"You got all that, Mae?" Mel inquired from across the desk-like table in front of me.
"Yeah, yeah," I shot back as I straightened my back in my seat.
Even though I had actually no recollection of whatever she just explained to me.
"Okay, good. So, now," Katie jumped in, wheeling her own spinning chair up closer to both Mel's side and the table's edge. She next placed a well-sized stack of printed papers on the desk in front of herself. "Here's what's gonna be going down, tonight."
She took the top page from the pile, flipped it around, and pushed it across the table for me to see.
"You two," she continued, gesturing to Ace and I with her index finger at the same. "Are starting out here, first thing."
I studied the photographs taken of different angles of a moderately small, two story brick building on the paper in front of me, and then looked up at Katie once she decided to go on.
"It's where Mr. Williams' new research team is headquartered, at least, where it should be. And, once you're in there..."
She trailed off as she pulled off the next paper and slid it across the table as well.
"You'll wanna find... just any files or folders labeled with these names," she finished, momentarily.
I studied the next page and saw that it was a list of handwritten titles and nothing else. The list only went down about a third of the paper and I skimmed over the first few for a moment, which read seemingly random things, like 'Magazine subscriptions', 'NFL Scores 2006', and 'Gift ideas for Grandma Georgia'.
"I don't know why they picked those names," Katie eventually redrew my attention. "But, I assume it's to keep everyone else out of their business, or to make their research look casual, or something. Still, check what's in those files before you take them, because I could be wrong on which names were which. And, Ace," she paused and turned her gaze more toward Ace, who was sitting on my right side. "Just... don't take more than you're supposed to, okay?"
I looked over to Ace, also, as he agreed to her demands.
"Yes, Ma'am."
I gazed back at Katie, who silently looked him over a moment, and then continued.
"Anyway, just make sure you get rid of those files. You can shred them up yourselves and throw them in the dumpster, or throw them back in the car and tear them up here when you get back. But, don't try walking around with them in your hands all night because... God knows what would happen if you lost them."
Katie looked between both Ace and I as she took a breath.
"And, I don't really care how you get in or out of there, as long as you just don't break anything, or hurt anyone, or..." she continued, turning back to Ace for the rest of her statement. "Just anything stupid."
I looked back down at the table, trying to keep an oncoming laugh from actually occurring.
"Okay, so, that's your guys' first... part, or objective, or whatever you wanna call it," Katie went on.
I gazed back up at her, my smile efficiently washed away, as she basically tore the next paper in her stack away to look over.
"After that starts all of the fun!" she, surprisingly and quite a bit unexpectedly, exclaimed. She then flipped the paper she held around, slapped it on the table over the others in front of Ace and I, snatched a few more from the top of the stack beside her, and spread them out around the other one. "So, see this guy?"
I studied the multiple pictures that were printed on each page, noting that each was of a different angle and event, but that every single one had the same recurring face of a man who looked to be in his 30s or early 40s. One shot, for example, was from a New Year's Eve party and showed the man standing next to three other guys around the same age. I know it was New Year's, though, because each had on one of those cheap party hats and two of the men in the group were wearing '2016' glasses, with both the zero and the one forming the eyeholes. It didn't look like a super fun party, though, because... well, all of their faces didn't have the most ecstatic expressions.
Another photo, though, was of him and a younger blonde woman, both standing in front of that one mountain that has the U.S. presidents' faces on it... I couldn't remember what it was named, though, of course. The two seemed pretty happy, though, and you could see his dark hair, tan skin, and distinct facial features well in the lighting they were standing in.
"This is Justin Sarvey; you're going to follow him," Katie stated, now throwing a few more sheets of papers on top of the ones already thrown about. "And this is his partner tonight, David Kreel."
I looked over the new layout of pictures and saw more photos, this time of a much more pale man, around the same age as the last, with light brown hair that was nearly shaved down to his scalp. Each of his photos were even less exciting than the other's, with one of just him standing in front of a refrigerator with both a blank pose and expression and another of him sitting on a sofa, alone, in the same manner.
