❝cause i'm a ride or die
whether you fail or fly❞
The slightly chilly calm of the late September evening was disturbed by the arrival of a rumbling vehicle in the premises of an abandoned neighborhood. The loud music blasting from the speakers was cut off in the middle as the engine turned off and two guys got out of the car while the third stayed put in the passenger's seat, eyeing the area with a critical glint.
“So… this is where you usually get the stuff?” asked the guy wearing a black baseball cap, his raven black curls peeking from the sides.
“Yeah, you can't exchange these things in front of prying eyes now, can you?” The guy standing beside him scoffed at the end of his response and the former exchanged a look with the one still sitting inside the vehicle.
Giving a tug to the brim of his cap, he beamed at him. “Of course! Silly me. It's my first time, as you know… ”
The guy waved him off with the shake of his hand. “I'm aware. Now stop talking. They'll be here any moment now. You remember what I told you?”
The raven haired guy nodded enthusiastically in return and said, “Yep! Keep my mouth shut and just observe how you handle the deal.”
“Good. Now start acting on it.”
“On what?”
“On being a mute.” was the guy's harsh response before he straightened up. The raven haired guy's forest green eyes darted towards the end of the street from where a lone figure was making their way towards them and he lightly tapped the car's window, alerting the guy sitting on the passenger's seat.
He watched as the figure stopped a few steps away from them and Arslan— the guy who had not-so-nicely told him to act like a mute— walked over to him before they both shook hands.
“Who's this?” enquired the guy who had approached them in all black attire and Arslan tossed him a casual smile.
“He's my new buddy— wants to share my experience of getting high on the good stuff.”
The statement was followed by crude chuckles from both men while the guy in question shoved his hands in his jeans' pockets and slowly started to step towards them. Arslan's shoulders tensed and he gave him a hard stare, wordlessly telling him to stay put and do what they had agreed on.
The raven haired guy ignored him completely and stopped beside him before extending a hand to shake.
“Zain Hameed at your service,” Arslan's eyes widened at his words because he clearly remembered that his new classmate's name was Zohaib, not Zain. “I would appreciate it if you return my handshake so that it's easy for me to put handcuffs on you.”
This time Arslan's jaw dropped open in shock while Zain heard a collective round of sighs in his comms from his teammates.
“You were not supposed to say that, you pathetic gadhay.” Hamza growled at him through the earpiece just as the man who had come here to sell drugs to Arslan broke into a sprint in the direction he came from and a smirk slipped onto Zain's face.
“Now where's the fun in that?”
He responded cheekily prior to running after him, leaving a shaking Arslan behind. He immediately turned around to get back in his car and flee from the scene but was forced to stop short in his tracks when he came face to face with his other classmate— the one who had come with Zohaib or Zain or whatever his name was— and felt his eyes go round.
“Feroze…?” he mumbled shakingly and earned a sarcastic look from the said man.
“Sorry, bud. It's actually Sahad.”
And he followed his words with a slick knifehand to the side of Arslan's head, making him fall unconscious to the ground in a matter of seconds. Brushing his silky dark copper strands out of his eyes, Sahad bent down to pat Arslan's jacket to retrieve his phone and turned it off before letting out a frustrated sigh.
Meanwhile on the other side, Zain was busy chasing the dealer with a bright smile on his face. It was obvious that he enjoyed his job a little too much for this very particular reason.
“You can't run forever you know!” he yelled at the guy.
“Neither can you!” came his response while he grabbed a random trash can on his way and threw it behind him.
Zain swiftly dodged the oncoming hindrance by moving to the side and picked up speed, a scowl making its way onto his soft features.
Enough fun, now it was time for serious business.
A drone was following the two men running on the streets from afar and the guy in its control leaned back in his car seat to say into the earpiece;
“Hamza, Umer— he's headed your way. Take the shortcut from the street on your left to catch him before he gets out of hand.”
