Leonard was incredibly groggy as he sat in Pricsilla’s office, nursing a cup of steaming coffee. He didn’t want to get up, but his body had been long since trained to wake up at a certain time every morning. Military life did not allow for pilots to sleep in.
“Trouble sleeping last night?” Pricsilla asked. “Is this a common problem?”
“No no,” Leonard waved off her concerns. “Just busy was all.”
“Doing?” Pricsilla leaned back in her chair, crossing one leg over the other. She had prepared a game on the small table between the two, but seeing his dishevelled state she decided to put it aside.
“Just a meeting,” Leonard said before he could even think of what he was saying. Only catching his slip after it was already said. “Never mind, It's nothing.”
“Well nothing certainly has you tired,” she said in return.
“It certainly has,” Leonard responded simply, a long silence forming between the two of them as neither of them made to talk. Only after a good ten minutes, and after Leonard’s coffee was drained did Pricsilla decide to speak again.
“If you're tired you can just sleep, you know.”
“I’ll be fine,” having finished his heavily caffeinated drink he had already begun to feel better. “Besides, if I go to sleep now I know I won't wake back up for a while. And I have somewhere I need to be once we’re done here.”
“More of nothing I assume?”
“Ah yeah…” Leonard said guilty. “More of nothing.”
Pricsilla arched an eyebrow at his evasive response, however having come to know him over their few appointments she let it slide. He certainly wasn’t someone that liked to talk about their troubles, although if she was being honest, not many in this estate were.
“Well if you ever need to talk about nothing I'm here to listen,” she offered. “Let's end it here for today then? You have nothing to do right now after all.”
“Thanks for the coffee.” With a nod Leonard rose from his seat, giving his thanks for her time, and the drink her assistant/receptionist had prepared.
“No worries,” she said back with a smile before Leonard made his way outside.
His comm unit lit up as he made his way outside, a call from his private investigator Peter coming through, as well as a document that he would look at after.
“Good news I hope?” Leonard said as he answered the phone.
“Decent enough,” Peter responded, Leonard recognising the rundown dinner behind his image as the one they had met at, though he made sure to leave his own camera turned off. “The document I sent you contains the travel data of all the bugs I placed on vehicles leaving the warehouse last night. I haven't been able to follow up on all of them so some of the locations could very well just be somewhere they park their cars. But the one I did is most certainly a base of some kind.”
“Impressive work,” Leonard complimented as he briefly scrolled through the document. “Did you get any names?”
“Not as of yet, but I’ll keep looking into it.”
“Very good.” Leonard hummed. “See what you can find out about the other locations, but forget about investigating this one base you found.”
“Can I ask why?” Peter questioned, confusion evident on his face.
“There’s no need to keep investigating something that won’t exist for much longer after all.”
(/)
“Nice place,” Leonard complimented as he walked into Kyle’s warehouse, a small thing not even in the outskirts of the city, but in one of the few slums that surrounded it. If Citadel was equated to a pyramid, the senate and space elevator would be the flagstone, the city centre the upper levels with the outskirts bringing out the bottom. And the slums he currently found himself in were akin to the soil the pyramid stood on.
Stolen novel; please report.
The warehouse was a rusted mess, more a square plot covered by a tin roof than anything that could resemble a building. Although it did have four walls they were cracked and split in multiple places, large sheets of metal haphazardly welded overtop and called fixed. The warehouse also housed a small office, a set of stairs leading up to what would be a foreman's office overlooking the floor beneath.
It was there that he found Kyle, the man scratching his head as he battled with what seemed to be a mountainous pile of paperwork. Though the word paperwork wasn’t quite fitting considering it was all contained within several datapads.
“Don’t lie,” the man sighed, leaning back on his chair only for one of the legs to snap, sending him tumbling to the ground. “Urggh! This fuckin sucks!”
“I’ll admit it could use some work,” Leonard relented, going to take a seat before pausing and thinking better of it. “What about the locals? Can we trust them to keep their nose out of our business?”
“That’s the one good thing about being all the way out here. The locals don’t give two shits about what you do so long as it doesn't inconvenience them.” Kyle began, climbing back to his feet. “I could decapitate someone on the street and they wouldn’t bat an eye. Although that may be partly because of the local gangs being quite brutal to any who sticks their necks out.”
“Will they be a problem?”
“Nah shouldn’t be. As far as I’ve been told, the local gangs, while not in our pocket, won't intervene with our business, so long as we don’t mess with them in return.”
Leonard nodded, such an arrangement was good but not great. Although he had very little say in the proceedings thus far, or none at all to be frank, from now on he would have to make sure they had a firmer grip on their surroundings. Who knew who these local gangs were spying for after all.