"Both of them work under Mr. Williams, as well, and, I believe, are going to a type of charity event tonight. Of course, though, they're not really going to be there for charity; they're going for whatever information they can get from whoever else is going, too," Katie explained. "And, I'm not even sure what information they're searching for this time, but I know they definitely wouldn't just get sent to a public event if they weren't going to gain something for their company."
Katie placed another sheet of paper in front of me, one that looked to be actually printed from Google maps, having a small street map in the middle of it with an address written over a highlighted point in the center of that.
"You'll be able to get into the event itself just fine, since it's open to the public," she continued. "As long as, Ace..." she flickered her gazed over to Ace for a moment. "That you don't have a gun."
I looked over at Ace, also, and took notice in his slight smirk.
"Well, okay, if you say so," he said.
I glanced back at Katie and watched her give her own type of smile.
"Great," she replied, turning back to the papers spread out all over the tabletop. "So... once you're there, it may be a bit difficult to actually locate these two, since there will probably be a lot of people there. But, once you find them, keep an eye on them and don't lose track of them. I don't know what all they might be doing, so I trust you..." She paused a moment, and then held out a finger to point to both Ace and I. "Both of you... to figure out what's up. And, after the event is over, try to follow them out, just for a little bit, to see if they're up to anything else tonight. Try not to be too suspicious or obvious about it, though, okay?"
Katie looked back and forth between Ace and I as I gave her a quiet nod of understanding.
"Okay, good," she eventually concluded, now gathering the mess of papers back into one pile.
"Oh, Katherine," Ace suddenly piped up. "I miss your beautiful briefings; why don't you ever do them, anymore?"
"Don't call me that," Katie scolded. "And I don't know, but it might have something to do with how you always complain when I take more than sixty seconds to actually do them."
She tapped the newly organized stack of pages on the desk a few times, and then sat them back down in the middle of the table.
"That's just one negative, though," Ace contradicted. "And it could be so easily fixed."
"Yeah, well," Katie responded, now sliding her chair backward and preparing to stand. "I don't really care to fix it."
She then completely stood, gave a sarcastic grin to Ace, and turned around to do... well, I'm not sure what, but she found something to occupy herself on the desk behind her.
"Go for it," Mel piped up, still sitting from an observant place across the table.
I looked over at her as she started to stand, also.
"Gladly," Ace replied, now swiping the papers from the center of the desk in front of us and getting up, himself.
"Okay," I felt the need to add as I followed suit to jump out of my chair.
"C'mon, 'Nesia," Ace went on, already almost to the other side of the large meeting room.
I turned to chase after him, passing by a number of other desks, both empty and cluttered alike. Once to the back of the big space, I approached a familiar enough staircase and prepared to trot up it.
"Good luck, Mae!" I heard Katie's voice yell out from behind me.
I paused a moment, gazed over at her from behind my shoulder, and smiled.
"Thanks... I'm... I'm gonna need it," I weakly shouted back.
After that, I whipped myself back around and quickly made my way up the stairs set before me. Once to the top, I stepped out and into the quiet, dark woods. I then looked toward the road straight ahead but couldn't actually see Ace anywhere around it.
Suddenly, a loud bang spoke up from behind me, making me jump, just a bit. I then shot my head toward my backside and saw that the sound was just Ace slamming the trap-like door behind me.
He flashed me a smile, and then quickly stepped past my side. I turned and watched him make his way toward the front of the forest for a moment, and then began to follow after him.
Just as we had before, we crossed the road and hurriedly approached Ace's concealed sports car. Also, much like I've done multiple times in the past, I ended up seating myself in the passenger seat and barely clicking my seatbelt securely into place before Ace took his hard hit on the gas pedal.
I sat still as he shot us backward and through a maze of tall, fat trees.
And, yeah, I was kind of biting my tongue and tightly grasping the edge of the seat the whole time.
Eventually, though, he got us turned around and on an actual road, just as he had once before. After that, he started to speed off alongside the woods.
