallway and her gun raised.
“Who are you? I know Ms. Ramirez isn’t home,” The voice– undeniably male, calls. Heidi sets her eyes straight, but tilts her head to the side just in case the man suddenly jumps out. “And who the f*ck are you?” Heidi bounces back. There wasn’t supposed to be anyone here. What the heck.
“Heidi, what the hell is happening?” Bianca sounds from her comm unit. Heidi hisses out, “Later,” The hacker seems to mutter some things under her breath, but the comm doesn’t pick up on it, the sound being swallowed by the sudden cacophony of Bianca rushingly typing on her keyboard.
“I asked first. Answer the question.” The man states once again, voice louder as it echoes through the hallway. Heidi rolls her eyes at the insistance. “And why would I do that, exactly?” She retorts, she launches off the cabinet and puts herself in the beginning of the hallway, aiming her gun straight down.
It seems like the man has the same thought, as both of them are suddenly eye to eye and edge to edge from each of the hallways ends. They mirror each other in position, both guns raised as they stare at each other, observing.
The man is a cop. Dark blue uniform and the undeniable golden badge pinned to the left side of his chest.
“Ma’am, if you can kindly state who you are and what your motive is. We do not need this to get any more difficult than it should be.” The cop says. Heidi narrows her eyes at him, “Yeah, officer?” She says, biting back the urge to call him a pig. She sees the cops yes narrow back at her. Heidi huffs.
Agent Five doesn’t think twice about shooting. The officer dodges the bullet, and in a flurry of movements, he’s swiftly sliding down the short hallway, in a way that seems like he’s meant to swipe Heidi off her feet. The agent pounces upwards, over the cop, using the wall as her leverage, and suddenly, both of them are parallel again to each other, just on the opposite sides of the hallway they’ve started with.
(In front of a small potato stand a mile away from where Heidi is at the moment, Tyler munches on some fries in a cup. The radio is blasting to Baby, I Love Your Way by Big Mountain and Tyler hums along with it. He’s leaning his back, relaxed on the potato stand places counter, as he watches the pigeons in the distance squabble with each other.
“TYLER!!” Bianca all but screams through his comm piece, and it startles the sh*t out of Tyler that he nearly jumps out of his skin. He’s about to reply to Bianca with a retort when he almost chokes on his fries. He pounds a fist to his chest as Bianca speaks again through the comm.
“Tyler, rendezvous back to Heidi’s location ASAP. Extraction needed.” Bianca demands more than she states. Tyler coughs, clearing his throat, “Hol’ on, just a sec,” with that he shoves the rest of the fries in his mouth, shooting the empty cup in a trash can and making a beeline towards the motor and kicking it to a start.
“Status report,” Tyler asks. Instead of Heidi answeing, Bianca answers for her. “Engagement with possibly an Enforcer. I’m not connected to a feed.”
“Huh,” Tyler says as he makes his way on the road. “Lame enough.”)
They don’t exchange anymore words as the cop shoots Heidi’s gun out of her hands, and swarms forward with punches. Heidi doesn’t bother chasing after the gun, instead having her focus on the officer and playing on the defensive, dodging the policeman’s hits.
They eventually meet fist to fist and Heidi ducks as the officer swings his arm towards her head. The agent punches him in the gut and while he lets out a grunt, the officer takes a hold of her shoulders, grabbing them and hitting her against the wall. Heidi purposely has herself slide towards the floor, and she tackles the officer in the knees.
The officer goes down painfully, and Heidi takes a short breath as she reaches for her gun, standing up only to have her feet sweeped off the floor again. She falls with a thud, and she glances back to see the officer close the distance between them and send another round of punches. Before he can do that, though, she twists and has her back towards the floor as she directs her legs and hits the officer in the stomach with her boots, sending him back.
She takes the chance of the officer reeling to stand up and run towards the main door of the house. She only successfully makes it to the living room before the cop is on her back again, sending a punch to her temple. She shakes off the feeling of being punched, and swipes a pillow from the couch to send it flying towards the cops face. The policeman catches it, and pushes Heidi until she stumbles and hits a chair, sitting on it by chance. Another pillow goes flying towards her face and the agent quickly grabs the closest thing next to her– which happens to be a bunny massage stick– and swings her arm towards the officer who is then again closing the distance between them.
The policeman catches the agent's punch, and he twists her arm and pushes her towards the floor. Heidi tumbles, and the next thing she knows, she’s got a gun leveled towards her face.