The two agents mumbled their replies and Umer watched as Hamza took the lollipop out of his mouth and extended it to him.
“You take care of this, I'll catch this bästard.”
Umer's eyes involuntarily glowed at the treat in his hand but it shut down almost instantly when Hamza threw a warning over his shoulder while running towards the suggested street.
“Don't you dare forget that it's covered in my saliva, Umer! I want my lollipop back in one piece!”
“I have manners!” Umer countered back with a glare at his retreating self.
“Not when it comes to food.” spoke a voice from his comms and his glare intensified.
“Shut up, Faris!”
Sahad, who was hearing their bickering over the comms, let out another sigh of irritation as he finished buckling up Arslan's unconscious body in the backseat. His teammates were a bunch of loons, and while he enjoyed their company almost every other time, he got agitated whenever they kept up their lunacy during field missions.
Zain avoided his third obstacle in the form of a palm sized rock by ducking his head in time but his baseball cap still got knocked off from his head, leaving his raven black hair in a disarray atop his head which caused his mood to worsen ten times.
“It was my favourite cap, you piece of shït!” he shouted behind his target and watched as he jerked to a stop all of a sudden as Hamza appeared from the street on their right.
The man did not waste a second and darted towards the opposite direction, disappearing into a narrow passage between two rundown shops and the two agents shared a quick glance before following after him.
As the passage was too small to accommodate two people at the same time, Zain shoved Hamza to the side and hastily went in.
“Ullu ke pathay!” cried out Hamza angrily while Zain just cackled evilly in response.
[Son of an owl!]
It was an unspoken rule between the two of them to turn everything into a competition, no matter how small or big it was.
Hamza went after him and started muttering curses under his breath when his gray shirt caught dirt from the walls.
“Maray ga ye mery haathon.” he declared darkly and immediately caught up to Zain after getting out of the narrow street. Hamza landed a sharp slap to the nape of his neck and took advantage of his surprise to run ahead of him.
[He's getting killed by my hands.]
Zain narrowed his eyes at his back and did not waste any time in speeding up to kick his shin, making him stumble on his steps.
Faris was watching the two idiots from his drone's camera and his grey eyes went wide when he saw that their target was moving straight towards the car he was currently sitting inside. Deciding that it was no use alerting his two teammates, he simply waited for the man to reach the car and shoved open the door, successfully banging it into his chest and making him fall to the gravel.
The sound attracted Hamza and Zain's attention who were busy pushing each other out of their ways like two sixth graders and their eyes snapped up to meet Faris who was now bending down to grab the man by his collar.
“No more running, buddy.” he told the man in his grasp and kneed him in the groin when he started to struggle. Faris internally grimaced at the man's expression and said, “You brought this upon yourself.”
“You can't make me speak.” he breathed out in reply, face still scrunched up in pain. Faris smiled at him.
“Oh, don't worry. It's not my job.”
The color drained from the man's face when he saw another guy look at him over Faris' shoulder. He was wearing a deathly calm expression— as if he knew something the others did not— and he was clearly more blessed in the muscle department, considering how the shirt stretched across his chest and broad shoulders.
“I'll take it from here, Faris.” he spoke in a low tone, sending chills down his spine when his hazel green eyes landed on his face before he straightened him up from the scruff of his neck.
“It would be in your best interests to do whatever I say, alright?” he said to him. “I don't want to mess up your already pathetic face.”
A beat of silence passed before the man became a dead weight in his hold and Faris rolled his eyes.
“Now look at what you did, Waleed!” Zain tutted as he and Hamza joined them beside the car. “You scared the poor guy to oblivion. Go easy on the Hulk expression, will you?”
The look he got in return from Waleed was enough to send an army of soldiers back to their hideouts but Zain kept up his stance. Faris and Hamza, though, sneakily took some steps away from him.
“What the fück were you two doing back there?” Waleed asked as his gaze now landed on Hamza as well and the poor guy regretted coming to the mission in the first place.
