Audrea tried to lock the door with her assorted lockpicks. As she did, she realized that there had been a significant lull in the conversation that she was having. For a moment, she glanced at the child who looked at her with a suggestive gaze.
"So, what do you think? Do you want a partner in crime," Sali finally broke the silence once their eyes met.
"I will have to look into who your guardian is if he really is an assassin associated with HENS. Then I will have to look into you and your familial connections, especially if you claim to come from a well respected background," Audrea said as she got back to locking the door.
"You can't look into him at all though. He has no public information even on HENS. He used to be a Ghost. There isn't going to be anything other than his code name and the price to hire him. There might be public records of his previous jobs if his employers were willing to share their experience…", Sali paused for a moment and thought about it.
"Actually, you know what, his name used to be Apparition if you want to look into that. He used to be third in the rankings that were made by the Hearth. There should be another name there now since he was decommissioned if there is a record of that," Sali said. Audrea heard the click then tried to open the door by pushing the door. It was certifiably locked.
"Why are you telling me this? I can simply look it up myself with some effort," she walked down the stairs with a distant expression as she shook her head side to side.
"I want to help you, or get help when I need it. If I can make your life easier then why wouldn't I? It's better if I'm open with who my guardian is because I would like you and him to hang out and get to know each other better…", Sali exhaled a satisfied and breathy laugh at the stumped Audrea who paused her steps and looked at her.
"How does that (Learning about you guardian), mean this (Hang out with him? Why tell me all this information then ask for that on behalf of someone else? You're a ridiculous child," Audrea continued her march down the steps.
"Don't worry about the details, he is a bit handsome, not my type though, and he's a bit serious but I feel like you would get along with him since you are tall, pretty, and rather straightforward. Your personality also seems to be a great fit for his stoicism," Sali said what was on her mind and didn't notice that Audrea's jaw dropped in the middle of her about to say something
"Ah. Did I forget to mention that he is fit? I think that's important," Sali tapped Audrea's shoulder and suggestively egged her on with a couple of humming tones.
"Child, how do you know that I'm not already in a relationship," Audrea passed the third floor flight and checked her watch.
"I don't know if you are in one but that doesn't mean that I'm not going to try and get you to settle down with someone who might be your everything," Sali spoke with a bit of pep in her voice as she tried to match-make for Briggs.
"Hm. Give me some time to think about it. Let me do my research first then I'll find you when I'm next off of work," Audrea sounded unsure of herself as her steps paused once again.
"That's not going to work for me. Why don't you just trust me and go on a date with him sometime tomorrow or the day after, before you have to go back to work," Sali said.
"Answer a few questions for me and I will think favorably about your request," Audrea narrowed her eyes on Sali as the child rushed in front of her and put her hands up.
"Shoot," Salimoon raised an eyebrow as they paused going down the steps.
"How did you know to find and follow me, did someone from my department send you and your guardian after me? And is that why you showed up two days ago? Also, how do you know about the trafficking that had been happening? You make no sense to me. It's almost as if…", she reached out and touched Salimoon to make sure that she was real and not a figment of her imagination.
"I'm a real person, Audrea. Stop looking so dazed," Sali grabbed Audrea's hands and placed them down.
"And we don't have any connections to anyone you might know. He's completely cut off from the people he used to work with or for because he was decommissioned. To the Hearth, he is officially dead. Similarly, I am missing according to my family. Also, you met me two days ago because I was lost. In the process, I gained a quest which led me back to you. It's basically a divine mission to deal with something. In this case, the quest happens to be dealing with something that I really hate," Sali rolled her eyes as Audrea visibly grew more uncomfortable with what she was told.
"Sorry," Audrea lowered her head.
"As for trying to figure me out…", Salimoon paused
'I am a mother and soldier. I fought the better half of my previous life to make sure that things like this didn't happen even though it did and does even in this world. I can't very well say that to a woman who is still a stranger. It's more of a fourth or fifth meeting kind of thing,' She thought to herself for a moment before staring Audrea in the eyes.
"In the simplest terms that I can think of. I learned that there was something bad happening in this city just a few days ago. I was going to ask my guardian if he could help me investigate and possibly assassinate some bad guys to keep where I live clean but the only problem is that we have to figure out who exactly the bad people are before I ask him to do anything," Sali smiled as relaxedly as she could.
"And you're sure that your dad, your guardian I mean, you're sure that he's an assassin for HENS? He's going to kill people for you?"
"I said that he used to be an assassin. But yes, he used to work for the Hearth. And, he hasn't promised me anything yet but I'm sure that he will do it once we put a face and name to the injustice that's been going on in this city," Sali led the way down the stairs. Audrea digested what the child in front of her said and took it with a grain of salt.
