Soldiers [Detective Conan] [Crow series 1/2]

beautiful!

On the 28th of July 2010, terrible monsoon rains coincide with mismanagement of crew resources and a generally toxic workplace environment, leading to the deadliest air accident in Pakistani history. This happens at approximately 9:45 local time, which is 4:45 GMT, 13:45 JST, and forty-five minutes past midnight on the United States East Coast.

This coincides, but does not correlate, with our story.

-x-

28 July, 2010
New York City, N.Y., USA

They haven't forgotten about her birthday by the time Marnier gets back from lunch.

She supposes it could've been worse. Lou had clearly reminded Sangria about how she gets overwhelmed when there's a lot of attention on her, because San is weirdly nice and gentle. But it's better than the alternative of being bombarded by questions (like, "why did you never tell me your birthday?" and "is your real name actually Jenny?" and "is there a tragic backstory to why you don't celebrate your birthday?") so she accepts it.

(The truthful answers to questions no-one asked, in order: "Because it doesn't matter that much to me, but also..." and "...which part of us being part of a secretive criminal syndicate that hides our true identities isn't clicking?" and "Not sure what you mean by tragic, but no, not really.")

Anyway, it means that the three of them end up working together to organise a proper birthday event – an elaborate bar crawl consisting of three venues (one suggested by each). Flowcharts and spreadsheets are involved, every civilian friend-of-a-friend is accounted for, and it's almost fun.

The fact they get any actual work done that afternoon – let alone, finish several projects between the three of them – is a miracle.

Still, hours (and a nap, a shower, trimmed and black-painted nails, and so much black eyeliner and lipstick she feels like a goth twink again) later, Janvier Magritte is leaning out of her Bronx sixth-floor bedroom window overlooking the narrow strip of green that is Muskrat Cove and grumpily lighting her second cigarette with her copy of Seeing Like A State abandoned on the bed.

She knows she'll enjoy the birthday stuff in the moment, and she'll be happy afterwards. But right now, fifteen minutes before the taxi is supposed to pick her up, Jen dreads everything.

The crowds, the socialising, the leaving-her-hair-open, the wearing-a-dress-in-public, the drunken flirting with any given stranger...

Some thirty fucking years old I am. What a wreck. Can't finish Layth's damn book, can't even keep myself together enough to quit smoking...

Some nearby neighbour has been lighting up a forest out there, and the dense fragrance rises into the warm early evening air. Another is trying to still their crying baby. Another pair are screaming what appears to be a marital dispute in Cuban Spanish. Another seems to be watching some kind of international news channel, so loud she can just about hear a calm-serious British accent reporting on the heavy monsoon rains in Pakistan.

Is that BBC World Service? Which Mensa applicant listens to that up here in the Bronx?

Half-distracted, she scrolls through a gaming subreddit on her phone. The Mantendo Games Conference has just finished in Japan, so there should be plenty of news and hot takes.

Maybe StarCraft II will finally stop delaying its full release so she can stop playing in the beta version alone? Maybe there'll be a new release from Suguru Itakura after his years of working in Hollywood? Maybe that strange out-of-place character in last year's unannounced Blood Souls release will finally get her game?

Jen's eyes wander to the sewing mannequin in the corner of her room. The dark feathery costume looms there, a grim reminder of her desperate need to sink her money into frivolous things now that her surgeries are done.

'Frivolous'? Fucking hell Jen, you make enough money now. You're allowed to have expensive hobbies.

She grinds her teeth around the cigarette and looks back at her screen. She blames her spiralling thoughts on the growing headache, for which in turn she blames the contact lenses she put on for tonight.

I'll be better once I'm not alone...

        'Leaks for third 'BioShock' instalment...'

Oooh, hello. Something that's not a DLC?

          '...codenamed 'Project Icarus', developers cited inspiration in Erik Larson's book 'The Devil in the White City' (2003). Sources indicate that the release date might be pushed back, despite official statements slating for a 2011 release...'

Jen frowns and opens a new tab on Safari to look the book up. Curiously, she discovers that this is apparently a historical non-fiction book about the 1893 World's Colombian Exposition.

So it's pre-Rapture? Interesting...

A still-glowing ember drops from her cigarette and she slaps it off her dress with a grimace.

Right, calling it here.

Jen stubs out the cigarette in her windowsill ashtray (it's an ugly novelty thing, looking like a Zerg Spawning Pool) and shuts the window and finds the air freshener. Knowing the landlord, he'll somehow find a way to blame the neighbour's weed on them, too – but at least that smell overpowers her own cigarette.

Her phone timer goes off to tell her the taxi will be here in two minutes.

Jen grabs her jacket (pockets full of wallet, phones, keys, tobacco, filters, papers, kohl eyeliner) and heads out.

The drive to the restaurant she's supposed to meet San and Lou at takes just a little too long for Jen not to start an absolutely unhinged (and well worth the 35% tip) conversation with the driver.

She leaves the Hyundai giggling so hysterically that she doesn't even notice people watching her until there's a wolf-whistle.

Jen whirls around, painfully aware of her fishnets-

"Damn, Jenny," San waves at her from the restaurant entrance, "You clean up nice."

"Shut up Matty," Marnier strides up to where he and Kahlua have been waiting and shoves him playfully. "So do you."

Kahlua sighs. "Guys – no real names tonight, remember?"

"Easy for you to say, Mystery Man," San sniffs. "Besides, it's just the three of us right now."

Kahlua opens his mouth – then he spots something beyond Marnier, and his resting tired-face clears up into a bright smile: "Alex! Over here."

"Nando!" a tall blonde extremely well-dressed man jogs up to join them.

Marnier catches San mouthing 'Nando?' to her, and she shrugs and shakes her head. Neither of them know Kahlua's real name, or if Nando (probably short for Fernando?) is in any way related.

Alex (Alexander Calabro in full) and Lou started dating shortly after Jen started working at the Wallstreet office, and for her life Jen cannot figure out what brought them together. Where Lou has a premature dad bod, Alex visibly maintains a steady gym routine. Where Lou is disinterested in politics to the point of hostility, Alex works at the UN headquarters in Manhattan.

"Olive!" he grins at her, "Happy birthday!"

"Ha, thanks," Olivia Derringer fiddles with the zipper of her bomber jacket. It's the big black one she wears for work purposes, but it's got the best pockets.

"I should be the one thanking you," he then leans in, to stage-whisper: "Whatever themed night you three've got going on, it's got Nando actually dressing nicely for once."

"Ey," Kahlua tuts. "People look nice when they're comfortable, right?"

Alex looks at his fiancé with the most adoring pity, and says, "My beloved, you wear a Christmas sweater in 100-degree heat."

San bursts into laughter.

Olivia also chuckles, but awkwardly. After all, there is a theme tonight: it's ingredients to their codenames. The skirt of Grand Marnier's dress is covered in a print of citrus fruits, leaves, and peels – Kahlua's tie and the inner lining of his dress jacket are made of a silk printed with a coffee bean pattern – Sangria's crisply pressed shirt is printed with various fruits.

"And – I don't think we've met?" Alex turns to smile winningly at San.

"I'd remember meeting someone handsome like you," San winks, "I'm Sanji Vinsmoke, I work with these dorks."

Janvier has to cough loudly to hide her laugh.

"Haha, nice to meet you-" Alex cuts off to look at Jen in alarm, "Everything alright?"

"Y-yup," she wheezes, desperately searching for an excuse, "Just – reminder, Sanj, please don't hit on people in front of their fiancés."

"Oh," San looks between Lou and Alex, and then smiles winningly: "Hey, it's all in good fun, right?"

"I'll say if it's not," Kahlua shrugs. "Can we go inside?"

"Uh – yeah," Jen nods, "My flatmates did the booking so they're early-"

San finishes: "And my crew are always scattered anyway, so they'll find us along the way."

"Alright!" Alex perks up and puts his arm around Lou's shoulder, "Let's head in then! I'm excited, I haven't eaten here before and I've eaten just about everywhere in Manhattan..."

As they proceed to head in, Jen trails behind and grabs Sangria by the shoulder and hisses: "You asshole."

"What?" he looks up at her, baffled.

"Sanji Vinsmoke? That's literally the full first and last name of an anime character."

"How dare you! I am not a filthy otak-!"

"Cut the bullshit, weeb," she lightly pokes him behind the armpit, and he squeals a laugh.

"Heh-hey!" his giggles intermingle with mild squeaks of pain, "Aha-hey – that's my binder – ow! Cut it out!"

"Oof," Jen withdraws her hand with a pitying grimace, "Sorry."

Then, she tickles him behind the ear instead, and he starts wriggling away, half-laughing again: "Ack! Hee-heh- Ah! Aren't you supposed to be the mature one?! Ah-hah-god-fuck-!"

"It's my birthday, of course I get to be immature," she announces, ruffling his once-styled hair one last time before shoving both her hands in her pockets.

"Wah! You're so tall and mean," San whines, rubbing behind his ear, "Exploiting your friends' weaknesses."

"Only when they say utterly outrageous and easily disproven things."

"Outrageous?" he squints suspiciously at her, "I thought we all agreed on using fake names?"

"Of course we did. But the idea was--..."

"And now that I think about it, didn't the Sanji-from-One-Piece thing come about because you once called me San in front of my friends? So it's not even my fault?"

"That's true, but – you can't just drop Sanji Vinsmoke on me without warning!"

He grins mischievously. "Consider it revenge for the birthday thing, Miss GM."

"You..." she sighs, and then laughs faintly, shaking her head. "You ass."

"Glad we've established that. Can we go in now?"

"Yeah, yeah."

So, they head in.

-x-

[sent: 29/7/10
00:01 GMT]

To the concerned Crows,

We regret to inform you that your superior officer, agent 'Tequila', has been confirmed dead as of 28/7/2010, 10:00 GMT. Please do not be alarmed, as there are resources and features in place in case of such an eventuality.

Our human resources team is working tirelessly on the redistribution of your valued workforce. Please stand by for further information and instructions.

We apologise for any disruption this may cause.

Regards.

[received: 28/7/10
20:01 EDT]

-x-

"Every time you name yourself, you name someone else."

– Berthold Brecht, allegedly.

I am sure that it has already become very clear to the dear reader that this chapter's protagonist will be using a lot of different names in this story. Many of our protagonists will, for that matter. I will generally endeavour to use the names or masks that the character is presently identifying with. This is done for ease of reading.

(For instance, a certain high school detective from Japan may go by a chosen name in order to hide his truth, even as he seems so dedicated to uncovering all other truths.)

The key exception here is that a lot of this story's narratives, whilst from a third-person perspective, will often take the position or point of view of a character. As such, this character's perspective will paint onto the world.

(Aforementioned high school detective may not call a certain young scientist by her birth name despite knowing it, because he is more familiar and comfortable with her as a person who is his apparent age.)

All this to say: this chapter's protagonist will (for now) simply be called 'Jen' by the narrative.

-x-

28 July, 2010
New York City, N.Y., USA

Dinner is a generous word for it, because it's mostly just establishing a solid carb-heavy stomach lining for a long night of alcohol and drug consumption. But the Arabic restaurant is more upmarket than a standard pregame meal, and everyone present is dressed far more interesting too.

"Y'know," Jen comments through her mouthful of shawarma, "In Belgium, they called this 'fondke'."

"Oh yeah?" Sangria grins, lifting up his second wrap, "In America, we call this a dirty kebab."

("United States," Kahlua mutters.)

"Hey!" Neha perks up, "We call it that in the UK too!"

"Funny, that," Lance smirks.

After graduating from university and a series of very mixed living arrangements, Jen moved to New York with two of her previous flatmates. One of these was her college boyfriend, a Gulf Arab art school dropout called Ibrahim, and the other was the British-Pakistani experimental jazz musician Nehal. Of course Jen and Ibrahim broke up soon after, leaving the two girls in the lurch. Jen was very close to asking her shady criminal bosses for help when Neha found Lance Stellaire, a black Italian-American nursing assistant who was in the same Music School night classes as her. And so the three of them have been sharing a flat since 2002.

Presently, Sangria examines Neha with a haughty hand to his chin. "Maybe we're not so different, you and I."

"Maybe..." she sighs, smoothing out her silver pleather skirt. "Say, could you pass the chips?"

Jen and Lance exchange snickered glances. As Lance moves, his own golden pleather jacket squeaks.