“Any news on this manpower we will be getting in?”
“Urgh…” Kyle sighed again. “It seems we’ve been shafted. I just read through some documents sent through this morning, and it seems Madame Camilia is taking the majority of Salvador’s men and assets for herself and leaving us with the scraps.”
“Fuck,” Leonard couldn’t help but say. “What are we left with?”
“Three men that nobody wanted, 10 pistols, 1 rifle, a crate of ammunition and 100,000 credits.”
Leonard let out a whistle, it seemed they really had been given the short end of the stick here. Although that would probably be too much compared to what they had been left with, rather they were only given a small nibble of the much larger pie.
“Still, even if this is only 1% of the late Salvador’s assets it paints a dangerous picture, he was just one of many bosses at the table after all.” Leonard thought, although he figured the number could be even smaller than that. “And he seemed to be one of the more junior members as well, someone evidently extremely disposable.”
While Leonard knew that the operations of Condor in Bastion were large and widespread, seeing them with his own eyes truly put things into perspective.
“Is there anypoint going over then?” Leonard questioned, and Kyle only shook his head.
“Nah, they’re sending the three guys over here on a transport with our loot.” Kyle lamented. “And I'm supposed to find these guys accommodation as well. As if I have the bloody money for that!”
“100,000 credits should last a while if we budget correctly,” Leonard said to console the man.
“But that's all it can do, last.” Kyle shook his head, pulling up another unbroken chair to sit down on. “We can’t do any of the work that we need to in order to receive further funding from headquarters.”
“What is the work by the way?” Leonard couldn’t help but question. “I’ve been filled in broadly but I'm sure you can share more of the smaller details?”
“It’s a doozy the pile of shit they dropped on us,” the man cursed. “We need to spy on the Vallum family of all fucking people,” Kyle threw his hands up in the air. “With what you might ask? With nothing but this giant pile of scrap that surrounds us.”
“Any idea on what information we need to collect in particular?”
“Fuck if I know,” Kyle cursed. “All I’ve been told so far is to get informants on the inside, then they’ll begin to assign me tasks.”
That wasn’t very helpful to Leonard, however he did understand somewhat. This operation they had here was nothing more than a fake effort in order to appease these ‘men upstairs’, something that was completely disposable if need be. It made sense that all the details would be shared piecemeal rather than risk leaks if or rather, when they went tits up.
“Do we have any leads for possible informants?”
“A couple,” Kyle admitted. “Well just two really. The first one though is kinda a bust, she's just a simple hired staff working as a cook that wants 1k creds every time she passes on information. One, we don’t have the money for that and two what the hell is a cook going to know?”
“And the second?”
“That has some potential,” Kyle spun a datapad around for Leonard. “Name’s Joseph Vallum, an actual member of the family. Word is we have some videos of him cheating on his wife with her younger sister, whos fucking 14! Crazy right? I always knew noble houses were kinda weird but thats just fucked up.”
The name didn’t ring a bell, but that wasn’t surprising considering the amount of people that shared his surname. But the actions this man took made him sick. Sure spouses cheating on one another while deplorable was still fairly common, but cheating with a minor? If they didn’t need the man for information then the only way Leonard would have wanted to see him is with a 12 gauge shoved down his throat.
His picture on the tablet didn’t help much either. A tall middle aged man with a decent amount of stubble covering his face. The data to the side of his image helped paint a better picture though. Joseph Vallum, Age 52, Mech Maintenance Citadel Estate, Married, 2 Children, Male 21 Female 18.
“And we’re sure this is the man?” Leonard asked.
“Yup,” Kyle responded. “Seen the videos myself, there can be no mistaking that it's him. I can show you if you want to confirm it for yourself.”
“I’d really prefer not to,” Leonard couldn’t help but say, he’d just have to take Kyle’s word on it.
“Fair,” the man nodded. “It’s all kinds of fucked up I wont lie, probably best if you didn’t look.”
“Have we made contact with him yet?” Leonard asked, wanting to move the subject along.
“Nah not yet,” Kyle admitted. “But we know a bar he frequents so I plan to camp it out until he shows up. Scare him into parting with information whenever we need.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Leonard agreed. It was something at least.
Before they could continue further the sound of a transport touching down outside reached their ears, as its engines rattled the whole run down warehouse. The two men looked at each other, before making their way down from the office and towards the large open doors at the front of the warehouse.
“Think that's them?” Leonard asked as he side stepped a large rod of scrap metal that had been carelessly discarded on the floor.
“Probably.” Kyle agreed. “Besides, it's not like we have any other visitors planned.”