Waleed Ahmed was that scary.
Fortunately for him, Zain was the one who decided to reply. “We were chasing this dumb man of course.”
Faris narrowed his eyes. “Yet I was the one who actually caught him despite being on surveillance duty.”
“You are always on surveillance duty, Faris. You should be proud of yourself for doing something important this time.” Zain stated casually and even had the nerve to pat Faris' shoulder in a congratulatory gesture.
Faris was going to throw some colorful words at him in response but Waleed cut him off.
“Cut it out!” he basically ordered and Zain hastily wound his arms behind his back. “Get back to Sahad and hand Arslan over to the police with the evidence. The rest of us are going back to the HQ, we will report to the boss once you two are back as well.”
Although Zain was the one incharge of the current mission, he did not point it out to Waleed and simply nodded his head prior to swivelling on his feet to run back to where he last left Sahad.
Faris wanted to tell him that he did not have to run all the way back to him because they could easily drive him there but decided against it and watched with a satisfactory smile as Zain disappeared around the street.
Serves him well for treating the mission as his personal playground.
He shared a knowing look with Hamza and they both chuckled to themselves in secret while Waleed tossed the man in the backseat of their car like a ragdoll.
Ouch.
Once they were all strapped to their seats and Waleed had the engine running, Hamza called out with a frown on his face.
“Are we forgetting something…?”
The answer came in the form of a heaving form plastering himself on Hamza's side of the car and he jumped in surprise at Umer's sweating face pressed to the car's window.
“Tum logon ne mujhy samajh kya rakha hai?” Umer asked through clenched teeth as he wrenched open the door and pushed himself inside.
[What have you guys taken me for?]
Waleed cleared his throat, a visible sign of guilt in his case while Faris immersed himself with checking his drone he had brought back down from the sky before they got in the car. Hamza was the only one brave enough to pass him an embarrassing smile.
“Sorry, bro… we got, uh, a bit distracted.”
“Bullshït.” Umer bit back hotly and Waleed just pressed on the accelerator to drive out of the place.
Hamza frowned at him before remembering something and asked, “Where is my lollipop?”
“I ate it.” Umer replied without a single glance in his direction and Hamza's jaw went wide before he glared at him.
“You— ”
“Hamza.” Waleed threw him a pointed look from the rearview mirror and he immediately shut up. Faris only shook his head at their antics but a small smile was playing across his lips nevertheless.
――✽――
Danish Hameed's office door burst open as his son walked into the room as if he were the owner and not him and he literally felt his remaining hair turn silver with the oncoming nerves.
He loved his son, but most of the time, he was a threat to his aging heart and mind.
“To what do I owe the pleasure of seeing your face?” he enquired sweetly.
Well, as sweetly as it goes between a son who lost zero opportunities at ruffling his feathers and a father whose face got stuck into a permanent scowl whenever he was near.
“Ah, loving as ever, old man.” Zain replied in an equally cheerful tone while taking a seat in front of his desk and reclining back in it.
“Get to the point, Zain. I don't have time for your theatrics.” Danish muttered as he closed the file in front of him and watched as his son raised a brow.
“Can I not spend some fun time with my dad?” he asked in an accusing tone and Danish let out a tired sigh.
“How is the mission going?” he questioned and Zain's smile told him that he was here to boast today.
“We caught a minion from the gang which is operating in the city.” he informed him and Danish blinked in surprise.
“That's… actually good news. I wasn't expecting it, to be honest.”
At this, Zain's face fell and he let out a scoff while crossing his arms in front of his chest.
“Of course you weren't. Because I was the one leading this time around, no? If it had been Sahad, you would not have been surprised.”
Danish avoided his eyes almost guiltily and cleared his throat. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that. It was your first time, Zain. So I thought it'd take you longer.”
“You mean two months were not enough?” Zain spoke in irritation. “Sahad and I had to blend in at the university and gain trust. I've seen you pester Sahad from time to time whenever he's leading a mission but I got zero calls from you, dad.”