"Ch... chips?" San echoes, looking around the table, "We don't have any-...?"

"You fool!" Neha cackles, standing and pointing dramatically, "Chips are your pathetic fries! I knew you'd fall for my trap, Bond!"

Jen and Lance burst out laughing at their flatmate's theatre kid antics, along with Sangria himself and the pair of San's friends that've already arrived. Jen isn't very familiar with them, but they're a slender Middle Eastern man whose Arab-fuckboy vibes are undercut by some utterly flawless eye make-up, and a shorter East Asian person with long perfectly styled dark hair and a tendency to snort while laughing. Jen is pretty sure they're from those dancehall classes San keeps trying to invite her to. She has no idea why they're here.

With everyone else striking up another conversation, Alex leans over to Jen to ask: "Would that be Flemish? Fondke, I mean."

"That's right," she smiles hopefully at him, "Do you speak it? I know you studied in Brussels..."

"I'm afraid not," he half-grimaces. "I barely got to speak any Dutch, either."

"I suppose the city's gotten pretty French..." she absently nods. Alex nods eagerly, like he wants her to keep talking, and Jen grins, because what the hell does he want her to say? Her family moved away from the city when she was nine. "Uh, could someone pass the khebez?"

"Here you go," San's Middle Eastern (maybe Arabic? He understood the word 'khebez'...) friend hands over the basket of flatbread, and grins faintly, "Happy birthday."

"Haha! Thank you!" Jen forces a laugh and grabs the bread for her moutabbal and wonders what the hell his name is. Who even needs this many friends?!

"So Bas, quick quesh," the other of San's friends (wearing an honest-to-god Shrek pin on their denim vest, even over an otherwise very normal shirt-and-suspenders situation) gestures at the array of food, "How does this stuff compare to the original?"

Bas (short for Bassem, maybe?) laughs, "Habibi, I was born here, I know as much as you!"

"Olivia's got some Arab connections," Neha cheerfully volunteers information no-one asked for, and Jen cringes.

"Olivia?" Bas asks, looking between them.

"Yeah! My pretty flatmate over here!" Neha nudges Jen demonstratively and winks, and Jen realises with sinking dread that her friend might be trying to set her up with this guy. Does she think Arab Fuckboy is my type or something? "Right, Lance?"

"Huh?" Lance is briefly confused, before starting to grin: "Oh! Yeah, she's got half the bookcases in the living room cluttered with her Arabic literature."

"Wallah?" Bas zeroes in on her, pleasantly surprised. "You don't look Arabic, do you work in politics or something?"

That's what the white-passing Turkish mother genes get you, I guess.

"No," Jen smiles awkwardly, resisting the urge to fiddle with her hair for fear of getting food grease in it. "I'm in IT, it's not really-"

"Actually, Ollz," Neha speaks over her, "Don't you go on all these business trips to the Middle East?"

Lou and San shoot Jen an alarmed look. Jen wonders absently how much more obvious they can get.

"Oh, where?" Bas is starting to look pretty curious.

"Dude," the other guy elbows him, "Can't you see she's not comfortable talking about this?"

"I-it's fine," Jen absently waves a hand, "I just did a bunch of on-location software and hardware installation and training for subsidiary companies in the Arab world. It usually ends up being with companies that work with local and regional banking."

"Huh," Bas says, "So like the Gulf and Levant?"

"Haha, yeah," Jen smiles, "It's very boring and capitalist."

San's other friend starts, "Where exactly do you wor-?"

"Issy, work is boring!" Sangria interrupts, loudly cheerful. "More importantly: did you hear about the new Linkin Park album?"

"Oh!" they perk up. "Yeah! Apparently it'll be released next month...!"

"Seriously?!" Neha nearly leans into the tahini with excitement, "How did I miss this!"

"Work," Lance reminds her seriously, and Neha sobs theatrically.

"What's your favourite album?" Issy asks curiously.

While Issy unknowingly opens a huge can of worms into Neha's musical origin story, Jen uses their distraction for her benefit. She devours another five falafel, finishes up her tabbouleh, downs the rest of her lemon-mint juice, and basically flees to the bathroom.

Anything to get away from them.

She shies away from her reflection as she washes her hands; but she can't avoid it when she has to touch up her makeup again. She undoes the bun she'd put her hair in for eating, and grimaces when she finds that it's already started curling.

Capitalist is nearly true. Boring, though? Jen shudders and her tongue itches. Need a smoke.

She steps out of the bathroom with one hand still trying to manage her long hair while the other is in her pocket and already fiddling with the packet of filters. She nearly walks into Sangria coming out of the men's.

"Hey!" he grins, "I wondered where you'd vanished off to!"

"Sorry, I just, uh... needed to piss."

"I bet," San grins. "You alright? Sorry about Abbas and Iseul..."

"Oh, is that their names?" Jen asks airily, and when San laughs, she manages a little smile. "But no, it's fine – it was mostly my flatmates' fault anyway."

"You're right! Why are they like this?" he wrings his hands dramatically as he starts heading back to the table, "I thought Neha and Lance are ace?"

Jen chuckles faintly as she follows him. "They are, but they love drama and shit-stirring too."

"Oooh... so that's why you're friends."

"Hey! We all also like music, too..." she trails off when her phone buzzes, and she glances down at it.

It's an email. In the preview on the lock screen, she sees: 'To the concerned Crows, we...'-

"Marnie? What's the hold-up-" San trails off when he sees her eyes on her phone, and when his gaze follows hers, he scoffs. "You damn workaholic."

"Heeey," she glares playfully at him, "I didn't just bring my work phone, I grabbed both."

"You're a mess," he shakes his head. "Why would you do that?"

She shrugs. "I was in a rush leaving home and I didn't have time to check which is which."

Not quite a lie, not quite the truth. She has different cases and wallpapers for them, at least.

"It's what you get for using the same model for work and private life," he scoffs and puts his hand out, "Turn it off, or give it up."

"Ha, and send the assassins after you? Nah," she holds down the button to turn it off, and shows him the Apple-powering-down screen. "See? No work."

"Hrm," he stuffs his hands in his trouser pockets, "Fine."

"You're so uptight when it comes to this stuff," she laughs, putting the phone in the pocket of her jacket and zipping it up.

"It's important to have a work-life balance!" he insists, and then starts laughing himself: "Damn it GM, stop laughing!"

"Who's laughing?" she grins.

"I hate talking to you sometimes," he sighs. "Anyway – I was looking for you 'cause your fuckbuddy Yuri got the idea of grabbing some pre-gaming stuff so we can get warmed up in the queue to Lou's venue. Do you have any preferences?"

"Eyy! Yuri's coming!" Jen perks up at the idea of their one shared friend finally showing up. "Ask 'em for something like pfeffi – er, peppermint liquor."

"Ew! What?"

"What? It's clear in colour so it can pass as water, it gets you drunk and it works as mouthwash."

San gives her a disgusted glare as he texts the instructions to his friend. "You're a sick woman, you know that?"

"Say that to the entire city of Berlin, she taught me this."

"She's a nasty little slut, and I'll tell her to her face if I ever see her!"

Jen cackles horribly as they return to the main restaurant floor. "Careful there, Matty. She likes dirty talk, too."

"With peppermint? No thanks," San shudders, and then laughs and sticks his tongue out. More quietly, as they approach the table, he whispers, "I'm so jealous. You get to go on all these globetrotting jobs and I get fuckin' night shifts."

"It's not all it's cracked up to be," Jen smirks, "Got me drinking arrack, after all."

"Eugh, was that that milky liquorice-stuff?" he shakes his head sadly, "You've been different since your work trip to Lebanon, girl."

(Glory from the ashes, for Beirut)

"Th-that was years ago, dude," Jen tries to laugh it off, as if it isn't the main reason she's been trying to quit smoking.

Before San can respond, Kahlua is standing up at the head of the table and calling out: "Alright, boys, girls, neither, both-"

"Whoo!" Iseul cheers.

"-settle up your tabs, we need to vamos!"

And so, Jen is forbidden from paying for her dinner ("it's your birthday!"), and within another half an hour they're well on their way to their first stop with her smoking her third cigarette of the evening.

-x-

Ever since the Black Organisation operative codenamed 'Tequila' arrived in Japan in early July 2010, several different international police forces and security agencies have been tracking him. Below is an abridged list of the findings most relevant to them.

1) Japanese Public Security Bureau (PSB)

The PSB has tried to keep tabs on this individual for the past twenty years. In the 1990s, Nozawa Ichiro, known more commonly as Snake, was rumoured to operate within Osakan Yakuza circles. Repeated investigations into Snake came up with a handful of common pseudonyms, a string of increasingly complicated crimes, and a mountain of destroyed evidence. Later in the 2000s, a man matching this description was reported as Tequila by undercover agents in a crime syndicate known as Kuro no Soshiki. In 2008 an accurate portrait sketch was provided.

With their resources, the PSB are aware of Snake's movements in July 2010 through several public transport hubs.

On 2010年7 月8日(木), the suspect arrived at Kansai International Airport from Istanbul International Airport (via Haneda Intl). This entry into the country was only clocked hours later, when it was found that his passport photo matched the given sketch.

On 10/7/10, passenger lists show that Nozawa Ichiro boarded a flight from Kansai Intl to New Chitose Airport. However, according to local officers, no person matching his description was spotted leaving the plane upon arrival in Hokkaido.

Snake arrived in Okinawa sometime before the 14th. This fact can only be corroborated by a member of Naha airport staff who noted a known pseudonym (Hasemi Kazuo) of his being given for a last-minute booking from Naha to Chubu International Airport. This flight from Okinawa island to Nagoya arrived at 14:20 on 7/14.

(On the 14th at 15:10, there was a terrific explosion on a 100-series Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto, about 40 minutes after it had left Nagoya station. No-one was hurt, but the train had to be stopped. This is ostensibly unrelated, but the PSB officer in charge puts it on his pinboard anyway, because it has to be connected somehow.)

One grainy frame of CCTV footage from the arrivals lobby at Narita International Airport from 7/18 is the only record of the man ever being in the city. Neither staff, officers on location, or even civilians claim to have seen him. (Probably unrelated, but that evening, local police flagged up a shooting incident near the Hilton Tokyo-Narita. No one was harmed.)

On 7/23 an ID card with the suspect's photograph was used to board a flight from Sendai Airport to Osaka Intl (Itami). It used a hence unknown name, Nishikawa Hiroki.

On the afternoon of 7/27, a visual description of Snake was provided by a witness to a police detective (Takagi Wataru of the Tokyo Met) at Hotel Old Beika in Tokyo. This was during an investigation into an explosion that had occurred in the lobby of the hotel earlier that day. It remains unclear if Snake was involved.

After this, the trail runs cold.

2) United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

The CIA considers 'Tequila' as a high-priority individual due to his international status and generally unknown degree of outreach. To their knowledge, he is likely in charge of the information technology division of the so-called 'Black Organisation'.

The CIA has records of his arrival and stay at Okinawa on July 11th. 'Tequila' co-operated with the Navy Base in a 'routine' check-up and nothing was flagged. An internal source at the Base reported receiving a call to meet with him on the 14th, but this meeting was never realised.

A field agent shadowing him between the 18th and 22nd, as he travelled by various public transport from Narita towards the north, was discovered and killed by unknown assailants. The agent's surveillance equipment ceased responding on 7/22/10 at 1934 hours about a mile south of Fukushima, and no data could be retrieved.

Another internal source in Tokyo reports of a brief encounter with the man on the 26th. The context of this encounter was not incriminating, but information on his subordinates in the US was given: 'Kahlua', 'Claret', 'Sangria'. According to the Tokyo source, 'Tequila' also met with officers of the Organisation, including the assassin 'Gin' and the reclusive mastermind 'Rum'.

3) Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) & Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU)

The SVR and GRU were disinterested in this individual until his connections to their Primary Target (codename 'Vampir') became clear.

Agents shadowing 'Vampir' spotted an unknown tall bulky Japanese man in a suit, moustache, and hat exiting Narita airport on the afternoon of 18.07.10 г. 'Vampir' was picking the Unknown up in his car, and had his usual companion 'Lesnik' with him.

The Unknown was dropped off at Art Hotel Narita at 16:58. One SVR agent was sent to shadow him, but was halted by a rival foreign operative and was forced to abandon her stakeout at 00:02. At an unknown point in time, the surveillance device the SVR agent planted seemed to have been hijacked or otherwise rendered useless.

