Chương 76: Moves

Preparations for undercover investigations were interesting. A lot of steps similar to my time as Crunch, focused on thickening the line between the mundane life you lived and a new identity. For starters, we couldn't even use our names anymore. I had to go by Harold "Harry" Leonard, and Christian was going by Charles "Charlie" Highland. We were a pair of high school dropouts, and I'd been Charlie's muscle back in Crozet before we made our way to Charlottesville to try and find better aspirations.

I just had generic super strength, no hints about the downsides, and that we were still working out a nickname for me that fit it. We'd debate between "Bull" and "Bear." There was another idea I had, but I still hadn't fielded it with Tancred yet. Martin Dyrdek, one of our theater coaches, taught us how to improvise debates over nothing. You just have to convince yourself it's the most important shit in the world and suddenly your brain can just make up excuses for things.

Chris was still struggling with the whole lying factor, by this point. That brought us to the current debate, where the three of us plus Tancred were in the gym. Tancred and I sat on opposite sides of the room.

"You've been doing your acting classes just fine. Acting's lying, you know!" Martin explained.

"Acting is a performance to entertain people! Undercover work's lying to get people arrested," Chris retorted. I couldn't help but pipe up.

"We've been getting people arrested for weeks now. It's our job."

"And we do it honestly, by the rules. I just can't see myself as a liar like that." Tancred added his own insight.

"Kid, you know it's perfectly Christian to go undercover, right? It's how Ahab gets done in."

"Yeah, yeah, 1 Kings 20. I've never been very comfortable with that verse, either. It's not a religious defense, it just doesn't feel right to explicitly lie."

"Then what are we doing in the costumes?" I asked.

"I mean, that's different-""How? You're putting on a whole different name and appearance."

"And it's still different. We're still openly trying to follow the law and give an orderly, reasonable approach to dealing with crime and bad actors. Even if our appearances and names are different, our intent is still the same and it's openly known. We're obscuring that intent purely to deceive." That took a collective sigh from all of us.

"Look. Do you think you'd count as a liar if all you did was say a different name?" I asked.

"I mean, that's still-""Just like an alter ego. Pretend it's another one like Flowstate."

"But then how am I going to actually participate undercover?" Leaning against the wall, I shrugged.

"We'll change our approach, I guess. I was gonna be the lunkhead, but I can be the talker if we need it. We can find the guys who've likely been poisoning multiple cities with drugs and feeding people to the ADU, so I think lying through my teeth is perfectly fine."

"That's not really answering my question for what I'm doing, you're just explaining what you'll be doing." The air went silent for a moment, before Tancred spoke up.

"Finance. You cook his books. We won't actually make you do that, I can have admin work on fake documents that look like cooked books. So you're not much of a talker, but you're there because you're his lackey." The agent pointed to me.

"In the criminal ecosystem, it's pretty Darwinian. Violence is the primary currency through which all other currencies are translated. So by having a guy with super strength run the show, the violence is centralized from the leader. You're less needing for lackeys, explaining why you're less networked." His pointing finger then moved towards Chris.

"That means you can keep your mouth shut. Not a liar that way, right?" Looking back at Chris, I could see his gaze studying the foam-padded floor for any answers that might be scribbled in. This isn't a school test, Chris. The only answer's between your ears and behind your sternum.

"I... I can try, I guess." Martin Dyrdek clapped.

"Okay, this is actually an easier sort of pair to do. I was never a fan of those Laurel and Hardy-style of bickering duos. By making a more objective strong-weak dichotomy of a leader and his assistant, we can actually focus on building effectively just one personality and the others sort of stem from it. So how about-" KLK The door opened. Sam stood in the doorway, holding a pair of backpacks.

"Hey, we just finished their bags. We would've been done sooner, but I'd been waiting on word from the sleight of hand expert to give final approval." Her gaze moved towards Tancred's, avoiding eye contact with me. Wasn't surprised. We'd barely spoken in weeks, mostly just her trying to drop off food for Shivvy.

"Let me..." She put one bag down, unzipping the other.

"Looks like a normal backpack, but I made it with the same ballistic weave from your costumes so you can use it for defense purposes. I'd still slip like a couple thick books in here just in case to eat the kinetic punch. And this was the real fun part..." she trailed off, reaching inside and fiddling with the black interior. zzzzzp Tugging down a zipper I couldn't even see, blue and orange fabrics were visible on the interior.