She forces herself to go still, wary of the gun that may go off any second. She sees the officer take a quick glance at her hologlove. Though, she knows that’s not what he’s actually focusing on. She confirms herself correct when the officer starts with a, “What is a member of The Deck of Cards doing here?”
“f*ck, if I know,” She retorts. It’s a bad attempt at a sarcastic joke at a bad time, but it’s not like it’ll do her any good to not say it. Quickly, she decides.
Heidi kicks the gun out of the cops hands– Sage Estuesta, if the badge on his police uniform is anything to go by– and the officer chases after it. Coward.
She gets up on her feet and is out of the door in seconds, running down the stairs and accidentally taking the wrong turn, heading into the pharmacy. “sh*t,” Heidi curses, before pressing into her communication unit again, “Tyler, Tyler–”
She feels a presence behind her back, and she knows she goes into the defensive at the right time when the officer from earlier is trying to land a punch on her again. “f*cking– Don’t you get tired!?” She grabs a box and chucks it at him, it sends him a bit farther away, but the exit to the main office of the pharmacy is behind where she sent the cop, and she gives out an irritated sigh. She glares at him– He glares back, a scene that could almost be comical if it weren’t for the headache she has.
They charge at each other, with Officer Estuesta giving out punches and Agent Five quite literally just dodging them from under her head. She catches the third punch he gives, and goes in for a kick at the gut– but the officer latches onto her leg as she kicks, and pulls. She finds herself back down on the floor. The officer snatches something off the counter and the sound of paper ripping only becomes second to her thoughts when a syringe is suddenly sticking out of her collarbone.
She lets out an aggravated breath and pushes the officer off to the side and kicks a pinwheel to his temple, immediately rushing out of the pharmacy just in time to see Tyler arrive on the motorcycle. She swings a leg up without having Tyler need to stop from driving, and they easily merge into the small traffic on the road.
The Officer, Officer Sage– quickly follows behind them, his own motor blaring in sight as distinctive red lights filter through the place. Heidi curses, fishing out a rifle and aiming it at the officer. “You sure about that, Heidi!?” Tyler shouts over the rushing wind, looking through his rear view mirror. “I want you to remember that we are in f*cking public right now!” He continues, making a sharp turn at the end of fourth street and making on the highway. “I don’t care!” Heidi replies.
Bianca cuts through their shouting, blasting in their ears with an, “I found the necklace. On Ezra Silang, Manhattan. Reroute towards the train station, easiest way out.” Tyler voices out an affirmative.
She shoots her gun, but is bested by the swerve of the officers motor as he dodges the bullet. “Can you not use the goddamned rifle!? It doesn’t have a silencer!” Tyler complains as he changes lanes. The road starts to get in a frenzy, and it seems Tyler makes the ulitmate decision when he moves upwards on the side walk instead and runs the motor through an alleyway– a shortcut to the closer warehouse.
Heidi takes pity on her partner, feigning ignorance, and quickly exchanges the rifle for a pistol with a silencer. She’s more or less surprised when the officer follows them through the alleyway. She thinks Tyler knows the same because he mutters a small sh*t which is only barely audiable because of the comm pieces they have.
She shoots again at the officer, only struggling to make a perfect shot because of the load of different paths Tyler takes them on with his motor. He brings them up on a ramp and Heidi has to turn to grasp on Agent Fourty-threes shoulders to balance herself and not f*cking fall for godsake.
“Can’t you just drive on a f*cking road!?” Heidi shouts, gripping onto the edge of the motor seat with her life.
“Any surface is a road if you imagine it to be!” Tyler replies cheerily.
“Not. My. Point!!!” Heidi replies through gritted teeth as they make another ramp up.
She takes a momentary look behind her to see if the officer is still trailing them, and just lets out an irritated groan at the sight that– Yes, he’s still f*cking there. “You stubborn piece of sh*t!” she huffs underneath her breath, and takes another shot at the police. Again, the bullet fails to reach homepoint. A bunch of people walking are screaming and flurrying around in panic– it makes Heidi more irritated.
They pass by an upwards pathway, and Heidi grabs onto a line of clothing and calculatedly lets the wind take it where it must. It timely covers the officers face, and once he removes the ragged piece of cloth away from where it covers his eyes, the two are already gone and out of sight.
Heidi sighs with relief. Tyler makes a swift turn, and their back on the main road.
“Can we at least get lunch?” Agent Fourty-three begs.
“Did you not just eat?”
“That was not lunch!”
Heidi rolls her eyes, “Pit stop at safehouse eighteen. Rendezvous to route, ETA twenty.”
Tyler cheers, and they zoom off.