Meanwhile 'Vampir' had continued to drive north. It can in retrospect be assumed that he became aware of the SVR & GRU agents following him as he (over the course of the next few hours) baited them towards a golf course under construction at the south Kasumigaura Bay. At midnight, 'Vampir' and an unknown number of allies sprung their trap, and in the following half-hour various surveillance, human, and military equipment were obliterated or sabotaged.

The unknown individual from Narita airport has since been logged in the SVR and GRU databases and granted the codename 'Patuljak'. He seems to have connections with various other mid- to low-priority individuals around the world. As of now (28.07.10 г) it is unknown where he is.

4) Interpol (UN)

In the wake of the 1992 so-called ASAKA Affair, Interpol has become very wary of using non-Interpol agents. In spite of this, Kouji Hasegawa became a valuable asset as a civilian contractor in 1999 when he used his expertise to update Interpol information technologies into the twenty-first century. He also brought them in contact with the Carasuma Corporation, which has since 2001 become a crucial partner for the United Nations' East Asian operations.

However, since 2008 it has become clear that there are jarring oversights in Hasegawa's work. Whether by wilful negligence or sheer incompetence, Hasegawa failed to secure data breaches relating to the international criminal organisation referred to by Interpol as 'RAVEN'. Despite this, Interpol has tried to maintain cordial relations while seeking out new contractors for IT matters.

On the morning of 5 July 2010 Hasegawa briefly met with Interpol representatives at the New York City office. In the afternoon, he boarded a flight from JFK International Airport to Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, and from there took a train to Lyon – arriving at Interpol Headquarters at midday on 6 July. The meeting seemed smooth, but certain factions within Interpol remain suspicious.

Hasegawa departed France on 7 July, on a flight from Lyon-Saint Exupéry to Istanbul Airport. Interpol is unaware of his whereabouts for next weeks.

On 18 July Interpol intercepted communications from the Russian foreign service that there had been a shootout in Narita, Japan, and that someone that matched his description had been involved.

On 26 July an individual introducing himself as 'Noriaki Kim' reached out to Interpol using Hasegawa's contact information. Kim (an older man, speaking Korean) claimed to have important information on the RAVEN. While Interpol was initially sceptical, his knowledge on the ASAKA Affair gave them pause. Unfortunately, Kim was forced to end the call when Hasegawa seemingly returned.

Neither Kim nor Hasegawa have been in contact with Interpol since.

5) Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS)

The People's Republic of China considers 'Kazuo Hasemi' a person of medium interest with potentially treasonous intent. While the man himself seems relatively harmless in the grand scheme of things (bribery of foreign officials at worst), he also has unfortunate connections to saboteurs of the PRC that are hard to ignore. (Among these are: Nguyen Thu Vân, Lí Yawen, Gansükh Melschoi, Lenore Cheng Lian†, Harper Ko Xiang, Nürdyn Abdulrixit, Fernando Sandoval, Rosetta-Marie Durand†.)

Hasemi was observed on 2010-07-07 at Istanbul International Airport. He had arrived from France and left for Japan. While waiting for his connecting flight he encountered and exchanged words with Hollywood actress Chris Vineyard (a person of extremely high interest to the PRC).

On 2010-07-17 MSS agents reconvened with an allied agency in Tokyo to assist them in hunting down a key target, referred to as 'London' within MSS records. On 2010-07-18, 'London' met with Hasemi at Narita Airport, but they parted ways soon after. ('London' clearly knew he was being tracked and reacted with overwhelming force. Further data analysis has been stymied by the deliberate sabotage and removal of surveillance devices.)

On 2010-07-26 Hasemi met with a former contact from the Japanese Red Army, codenamed 'Wisteria'. While the MSS maintains no tactical support for the mostly defunct JRA, intelligence and information exchange such as this remain common.

It is not unusual for persons of medium interest to vanish for days or weeks on end, so the MSS is not alarmed that Hasemi has not been heard of since.

Concluding remarks:

Although every single one of these agencies lost track of both Tequila and anyone surrounding him; this is still more information than the Organisation would have liked them to know. It is, in part, even more information than the Organisation itself is aware of.

Collated, their data would give a complete picture not only of his man's movements, but also of his Organization's methodology and people of interest.

Unfortunately, this data was never collated. These agencies have a poor track record of cooperating with true transparency.

-x-

28 July, 2010
New York City, N.Y., USA

By the time Jen and San finally meet up with Yuri, their little group has grown into a party.

Jen barely knows most of the people she is striding along the sidewalk on.

There's San's very warmed up flatmates; Lance and Neha's respective bandmates (in particular Neha's experimental jazz band skrAtch AtlAntics is semi-famous in certain circles); some people from Jen's college year (Lance clearly went on some kind of Facebook hunt); and even a handful of UN interns who heard that this might be an opportunity to network with someone with a permanent position there (poor Alex seems very overwhelmed by this).

Once again: Jen barely knows most of them. But all of them seem fairly aware that it's her birthday and she deserves all the attention for this, and it's kind of her biggest nightmare.

So when she sees that familiar broad back and long dyed-blue hair, Jen almost sprints at them and throws an arm around their shoulders and tugs them in close.

"Blyat-!" Yuri grunts, "Who-?!"

"Yuri," Jen whispers down sharply into their very-pierced ear, "It's me."

Surprised eyes dart to her, "Olivia?"

"Please save me," Jen hisses desperately, cheek pressed against the stubbly undercut, "There's about a million people here and I know none of them."

"Oooh, gotcha," Yuri grins. "Get off'a me, beanstalk, and let's see what we've got."

Yuri is a five-foot-six androgynous punk who wears their pin-studded leather jacket, torn-up jeans, and Doc Martens like they're six-foot-two. Half-Russian and half-Japanese, Yuri's monolid eyes are a strikingly light amber colour, their dense dark eyebrows are carefully studded with piercings, and their sharp cheekbones make the line between masculine and feminine look like a joke.

"So Matt asked me to get this peppermint liquor for you," they pull a clear plastic bottle from their shoulder bag and Jen eagerly grabs it and hands over a fifty-dollar bill, "But lookin' at what you've given me, you're asking for something with a bit more punch too, huh?"

"Aw, hell," Jen grins faintly, taking a sip from the re-filled bottle of Definitely-Not-Water, "I thought I was being subtle."

"No you didn't," Yuri says bluntly, reaching inside their jacket, "So what's your poison tonight?"

"Poison?" Jen flutters her eyes and fiddles with her hair, "Dear Yuri, I just want some Candy, would-ya-kindly?"

"Gah!" Yuri wrenches their gaze away and grumpily shoves an old-fashioned cigar tin at Jen. It's hard to miss how their cheeks have flushed a little. "Fine-fine, splice it up, birthday girl. Usual dosing, usual colour scheme."

"Thaaank you Yuri," Jen grins and gently nudges Yuri's shoulder with her own, before carefully selecting herself a colourful combination of pills from the tin that match the price she's paid.

As far as Jen is aware, Yuri's petty criminality isn't something they grew up with – though the goth-to-punk pipeline was. In fact, when Jen first met them via San (around 2005), they were a linguistics grad student who did small-time deals to supplement their income. Jen herself taught them the intricacies of dosing and cutting drugs (mostly things she picked up from her racaille background, but also from self-medicating). Cut to five years later, and Yuri's created a whole little business by themself.

"Hey! You two!" someone calls behind them.

Yuri winks, "Showtime, babes," and drops their pace to fall into step with the rest of the group.

Jen takes a moment to throw back half a pill with a gulp of peppermint liquor and stuff the remaining ones into her breast pocket, before re-joining the group as well.

"...yep, don't mind me," Yuri is introducing themself to the people who gave Sangria their drinks orders, "Just your local dyke Santa."

"Hooray!" San cheers, "The horrible little Bacardi Breezers are mine!"

"Fuck, Matty, you still drink like a teenager," Yuri scoffs as they pass over a paper bag of clinking bottles and accept the bills in return. "Alright, which freak wanted the dirty Sprite?"

As the group gets acquainted with the new character and the presents they've brought, Kahlua sidles up beside Jen. He's smoking for once, and the faint floral smell of his preferred weed is much nicer than whatever ganja Jen's neighbour was smoking earlier.

"Are you doing alright?" he asks quietly. "Felt like you were checking out earlier."

"I'm great," she raises her refilled water bottle with a grin. "Just had to get hydrated. You?"

He exhales softly. "The old hip was acting up, but it's better now."

"Sometimes you really seem twice your age, Zoro," Jen comments. She immediately wants to kick herself: what an insensitive thing to say to a man who's obviously and visibly been tortured in the past- "Shit, sorry-!"

"No, no..." Lou sighs. "Sometimes I feel it, too."

Jen glances down at him, surprised, only to find his brown-and-blue gaze already pinned on her.

"You know what I mean, right?" he asks in Spanish.

Usually, Lou's eyes on her are a source of comfort. He's been a friendly supportive peer to her ever since basic training. Jen has come to understand that if Lous's looking out for her, she'll be just fine no matter what.

But right now, something feels very uncanny.

"Know what you mean...?" she echoes his words uncertainly.

Lou looks at her like he's about to say something that will shake the foundations of her understanding of the world. The man's not even six feet tall, but right now he feels much taller than Jen even if she were wearing heels. He puts the roll-up back between his lips...

"Ah, nevermind," he mutters, returning to English as he stuffs his hands in his pockets and looks away. "Sorry, I guess the weed's caught me in a melancholy mood. Didn't mean to make you uncomfortable, princess."

What?

"Are you okay?" she asks, worried. Did he want to talk to me about something? Did I mess up?

"Yeah, yeah," he grins mildly at her, "I still gotta lead y'all to the first location after all, right?"

"Right..." she blinks, and takes a quick sip of her drink to refocus herself on the night. Just a normal night out. "Right! ¡Órale!"

Some disparate members of the group join in the cheers, and Kahlua shakes his head good-naturedly ("Mexican Spanish, of all things...") and strides ahead to join Alex near the head of the group.

What a weird encounter, Jen can't help but think as she watches them.

Alex is presently putting an arm around Lou's shoulders – easy to do with their height difference – and Lou is leaning up to murmur something in Alex's ear. Jen half-expects them turn around and look at her, but neither of them do. It seems the comfortable mid-walk embrace of a couple that'll be marrying in a few months.

Enough of that. I'm probably just not high enough for this yet.

She digs into her jacket's breast pocket and pulls out one of the unbroken tabs of molly and dry-swallows it.

It takes another fifteen minutes for them to get to Lou's chosen stop, a time which is pleasantly shortened by Jen's bottle of peppermint liquor and the fact that Lance briefly introduces her to Naomi Rex (extremely cool name), his band Event Horizon's new lead guitarist and screamo vocalist. The dark-skinned woman is nearly as tall as Jen herself (which is already a good thing to bond over), and once they get into a complaining session about being the eldest of several much younger siblings, it already feels like they've known each other an eternity.

"We've gotta meet up again properly," Naomi is saying. "The X I bought from that blue-haired dyke is starting to kick in and I'm worried I won't remember this."

"Yuri's candy is reliable, don't worry," Jen assures her. "Lemme give you my number, though. How are you on weekends?"

Naomi hands over a slide-phone as she speaks: "Well, I've got raids on Saturday mornings, but..."

"Shut up!" Jen gasps, delighted, "Someone as cool as you plays WoW?!"

"Wait, you too?" Naomi does a double-take, "What server? No! Wait! More importantly: Horde or Alliance?"

"Gotta be the Horde for me," Jen admits as she gives back the phone, and Naomi fist-pumps (adorable). "Though I haven't played since 2008, and I'm not even sure if I remember my password..."

She trails off when she finds that they're passing by a very long queue of prospective patrons.

"Those better not be for the place we're goin' to," Naomi mutters.

"Afraid it might be," Jen nods her chin up ahead, to where a neon sign over a door reads 'Industrial Bar'.

Between the neon, the Gothic font, and the artful barbed wire decorations, it looks every bit the messy leather bar Kahlua had promised – but none of the white mid-bourgeois individuals in the queue match the description.

"I mean, we're gonna get to skip the line, at least," Jen offers. "And free entry. And drinks."

Naomi grimaces. "Cold comfort when the other folks are lookin' like off-brand Friends characters planning hate-crimes."

