It’s as dark as it gets in New California, rain is pouring down hard as John walks down its streets alone. His hair drenched as he stops on the side of a building, gasping for air from a coughing fit. Looking around at the empty streets, neon signs flicker on and off.

He receives a text message as his phone vibrates.

Taking it out he reads it. It’s from Anya. ‘Where are you?’

Thinking to himself for a bit, John begins to write a message. ‘Just got done with a gig, Jamar’s going to be staying at my place for the night.’ Looking down at it, he sighs. As he presses send, John continues down along the street.

A car can be seen slowly driving a block across from him, John doesn’t seem to notice.

He continues along as he begins to start to see homeless people lying around on the street, some huddle near makeshift bonfires while others try to keep out of the rain using whatever they can. One of them begins to sing as another laughs to himself for no apparent reason.

John turns to look at the singing man as he walks along, who in turn grins.

One of the homeless men around the bonfire shouts at him.

“You lost?”

“No, just heading home.” John says, looking towards him.

“Stay out of the alleyways, they’ve been taking people in them recently.”

“Thanks for the heads up.” John replies.

John makes his way back onto the open street, very few cars are still out and about this late at night but a few can still be seen driving along. John coughs to himself as walks along. Behind him, a Sedan drives along the road beside him as it passes him by.

He continues along, passing by another few blocks, John turns on an intersection towards a different street.

Continuing to walk along, the Sedan slowly creeps up on him again.

This time, John notices as he pretends not to.

Taking his phone out, he pretends to call someone as he turns into a corner. The Sedan drives past him as he glances back in the direction of the car. John hears the car come to slow stop. Reaching into his jacket, he prepares for the worst.

“So, yeah. About last night's sales figures-” John says out loud.

The doors of the car can be heard closing.

As footsteps come closer towards him.

Two shadows make their way towards the alleyway as John looks down at them.

“Really? That’s good to hear.”

The shadows don’t move as they seem to just watch him from a distance.

“Ah, that’s a shame I was hoping we’d figure something out.”

One of them feigns a cough behind him, it sounds very feminine as another sounds like a recording of John coughing to himself, John freezes for a bit as he puts his gun back into his jacket. The shadows seem to cross their arms as if waiting for him.

“You know what, I’ll get back to you. It looks like I have some unexpected guests.”

Turning around, John puts his phone back into his pocket.

In front of him, he sees a man who’s holding a recorder with a familiar face, Katarina, they’re dressed in business casual as they look like any other person getting done with their day. The man stops the recorder as he smiles at John.

“John Fray?” The man asks.

“That’s me. Who are you?”

The man looks at the ground as he turns to look at Katarina who nods.

“I’m special agent Nathan Miller and this is my partner Katarina Kovac. We’re with the Bureau of Investigation. We were wondering if you would come with us for a few questions.”

John turns to look at Katarina.

“Just a few, huh.”

“You’re not in any trouble.” Katarina replies.

John scratches his head as he looks around the alleyway.

“I don’t know, is there a reason why I should trust you?”

“We can help with your condition.” Nathan says.

“I can help myself.”

John begins to cough as Katarina looks worried. Nathan raises his hand to stop her as he puts on a grin, shaking his head at him.

“Is this funny to you asshole?” John asks.

“No, not at all. Just a little interesting to me how little of an understanding you have of the situation you’re in.” Nathan replies.

“What? The hell is that supposed to mean?”

Nathan looks at the ground for a bit then turns back to John.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Do you really think that the Triad is just going to give you your money?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” John responds.

“Want me to play another recording?”

John doesn’t say anything as Nathan presses on his recorder again.

“How much does it pay? Five hundred, thousand?”

“Million”

Nathan stops the recording.

“So, what was the plan? Walk into the club, looking like this?” Nathan shakes his head.

“They’ll eat you alive. You’ve got a lot of balls. I’ll give you that, but going in on their busiest night? Heh, you think that anyones going to remember a face like yours going inside? You’d be dead the moment you stepped inside.”

John thinks to himself as he looks at the ground.

“What do you want?”

Nathan smiles.

“What do I want?” Nathan says as he walks up to John, he pretends to think to himself as he puts his hand on his shoulder. Katarina follows behind him.

“I want you to work for me. But… That’s not something I can decide.”

“So, how about this? Let’s talk.”

“Somewhere else… More comfortable, what about your place? That good for you?”

John thinks to himself, turning towards Kat, he nods.

“Great.”

----------------------------------------

In his bathroom, John looks at himself in the mirror, he dries off his hair with a hairdryer as just outside the sound of his fridge opening up can be heard. The television is playing what sounds like the news as John puts away the hairdryer.