"So, here's what's really going down tonight," Ace began. "We're going to illegally surpass a building security system to break into a highly coded research facility, steal and later destroy a collection of hidden documents, then sneak into a charity event so that we can stalk two guys for the rest of the night. How does that sound?"
I gazed over at him.
"I thought we didn't have to sneak in," I simply stated.
"Well," Ace replied, occasionally glancing back at me. "We don't, but it sounds a lot cooler when I say it like that."
I gave way to a little laugh.
"Oh, of course," I commented.
Ace laughed back, and then I turned my head back toward the road.
After a few long moments of silence, though, a random question popped into my head.
"So..." I started, slowly. "Um... How... How did you... you know, get this job?"
I looked back over at Ace as he promptly answered.
Well, kind of answered.
"Do you really wanna know?"
I studied him a moment.
"Well... yeah, I mean, I... I asked, so I—"
He quickly cut my response short.
"Okay, then," he began, and then paused for a quick second. "Well, I was only seventeen when all of my paperwork said I was eighteen," he stopped, gazed over at me, and then continued. "Remember, I said I was a foster kid?"
I took a hesitant moment to reply.
"Yeah," I, somehow, confidently managed out.
And I did actually faintly remember that.
"Okay, well," he went on to tell, twisting forward once more. "The papers were all wrong because they lost the originals way-back-when and made fake ones to cover it up. So, I ended up being kicked out of the system a year prematurely, without any job, or car, or even enough money to feed myself for more than a month. And I'm talking ramen noodles. So, believe it or not, I tried to chase after the job I had wanted since I was a little kid. And, you know what that was?"
I took a second to think of a response.
"Um... an astronaut?"
Ace chuckled a bit.
"Nah... It was an FBI agent," he said. "But, obviously, I had absolutely none of the requirements that I needed for that. So, after a short, disappointed call with the government on a pay phone... I ran into someone."
He fell quiet for an oddly long time.
"And?" I eventually inquired.
He looked over at me quickly.
"Oh, well, I got the job. This job."
I studied him another moment as he looked away.
"The guy I ran into," Ace explained. "He heard me on the phone and offered it to me. He's still my boss today, too." He paused and gazed over at me. "Kind of your boss, too, now, I guess."
"But, I," I began. "I-I don't even know him."
"Don't need to," Ace shot back. "I haven't even talked to him since last October."
I stared at him for a second.
"Oh," I mumbled. "O-kay... then... I guess."
I slowly returned my head to a forward position. Then, I noticed that we were already rolling into a metro-like area, with a number of moderately sized buildings of almost all kinds coming up on both sides of the street, a handful of them flashing neon-lit words at us as we passed them underneath the dark sky. Most of them said either open or closed, but I caught a glimpse of one that read 'The Windiest Women are Here!'
Whatever that was supposed to mean, I didn't want to know.
Actually, I kind of knew; I just didn't want to admit that I did.
"Our first stop should be here, somewhere," Ace piped up.
I looked at the buildings both on the left and the right of us as he spoke, searching for one that looked like the one I had seen in the photographs before.
Before I could study any more than three of structures around us, though, Ace jumped ahead of me and took my success away.
"Right there it is," he muttered, drastically slowing the car down as he passed a small brick building on the right-hand side.
"Oh, goodie," I whispered, surprisingly quiet enough that Ace didn't hear.
Or, at least, I don't think he heard.
Carefully, but not... cautiously, Ace turned the car onto a smaller road on the left and pulled up to the entrance of a moderately sized parking garage. He then stopped next to some robotic box thing, rolled down his window, and reached out to take an automatically dispensed ticket stub from the large machine. After that, a red and white striped, horizontal post mechanically swung forward, not too far in front of us, opening up a dirty, concrete path up ahead.
Ace instantly drove the car past the gate, even as it was still moving, which made me kind of confused as to how he didn't actually hit it, or anything. Either way, he got past the entrance and began to guide the car quickly up the big cement ramp in front of us. Once that feat was accomplished, he turned to the right and rolled past a few lines of vacant vehicles.