'A child that's on a righteous quest to defeat evil huh?. She must've been homeschooled by this ex- Hearth assassin and fed some crazy stories,' Audrea thought to herself as she watched Sali swagger down the steps two or three at a time to keep in front of her. Everything that the child said was suspicious but how could she not believe it when she only just found out about HENS and the Ghosts and the like after completing her field officer training. The Hearth and Ghosts seemed like foreign entities but something like them was intruding its way into her investigation.
The two left the apartment building and complex in awkward silence and walked back to their vehicles. Audrea unlocked her car and was about to sit in the driver seat when Salimoon opened the passenger side door and sat down.
"What are you doing?"
"Im looking at what leads you have," Salimoon picked up the briefcase and was about to open it when she realized that there was a built in combination lock.
"Can you open this," She asked.
"Absolutely not. I got everything inside of there either from my job or from the few days that I've been casing the area. I'm not going to just let you read it," Audrea sat down in the car and made sure that no one was looking at their location. She also had tinted windows so it was easy to look out and not so easy to look inside.
"Actually, how about you go home? There should be better things to do than to interact with an older lady like me," Audrea sat down in the driver seat and didn't turn the car on, she tried to pull the suitcase away but it felt like she was an ant trying to win in a tug of war with an elephant.
"How are you so strong," Audrea tried to hide her bewilderment.
"I eat my greens," Salimoon joked but seeing the older woman's incredulous look, she peeled back a little bit and said, "I was born this way and trained to death for the last few years," Sali expressed her bitterness with a head shake and frown.
"Trained?"
"Yes, trained. I can be an assassin if I really wanted to. Thankfully, I have a stronger background in being a soldier so I'm not too interested in picking up my guardian's previous lifestyle…", Salimoon sighed heavily and clasped her hands together.
"But can you please let me see what's inside the case? I promise I won't do anything crazy," she begged.
"Absolutely not. You are a child that shouldn't be anywhere near this mess," Audrea tried pulling the case once again and it flew into her lap.
"Please, just once. Let me look over the stuff," Sali continued on for a few minutes, begging and pleading.
"Fine. I'll do it, just promise me that this isn't going to blow up in my face," Audrea held her temples, fearing the coming migraine as Sali wiped her own tears and smacked her puffed cheeks.
"Of course this won't come back to haunt you, how could it? I'm just looking at some information to update my quest," Jaqueline stifled a chuckle as she pulled a card from her own son's book of tricks. She could never say no once he started to beg. Audrea finally opened the case with a sour expression plastered across her face. Once Sali started to look at what was inside of the case, her first marker quest marker (1.a) vanished. The second quest marker (1.b) updated, with its symbolism turning into the first one (1.a) which now pointed out the sidewalk where Sali met all three of those teenage ruffians. Almost as if the quests were set up a stack and the first item was cleared.
According to what Audrea had discovered, those three young men that were pointed out by the quest marker were called Francis "Fish" Michna, Cody Bieńkowski, and Marcus Kaczmarek. Sali knew them better as Thrasher, Cuts, and Mark, lowlife thugs extraordinaire. They were all relatively handsome young men, at least they were in the candid photos that Audrea took with the camera that was in the briefcase. The details stated that they were, and still are, childhood friends that grew up in this area.
According to family and other friends that Audrea came in contact with in various disguises, they made a pact to do something with their lives and dedicated themselves to their studies. They were all on the deans list at their schools and they were all under full scholarships.
The story is, a few months ago, Fish got a part time, afterschool job at a cleaners that paid him almost double the minimum wage. He got picked up and dropped off by coworkers. After a month, they asked if he had any friends that wanted a job and he roped Cody and Marcus into it. That would have been all well and fine until they met their boss's boss. A man called Nikolai Kolawski. He was a notable member of a now in jail and effectively disbanded Mafia.
According to what Audrea collected, the Boss's boss, Nikolai walked free of the justice system thanks to a deal that had very serious holes and grey areas. Serious enough that her company or employers at the ABW decided to keep tabs on him just in case he decided to do anything. Anything like reviving the underhanded businesses that his group used to operate.
"Hey, why did you decide to do this by yourself? I'm sure with the resources at your job's disposal, investigating this Niko character would have been easy," Sali frowned as she paused her perusal.
"I had no choice," Audrea sighed heavily.
"Explain. Please," Sali looked at Audrea real hard. It was only now that she noticed the bags under the woman's eyes and the coffee cups that were strewn apart the vehicles.
"So it all started when I was at work one day…", she expressed that she would have passed her time at the office, in her old position, organically and without wanting more if not for noticing irregularities in some reports when she had been a clerk in the filing department. Things that should have been followed up on but no one did so. She brought up the inconsistent reports to her superior but they all just brushed it off in favor of other high priority cases.