“Ah, geez. This guy doesn’t have shit.”

“Shut up and look here.”

Opening up his medical cabinet, John begins to cough as he takes out a bottle of pills. Opening them up, he spits blood out of his mouth as he fills a cup with water. Taking two pills, he chugs down the water as he puts his cup down.

John stares at himself in the mirror as he sighs.

“You alright in there, John?” Nathan asks.

“Yeah, I’ll be right out.” He replies.

Opening the door, John looks around. Nathan and Katarina are sitting in front of the television as they eat from a box of heavily processed cereal.

“To think, I’d be spending the New Year eating cereal while watching the ball drop in some random guy's apartment.” Katarina says to herself as Nathan tries to not laugh.

“At least it wasn’t as bad as last year. When you were still with that guy. And we had to-”

“Shut up.” Katarina says.

John coughs as he looks over at them.

“So… How long have you two been following me?” John asks.

“Shh, it’s starting.” Katarina responds.

They ignore him as they continue to stare at the television. As a countdown starts. John walks over towards them as he looks over at the TV. People are gathered around times square as they begin to shout.

‘Five’

‘Four’

‘Three’

‘Two’

‘One!’

A ball drops in the much larger and heavily urbanized times square begins to shout.

“Ever wonder why we celebrate this?” John asks.

“It’s because the Japanese have their own system. Europe is a day ahead of us. All the Mexicans love to do on this night is party. And the American’s have already been doing this for over a hundred years so, why not?” Nathan replies.

“Aren’t we technically still at war with them?”

“Who cares.” Nathan seems to grumble.

“So… ready for our talk? Looks like you aren’t dying anymore.” He asks, looking over at John.

“Yeah.”

“Have a seat.”

John sits down parallel to them in front of a small table.

“We’ve been watching you for a while. Ever since the bank incident. Our CO’s been following this case too. She thinks you’ve got a lot of potential. It’s the reason we haven’t picked you up for the Anderson Case.”

“Anderson?” John asks, looking towards them.

Eating from the box, Nathan looks over at Katarina with a look.

“It’s your first gig. Elliot Anderson.”

“So, what? Not like it was a big deal.”

“Actually, it was. Anderson’s team worked directly on managing the security platform for the Yasuda Corporation. They had a big job today. Hah, by the looks of it you don’t even seem to know just what exactly was on that usb drive you put into his computer. Things like that can put you in for 10 years minimum these days.”

“Oh wow. I-”

“You didn’t know.” Nathan finishes his sentence as he puts his hand out to tell him it’s okay.

“Look, there was a lot of security footage of you going there in person. At the end of the day, they were looking to burn you as soon as they could. Hell, I’m surprised you actually pulled this gig off. Especially so when they used you as bait.”

John looks at the ground.

“Oh, so you knew?”

“Had a suspicion.” John replies.

“Then why do it?” Nathan asks.

“Isn’t much else I could do.” John replies helplessly.

Nathan begins to chuckle as Katarina seemingly grabs him to make him stop. Nathan gently swipers her hands aside as he looks over back at John.

“Yeah, we know. Heard it all too.”

“Why are you being so honest with me?” John looks at him and raises his eyebrows.

Nathan raises his arms in the air.

“It’s because I like you. And like I said before, I want you to work with me. Let me ask you something.” Nathan says as he leans onto the table.

“What is it?”

“What do you think is the most important thing in any kind of relationship?”

John thinks to himself.

“I don’t know. Connections? Support?”

“No, it’s something more fundamental than that.”

“Belonging?”

“It’s trust. At the foundation of every relationship is trust.”

“Guess I never thought of it that way.” John says.

“It plays a bigger role than you would think. Everything we do is based on the fundamental idea of it. Whether or not you can trust me or if I can trust you. Like let’s say I give you a piece of information that if you took and used would make you very wealthy. But there was a risk involved, let’s say for example, I knew insider information about a company. If you didn’t know me, would you trust what I said was true?”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“So now, if I approached you and wanted you to work with me. And you knew absolutely nothing about me or how I even knew what you were doing. Would you trust me? Or even want to work with me?” Nathan asks.

John looks over at Katarina.

“I mean sure, you know her, but do you know me? Or my team?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Good, looks like you’re starting to understand.”

“I thought you said that-”

Nathan raises his arm as Katarina looks over at him.

“My CO will agree hell, you’re the closest that we’ve ever gotten on this trail. What I really wanted to talk about here were the terms and your next steps so you don’t get iced the moment you walk into the wrong part of town.” Nathan replies quickly.

“What about the others?”

“We can talk about that later. For now let’s focus on what’s important right now, and that’s making sure you get out alive.” Katarina says.