I should probably mention that ever since we had passed the gate to the whole parking garage, I was grabbing onto the edge of my seat, once again. I'm not exactly sure why, but I have a feeling it had something to do with how these kinds of places are always mentioned as 'hot spots' for kidnappings and... murders and things like that sort.
It could also be how the lights are always either really dim or flickering, too, because... well, that just really freaks me out.
Even more than waking up alone in an empty office building surrounded by a number of a dead bodies.
Ace suddenly whipped the car to the left and pulled into an empty, but tight, parking spot between a black SUV and a... well, another black SUV. Once he placed the vehicle completely into park and shut the engine off, I began to pry my hands off of the seat underneath me.
"Okay," Ace shot out, looking over to me.
I gazed back at him as he continued.
"Let's do this."
Immediately after that, while keeping his eyes on me, he grabbed the handle on his door and actually threw it outward.
I flinched when I heard the crunch-like sound that followed.
Ace gave a cheesy grin.
"Oops," he uttered, now shutting his door and reaching out to turn the car back on.
I then leaned forward and looked at the slight dent and traces of blue paint that had just appeared on the side of the black car beside us. I afterward glanced back at Ace and noticed that he was currently putting the car into reverse.
"You're just gonna leave it like that?" I questioned, my voice actually pretty soft for how concerned I was.
Ace looked back at me, put the stick shifter back into park, and then turned to open and search through the small, enclosed storage compartment in between our two seats. I watched him as he pulled out a red, cap-less and click-less pen and a thin stack of light-yellow sticky notes. After that, he turned forward, rested the notepad against part of the steering wheel, and used his right hand to inscribe some kind of message onto the top sheet of notepaper.
Then, he ripped the top sticky note from the rest, threw the pen and other papers down to somewhere on the floor below, turned to the left, rolled down his window, leaned out of it, and stuck the piece of paper onto the damaged SUV's passenger window. Once he leaned back in his seat, I glanced over him to read what he had wrote.
'Sorry about that'.
With a simple frowning face and downward-pointing arrow.
"Does it look better, now?" Ace asked, grabbing my attention back.
I tried not to, but I had to smile.
"Even better than a... a... an insurance provider's number," I answered.
"Yeah, sure" he replied, now returning to his task of backing the car out of the space it was in.
I let out a quiet giggle as he pulled the car back onto the path that led farther into the garage. After that, I waited for him to find another available parking spot, which ended up, this time, being one that had a Jeep on one side and a small, compact slug bug on the other. I noted the larger amount of room we had to get in and out of the car as Ace pulled into the place, parked, and shut the engine back off.
"Okay," Ace began, turning to take a swing at opening his side door once more. This time, hopefully, not as strong of a swing, though. "Now, let's do this."
I unfastened my seatbelt as I watched him open his door and step unproblematically out and into the night air, and then turned away from his direction to try to do the same. Luckily, my door came nowhere near the yellow Volkswagen beside me, although I took extra precaution by slowly opening it and avoiding extending it all the way out.
Once out of the car, I shut the door behind me, and walked around to the back of the vehicle, where Ace was already standing.
"Come on, slow poke," he said, now stepping quickly away from the car and down the path in between the rows of cars around us.
"Oh, okay," I mumbled as I began to chase after him, a routine that I was becoming pretty accustomed to by now.
Almost every light we passed on the trail was flickering, which was kind of making me tense up. I guess that was a bit of a good thing, though, because it forced me to pick up my pace and catch up to Ace's side a bit more quickly than I would have... well, even without the creepy lights, I think I still would have pushed myself to step pretty fast, so never mind about that.
Soon enough, though, we both reached a cracked glass door near one of the cement walls of the garage. Ace quickly threw the entrance open and stepped through with me, even though I was hesitant, not far behind. Once inside the new, actually very tiny area, I could see that it was a little room that was in one corner of the whole parking building. Against one wall was a dirty, silver elevator door with a ripped orange paper attached to the center of it, the words 'OUT OF ORDER' scribbled on it with sloppy handwriting. Next to the elevator was another plain metal door, with nothing surrounding it to determine its purpose, except for context clues, which, believe it or not, actually led me to believe that it was the entrance to a staircase.