When she had the opportunity to become a full- fledged agent almost a year ago and underwent the months-long training process, she finally petitioned to have Niko be part of her new case load but her superiors had been putting off letting her go into the field for whatever reason. She put a case together in her free time and took her PTO time to look into the ex mafia member.
"So your bosses stonewalled you," Sali heard and received the information.
"Basically, yes," Audrea nodded.
"I see. That sucks but because they weren't looking at your gathering of information like you were a real officer, you were able to put together quite a lot of data," Sali reorganized the sheets in her hands and picked up a Manila folder that was notated with the name Nikolai Kolawski.
"True. Hah, the only issue is that I haven't gotten anywhere with my investigation since coming here," Audrea slumped in the chair and closed her eyes.
"Hm," Sali noticed how tired Audrea was and tried her best to quietly open the folder. Most of the information that she looked at revolved around Nikolai's private assets and his associates. The man owned a few businesses and buildings, a laundromat, two dry cleaners, three motels, several bars and apartment complexes across the city and a timber harvesting/ wood processing plant on the edge of town.
As she read about these places, the quest tab had a field day. Different golden markers popped up one after the other, leading to nowhere other than the briefcase. Sali was about to get upset when she revealed a map of the city with red markers on each of the points that represented one of the businesses or buildings. In an instant, the markers (1.b) to (1.p) branched out in her vision, stretching across the city. Audrea clearly visited some of these locations and annotated the map with her own legend.
"This map. I see you checked these locations and couldn't get to these over on this side, Why?"
"There were guards or cameras stationed outside or inside of these buildings, it would be too suspicious if I snooped around these, and it would take more than a day or two to case this location without being discovered due to how far out of the city it is," Audrea frowned as she opened her eyes and begrudgingly explained her notes.
"If I had more time, I would be able to find a way in but my vacation is over in two days," She clicked her tongue in frustration.
"And these lines and colored dots, what do they represent?"
Audrea looked at what Salimoon was concerned about since it wasn't in the legend.
"The lines with arrows show body traffic while color shows the density, the warmer the color means there are more people going and coming to those locations. The numbered dots are how many people have been reported missing while the numbered circles are the locations where they had last been reported if they had family or friends to say something just within this city. How many people without that support have gone missing, I dare not say," Audrea frowned as the numbers went higher than 25 missing person reports every month within the city itself over the past few months. The problem was that at least 15 every month were in or around the locations that Nikolai owned. That wasn't a lot considering that the ABW dealt with thousands of cases a year throughout all of Poland but it was enough, enough for her to want to do something about it since there was a clear reason why these people were going missing.
Salimoon grumbled. She was a bit perplexed by the completeness of Audrea's work. She had files on dozens of men and women that worked with Nikolai, most of which were ex-cons or people who served some small time in jails for mildly dangerous misdemeanors or abuse. Anyone with a record was pulled up. It made her wonder why Nikolai would want to associate with three young men who were putting their all into bettering their lives. According to their school records, they were exemplary students. Fish, Cody, and Marcus.
"Hey, Audrea, when were you first introduced to this Nikolai guy," Salimoon had a thought.
"A few years ago, there were a few agents assigned to this city and one of them had to keep tabs on him every few days. Most of this information is from when surveillance was tight. In the recent two years, the Agents have been lax and let a few things slip but that could be blamed on the recent staff and personnel changes for the ABW," Audrea flipped through the paperwork for Sali.
"Here. This is what really stood out to me though. A little over a year ago a group of tourists, four young women from America went missing after being spotted in one of the bars owned by Niko," Audrea pulled up a report that was dated March, 2003
"This one made me really look into Nikolai. A man with an O Neg blood type up and vanished from the street after donating blood at this university. That in and of itself wouldn't sit wrong with me but here, his car broke down on this street. He went into this motel to make a call to a tow trucking company and that is all, he vanished having never returned to his car," Audrea went on about more notable vanishings that occurred and pulled out paperwork to support her claims that Nikolai was responsible. All of the disappearances that she pulled out occurred around or in the establishments owned by Nikolai but all Sali saw was circumstantial evidence. Basically, It only looked like Nikolai's businesses were responsible because the reports that she had used to form her case made it seem that way.
Other than a potential crime lord, Sali was particularly interested in the three young men that acted like miscreants. There were sparse details in Andreas notes regarding those three but what she did have painted a picture over the course of a week. The jobs that the trio took revolved around cleaning up messes in the motels and apartment complexes that Nikolai owned. Sometimes that meant standing outside while the cleaners who had been there longer, took the job. They were an adept group of workers as they did not ask questions and simply assisted their superiors. At least, that was Andrea found in her week of surveillance.
"I think these three youngsters are more involved than you think Andrea. They tried to capture me not even two days ago. To sell or bring me to someone. Do you have any idea why they would have escalated?"
