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The Warehouse; Early Morning
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"Welcome to Casa O'Connor," I say flatly, while rolling my shoulders as I exit the Hauler's cab carrying a bunch of cleaning supplies and broom, along with a squeegee.
"Might need a tetanus shot before we're done, but she's ours." I continue to make jokes and even with my efforts yesterday the warehouse still smells of disuse but then again it probably hasn't actively seen use since the '90s.
Letty walks over and kicks open one of the side doors and props it open with a cinderblock.
Pilot-One, rolls up the main truck bay door with a low mechanical hum.
"Hold off on pulling in Pilot-One, I want to sweep, bleach and spray this floor clean before parking you in here."
"Dibs on the office with the window!" Letty calls out as she walks the inside perimeter of the warehouse like a wolf patrolling it's territory.
"You mean the window that's all cracked and needs to be replaced?" Mia scoffs back questioningly, as she drags a large industrial sized broom from the Hauler's storage compartment.
Letty shrugs. "Still a window, Sis…don't be salty just cause I called dibs!"
I chuckle and shake my head at the two of them. Mia's a little pouty this morning from a hangover and having to rub one out last night while Letty got a nice fat load in her snatch.
"So have you two thought anymore about the Mirakuru? I know we didn't really get to go in depth about it with snoring beauty in the Hauler…" I ask the two as Mia puts on gloves and a face mask, and begins sweeping years of dirt, rat droppings and whatever else into large piles like a pissed-off housewife.
Letty begins filling a bucket with distilled water and mixes in sulphuric acid making a diluted solution to clean the floors with.
While I dangerously start free climbing up probably 48ft in the air to crack open some of the high windows, they each resist being opened at first so I put a little bit of effort in which makes them open with a loud sharp creaking sound, sunlight spills across the floor, showing just how much grime I've gotta scrape off of them…not to mention the skylight which I'll probably do away with an reinforce with some plates of steel.
"Brian I know you're Spider-Man now, but I really don't feel comfortable with you climbing up there like that without a safety harness on." Letty hollers up to me and I'm surprised that it's Momma Letty expressing concern instead of Mia but when I look over in Mia's direction she's glaring at me in disapproval.
"You know Brian I appreciate your friend giving us this place…but this place is gonna take some love…" Mia mutters, while reaching up and wiping sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand and forearm.
"Good thing I've got two extremely beautiful and big hearted women with tons and tons of love to give…and a questionable work ethic, between the three of us." I tease playfully, at that Mia looks like she wants to throw a dustpan at me.
The three of us work together but also separately I scrape and wash the windows clean, even the very unsafe skylights that I hate, definitely want to secure this place faraday cage, with a hard wired tether to the outside world for the net that we'll run through the Hauler and it's secure data uplink.
Letty is currently making a makeshift patch on a leaking water pipe in the left most corner on the second floor cat walk, as she hums along to Bring me to life by Everdence.
Mia has the exposed metal clean and shiny again and is going over it with rust prevention rattle cans that are matte black, the cement floors are sparkling clean, almost as if she's polished them on top of scrubbing them clean.
By the time I finish doing my Spiderman impression the place is sparkling clean and smelling like both pine and lemons.
"I think I'll take that miracle drug you made Brian…" Mia finally says but it's followed up by her rubbing her lower abdomen longingly, I turn to Letty and notice her hand hovering in the same spot as well a indecipherable expression on her face.
"We'll still be able to have babies right?" Letty asks me softly.
"Of course, we will…I'll pump you full for days straight if that's what it takes or I'll figure out a cure or a fertility booster…we'll have a massive family…even without you two wanting me to hookup with whoever I find hot." I reassure Letty and Mia while wrapping my arms around their waists and pulling them close to me.
"Brian…" both exclaim in exasperation but the smiles on their faces tell me they are anything but.
"So did you guys make a list of things we need besides furniture and the usual household stuff?" I ask and both Mia and Letty nod their heads.
"I'll take care of that!" Sophia cheers exuberantly as she comes up behind us of course I heard her moving around and inspecting the place while Mia, Letty and I had our little talk.
"Cuz you don't have to…" Letty starts to say but is cut off.
"Yes I do Leticia, you three are wanted people…besides let me apologize to you too for making a move without permission from both of you by doing this." Sophia continues and I can feel Mia rolling her eyes.
"Fine…just don't go crazy, between the three of us we only managed to walk away from L.A. with a million and some change." Letty says and Sophia sticks up her nose like a million dollars is chump change but me I'm looking between Letty and Mia with a gaping mouth and a stunned expression.
Mia smirks at me, "Letty and I made sure to bring our cuts from the heists, and you still have all the money from our very last heist so we have two million plus between the three of us…" I arch my eyebrow questioningly. "We just thought it would be a good idea in case something went down…" Mia explains to me after I pinch her waist lightly.
"It was a good idea...but I gave those duffles to Dom... they're probably in his Charger that's hopefully still in the barn behind your house."
"Oh...shoot, could have really used it to buy stuff for you to make Night-Night guns and bullets." Mia curses softly.
"You're a gunsmith Brian? That is unexpected...tell me what you need and I'll get it."
"You got a paper and pen? It's easier to write it down than to." Sophia cuts me off with a charming smile and a pen and paper pad being shoved into my chest.
"Si, SI."
"Madre mía, Tetrodotoxin! You are trouble Brian..." Sophia murmurs but there's a hungry look in her eyes as she says it.
After taking mine, Mia and Letty's lists plus writing out her own that had some over laps with ours but many things we missed or just didn't consider Sophia left in her Porsche with a promise to return tonight with everything.
"Okay I have to ask, is your cousin a cartel boss or something? Cause the way she talked about money and my grocery list well normal people…don't."