"Whoof," short little Sangria is suddenly between them, the top buttons of his shirt already loosened to show the ring-studded faux-leather choker underneath, "I guess we're about to flip the demographics of this place like it's a goddamn omelette, huh?"

Naomi laughs, surprised by the sudden appearance and strange simile. "Fuck yeah, I guess we are!"

At least the bouncer whom Kahlua is approaching looks the part: a big man in his mid-forties with a thick head of dark hair and mutton chops. He's wearing only a stab proof vest on top, revealing a muscular hairy chest and heavily tattooed arms. The riveted leather trousers and resting bitchface complete the leather daddy look.

(As they squeeze into the club, Yuri asks if he's the secret seventh member of Rammstein. The bouncer grins toothily and says, "The weird synth guy is my favourite." He then also ensures that Yuri can't actually go into the club with all the drugs they're planning on selling. Oops.)

There is something utterly delightful about the alarmed stares that the normal Wednesday crowd end up giving the party's varying degrees of queer and leathery and weird as they enter the dance-bar and start giving up their jackets (or not, in Jen's case).

Time passes quicker than expected at the first club.

            'All the crazy shit I did tonight – those will be the best memories...'

The music is nothing like the tin promised (Lou keeps pretending it's fine though, whisking away Alex to dance to some Pitbull-flavour remix); but the sound quality is absolutely stellar, the drinks are astoundingly well-made, and the molly kicks in like a treat.

                     'Life's a bitch, now fuck you – pay me!'

            '...make you work hard, make you cut cards, make you fall real hard in love.'

                                'I left my job, my boss, my car and my home...'

And all the comp-het drawbacks of David Guetta and Timbaland don't matter once the party finds an entire quarter of the club that they can vogue dramatically in.

                     'When the cats come out, the bats come out to play-'

                                '-when I arrive, I bring the fire – make you come, alive!'

                                          'Destination Unknown-unknown-unknown-unknown...'

So, Jen is surprised to find that her phone reads 21:32 by the time she finally leaves the dancefloor to catch her breath on one of the faux-leather settees around the edge. It's quieter here, by a margin. A couple is making out in the corner, and three white guys in full suits briefly pause their semi-subtle cocaine-cutting to check Jen out as she sits down and pulls out her phone.

Her left leg still taps along to the BPM as she absently sips her cranberry soda (non-alcoholic, you gotta pace yourself) and she scrolls through her various news apps.

There's something about elections in South Korea...
     an opinion piece on the Afghan War Diary, still being posted through Jen's Wallstreet server...
           the British Prime Minister having another gaffe on his visit to India...
                 a flight crashing in Pakistan due to heavy rain...
                      eight severed heads discovered in central Mexico...
                           an explosion in a factory in eastern China injures hundreds...
                                BP announcing that the CEO is stepping down after Deepwater Horizon...
                                     an apparent bomb on a civilian bus in southwest Afghanistan kills 25...
                                           a Bedouin village in the Negev is demolished by Israeli police...
                                                  reports of several explosions in central Tokyo-

A spark of discomfort. Jen's leg starts tapping faster.

Okay GM, no need to get anxious. Just because your boss is on a work trip in the same country doesn't mean...

Jen downs the last of her drink (Dutch courage, haha) and cautiously taps the notification.

"Hey Nami!"

Jen shoves the phone in her pocket and looks up to find Yuri vaulting over the back of the couch in front of her, flawlessly balancing a tray of shots in their other hand. Without their leather jacket, a muscular upper body dotted with tattoos and a bright blue sports bra that matches their hair is revealed.

"Hai!" Jen cheerfully half-yells over the loud music, "Nami desu!"

"Oh!" Yuri gasps, and then bursts out laughing. In Japanese, they giggle: "Oh, you definitely are!"

Jen starts laughing too: "Sorry! Sorry for my Kansai-ben."

"Don't be! That shit sounds authentic as hell!" Yuri cackles, putting down the tray on the table and climbing over to sit on it as well, "You had a teacher or something?"

"Yeah, from Osaka," Jen grins as she switches back to English. "Anyway, how can help you, Yuri?"

"It's more of – how can I help you?" they lean in and flutter their eyelashes, and Jen notices that they're wearing some really pretty false lashes. "Couldn't help but notice that you just finished your drink."

"Well..." Jen looks down at her empty glass, and then to the tray. The liquid is clear from what she can see in the flashing strobes of the club, and there's a few saltshakers and a bowl of lemon slices. Tequila? Fitting.

"Don't worry," Yuri winks, handing over a shot, "It's literally all water, everything else is for show. I've been going around and making sure all my buyers stay properly hydrated."

"I see," Jen smirks and downs the little glass. It really is just water. "Trying to avoid a repeat of the New Year's party?"

"What!" Yuri gasps dramatically, "I thought I instituted a gag order on that!"

"Gag order? Must've slipped by me," Jen innocently plays with the empty glass.

"Oh?" Yuri's charade immediately drops as they lean in and casually twirl a lock of Jen's hair around their finger, "Are you saying I need to gag you again?"

Jen nearly laughs. They've no right to act like they aren't a total sub.

Instead, she leans in (Yuri's bright eyes widen in surprise) and whispers in their ear: "You can certainly try."

"A-ah," Yuri half-splutters, quickly leaning back to grab a shot of their own, "Kanpai!"

As long-term friends-with-benefits go, the soft-butch Yuri is in many ways a healthier option than Jen's previous forays. Kir was a beautiful bundle of anxieties and trauma with trust issues and a propensity to get extremely attached; while Shiraz was a calm military intelligence man in a series of cities and wars that tried to kill them both. Jen doesn't like to consider what exactly her attraction to these people meant, let alone what their attraction to her meant.

It's enough to understand that by comparison, the brash and extroverted Yuri (whose only involvement in Jen's life of crime is drug chemistry, which they learned from her) is downright saintly.

"May it quench your thirst," Jen snickers, leaning into the couch again.

"Hah," Yuri glances back at her with a grin, "I think there's only one thing that would do that."

Jen opens her mouth to say some other suggestive thing, and Yuri looks like they're about to move to sit on Jen's lap – but they're both interrupted.

"Hey! GM!" Sangria announces his arrival by shouting Jen's codename across the seating area.

Yuri whirls around and Jen stands up sharply.

"Jesus Christ!" Jen hisses, "San-?!"

"Hai!" Yuri salutes playfully, "Jee-Em des'!"

Jen looks between the two of them, totally baffled. Yuri has recovered pretty quickly, grinning and opening their tin of pills again; and San has a load of differently-coloured lipstick smeared across his mouth and cheeks and neck. Wait, wait...-

"Speaking of!" San drops down to sit on the table next to Yuri and begins braiding their hair, "Marnie! When are you gonna join our campaign?"

"Campaign...?" Jen half-whispers, slowly sinking back onto the couch.

With the initial moment of surprise passed, her adrenaline is still racing in a way that's making her realise that she's only in the opening parts of this high. Luckily, there's a brief lull in the music as the previous track comes to an end and Jen gets an opportunity to follow her friends' thoughts.

"Is it – GM like game master?" she asks, foot tapping again, "You're talking about a Dungeons and Dragons thing?"

"It's Pathfinder, actually," Yuri explains. "But they're kinda comparable."

"Pleeeaaase!" San drops the half-started braid to put his hands on Jen's shoulders, "It's so much fun, and the world is like – l-like Lord of the Rings? But better! And you're a total nerd anyway so you'd love that shit..."

"Uh-huh...?" Jen says cautiously. Up close, she spots some tell-tale white powder sticking to one of San's lipstick marks.

"Hey-hey, easy there Matty," Yuri pats San's shoulder, "Not sure a club's the best place to convince someone of the virtues of tabletop RPG..."

"Virtues, shmirt-tyoos," San tuts, picking up the braid again. "How do you get your hair to hold actual colour without looking like dead straw, Yuri?"

Yuri starts explaining the very specific haircare routine they maintain. But Jen is distracted because her teeth won't stop grinding and in that moment (or maybe a little later, time is getting weird), a familiar mezzo-soprano sings-

             'Na-na-na come on!'

-and a synth rhythm picks up at about double the speed along with a much most distorted bass than the original, as some kind of EDM-remix of Rihanna's S&M starts. And that's all the excuse Jen needs.

"Hey Yuri!" Jen leaps up, "Is this our song?"

"O-our song?" Yuri half-laughs, cheeks flushing, "Isn't this way too vanilla for y-?"

"And San!" Jen interrupts, "Where'd you score that coke?"

"W-what?" San's eyes widen – and then he proceeds to make a truly pathetic attempt at seeming innocent, looking around himself in wide-eyed confusion, "What coke? I didn't-"

"Let's go!" she grins, grabbing both by the wrist and dragging them back to the dancefloor.

Despite the cliché and relatively tame contents, this particular song is still the closest this club's music has gotten to fulfilling the bar's entire premise. The beat drops into a distorted wobble-bass, and it might be grating but it also makes Jen's nerves buzz.

It's still no surprise that somewhere after the fifth 'chains and whips excite me', Alex appears in their area, already wearing his jacket again and smiling cheerfully.

"Hey!" he yells over the loud music, and if Jen didn't know any better she'd think he's completely sober, "Great to catch up with you! Fernando finally admitted the music here is pretty bad and we can go!"

"Go?" Yuri echoes, confused.

"Fernando?" Jen murmurs. It vanishes in another unnecessary dubstep drop.

Neha pops up to Jen's right and loops her arms around Jen's waist. "Found 'em!"

"We're hard to miss!" San laughs.

"I'll grab the others!" Alex shouts, and vanishes in the crowd again.

"Come-on-come-on-come-on!" Neha chants aggressively along to the song lyrics at a completely different tune, tugging Jen in a direction which might be the exit, "Ollz, the next stop's your call, right?"

"Right! Yeah!" Jen perks up. With her taller vantage point she quickly spots the exit and bears in that direction, "This way! Let's fuckin' go!"

"Wait-wait!" Yuri stumbles after them, "There's more? What?"

"Fuck yeah there is!" San whoops, half-jumping onto Yuri's back, "Let's go!"

Yuri staggers and swears in Russian, but manages to shift San's weight enough to carry him on their back.

Jen laughs at their antics, and they finally manage to shuffle out.

The night outside has turned surprisingly brisk considering it's midsummer and New York City, and it's enough for San to remember that Yuri is missing their jacket (of course the little twink wants to 'borrow' it), and for Yuri to remember they're missing their bag'o'drugs. So both squeeze back in, and Jen is left standing on the sidewalk.

There are others from the party around – Naomi Rex is sharing a spliff with another person from Event Horizon and one of San's flatmates, a few of Alex's interns are milling about awkwardly, and Neha is in the process of trying to huddle into Jen's jacket while she's still wearing it.

But overall, it's a lot quieter and the air is cleaner. It's not enough to sober Jen up, but enough for her to get to re-catalogue all the conversation she's had so far.

"Neha?" Jen asks gently.

"Mhm?" squeaks the Pakistani girl from somewhere around Jen's armpit.

Jen laughs softly and lifts her arm. In what she thinks might be British accent, she says, "Are ye cold, love?"

"What the fuck!" Neha cackles, pulling away. "Was that supposed to be English?!"

"Er," Jen thinks about it, and realises, "Nah, I think it was more Irish."

"Hah!" Neha giggles, "More a New-York-Irish than anything. Though you hit the R's alright, I guess."

"You little tart," Jen grins, "Is it the English part of you that makes you incapable of giving a true compliment?"

Neha snickers, "Maybe!" and then shivers as a sharp gust sweeps along the street.

Jen starts to offer Neha her jacket, and then kicks herself because that's something men do and not pretty girls, and then remembers that Neha is her friend and she should be nice and gender is a construct anyway – and then Lance comes out and manages to diffuse the situation by offering Neha his jacket.

"Aww, you're such sweet boyfriend!" Neha trills, tugging the gold pleather over herself.

"Yeah-yeah," Lance awkwardly rubs the back of his neck, "Love you, and stuff."

While they start being adorable together, Jen starts rolling herself cigarette.

Let's take stock. So far I've had: 300ml pfeffi (25% alcohol), 1.5 tabs MDMA (50+30 mg, 60-90 minutes ago), around 500ml water/juice. I'll get more liquids at the next place.