"No, I don't know why they would have gone after you. They have taken someone off the street before but that was because he was someone who owed money for using the group's cleaning services. Maybe they feel pressured by something," Audrea suggested.
"I don't know, to me, it just sounds like they are entry level thugs trying to improve their standing," Sali frowned as nothing showed why those three boys would have wanted to capture her and bring her somewhere. She didn't spend time on idle deliberation and chose to finish checking what Audrea had.
It was a thick Manila folder held together with strained rubber bands. It was a collection of single page dossiers pertaining to all of the people that had gone missing within the last year in the city. Sali skimmed the top
"This was well put together. You should be careful that there's not a mole in your clerical or field department," Salimoon narrowed her eyes and stretched in her seat.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, business like this isn't sloppy. The people involved have friends from all walks of life. What it sounds like to me is that someone high up caught wind of your research and let you come here on your own only to turn up empty," Salimoon put all of the paperwork away and closed the case.
"I can see why you would say that but my superiors are straight arrows. They wouldn't involve themselves in a corruption scandal," Audrea spoke adamantly.
"Sure. And zebras can change their stripes," Sali sighed and checked one of the coffee cups in the center holder. Seeing that it was full and still hot, she took a sniff and sipped from it.
"Why are you so sure that one or some of my superiors are on Nikolai's payroll," Audrea narrowed her sights on Sali and frowned.
"Its almost guaranteed that one of your superiors is involved in the criminal enterprise that Niko has made if there is one to be found. Afterall, he might not be responsible for the missing persons that happen to be near and in his businesses and buildings. The boss or bosses, if this is some conspiracy, may not be under Nikolai exactly but they are definitely involved in keeping the status quo. Maybe they don't want their name to come up by happenstance or maybe their family member is involved and they are trying to cover it up. Regardless, someone higher up the food chain than you is involved. That's just how these things go and it's most likely the reason why you have not found anything. They are keeping things tight until you go back," Salimoon rolled her eyes then tossed the now empty coffee cup in the pile in the back seat.
"Besides you said it yourself. You noticed inconsistencies in the reports because security has been loose. What if the normal ABW Agents that are in this city, are keeping this quiet? Then there is the fact that things might just be normal vanishings, getting drunk and injured or drugged and taken to another country by a completely different gaggle of thieves. It's just something to think about," Sali shook her body as if a jolt had just gone through it and smiled at the instant effects of the coffee. Maybe it was all in her head but it felt like she was more than alive at the moment, which could have been the multiple shots of espresso working on her young mind and overactive body.
"I'll look into it," Audrea wrote a note in her little book.
"I wouldn't, not unless you have serious backup. That's how people get disappeared or killed in action," Sali warned.
"Trust me. The latter happened to me," Sali frowned.
"What do you mean you were killed in action, you are very much alive and not in service since you are a kid," Audrea shook her head, unable to reconcile the serious and mysterious Salimoon with the ridiculous child that spoke nonsense.
"What do you believe in Ms.Audrea? Depending on your answer, I will tell you a truth that will shake your world," Salimoon smiled.
"I'm an atheist," Audrea said.
"Huh, I was not expecting that considering the sun and cross emblem hanging from your rearview. I recently learned that it's the symbol of the Monolithic Sun church," Sali raised an eyebrow in thought.
"I think it's pretty but I'm not a follower of the Monolithic Sun Church."
"Great, then how about this," Sali took out a small knife from the vest that was underneath her shirt and stabbed it through her own hand faster than Audrea could process.
"What are you doing?! Are you insane! Your hand…", Audrea rushed out from her seat, popped the trunk, and left to pick up a rolled up package full of medical supplies.
"Why do you even have a knife? What child has a knife that size? How did you hide it under your clothes? No, what would you do that," She unrolled it on her seat and quickly grabbed Sali's hand. She was about to disinfect the wound with a bottle of alcohol and wrap it with gauze when she paused.
"See that.,.", Sali raised her eyebrows suggestively as she squeezed her own hand into a fist.
"No wound. There's blood. Sorry about that. But no damage. I healed it all using my special powers," Sali wiggled her fingers.
"How did you do that? This is impossible," Audrea trembled in both fear and something else that she didn't want to admit, excitement. This was fantastical.
"I have the grand power to heal most if not all injuries at an accelerated speed. Effectively, I am immortal. The caveat is that my brain and heart need to remain intact. Otherwise I lose vital memories or die if both are destroyed at once," Sali remembered some pieces of information regarding the upper limits of her abilities. Jack's version of the champion lost the game due to dying after losing both his heart and head at the same time. She wanted nothing to do with that.
"How? I mean, that makes no sense. Are you an experiment or something? Or…", Audrea paused then covered her mouth as she looked at the cross symbol that was within a sun emblem.