He mocked the last word and Danish grimaced. He will admit it, there was a clear difference between how he treated Sahad— his best friend's son— and his own son Zain. But it was because affection came naturally in Sahad's case, considering he had no other family beside him and Zain and he was Danish's best friend's last living token of friendship.
While in Zain's case, he had to be a bit strict, for he knew he needed it or otherwise he would become an irresponsible personality like his younger self and Danish did not want that.
Why do sons usually take after their fathers?
“I didn't call you, not because I didn't care. That's completely not the case, Zain. It was because I wanted to let you do it on your own. I don't want you to become dependent on me.” he replied to his statements with honesty and Zain clenched his jaw.
'What if I want to become dependent on you?'
The thought crossed his mind and Zain instantly shoved it aside. Nope. He was not going there.
Zain decided to let it be and started briefing his father on everything that has happened in the course of the last two months during the operation. They were after a gang who had been selling drugs to university students for the past year and the man they had caught today was their first lead since they started working on the case. And why had they taken the case in the first place? Simple; because the police had turned a blind eye to it.
According to Danish, it had been ACUFO's second drug smuggling case in the last twenty-six years of the agency's existence. ACUFO— Agency Classified for Undercover Field Operations— was a private crime investigation department run initially by Danish Hameed and later had gotten support from some overseas friends to change it from a small national secret hideout to a full fledged undercover organisation with advanced technology and services.
Although it was not funded by the government or the army, ACUFO's agents were still trained like any other official soldier, maybe even better. The whole idea behind running such a large scale establishment was to tackle cases which were hidden under corruption or considered "too difficult" to pursue.
And Danish Hameed had been ruling the league with an iron fist.
Once Zain was finished telling him the details, he leaned back against the leather chair and tossed his father a smile.
“I nearly beat Hamza in the chase today.”
Danish copied his smile with a shake of his head. “And how did he take it?”
“He's a sore loser.”
Danish laughed at this while Zain merely shrugged before saying; “You promised us a vacation once we got a lead on the case.”
His father gave him a long challenging stare but he did not back down. He did promise them a vacation because they had worked on three different cases in a row before getting assigned the current one. At last, Danish had to accept defeat as he threw his hands up.
“Okay, fine! Take the damn vacation. But you guys are coming back the moment that man gives us some valuable information.”
Zain beamed at him and sighed contently while crossing his arms behind his head and closing his eyes. His father rolled his eyes at his behaviour and moved over to grab the receiver from the landline.
“Which country's tickets should I book?” he asked with his fingers hovering over the buttons. Zain thought for some moments with his eyes still closed and said,
“Canada.”
Danish quirked a brow at his son's choice but did not say anything.
Canada it is, then.
――✽――
N O T E
*in a heavy desi accent*: chalo kaneda chaliye!
Assalam o alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu, mery dil ke toton! I really hope all of you are healthy, happy and well <3
I've been MIA since the past week or two because well, I wasn't feeling good (without any definite reason) and kind of just slipped out of it a bit *nervous chuckles*
So... how was the start?
Did you enjoy it?
Did I do an okay job of handling six characters at the same time?
Did you guys like the little bit of action in the start? How well was it narrated?
(honest responses appreciated to the questions above)
p.s old readers must've noticed that I changed Zain's father's name from Muhammad Hameed to Danish Hameed. I like this one better, what do you say?
Also, I made a logo for the fictional agency I've created;
My sister helped me with it so... 20% credit goes to her lmao.
I am not promising any updates anytime soon so please bear with me. But I'll try my best as always. Until then, start taking lessons from agent Perry to join the gang of six charming khotay ;)
Chapter Fun Fact: The author had written a boxing match between Zain and Hamza as the initial prologue but changed it because it didn't look good enough as the start.
Have a nice day &
Stay blessed ❤️