She's just about managed to light her cigarette by the time Yuri and San come outside again (San no longer piggybacking off Yuri, and Yuri with all their stuff again, and both now with lipstick marks on their necks which makes Jen wonder absently where all these cute kissable lipstick wearers are coming from and why she hasn't seen any). Seeing them lightly ribbing each other reminds her of the conversation back at the seating area-

"Hey, over here!" Jen pinches the cigarette between her teeth and waves them over, "Got a quesh while we wait...-"

"Aren't you trying to quit?" San blurts, pointing at her cigarette. Jen grimaces.

"Matt, let her finish," Yuri nudges him lightly, "What's up, Olivia? Where're we gonna be going, anyway?"

"Karaoke!" Lance calls from over where his band and Neha's are now nearly completely gathered, which is making Jen distantly wonder if skrAtch AtlAntics and Event Horizon might actually collaborate sometime. "And we're just about ready to go!"

"Oh no," Yuri mumbles.

"Just drink enough, and the stage-fright won't get to ya," Jen recommends, glancing about the rest of the party to see if they're all together again, "It's what I do. Anyway, can you explain this Pathfinder thing to me again?"

"Wait, really?!" San laughs in triumph, "I knew you'd love this kind of nerd shit!"

"Matthew," Jen says loudly, "You introduced yourself as Sanji Vinsmoke today."

Yuri bursts out laughing. Nearby, Neha and Iseul also start giggling hysterically.

"W-what!" Sangria's laugh splutters away, "N-no I didn't – I! – No! Th-that's not fair!"

"No, no it is," Yuri wheezes, "That's incredibly fair. Jesus, did you actually?!"

San crosses his arms defensively. "Shut up. Damn it, Marnie..."

"What's Marn-?" Yuri starts, confused.

"Pathfinder!" Jen says quickly, starting to stride over to where Alex looking between his watch and what seems to be Google Maps on his Blackberry phone. "Gimme the rundown! I don't wanna know what it's like, I wanna know what it is."

"Um, sure," Yuri looks suspiciously between San and Jen, "Well, it's a tabletop role-playing game, which means that at a table, a group of people do collaborative storytelling."

Jen decides not to remind the two of them that when they first met, she was kind of obsessed with Cyberpunk Red, so she's fairly familiar with how tabletop roleplaying works. But as someone who's always been more interested in science fiction than fantasy, Jen is curious to be convinced. So she keeps smoking, leading the way to the karaoke bar, and listening to Yuri explain:

"So there's one person who comes up with the plot, the Game Master (Dungeon Master in DnD but we're not gonna inflict our kinks on normies). But don't worry, because the players also get a say! They come up with the characters and make the plot move and can also explore freely-"

San interrupts, excited: "And Yuri has created our world from scratch! They've made fantasy cool! I have no idea how they hold so many ideas and names and things in their pretty little head, it's like magic!"

"It's not quite that impressive," Yuri laughs weakly, and then glances at Jen, "But, erm, it would be cool to have you, Olive."

Jen hides her discomfort in a last drag from her cigarette.

One of the things she likes the most about Yuri is that the two of them aren't actually close enough to really catch any feelings in all the fucking. She doesn't even really know what Yuri does for a living, besides making and selling drugs. But the way they're looking at her now is far too similar to how Kir used to (and how she no doubt looked at Shiraz. Fuck.)

Nope, rather have another dozen forgettable one-night-stands than get in that deep again.

"Yuri's also made new homebrew classes!" San carries on, "Like – there's the warlock?"

"Warlock?" Naomi is suddenly walking in their little group, "Are we talking WoW?"

"No," Yuri explains, "I don't think this is anything like that? The class also exists in DnD: basically you've made a deal with the devil and it's given you eldritch magic."

"Eldritch?" Jen echoes, remembering reading HP Lovecraft in college. She crushes her cigarette stub under her Converse.

"Yeah, nah," Naomi rubs her chin. "I'm not convinced."

"You will be!" San declares proudly, "Also hi, you're beautiful! Wait till you hear about Oathbreakers!"

Naomi chuckles. "You're adorable."

"What about Oathbreakers?" Jen asks curiously. "Do they break those Faustian bargains?"

"No-no. It's a play on the Anti-Paladin," Yuri says, "It's basically when Anakin drops to the Dark Side not by necessarily changing his own values, but by rejecting those of his old order."

"So not quite Death Knights," Naomi nods in understanding.

"Heyyy, what the hell Yuri," San narrows his eyes, "When explaining it to me you had this complicated Bleach-based analogy."

"Yes," Yuri says blankly, "Because you're a weeb."

"I'm not!" Sangria cries.

"What's a weeb?" Naomi asks.

Jen chuckles softly as the conversation intensifies, and keeps leading them to the next port of call.

-x-

Excerpt of the most recent entries of Suguru Itakura's diary:-
(note: This diary takes the form of a modified .txt file.)

>>

25/7: writing at night because I'm out of sleeping meds.
What that Mae West woman said is rattling around my stupid loud brain.
"Raise the dead"? What kind of riddle is this???
Why does nothing make sense?
I wish I'd just said 'yes' when that big Kansai man showed up in March.

>>

26/7: Can't anyone else finish that fucking program? I'm just a measly software designer. I'm just an old man who likes video games. Why me? WHY ME?

>>

27/7: There was apparently an explosion at the Mantendo Games Con. I was supposed to be there this year, but with everything that's happened I rejected my invitation months ago. This has to be a coincidence, right?? They would know I cancelled, right?
They wouldn't target a place they knew I wasn't going to be just to remind me of their impossible resources and the literal ticking timebomb on my life – RIGHT????

this is my fault isn't it

>>

28/7: This morning I screamed when the doorbell rang. It was just the postman, but I really thought he would start grinning the way all those Not-People did before.
I... I can't do this anymore. I can't even look at normal people on the street, hell I can barely leave home without having a breakdown, it's like I'm broken and don't work like a correct human anymore.

I'm going to call the woman back tonight.
I'm going to give them conditions.
I'm going to get this job over with.
I'm going to spend the rest of my life pretending it never happened.

>>

-x-

28 July, 2010
New York City, N.Y., USA

Karaoke was supposed to be karaoke at a gay bar called Pieces in West Village.

Jen had specifically chosen it because it holds special karaoke events on Tuesday and Saturday evenings, and it's where she and her flatmates usually go for birthdays.

Unfortunately, it is half past ten on Wednesday evening.

"You nonce," Neha stage-whispers.

"You're painfully British sometimes," sniffs Jen, stuffing her phone back in her pocket from where she'd been looking up alternatives, "I've already found a replacement."

"Better not be another Industrial Bar situation," grumbles someone – what that Abbas?

"Don't be a buzzkill, man," Sangria nudges his friend. "Aren't we here for a night out?"

Jen ignores whatever bitching follows and turns on her heel to path them to the new location.

"How far is it?" Kahlua asks her.

"Not far," Jen grins. "You ever heard of Club Low?"

Recognition flashes across his lined face. "Are you sure...?"

It turns out that not many people have. It's a damn pity, because Jen thinks it might be one of the weirdest and best karaoke bars she knows about, and she's honestly kicking herself for not coming up with it earlier.

They offer some really great niche drinks, on Thursday evenings they do film nights (it's how Jen first saw Drive), and Jen remembers meeting with Tequila and the woman who recruited her here once or twice (minus the karaoke).

Wait a minute...

Before Jen can question why that pings in her mind, they've already arrived, ordered their drinks, and are sat around a series of tables while writing up their set list while someone on stage completely fumbles the flow of The Bad Touch song.

"Alright!" Sangria clicks the biro excitedly while Iseul flicks through one of the song catalogues, "First song? What're we thinkin'?"

"Easy," Lance declares, "View from the Afternoon."

"Oh my god! Yes!" Neha cheers, "For the first song of the night, it's gotta be!"

"It would bring some much-needed energy to this sorry state of affairs," one of the members of skrAtch AtlAntics mutters derisively, gesturing to the stage. Weekday politeness keeps the audience from booing, that's for sure; but the other music geeks definitely mutter in agreeance.

"Cold, Mikey," Neha tuts.

"Sold, Mikey," Jen rhymes her flatmate's words, pointing a fingergun at the skrAtch AtlAntics girl, "Write it down, Sanji – but put my name in for it. I can't rely on you saps to know the lyrics properly."

"That's fair," one of the bandmates shrugs.

"Birthday girl gets the first song," Kahlua smirks faintly, "Iseul, was it? I think that one was on page two..."

While Issy nods and starts finding the right song number, Yuri sighs dolefully, "Miss Olive's gotten so arrogant in her old age."

"Careful, Kunashira-san," Jen glares mildly down at them, "You're only a few months behind me."

Oddly, Yuri reacts to the playfully threatening tone by flinching as if there's been a gunshot.

What the hell? Jen blinks and then stares hastily into her way-too-fancy non-alcoholic cocktail. I wasn't that scary, right?

"Ok-ok-ok," San finishes writing down the song number, "Now we gotta keep that energy going..."

"Mr Brightside's a classic," Abbas suggests.

"Nah, too sad," San denies. "Boo-hoo, the girl I'm into is cheating on her boyfriend with me. Pathetic."

Naomi barks a wild laugh, startling Kahlua. This in turn sends Alex into a giggling fit.

"How about I Kissed A Girl?" one of San's roommates (maybe? Christ, Jen can't keep track of them), suggests.

"Me Against The Music did it better," San points out.

"Oh my god, Matt, you're so right," Yuri clutches their chest, "This is why we're best friends."

"Yuri, my absolute favourite person," San gently places his hand on their shoulder, "We're best friends because you stole my first boyfriend in middle school."

Nehal and Lance exchange shocked glances, San's friends all cackle like this is an amazing in-joke, and Jen aggressively slurps her cocktail and hopes that they'll move on from the personal topics of her colleagues.

"He was eighteen and dating a fifteen-year-old. You're welcome," Yuri sighs dramatically, "I'm so nice, looking out for my youngers."

"Alright!" Jen says loudly, "So, um, music? How about literally any song by ABBA? Or Britney Spears? Or..."

"I'll do ABBA!" a girl from... maybe Jen's old college(?) says, "The man after midnight one?"

"Gimme-Gimme-Gimme, yeah," Issy hums, flicking through the pages, "Should also be with A..."

"But Britney!" San wheezes, desperate, "Criminal is absolutely the song for me and that guy!"

"That guy...?" the girl echoes, clearly put off by San's excessive energy.

"Ignore him," Issy plucks the pen from his fingers and starts writing, "Sorry, darling, didn't catch your name..."

"But I still dream of him!" Sangria swoons dramatically while Jen's old friend from college (is it Andrea? Antonia?) tells Issy to just write 'Andy'.

"Is he real?" Jen asks bluntly. San starts to look extremely offended, and so she looks over at Yuri, "Is he?"

Yuri grimaces and shrugs one shoulder, while patting San's back, "C'mon man, are you hitting your low already?"

"I'm not!" San sits up straight, still super-offended, "And he was real – you were there! He was tall and wore a leather jacket and he looked so criminal!"

"And the long pretty hair," Yuri rolls their eyes good-naturedly, "Yeah, I remember."

"Wait," Jen squints suspiciously between them, "I don't remember. Who is this?"

Yuri waggles their eyebrows. "Matt's latest crush. And get this: he's not 2D."

Jen bursts into wheezing laughter.

"No! Shut up!" San thwaps them both on the arm, "He's real and I saw him last year and he's the love of my life."

"Okay, Sanji," Jen cackles.

"You should've seen how he looked at me with those piercing eyes!" San emphatically squeezes a fist, "Hngh, like he wanted to devour me!"

Yuri smirks, "I think he probably just wanted you to stop staring at him? Man had a gun, too."

"Wah! You don't get it!"

"I really don't," Yuri shakes their head. "But hey, if you wanna sing about him – Issy, babes, can you get Matt down for Toxic by Britney Spears?"

"Aye-aye," Iseul grins, and starts flicking through the booklet and writing down song names and numbers.

"Wait, you took my pen away!" San realises belatedly.

"While we're at it," Yuri picks up another booklet, "Can you put me down for Rasputin?"

"Making the most of your Russian blood, eh, Chekhov?" Lance grins.

Yuri smirks back. "You can meet me with your Italian, Stellaire."

Wait, Lance and Yuri know each other?

Jen isn't sure what violent surge of feeling makes her ask, ever-so-innocently, "Rasputin? Not Moskau?"

"By Dschinghis Khan or Rammstein?" Lance looks between them. "Oh wait, it's you two-!"