I guess, though, if it didn't lead to the stairs... well, then we'd have no sensible way to get out of the building.
"Gotta love Chicago," Ace commented, looking around at the small, dirty and litter-filled area, also.
I wanted to smile, or laugh, or something, but I was still a little too creeped out to manage out either option.
After that, Ace made his way over to the unlabeled door beside the elevator and opened it, surprisingly with caution.
I looked over at him through the dimly-lit area and waited for him to say something; hopefully something that wasn't along the lines of 'oh, wait, there's a dead body down there' or 'sorry to interrupt your cult meeting, guys, but could we squeeze by really fast?'
"We're good," Ace eventually cleared, now stepping through the open doorway across the room.
I looked the passageway over for a second, and then hurriedly stepped over to it before it closed itself up again. After that, I made my way into some kind of dark place that smelled like a cat's old litter box, which is just not good. I looked ahead as I let the door shut behind me and saw a line of concrete steps going downward from the platform I stood on, a cement wall against the right side of them and a rusty, metal railing following them on the opposite side.
"You coming, 'Nesia?" Ace yelled from somewhere below where I currently stood.
"Y-Yeah," I stuttered out, now forcing my feet to move forward a little. And, once I had shuffled my way to the edge of the stairs, I took a deep breath, and then started to trot rapidly down them, turning at the next platform once I reached it to continue downward the other way.
Soon enough, I reached the bottom, which came pretty quickly, although I guess we were only descending two flights of steps. After I stepped down from the bottom stair, though, I gazed upward and saw an open doorway ahead, which actually had no door or gate or anything even attached to it.
Cautiously, I passed through it, and then noticed that Ace was walking through the large, open area in the wall ahead and on the right, which I'm pretty sure is where we drove in at, seeing how there was the same setup of robotic machine things in front of the passage. I looked it all over a second, and then hurriedly strode over to the area, not looking back into the dark eeriness of the garage before I exited the building.
Once outside, where it was actually lighter, thanks to the accompaniment of working street lights, I turned to the right and caught a glimpse of Ace approaching the street corner in front of the parking garage. I rushed my way up to him as he waited for the street traffic in front of him to slow, and then followed him across the street, once the traffic had ceased, of course.
"So, what..." I began as we started down the right-hand side of the sidewalk across the avenue. "What's the... the plan?"
"Get in, get our shit, and get out," Ace responded snappily. "Simple."
I paused for a moment.
"Okay, but... um, how, exactly, I mean?" I went on.
I gazed up sharply as Ace abruptly slowed his walk down and realized that the first place on our to do list was directly ahead, just a few feet, and on the left.
"Well," Ace started, looking the small, brick building over for a moment. "We'll just have to see."
He then stepped right in front of me, making me nearly run into him, or trip, or... I don't really know what else, and paced toward the front door of the building. I halted my own walking and watched him as he completely passed the whole frontside of the structure and turned to make his way around its far corner.
"Oh, okay," I mumbled, now beginning to sluggishly chase after him. When I passed the front entrance, though, I noted that there was a sort of note posted on the other side of its window. And, thanks to the assistance of a bright sidewalk lamp somewhere on my right, I could read that it said something along the lines of 'Hunt's Dentistry has moved to 141 Eastgate St., call 824-5690 to make an appointment today!'
After that subtle observation, I turned around the same corner of the building Ace had and started to walk down a dark, thin, and plain alleyway that was between the brick building we needed to infiltrate and whatever store or restaurant that was on the other side. I think it was a type of Mexican eatery, though, because, once I was close enough to the backside of it, I could smell the scent of refried beans coming from the air conditioner that was placed in one of the back windows.
And I could remember exactly what refried beans smelled like, because I also remembered that they were my absolute favorite chip dip. Then again, who doesn't like refried beans?