"Hidden compartment for your costumes. Very thin lead-weave interior too, so with the carbon nanotube impurities and the crystalline structure of dragline silk, it's unlikely for X-Rays to penetrate in any way that'd reveal your costumes. Means you can still deploy while undercover. You'll need to learn to change fast, though." That was easy enough for me. Getting dressed in that costume took me less than thirty seconds now. Wondered how we were going to justifiably get them out, though.

And that actually brought in another thought.

"No one ever explained the ear-piece situation. Those are super visible on us." Sam began to stutter out the words.

"I-I, uh, we..." she was failing to converse with me. Couldn't even look at me. After another five or so attempts through multiple stammers, Tancred took over.

"Jesus, lady." He turned to me.

"Sam's produced a new low-yield model. Do you have them with you?" He asked her. After a few fumbling attempts, she procured an eyeglass case she handed over to him.

"... Could've just opened it yourself, but alright." Opening the case, he procured what looked to be a black dot on his finger. Pea-sized.

"These work a little differently. It's still bone vibration, but now they're gonna stick to your temporal bone right behind your ear. That means it'll be hidden in your hair." Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. In the corner of my eye, I could see a bit of a smirk forming on Sam's face when he described the specs. But that was all the positives. Even I could notice that it-"Sounds like there might be a catch," I pointed out, spewing my thoughts into the air.

"There is. Volume's lower, and it relies on cell networks to reach us instead of radio. If your phone's a dead zone, so's the ear-piece. If the area's all concrete walls, probably a dead zone. To save power, it turns off when not in use and only turns on when either directly touched with a bit of pressure or when its offline receiver picks up our frequency. That means there might be a second's delay from us to you." That's a lot more than one catch.

"So there's going to be situations where we're completely on our own. Are there any specific changes to ROE in that case?"

"Your ROE is overall different, undercover. You're expected to make judgment calls and avoid breaking any of the laws they're breaking when possible. They expect you to sell any crap, you 'sell' it to us. They expect you to hit a guy, find an excuse to just scare 'em. But if any of them threaten you, you have all rights to lay them out. Three warnings are postponed without the costume on. But do not forget you can still get arrested." Chris spoke up.

"What do we do if we get arrested?"

"Wendy's going to provide you with a phone number for your 'attorney.' It's her personal phone number."

"Why don't you have that already?" I brought up.

"Because she blocked me on her past eight personal phone numbers."

"... You didn't think to stop after the first blocking?" Martin mumbled out.

"Oh no, she called me on them to tell me she was blocking me on the number in advance. Every time. Only reason she hasn't done it for the ninth yet is she always makes that call on my birthday."

"Oh, my." he blurted out.

"Right. You guys provide her number, their back-office ends up calling her, and she'll clarify that she personally will handle your cases. You get released and go back to work. AG's already signed off for state-level. We got him in-person for that just to make sure documents don't get intercepted." Neither of us contested that. Sam took the opportunity of this conversation to try and sink into the wall, which she was failing at pretty hard.

"So we haven't really gone over approach yet, either. What exactly are we going to be doing in there? By default I'm going to be trying to look into the drug ring, but I imagine you want a different set of steps."

"Wow, you've actually figured out I'm the one who decides your operations for once! Congrats, Leo!" Tancred snarked with a meek applause.

"Yeah, the drugs are important, but we want their structure. Your goal is to impress them to the point you get as close to the upper brass level. If you can even hit whoever might be dealing with the ADU or the local government, that's the real jackpot."

"But we know the connection with the government. The governor's son."

"No, we suspect the governor's son is the connection. We don't know if he was key for that. For all we know he came in afterwards because he wanted in on the corruption. You'll be finding that out too." My phone vibrated in that moment. Digging it out, I tried to look for the notification, which probably took far too long for any person my age. It was from Facebook. From Bobby Bassignon.

"He's replied." Tancred perked up.

"Open it, let's see the news." Flicking to the message, I read the message aloud as I read it. Bobby Bassignon Hello, Harry. I'm a fan of the Sox as well. But I'm not sure how you knew I was fan. Your account's brand new, and I asked some of my friends and they didn't seem to know you either. I'm not saying I wouldn't be interested in buying those tickets from you and your friend off of you. But I want to get to know you first. It's only fair. At the Downtown Mall is a restaurant called The Fairy Ring.