"Obvious answer!" Yuri laughs, "And god, that'd be great – but I can't really go up there and butcher the German, can I?"

"I'm fluent," Jen shrugs. "I'll help you."

"Fluent?" Yuri's eyebrows shoot up, and the piercings catch the light. "S-since when?! What!"

"Olivia, are you sure?" Kahlua leans into the conversation, and his mismatched eyes are genuinely concerned.

Ah, fuck. Can't go around saying I learned it from my father because that's not who Olivia Derringer is.

"I mean," she thinks fast, "I started learning because of this damn band, I might as well give it my chops. Baritone too, if you ask nicely."

"Y-you've got a b-baritone?" Yuri flushes in a way that makes Jen extremely pleased with herself. "Please, Miss?"

"Are you sure?" Neha nudges Jen lightly, unusually serious for how obviously sloshed she is, "The last time you sang that low..."

"I didn't have these tits yet," Jen winks, slapping at her own chest- "Ow! Why are girl nipples so much more sensi-"

"OKAY!" Yuri yelps, bright red by this point, flipping the pages in their booklet, "Put us down for it, Issy! I'll find the number for you!"

Jen leans back and smugly sips the remains of her virgin cocktail. Naomi notices, and gives her a truly respectful nod. Jen grins at her, pleased with what she's achieved.

Meanwhile, San is snickering at Yuri. Yuri elbows him. San elbows them back. They do their silent eyes-only language, and both end up downing their drinks, too.

Iseul laughs at their 'thirsty hoe antics', as they call it, finishes writing, and heads to the bar to order everyone another round.

"Okay!" San picks up the pen where Iseul left it, "Now that the throne-stealing harlot is gone-"

"I can still hear you!" Iseul calls from the bar, over the frankly embarrassing rendition of My Heart Will Go On that some poor fuck is giving.

"-what's next!" San finishes.

"Let's dance to Joy Division!" Neha says eagerly.

"Oh come on, not that downer band?" San gives her a dubious look.

"You have no taste!" Jen announces, snatching up the pen from San's very loose grip and starting to write. "My dad liked 'em."

"Also, Neha means the song by the..." Lance glances at his girlfriend, "Is it Kangaroos?"

"Wombats, babe," Neha reminds him.

"Wombats are so cute," Jen mutters absently as she flicks through the karaoke booklet, "Where is...?"

"There, double-you," Yuri taps the page, "W-w-w..."

"Wombats!" San yelps as he finds the name, "Can't believe it's a real band!"

"Any other suggestions?" Jen asks as she starts copying down the song number, "Kah- Zoro, Alex?"

"Ergh," Alex shrinks down a bit in his seat, "I don't really sing..."

"Aww, c'mon," one of his interns, who has miraculously stuck around, tries to needle. "Mr Cala-"

"Alejandro," Kahlua says decisively. "Lady Gaga."

"Yes!" Jen grins, flipping the pages again, "Great choice. Zoro on Alejandro – god I'm excited about this!"

"Iconic," Yuri crosses themselves and pretends to wipe away a tear. "Showstopping."

"We should all do one together," declares one of the other members of Event Horizon, a latino guy with a Serj Tankian style of long hair and goatee.

"Would you join us, if we sing together?" Lou asks Alex.

"Um, maybe," he wrings his hands around each other, "Depends on what the song will be."

"How about Sweet Caroline, or something?" Neha suggests, clearly picking up on the unease. "That's nice and easy..."

"Nah, too soft," Naomi waves it off. "No offence, but..."

"No-no, I get it," Alex shakes his head, "I think I'd rather do something energetic too..."

"Something like Rose Tattoo!" says one of San's flatmates who, true to the suggestion, is now flexing a very pretty rose-themed half-sleeve tattoo on his bicep.

Everyone eventually agrees to that (especially after Iseul comes back from the bar with fresh cocktails for everyone), and Jen starts copying down the song number for 'Nami's Party'. Her leg has started tapping again.

"One for your fake accent, eh?" Neha winks.

Jen recites absently, "Would ya kindly pick up that shortwave radio?"

"Oh, fuck!" Yuri hisses, "That's uncanny."

"Fine... that was better," Neha grumbles. "No idea what it was, but better."

"Tsundere," Jen grins at her. Then she stands and holds up the paper, "Are we good to hand this in?"

"Ah, I still wanna add some stuff!" Naomi gasps, gesturing to her bandmates, "And Jean wanted to do Kiss from a Rose..."

"How about we get y'all a separate ticket?" Jen suggests quickly, passing over the pen and a fresh piece of paper and taking a big sip of her new drink. "'Cause we're lucky enough to have a bunch of real musicians on the docket, anyway..."

This of course sends most members of the two bands preening proudly, and trying to get maybe a duo or group act between them, and in the meantime Jen gets up to head for the MC's stand with the first piece of paper in hand.

But San and Yuri quickly catch up with her.

"Hey, wait, real quick," San says hastily. And then he awkwardly clears his throat, and Yuri has to nudge him.

"Go on," Yuri encourages him with a shit-eating grin, "Say what you told me."

"Fine!" San mutters grumpily, "D-d'you think they've got Fighting Dreamers?"

Jen shrieks a laugh so loud that a good chunk of the audience in front of the stage give her a worried glance.

"Nevermind-nevermind!" San splutters hastily, "F-forget I said anything!"

"I refuse," Jen grins hellishly, "In fact I know they have it and I'll sing it with you if you do it."

"Wh... really?" he looks at her with big brown eyes.

"Someone's gotta pick up the Japanese parts, hey?" she cackles, "Just find me the number and, uh –share some of your coke?"

"Deal." San immediately reaches out to try and shake her hand.

"Y'all are nerds," Yuri sighs.

Jen zeroes in on them. "So you'll join us?"

"Of course," Yuri rolls their eyes dramatically and hands over the spare booklet they'd picked up, "You don't think Matt got his coke from those weird yuppies who were scoping you out back at the other place, did you?"

Jen catalogues that information with a hint of worry, because she's pretty sure she didn't teach Yuri that particular drug trade. But still, she finds the number and writes it down with some silly names (Sanji, Nami, Frankie) and then shoves through the remaining crowd to hand it in to the MC.

Then she returns to Sangria and Yuri. "Man says there's two others before us, so we're gonna have to be quick."

"Can do," Yuri smirks, "Bathrooms?"

"Yup," Sangria leads the way, which is also striking Jen as odd because she's pretty sure she's never been here with him. Unless he's been here before...?

But singing isn't really his scene, and Kahlua also knew this place. Is... is this a formal meeting spot? Does Tequila do a lot of deals here? Fuck, shit, I've made a huge mistake-

But then she's watching Yuri use their green card to grind up and divide the cocaine on the back of San's Code Geass phone case, which is so inherently absurd that cohesive thoughts dissolve in her mind as she nearly sobs with laughter.

"Birthday girl first, show us how it's done!"

So Jen snorts the line Yuri is indicating: without a doubt the thickest. It stings briefly and makes her eyes tear up for a moment, and she sniffles. Then she stands up straight again, and bows dramatically to the semi-sarcastic applause of her friends.

"All good?" Yuri checks in, passing her a water bottle.

"All good," Jen takes a sip, and then hisses in surprise at another cold sting- "Luft?"

"Yeah, I got you two bottles of that weird minty stuff," Yuri grins. "Keep it, happy birthday."

"Happy birthday Jenny!" San agrees, before snorting his line.

Jen laughs, delighted. "Thank you. I – gotta step out real quick, the sting made my eyes tear up so my contact lenses are going wonky..."

"Remember to wash your hands!" Yuri calls after her. "Now, Matt – drink this water...-"

Jen chuckles as Yuri's following instructions to Sangria drop out of earshot. She knows the procedure, and she's relieved for her foresight in bringing eyeliner too because she needs to retouch everything.

By the time she's returning to the main floor of the karaoke bar, contact lenses somewhat fixed and eyeliner a very goth mess, Careless Whisper is winding down, and the MC is already talking:

"That was... great... Thank you," he's clapping in an attempt to encourage the previous duo off the stage, and the audience joins in very loudly. "Now, next up we have – oh, this might be good. 'Miss Olivia' for the Arctic Monkeys?"

"Showtime, kids," she grins at her friends. "How do I look?"

Most give big thumbs up and cheers of support, and Kahlua raises an amused eyebrow at her and indicates to her nose. "Got a bit of..."

She wipes it off and winks at him.

Then she bounces up the stairs as the drum set and then the bassline kicks in and finds herself on the stage. Up here, Jen is far from the suffocating crowds – only the smell of peppermint and the staring eyes remain.

As the punk-inspired electric guitars growl from the speakers, Jen starts exaggeratedly air-guitar-riffing – trying to make a show of the part before she has to sing.

"You look hot!" someone in the crowd shouts, and it tickles her mind.

"I know!" she yells back.

There are more cheers, and Jen starts bouncing with excitement for the coming song and night and rest-of-her-life – and then the second riff has just about started, and she grabs the mic and sings in her best northern English accent:

                 "Anticipation has a habit to set you up-!"

-x-

[sent: 29/7/10
01:25 GMT]

To the concerned Crows,

In the light of the death of your superior officer, your office in New York City is considered highly compromised. The individuals within (Kahlua, Grand Marnier, Sangria) are to be reallocated to safe locations with post haste.

There are as of yet three openings in our offices across the world: one in Accra (Ghana), one in Bogotá (Colombia), and one in Tokyo (Japan).

Given the range of expertise and proficiencies present at your office, we suggest the following allocations for the concerned Crows:

Tokyo – Kahlua
Accra – Grand Marnier
Bogotá – Sangria

If you do have any reservations or alternate preferences to these suggestions, you are free to utilise the usual means of contact in order to do so. You have until the end of this week (Friday 30th July 2010, 23:59 EDT), or otherwise these suggestions shall be taken as acquiesced to and your transfer will be organised for the following days.

In the meantime, you are advised to vacate the premises of your offices as soon as possible. There will be plenty of additional security so you do not need to be worried for your safety; but do expect to be ready to be screened with greater scrutiny than usual.

We apologise once more for the disruption.

Regards.

[received: 28/7/10
21:25 EDT]

-x-

29 June, 2010
New York City, N.Y., USA

After singing their throats sore, it's finally time for the final act of the night.

The group has been mercifully thinning out over the course of their stay at Club Low, with a lot of people citing day jobs and the like. By now, it's past midnight, and only about a half-dozen of the group remains – and all of them are people who Jen is pretty comfortable with.

"Ruby-ruby-ruby-rubayyyyy!" San shouts the chorus still ringing in their ears into the humid city night.

"Oh-woah-woah-woooah!" Yuri and Jen sing back, arms around each other.

"And do-ya do-ya do-ya do-ya?!" Lou picks up the next line.

"Wo-ooooah-ohh-ohh!" Alex, Neha, and Lance crow back.

Then, Neha bursts out laughing. "Ollz, for all that bullshit you spouted about us being musicians, we're sure fuckin' shit now."

"It's because we're singing under the influence," Jen responds diplomatically.

This just makes Neha laugh harder.

"Are you ready for this grand finale?!" San yells.

"Matt," Yuri giggles, helpless, "It's nearly midnight on a weekday. What more could we get?"

"Just wait and see, babygirl," San fingerguns.

"God, is it actually midnight?" Neha mutters, pulling out her phone. Half in sympathetic response, Jen pulls out hers, too: 00:15. Also, the battery is on 15%. She grimaces and pockets it again.

"Nooo," Lance moans, "You said you didn't have to come in to work tomorrow!"

"Sorry," the dark-skinned girl shrugs, "They didn't approve my time off."

"You should unionise," Jen tells her.

"Unionize?!" Yuri wheezes.

"Girl, what?" Neha laugh-sobs, "We're in America!"

("United States," Lou says quickly.)

San shakes his head in mock-disappointment, "Damn Europeans and their crazy ideas..."

"Labour rights are normal!" Jen laughs.

"Sick fucks," Yuri tuts, "With their functioning democracy and medieval castles and good healthcare..."

Neha smirks faintly, "...and their history of colonial exploitation?"

"And inherently undemocratic constitutional monarchies?" Jen says, thinking about the stolen gold in those stupid summer homes.

Kahlua bursts out laughing: "Princess, no-!"

"Um, actually-" Alex starts.

"Guys!" San shouts over them, "We're trying to have fun, remember!"

