"What's next when my body breaks?
'Cause my soul's been dead for days."
Brandon Sammons, Break Free
**picture: One Center Plaza, FBI Boston field office until Nov.2016
"Morning, sunshine. Up and here so early?"
Aldana smirked at Ron as she dropped her bag on Gillian's desk.
"Meaning Russ is still outta town," said Fred from the coffee machine.
"Yup. Dear Cassidy put him and Brockner in charge of the raids," replied Aldana.
"Still hunting pedos?" asked Ron.
"Yeah. They already caught Bilik's customers on the East Coast. Now they're canvassing the country to the west."
"It's gonna take'em a good while. They were thousands," said Fred.
"We could join them," Ron complained. "It's been almost a month since we came back from DC and not one case you could call 'big'. This is getting boring."
"Maybe we get lucky and some wacko shows up," said Aldana. "Reg didn't come yet?"
"She texted she'd be a little late today," said Tanya.
"Business breakfast?" asked Ron, frowning. "Hum..."
"Poor Taylor," said Fred. "I liked him." He noticed the eyes on him. "I mean, for Reg."
"I'm sorry to disappoint you, but she's meeting Connor," said Tanya. "My padawan wants to buy a present for his friend's birthday, so he skipped his morning classes to go shopping with Reg."
"Anyway, it's about time she drops him. I mean Taylor, not Connor," said Kurt, watching a muted video on his computer. "She cannot marry Brockner if she's still dating him."
The others traded doubtful looks, until Ron said, "He's got a point."
At any other time, Kurt would've flashed a triumphant grin at having the others agree, instead of glaring at him. But that morning he didn't even notice. The others saw his face darken as he kept watching the video. Until he paused it with a serious scowl.
"T, turn on the plasma," he said, his voice a deaden echo of his usual cheerful tone. "This has just gone viral," he explained, connecting his computer to the plasma. "It's from a deep-web forum, and someone uploaded it to YouTube. This is a teaser. I'm downloading the main video, 'cause they're gonna delete it any minute now."
Hank walked in as the others gathered behind Tanya's desk, right before the large screen.
"And what's wrong about it?" asked Aldana.
"Boys with guns," replied Kurt nodding at the screen on the wall.
The video opened with a black screen with huge red capital letters, as the voice of a teen read them in a smug shout, "SHUUUUUT A CUP!"
The footage was recorded with a phone. It started at the small living area of a working-class apartment, a mess of toddler toys, kitchen stuff and clothes. Two teen boys were sprawled on a shabby couch. Both of them had their hoodies on and bandanas covering the lower part of their faces, so only their eyes were visible.
The boy holding the phone yelled at them, the same voice from the title. "Hey, yo, get your lazy asses up! We've got work to do!"
The boys stood up and approached him, leaning to the camera.
"And what're we gonna do, huh?" asked one.
"Are we gonna shut a cup?" asked the other.
"YEAH!!" yelled the three of them, laughing out loud.
One of them grabbed a twenty-two pistol from the table and slid it in the waist of his baggy jeans, hiding it beneath his shirt.
"That's my man!" cried the boy with the phone. "Today's Kyle's day to shut a cup!"
"Yeah!" yelled the other one.
They headed out, teasing and bragging, the boy with the phone followed. The video faded to black as the boys started down a flight of stairs.
"D'you have the rest?" asked Fred.
"In a minute."
"Looks like that 'shut' stands for 'shoot'," said Hank, using the forced pause to fetch himself a coffee.
"Then let's pray the 'cup' doesn't stand for 'cop'," said Ron with a broody grimace.
"Let's check with Banks," said Fred, producing his phone. "If nothing happened, at least we can give'em the heads-up."
He strolled to the other end of the office, speaking in whispers on the phone, as the others looked up at the black screen.
"When was this recorded?" asked Aldana.
"I don't know," replied Kurt, keeping an eye on the download. "They uploaded it to the deep-web not ten minutes ago."
"What!?"
They all looked down at Fred, who turned to them with a shocked scowl.
"I'll keep you up, Banks. Bye," he said, and disconnected. He spoke as he still tried to process his own words. "Julian Gomez was shot last week. He was from Vice. Reg and I worked with'im for about a year. He was the best asset the PD had for anything gang-related."
"Any lead on who did it?" asked Aldana.
Fred shook his head, still stomaching the news.
"You think a gangbanger killed him?" asked Ron.
"No, no way. Any gangbanger in town would kill you if you dared to lay a finger on Gomez. They all liked him, and turned to him whenever a conflict between gangs was getting outta hands. He prevented more than two wars."
"You think this video is related to his death?" asked Hank.
"Gomez was shot at night and this is recorded with daylight," replied Fred.
"Yeah, but no way to tell if it's the afternoon. Maybe they waited and ambushed him," said Aldana.
"T, track down the uploader," said Ron.
"On it. Sure as hell they used a proxy, so it's gonna take time," the girl said.
"I've got the rest of the video. It's about five minutes long," said Kurt.