Letty laughs softly, and explains Sophia to me a little bit. "I guess you could look at it that way, Sophia is in the fashion world and is kinda a big import/export magnet in South America and has a bit of a foothold in the US mostly here in Florida."
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Down Town Miami; Dmitri's front ~~ — — — — — — — — — — ~~
We pull up in the Supra. The signage reads "Caribbean Global Travel & Cruise Planning" in fading golden lettering.
'This place is obviously an intelligence agency front.' I think as the three of us get out of the car.
"Follow in behind me keep the Night-Night guns within close reach…I don't like the feel of this place." I murmur softly to the girls as we crowd around each other on the sidewalk.
"We got your back Brian." Letty says firmly and Mia nods to me.
I walk forward and pull open the door and enter inside, the inside of this front is cool and dimly lit.
Ceiling fans whirring overhead, a few brochure holders hold brochures for cruise lines that went bankrupt a decade ago…behind that counter?
A man who looks military with a buzz cut and a tan linen suit, late 40s, lean, scar near his temple…eyes like a vulture…with a thousand yard stare I can tell he's sizing us up for potential body bags.
"Mr.Nobody sent us." I say to him and he nods while looking down at a computer screen terminal.
"Excuse me I have to step out…for a moment but you're being left in capable hands." He says and his voice carries a faintly Russian accent…the trained kind, not the native kind.
The kind picked up in forward operations overseas, my experience as Ward tells me the man steps through a door that hisses shut behind him, like a bank vault sealing shut.
Then one of the brochure-stands makes a low mechanical hum like small motors coming to life, splits in the middle and retracts into the floor, revealing an elevator.
'Yeah, that tracks…with this world.'
The three of us share a look, Letty's already pulling her Night-Night gun free from its holster but keeping it low and casual. Mia reaches for hers as well.
A voice soft, calm, and strangely familiar not only from the movies Kurt Russel acted in…but hazy memories floats out hidden speakers.
"Relax, kids. You're in the right place…elevator's waiting."
Letty mutters, "That voice sounds way too pleased with itself."
We step inside. The elevator lowers smoothly for longer than it should for a building this small, until it opens into a room built like a panic shelter. No windows, concrete walls lined with equipment, printers, scanners, lamination machines, embossers… there's a faint chemical tang in the air ink and…bleach.
Letty whistles low under her breath.
"Damn. This ain't no fake ID mill…this is Langley-level shit."
Mia's eyes narrow as she takes it all in, noting the silent cameras mounted in the corners, the pressure-sealed doors, the climate controls. "This place is built like it expects to be bombed."
"I think it was probably built to be a bomb shelter originally." I mutter as I step out of the elevator, tension knotting low in my gut.
Something about the space makes my skin crawl not from fear, not from danger…but from the implication that we're already on Mr.Nobody's radar.
Across the room, a man turns from a workstation…gray suit, gray hair, lean frame like someone who used to be military and never really stopped.
Sunglasses perched neatly in his shirt pocket…but his whole outfit is way too expensive for any military man.
'Mr. Nobody.' He looks at us like he knows us…no me, he only looks at Letty and Mia like he's read their files and knowing him he probably has.
'What is with this level of familiarity?!' I wonder as this whole interaction puts me off and just underneath the surface of my thoughts there's something trying to make itself known.
"Brian," he says, voice level, and I can tell he's making an effort to make his voice sound controlled, though there's a warmth to it…but with a strange, neutral cadence that makes it impossible to tell what he's actually feeling.
"Mr. Nobody." I say once it's not a question…or a greeting it's a statement.
He smiles at me before giving Letty and Mia a glance, completely unconcerned about them being armed.
"Please tell your traveling companions to put their guns away, they aren't necessary." He smiles and there's a flicker of something in his eyes.
'Is that pride? Why would he feel proud?' I wonder and again something buried deep in my mind tries to push to the surface.
I shrug, casually. "I don't think I will…what does a black ops intelligence agency want with us?"
The annoying prick just smiles and motions toward a steel table near the back with three chairs and three small boxes. "Everything you each need are inside those boxes, Clean IDs, Socials, Backdated DMV records, Credit history good enough to fool the IRS."
"New names?" Letty asks.
He nods and Letty smirks at that.
Mia picks up her box first, flipping through the contents. Passport. State ID. Bank card. Everything branded and boxed like a startup kit for new lives…looking at her documents I can tell that they aren't forgeries, these are real government issues.
I pick my box up last and hold it in my hands…I don't open it, not yet.
Because…my hands are shaking.
Not visibly, not enough for Mia or Letty to notice. But deep down, I'm rattled. And it's not just the ID's.
It's him…Mr. Nobody, he's watching me too closely…not like a handler, trying to turn an asset not like a threat he's trying to assess but…
Memories rise to the surface, memories of a younger man with dark curly hair asking me if I liked the cereal…he poured for me while I sat in a high chair and threw it at him. And again the same man but older from CPS who came when my mom OD'd and asked me how I got the scar on the underside of my chin.
I glance at his eyes…at my eyes sure they aren't as bright as mine but they were once my throat tightens, I feel both rage surge throughout me and the urge to cry.
I clear my throat and look away from him, and look behind him at the wall. "So what's the catch?"
"No catch…other than you three stay quiet, and you don't burn these names and don't ever come back to this address."
He pauses. "And Brian?"
I look back at him.
He doesn't smile…but something…haunted flickers in his eyes.
"Be better to them than your father was to you."
The air stills for a beat too long.
Letty shifts beside me. Mia reaches for my hand, instinctively.
"I will," I say and I'm not too sure why those words come out so fast, but I just feel like I have to get out of here.
Mr. Nobody turns back to the console, doesn't say another word…doesn't look back…and neither do I. I drag the girls to the elevator and I feel myself breaking down.
We're outside. I get into the back seat and shut down completely.