"Good wholesome adult fun!" Yuri agrees.

"You don't have to say it like that," San nudges them. Yuri aggressively waggles their eyebrows. San's cheeks darken.

Jen rubs her eyelids, and it stings at her contact lenses again, "Bro, the adult part is kicking my ass, it feels like it's past my bedtime."

"Oh?" Yuri nudges her lightly, "Wasn't the wake-up before your big first act enough?"

"I mean, yeah?!" Jen gestures wildly. "But the body clock's all outta whack."

Lance grins over at her. "Probably because you usually stay up 'til five in the morning playing video games."

"Trying to shame me?" Jen smirks, "Joke's on you, bozo. I'm too high for shame."

"Pfft-" Neha giggles, "She got you there."

Lance laughs, shaking his head good-naturedly. "Yeah, alright. I think that's us out, then."

"You bring our girl home safe, alright?" Neha scolds Sangria and Yuri, as if they have any say in the matter.

"Yes, ma'am," they both salute. Notably, Sangria's movements have gotten somehow both sharper and sloppier, which makes this 'salute' look extremely silly.

"Get home safe!"

They wave, and Jen raises her hand to also wave.

Air is a weird soup.

Take stock again: about 500 ml 25% alcohol high-sugar liquor, 80 mg MDMA (at about 20:15, so... four hours ago?), 1 line of cocaine (3 inches x 5 mm, ca. 120 min ago), 2.5 l water/juice. C'mon Janvier, this should be waking you up!

"On that note," Alex mumbles. He's half-draped over Lou's shoulder, and Jen can't tell if he's drunk or tired. "I think I should be getting home too..."

"Oh, cariño," Lou murmurs, slowing down a bit to turn and face his fiancé, "I'm sorry it got so late..."

"It's fine," Alex kisses him gently. "I'm just glad we got to spend time tonight, mi ojitos."

The endearment strikes Janvier like an explosion in the car next to hers.

(Gözlerim, the Dutch-accented voice said in Turkish,
a large freckly hand ruffling her short ginger hair –
Oyouni, the smoke-rough voice said in Iraqi-Arabic,
and later he also said Ghurab, Ghurab as he-)

Ya ahla oyoun! the song from this morning's album drips into her mind, El-kul bekhaf el-mowt, leh el-kul bekhaf el-mowt...?

(Oh, your most beautiful eyes.
They're all afraid of death,
why is everyone afraid of death?)

The street vibrates like artillery impacts.

It takes Jen a moment to pinpoint the source. It's the club that Sangria has been leading them to, The Monster: throbbing its thumping bassline into the night despite it being a weekday.

So the road probably isn't actually vibrating. Jen knows with near-certainty that it's just a result of the cocktail of substances she's ingested. But it feels like it thrums to her racing heart so hard and fast she starts to remember the composition of cocaethylene, and the biochemistry 101 classes mesh with sad Arabic rock and dead loved ones and the cluster bombs over Beirut.

"Hey," a gentle hand touches her elbow, and she flinches for a moment.

"Oh – Nando," she whispers. "Sorry."

"No worries," he smiles. "You doin' alright, princess?"

"Yeah," she grins. Her vision is blurry and her eyes sting, and she blinks hard to get the contact lenses to fit properly again, "Yeah, ese, I'm great."

"If you're sure," he gazes up at her dubiously.

"Of course I'm sure, Lou," she gestures vaguely at the group of them. Lance, Neha, and Alex have vanished – she doesn't remember if they said bye or not. "Are you okay? Alex's gone home, right?"

"It's all the better," Lou murmurs. "Substances loosen the lips, right? I already caught you calling me Nando, earlier."

Jen blinks. Right, yeah – Kahlua – Fernando, apparently – a name she isn't supposed to know due to the secrecy of their shared job. "Sorry," she says awkwardly.

"It's alright," he shrugs, "Alex didn't know it's restricted."

"Wait, is..." his words register sluggishly, and Jen realises: "Wait, is Fernando your real name...?"

He smiles faintly. "I really shouldn't lie to someone I want to spend the rest of my life with, right?"

Is that a yes or a no?

"Probably," she says instead. "But will you be ok?"

"Someone's got to take care of you baby gays, right?"

He reaches up and affectionally ruffles her hair, and Jen chuckles faintly and bats him off.

Then they're in the queue to the Monster, and Jen dry-swallows the half-pill from earlier and mentally marks herself off for 110 mg total. She also finally ties her hair up, because judging by the bass and the queue, it's gonna be packed.

She then gets caught up in a heated debate with a twink, a bear, and a femme about the Star Wars prequels. The next thing she knows, Kahlua and Yuri are dragging her into the club while San begs the bouncer to let them off the hook for her 'incorrect opinions'.

(Apparently Jen calling the Prequel Trilogy an absolutely necessary piece of political literature of the twenty-first century is a 'hot take' and 'an attack on the sanctity of the originals'. Jen is incensed.)

The moment they walk in, the snapping breakbeat of a familiar drum and bass song welcomes them.

           'It's an-'

"OMEN!" someone screams.

                 '-omen-men-mEN-MENNNN!'

Or maybe everyone screams.

Jen's blood rushes and her heart shakes in her chest and she shrieks with delight at the familiar heavy-sharp-fast song.

She loses the Yuri and Lou almost immediately as they head to wardrobe, leaving her to dance towards a rapidly forming mosh-pit with San.

          'You just run on
           automation
           NOW!'

"Now this is leather!" San screams at her over the near-deafening music.

Jen laughs, and shoves someone in front of her and they shove her back and she shoves them, and it's everything.

"Olive!"

Suddenly it's Yuri's turn to be attached to Jen's back, and she nearly falls right back before managing to stomp a leg forwards and sling her arms under Yuri's broad thighs and hold tight.

"Jesus!" Jen laughs, still struggling to adjust her more stringy muscles to Yuri's more dense weight, "Yuri! Try'na slip my discs?!"

"Hi," Yuri murmurs, and there's a soft tickle behind Jen's ear and they lightly press their lips there. "I'm a limpet now."

"Then hold on tight." And Jen wants to ask about where Kahlua is, if he and Yuri went to hand their jackets off – but when she looks over her shoulder, Yuri kisses her on the cheek and their snakebite piercings scrape the skin, making Jen grin. "Try not to drool too much."

"Speak for yourself!" Yuri huffs.

Jen laughs again, and whirls and stomps around to the Prodigy song.

When Sangria notices the silly piggyback situation the little shit nearly falls over for his laughter.

Jen can't quite catch what he says next, though, because the previous song comes to an end and segues smoothly into the next-

            'When I'm falling down...'

Another exhilarated cheer goes through the dancefloor.

"Nami-Nami-Nami!" Yuri hisses, "Let me go! I wanna dance to this one!"

Jen chuckles, "Aye-aye, boss," and Yuri twirls elegantly around her (and stands on their tiptoes to kiss her briefly) before storming up to where San is and throwing their arms around him in a huge bear hug.

"Yuri-Yuri!" Sangria laughs, "Hello!"

"Matt!" Yuri picks him up and twirls him with ease, "This one was your choice, right?"

"Oh, the club?" he looks around himself, and then nods eagerly, "Yeah!"

"You're my hero!"

               'Dead in the eyes of my friends...'

Something about that line makes Jen uneasy.

So even as a music builds up for a breakdown and the rest of the dancefloor is getting more energetic, she shoves past strangers to get back to Yuri and San.

               'Will you-...?'

"Yuri! Where's Zoro?"

                '-take me out of here?'

"I'unno! Wanna dance?"

                'When I'm staring down the barrel?'

"Yeah!" but Jen hesitates, craning her neck to worriedly look around. Kahlua was in a strange mood earlier, that's right, always looking out for others and not himself, always-

                 'When I'm blinded by the lights?'

-there, by the bathrooms – looking out over the dancefloor, she spots his one bright blue eye. Jen stands on her tiptoes and grabs her ginger ponytail to wave it like a flaming flag in the strobe lights to catch his attention-

                 'When I cannot see your face...?

And it somehow works.

Unfortunately, by the time he arrives, the beat drops, so any further questions have to get shelved for as Jen's body can't resist dancing a second longer.

                'Take me out here!'

But she does hug him very tightly, and he laughs warmly and hugs her back, bouncing happily to the breakbeats and Drum'n'Bass. And somehow, despite the high energy of the whole moment, there is something intensely calming about how Kahlua really seems to let loose when he's in the throes of the music.

Jen remembers it in the first club too, and the few previous times she's been on nights out with him. The usually so guarded and hyperaware old fox really becomes just another normal man, only a few years older than her and his eyes brighten with delight as his body moves and flexes to the rhythms and he occasionally throws in a silly little dad-dance fingergun in there.

She wouldn't know to say if he is good at dancing, since she's only ever seen him int his context. But much like herself, Yuri, and Sangria – and most of the others currently present – he has fun.

And that's all you need, to feel alive.

                'Just stay where you are...'

As the brief soft part comes in, Jen puts an arm around Lou and asks, "Are you okay?"

"Sí-sí, princessa," he nuzzles her hand with a grizzled cheek, "Actually, I've got something I wanna talk to you about afterwards."

A flash of alarm. "Oh – is it-?"

"It's good news, don't worry."

Then it's time for the final build-up and breakdown-

                   'Feed the fire! Break your vision!'

Which ends abruptly before being subsumed by a faintly familiar track in a very different style, some kind of hip house music with quick heavy bass beats.

"Now?" Jen asks Kahlua.

He laughs softly, "No rush!" and puts an arm around San, who is bouncing on the tips of his toes and getting ready to belt the first line of the song (in a truly atrocious British accent):

                 'I wake up – every day is a daydream!'

Yuri and Jen fall about laughing. Luckily they don't really get to hear the rest of San's rendition because the DJ flicks the volume levels a smidge higher, drowning him out.

But somehow, it still takes Jen all of the pre-chorus to recognise the song as that British earworm that still sometimes percolates in her mind, mostly because it reminds her of a different song she likes much more.

But everyone seems to dig the vibes of this one, right up until moment where a syncopated 'Bo-bon-bon-bon-bonkers-!' suddenly slows dramatically (it must only be halfway through the song?) and layers and echoes itself and then finally, layered over the top is:

           'Alors on...
                 Alors on...'

Jen screams. "They did it! They came through for me!"

"What do you mean?" Yuri asks next to her.

"Ceci-! Il kommt uit ma ville-!" she stumbles over her languages between 'study' and 'spend', finds it again between 'debt' and 'kids', "He's from my city!"

Wait, I shouldn't have said that. Right? Does it even matter?

             'Dit toujours, et dit divorce.'

Yuri laughs, confused but delighted all the same; and even if Jen has been asked to explain she can't because this song has been in her brain since she first heard it last year. It's not even happiness that the song fills her with – it's anguish, it's giddy joy, it's raw longing, a delirium of grief beyond homesickness and delight at being far from the home that made her sick and-

           'Qui dit proches te dit dieuls,
           car les probl èmes ne viennent pas seuls.'

Her face feels wet and her body moves and grinds instinctively to the song, but when the first chorus hits it's almost religious.

Because Jen picks out the incongruency immediately. It's a rising glitching electronic tune, almost like a soft engine or turbine rev, dropping softly just before every 'Alors on danse' – not a breakbeat, not dubstep – but an electronic underscoring that shouldn't fit as well as it does.

Once the chorus is over,

               'Et l à tu t'dis que c'est fini,'

a thin synth rises out between the warm beats, and Jen recognises the musical style with a start:

               'car pire que ça ce s'rait la mort.'

"C'est Glitch Mob?"

"What?!" Sangria yelps, confused. "Peut être?"

"They've remixé la! Avec Glitch Mob, ouais?"

San shakes his head, confused – and it stings, weirdly. Jen's pretty sure his languages somewhat match up... is it the music? Sure, electronic music is definitely more Jen's thing than anyone's here, but she's still surprised that the others don't. Are they really only from this summer?

She pulls out her phone and finds the audio-recording app to record a snippet or two. Surely Neha will get it!

The remixed track is mesmerising, though. She keeps remembering belatedly that she's got the phone in her hand not as an accessory or to light-wave with, but to do a job. The audio clips get longer and longer, and eventually she decides it's probably enough and remembers to zip the phone up again so she can keep dancing.

Yuri pulls her close at some point during the 'alors on chante' part to make out, and Jen supposes that's an okay consolation. (Especially when Yuri's mouth and jaw and neck start getting smeared with Jen's black lipstick.)