Has a big mushroom sign on it. I want you to stop by there with your friend and have a dinner with me. We'll get to know each other, talk about the Sox a little. Do it tonight. Eight o'clock sharp. You can't be more than five minutes early or late. Thanks, Big Balls -Sent from my iPhone Tancred hummed.

"Seems about right. Criminals are innately paranoid. I'd do the same in his position." His gaze faced towards a wall, his fingers stroking along his mustache. That was new to me. I didn't remember the last time I saw him think about anything like that. Usually he hit his conclusions instantly, like he was expecting them to come. What exactly got him so pensive? After a few seconds, he nodded.

"Okay. You're test-running your personalities tonight. This is your do-or-die. If you can get yourself into the Virginia HenchNet, we move forward with undercover. If you don't, it's fucked. You'd have to make your first impression at some point or another. This is the right course of action." Chris and I nodded. We went over personality development with Martin for a bit longer before being sent off to our rooms to get ready. Was annoyed, I wanted to field my idea with Tancred.

Mostly just because I was getting tired of withholding information about Shivvy. For a while, it was amusing to leave Tancred in the dark about it, but Shivvy was too goddamn frustrating to manage largely by myself. Sam said she'd study him, but given I'm not keen on burying the hatchet over her sticking a tazer to my fucking neck, it's clear she's not willing to un-burn the bridge yet. That'd be fine by me if this fucking hunk of slime weren't driving me up the wall.

He ate constantly, and I still couldn't figure out proper communication with him. I knew he could hear. I could get a couple tricks out of him like I was training a dog, like I could make him stretch out when I said "Long" or compact himself into a ball when I said "Small." Frankly, at this point, I was just gonna bring him with me. It seemed high risk, but it was marketable. Just super strength might not work. If they had access to Wyrdwood, super strength might not be valuable.

Having one of their former members' living metal weapon back with them might be. Depended on if that guy was in the HenchNet, though. Getting him into my jacket pockets was surprisingly something he was always interested in. I had no reason to think he disliked me at this point, but he was clearly high-strung somehow. I couldn't get him to stay calm unless he was full and sleeping. With ourselves all dressed up appropriately, it was time to move. Chris' undercover appearance was a bit modified.

He used a pair of fake-lensed glasses and tied his hair up. Even tied up, it was still absolutely everywhere. Meant he had a pretty easy time sneaking on his new ear-piece. My hair wasn't long enough to need to tie it off, but I was considering getting it cut. Couldn't do that now, though, given I needed it to hide my own. As we were walking to the restaurant, I decided to make the reveal to him.

"Hey. Just letting you know I've got something I haven't told Tancred about. You can't tell him yet."

"... What do you have? Don't tell me it's a gun-""It's not a gun," I interrupted. Digging into my jacket's pocket, I slipped Shivvy out, letting him coil up and around my arm.

"... What on Earth?"

"Not from Earth, apparently. This guy used to be part of the drug ring in Richmond. Was a weapon used by a guy I threw out a window. He escaped into the sewers, and some degenerates found him. Tried to extort an old man by leaving it in his toilet tank. Name's Shivvy. I found him, yanked him out, and I'd been feeding him canned clams for about a month now."

"Why'd you bring him!? We don't need unpredictable factors here!"

"Because if I just have super strength, I'm not marketable. Alien weapons might catch the attention of the drug ring. I'm just letting you know in case it has to come out." Chris pinched the bridge of his nose.

"And you did it when you knew I couldn't make you go back and put him away."

"Sorry to twist your arm like that. Haven't had a chance to talk to Tancred about it yet. Need to prove Shivvy's worth before that anyway."

"He's going to kill you."

"He's kind of stopped doing that now that he knows I feed him."

"I meant Tancred."

"Honestly, I'm hoping he'll be too amused by the ballsy move." Chris sighed, though the sigh slowly morphed into a chuckle.

"You know, I don't think you'd be making these kinds of moves if it was the same you that got recruited. I think you've changed a lot more than you let on." I shook my head, leading Shivvy back into my pocket.

"Not here for the sappy talk." With that, we made our way to the Fairy Ring, and right into the belly of the beast.