Once I was at the back corner of the brick building, I turned to the left and saw Ace standing with his hand on his hips and staring up at one of the dark windows on the upper/second floor.
I thought about saying something to him, but I backed out, mostly because it was pretty quiet around us at that moment and I didn't want... the cops to hear us, or whoever else that would have been around to stop us, for whatever reason.
Suddenly, Ace turned toward me and jogged both up to and pass my side. I twisted around to see him grab a large, hard plastic trash can from behind the Mexican restaurant and start to drag it back by me. I turned back around as he passed by me once again, and then stared at him as he pulled it up to the back wall of the building in front of us. After another short moment, Ace leaned his hands onto the lid of the can, pushed his weight onto it for a few seconds, stepped back, and then jumped up and onto the top of it in one amazingly swift move. Once he was able to stand stably atop it, he turned to face the brick wall and looked up at the window directly above him, which he realized was still about a foot or two away from his fingertips when he raised his arms.
Slowly, he lowered his hands, turned to look over at where I stood, and flashed a smile.
"This is where you come in," he said.
I studied his expression.
"It... It is?" I questioned.
"Yeah; come here," he commanded, gesturing me toward him.
I took a deep breath, and then walked over to the base of the garbage can, below him.
"I don't think I can..." I started, my voice quickly trailing off. I pulled one hand up and pointed at the trash bin as a whole. "This..."
Suddenly, though, Ace squatted down, and I glanced up at him as he reached down to snatch the wrist of the hand I was holding up by my upper abdomen.
"Foot here," he directed, his eyes flickering down as he tapped one foot on the edge of the trash can lid.
I gazed down at his foot, too, and then back up at him as he gave me a look of anticipation.
"Come on," he encouraged, almost in the same manner that you would with a dog that doesn't want to go outdoors.
I stared back at him for a few seconds, and then made the decision to raise my foot all the way to the top of the garbage bin. It was so far for my height, actually, that I had to place my opposite foot on the tip of its toes to really reach it.
Then, Ace tugged toughly on my wrist and forced the rest of my body up to a stand closely next to his.
"Wow, it almost feels like we've done this before, doesn't it?" Ace commented.
"Kind of," I began. "Not that I would remember it, or anything."
I laughed a bit at my own remark, as did Ace.
After a short second, though, I tried to turn more in a direction to face him, and abruptly allowed my back foot to slip off of the edge of the can's lid, forcing my giggles to stop short.
I let out a gasp as I began to fall backward.
Swiftly, though, Ace grabbed my left forearm and made my body practically freeze in midair.
My wide eyes looked over at his as he carefully pulled me back up to stand, just a few close inches in front of him.
"Let's not do that, tonight," he muttered, with a bit of a laugh mixed in with his words.
"Y-Yeah, okay," I softly replied as I placed my feet firmly back on the... well, I want to say, 'the ground', but I wasn't exactly standing on the ground, so we'll just call it... the platform.
I gazed straight up after a moment of getting myself into a safe position and was kind of caught off guard when I realized that Ace was literally hovering above me, his face a mere few inches away from mine.
"W-Whoa, hey there," I mumbled out, a comment on how close in proximity we currently were.
He smiled.
"Hey," he greeted back. "So, here's the deal: I can't reach the window, at least to open it, but your height plus mine, even though it doesn't add much, will get us there. You know what I'm getting at?"
I stopped to comprehend his words for a second or two.
"No..." I answered.
Although I really did know; I just thought pretending that I didn't might get me into a safer situation, or something.
"That's good," Ace stated.
Wait, what?
"W-Why?" I asked.
"Turn around," Ace directed, ignoring my inquiries. "Without falling."
"Well, that's... that's asking for a lot," I remarked. "From me, at least... so, I probably shouldn't do it."
Ace rolled his eyes at me, and then reached down to grab me by my right elbow. Soon after that, without another word, he pulled my arm forward and to the left, forcing me to spin around and stumble in place on top of the trash can lid.
"Okay, now that that's taken care of," Ace began, letting go of my arm and