              'Et puis seulement quand c'est fini...'

After much too short and far too long, the song comes to an end in a surprisingly sudden way, slipping into a new track that is a little more standard for a club in central New York, some Tiësto production.

While the rest of the club readily launches into the next round, Jen finds herself being gently pulled away by Kahlua. First they get to the bar, where he gets them a round of what she somewhat overhears over the fast-paced house music to be water, and then to the outside smoking area which is by necessity much quieter.

"Want me to roll you one?" Jen offers after watching Lou struggle with his solo cup of after, smoking stuff, and his missing nails.

"Ah, yes – bien-bien, gracias," they swap her water for his cigarette stuff, "I don't know why I always forget you smoke..."

"Trying to quit. Pero you and San always forget unless you're teasing me," she grins mildly as she leans against the summer-warm brick wall, deftly putting pinches of different substances into the thin paper pinched between her fingers, "What ratio, tío?"

"2:1, favouring the ganj," he makes a so-so motion. "Here."

He passes her his pack of filters (a smidge thicker than her usual cigarette ones) and she rolls up his spliff and passes it all back, and then rolls herself a plain cigarette from her own regular tobacco. She pinches it between her lips and finds her fancy mechanical lighter.

"One moment, princessa," he plucks the cigarette from her lips. "Water first."

Jen grumbles good-naturedly and accepts her water back, and takes a generous sip. "New York's finest tap, eh?"

"Mhm," he smiles, flicking the lighter a few times before tutting. "¡Pucha! How's this thing work?"

Jen chuckles at his native Bolivian slang and finishes her water before she finally takes pity. "There's a trick to it. Watch."

She takes the lighter back, flicks her wrist and snaps her thumb down sharply to make sure that flint really strikes – just as Papa taught her. And true to form, a tall thin flame gusts up. She lights first his cigarette, then gets hers back and lights her own.

They share a soft laugh at how easy she makes it look, and he tries a few times and nearly gets it on the third time.

Despite the smoking area being fairly loud and crowded too, it's all oddly peaceful. This weekday crowd consisting more of university or college students who got a special deal and are flirting sloppily or exchanging drinks. (Jen vaguely recalls the US drinking age and then forgets it again.) It's chaotic, but controlled.

Shared lingering smoke tingles in her gums and stings her eyes, and as usual there is no faint fresh flowery sweetness on the winds anymore. There isn't even a breeze in this – what amounts to a New York back alley.

"Alex and I decided on a date," Lou says unceremoniously.

"What!" her eyes flash open. "For the wedding?"

"Yes," Lou is looking up at her with his crooked steady smile, a little smoke drifting from his roll-up. "It'll be the second October weekend, in Worcester where Alex's folks are from."

"That's in Massachusetts, right?" she nods along, grin widening. "That's wonderful, Lou! I'm so happy for you two!"

"Aheh... thank you," he smiles now, a little abashed. "I... of course, you and San are invited too."

Jen's exhilaration dips into confusion. "Are... are you sure? We're not supposed to really share our civilian and work lives like this – you know, work-life balance means something else for us than most people..."

"Janvier," he interrupts softly, reaching out a hand to put on her shoulder. "I'm sure."

Jen's mind whirls, but in the haze Lou's even mismatched gaze keeps her there.

Always so warm and comforting. Always looking out for her. Always doing right by her. Keeping her from floating away, making sure everyone in the office is looked after, making sure Tequila's keeps stamping off on the health resources everyone needs-...

"Kahlua," she says, and it's surprising how coldly sober her tongue feels. "This is dangerous."

"Of course," he sighs, "It always was. But there... there comes a point where you have to ask yourself what's more important: life? Or what we live for?"

Jen's mind whirls again. The words are hazy, his breath is hazy – but her mind is growing colder.

(Life?)

Horrors of sobriety take root in her mind. People torn apart like paper, men with cold eyes asking the same questions, cold handguns settling in her hands, hot muzzles singing her cheek hair.

(Or what we live for?)

"I want you to be my maid of honour," Kahlua's voice again gently tears her from it all.

Jen stares at him. Her cheeks hurt. "L-Lou..."

"Oh princessa! Rojita! Don't cry," he runs a hand over one of her cheeks, "I'm sorry if this is the wrong time, I just..."

"It's perfect," she laughs wetly, wrapping her arms around him. "God, Lou, I would love to. I would love to! Thank you!"

"Of course, you were always the first choice," he chuckles and returns a one-armed hug. "Careful, princessa, the embers..."

"Yes-yes," she sniffles. She takes another moment, and then extracts herself from him and then gives him a kiss on each cheek like she would to her Turkish uncles back in Belgium.

"¡Felicidades! Et buena suerte por both of you."

"Gracias," he smiles up at her, and she swears she's never seen him so happy except for rare moments with only Alex.

Is this what he wanted before? Is this what he wanted to say?

"Now, finish up your cigarette and wash up your face, okay? You look a mess, darling."

She laughs again and wipes at her cheeks and gazes up at the light garlands over them as she smokes. She hadn't even noticed them initially, but it makes sense why this area is so illuminated.

This club is really nice, she thinks, and feels another urge to cry. Oh nope. Not right now!

She looks back down, and finds that Kahlua has left her. She takes the moment to quickly crush her cigarette and run back inside to get to the bathroom before she can have a full-blown breakdown in public.

The bathroom is much more private, surprisingly clean, and a bit dim.

She stares in the mirror, tears leaking from her eyes. Her face is mostly clear of makeup by this point, but she still does an effort to wash up properly before reaching for her pocket-eyeliner to readjust everything. It's easy to fix the lips (though she reckons that's probably quite futile, heh), but as she reaches her eyes, a contact lens finally slips free.

"Verdomme!" she hisses under her breath, scrabbling to catch it.

She thinks she spots it hit the sink, but the light here doesn't quite catch it.

Jen figures it's probably too late to salvage this situation, but a surge of stubbornness hits her in the Oh, I guess it's the 110mg? and she pulls out her phone to look.

Of course, her civilian phone is dead, by now.

Tutting irritably, she pulls out her work phone. She remembers it being pretty full before Sangria told her to turn it off, what, a thousand years ago? so it'll absolutely still be fine and useful now. Work-life balance, bah... poor kid barely knows what the work part really means...

She switches it on. The Apple logo flashes... 89%, as expected!

Jen's eyes feel bleary and blurry against the bright smartphone screen. She really regrets taking out her contact lenses at Club Low, that's where these problems started.

She tries to find the flashlight app to look for the missing one, but there's a notification...?

It would be inaccurate to say that Jen reads the email from the human resources guy.

She definitely perceives it.

Maybe some part of her even understands it.

But in the LED shine of her slightly cracked smartphone screen, she cannot find her missing contact lens.

"Fuck it," she mutters.

                   '...I lied! It's drum and bass. What you gonna do?'

As the music continues to thunder outside, Jen stands up straight again.

She switches the flashlight app off, locks the screen, shoves the phone back in her pocket and zips it up, and then washes her hands. She's got a better chance of seeing properly with both contact lenses out, than with just one and the other one missing.

With pinpoint precision she takes out the remaining contact lens and washes her hands again-again, and heads back out into the club proper. After all, her friends aren't so difficult to find, with their colourful hair and clothes and all that leather and noise. She finishes her makeup, and straightens her bomber jacket.

Showtime, Kaneda.

It doesn't take long before she spots the neon blue and snakebite piercings out in the strobe and rave wonderland.

Jen puts an arm around Yuri's buff shoulder, and they jump before laughing and putting their arms around her. "Jen-Nami!"

"Hey!" Jen grins down at their slightly blurry face. Did you just call me Jen? Don't do that. "Where is everyone?"

"I think Matt's over there," they point somewhere to their left, "And Zoro's with him, they're trying to crank dat soulja boy to Pendulum."

Jen barks a baffled laugh. "I love those boys."

"Where were you?" Yuri asks curiously.

"Secret," Jen grins, and quickly presses her lips down to Yuri's.

They finish dancing (and making out) to the Pendulum track, and somewhere in that time Sangria and Kahlua show up too. Jen isn't sure if her heart is racing from the joy or exercise or the drugs or the general energy or just to keep pace with the wild breakbeats.

Eventually the last of the Pendulum track dies down, and the dancefloor (and her pulse) relaxes an increment.

Then, oddly – melancholy acoustic guitar strums echo through the dancefloor, and the crowd relaxes even more. People go to grab refills on their drinks.

"Whoo!" San shouts. "Are we doing this next?"

"Next, we're doing water," Yuri has somehow vanishes and returned with four fresh solo cups. "All of you, I wanna see you drink it."

"You're cute when you're bossy," Jen chuckles and takes good healthy sips. Together with the last, we're clearing into 3 litres so far. Good going!

"Does this seem out of place...?" Kahlua asks, gesturing up vaguely at the air – clearly meaning the music. The acoustic guitars haven't faded, in fact the audio quality seems pretty garbage now, like it's been picked up on a phone recording.

"Wait, you don't know this song?" San is bouncing on the balls of his feet, already having finished his water and given his empty cup Lou.

"I don't either," Jen shrugs. "Is this what they play to kick people out?"

"Oh nah! Just wait, just wait," San grins manically. "You'll see. This one's a slow burn, but I promise it's worth."

The singing sounds even more out of place – a raw man's voice, some kind of breakup ballad:

         'You don't care, about me, anymore...
           that's why you, you wanna break my heart, into pieces on the floor...'

"San? Are you sure about this?"

"Oh yeah," he nods wildly. "It'll be worth it. Promise-promise."

It continues sadly, and Jen glances at her phone. Now that she thinks about it, that email was pretty important, she shouldn't have just ignored it – if she just takes another peek...–

"Anticipation has a habit to set you up," Yuri mutters. They've looking expectantly at Jen's nearly finished cup.

Jen quickly zips the phone up again and downs her water and grins. "Sure does."

But just as the sad refrain finishes a third time and it's starting to nearly feel boring, there comes the tell-tale signs of a build-up before a drop, and the singing gets sharper and angrier:

        'I remember when I used to feel su'ttin'!
         I remember when I used to feel-!'

San laughs. "You ready?"

           'But now-I'm
                 now-I'm
                           now-I'm
           now-I'm
                          just cold as ice.'

And the bass drops and the rapid breakbeats hit and the crowd goes mad.

Jen forgets about the email. She forgets about the anxiety and the little breakdowns she's had and the revelatory news of Kahlua's upcoming wedding. She makes out with Yuri a bunch more, and Yuri and San make out too, and Kahlua carries Jen on his shoulders for a brief song, and, and....

Jen gives herself to the night.

It's nearing somewhere between two and three in the morning by the time they're swaying down the road to the nearest subway station.

Yuri is a distance away, arguing with someone on the phone (maybe a taxi driver or maybe a fellow dealer, or just maybe their mother who still lives on the west coast).

Sangria has got an arm around Jen's waist, half-carried by her as he still vaguely hums along to a song – Is that Ash Crow? Jesus Christ, you dork...

And Kahlua is also checking his phone, but something about it is different.

His face looks old again. Between the harsh streetlights and lack of true darkness and the phone LED reflecting from his lined and scarred face, he looks maybe older than ever. Something terrible has happened – oh god, what if it's Alex, what if...?

Jen asks uncertainly, "Lou? Everything okay?"

"It's..." he looks up at San and Jen. "It's Tequila."

Like a bolt of lightning, Jen recognises that it's his work phone, not the civilian one he'd had the rest of the evening. She (horrors of sobriety) swallows the guilt and fear and resignation it all bubbles in her.

But San is a bit too high for that. He laughs: "Is he coming too?"

"No," Kahlua says gravely. "It's about Tequila."

"What... do you mean...?" Jen asks slowly.

She doesn't know how believable it is. She knows exactly what's coming.

"He's dead, Jenny."

Janvier barely as to fake her horrified gasp. Sangria's is a choked, confused laugh.

Yuri returns with the great news that they've organised separate taxis for everyone so everyone can be bright and early for work tomorrow. Everyone manages to groan unhappily at that idea, at least.

The arranged taxis arrive.

They disperse home.

Jen thinks something more, or worse, or anything would happen. Should happen. Could happen...

But she ends up in bed and sleeps like a baby until it's time to go to work again.

(Et ben y en a encore...)

-x-