INT. LIVING ROOM - HEADQUARTERS - 8:45 AM - JULY 19, 2019
”Now?"
"No."
"Maybe now?"
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
"Pretty please~"
"No."
Alo is smirking confidently the whole time as the hologram doctor begs for the now-overpowered brawler to summon his electric gauntlets that destroyed the Com-Bots before. Accepting the fact that Alo won't reveal it to him, Richard sighs in defeat and slumps down on the floor like a cadaver. "Can you at least tell me HOW did you get it in the first place? It's not like you thought of something important, closing your eyes and concentrate like some cliched MC and POOF! MAGIC!",
"Actually, I did thought of something important, closed my eyes and concentrated like some cliched MC and POOF! MAGIC! This works...for some reason.", Alo retorted while watching the Daily News around America.
"Yesterday, a robbery occured at the Green Bank, located in West Viriginia", Richard pops his head out of the floor to see the news. "Several armed robbers have taken 8.5 million dollars. Police weren't able to catch the suspects, as the uneven terrain and the lack of units being dispatched prevented them from accomplishing their tasks. The people of West Viriginia protest to US President Donald Trump however the president does not consider rescinding the National Radio Quiet Zone or transfer additional units to the Green Bank, also further implicating it's the law enforcements' fault for not having any training about catching criminials in harsh environments.", Alo mutes the television, whilst Richard chortles in mischievously.
Alo looks at Richard suspiciously, "I don't like where this is going."
"Oh, but I want this. This is just what we need right now! A mission! It could be like one of those 1940s noir detective shows when I was a kid or - or Pulp Fiction! Yeah, that's better! We need to investigate the crime and catch those guys, think about it; What are they going to do with the 8.5 million? Recruit more guys? Build a giant contraption that is a big threat no country alone can handle?! - ", Richard is thinking of many (and exaggerating) ideas.
Alo changes his clothes to a simple black jacket and dark blue jeans, " - or they are just robbers who do what robbers do. Spend it on a vacation in Hawaii, honestly, man, you overthink everything.", Alo wears his socks along with black-and-white Nike running shoes. "Yet a bad guy is a bad guy. And I want my bad guys like I want my coffee beans, grinded.", he cracks his knuckles and circles his head around, fixing a few dormant bones inside.
Richard only stared at him uneasily, "Ooookay, let's call a cab while we still can, road's far from here.", Richard disintegrates into tiny pixels while Alo heads to the elevator.
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EXT. GREEN BANK - 9:10 AM
Multiple officers are stationed near the area, searching for clues as to where the robbers have left. A small cab pulls over the nearby building, Alo coming out and pays the driver as he leaves. Richard appears secretly behind him, wearing the same old lab-coat but disguises himself as a normal bystander. The doctor sees a female officer, conversing with the manager of the bank with his frightened employees.
"Psst, you see that lady officer over there? Try talking to her, we need at least one or two pieces of information. I'll scout around the bank, and call you if there's anything interesting.", Richard backs off from Alo, turning to a secluded area at the side of the bank. Alo approaches the officer, as the emplotees went back to their cars go somewhere else where they will be safe.
The officer sees Alo and raises an eyebrow, assuming he's here to ask about the incident.
"Uhh, good morning, officer. Mind telling me what happened here?", the officer only did a pokerface, not answering his question.
"One of the employees was my relative, I came down here to see of she's okay?", he lies to her, making her feel bad for him for a moment.
"Sorry about that, sir. Those people you saw with me earlier were the dayshift employees, the Green Bank, as far as I know, has employees work at night. Fortunately, only the security guards' bodies were found; no civilian casualties."
"How did they get in?", the officer jerks her thum over the bank entrance, which has a large gaping hole, the bank robbers presumably barged in using a tough car or worse, a military issued Humvee. Alo's face became perplexed, "Huh...that's...thanks, officer.", he weakly smiles at the still skeptical officer.
"By the way, no civilians are allowed to enter the scene. We've already have too much work on our plates. Fucking Quiet Zone.", she leaves the teen alone, going back to her work. Alo just shrugs his shoulders and jogs off to meet up with Richard later on. However, the doctor can just pop out of nowhere around 500 - 1000 meters, which gives him the luxury of heading down to the city of West Viriginia, hopefully meet some nice folk down the road.
Hmm, well it is my cheat day.
He sees a black motorcycle approaching slowly. The leather jacketed driver, who's wearing a helmet, slides his visor away, "Hey kid, need a ride?" Alo carefully looks at the driver, and for a few seconds of thinking, his jaw hung wide.
"What the - UNCLE?!", he exclaimed in surprise. Basil chuckles as he takes off his helmet conpletely, revealing his aged face with more wrinkles and his hair completely white.
"That's the face I've been waiting for years. Ha-ha-ha!", he laughs as he embraces his cousin and pats his back proudly, still confused as to how he got here. Basil lets go and puts his hands on his waists. "I know, it's a long story. Let's talk over at the bar. Drinks on me."
"Ye-Yeah, sure. Thanks!", Alo smiles as he hops on his uncle's bike and the two rode off to a nearby town.
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INT. BAR - 11:30 AM
The two sit down on a table right next to a glass wall. Basil is pouring two mugs with beer and offers one to his cousin. "Here ya' go. Just the way you like it. Simple and strong.", Alo smirks as he drank half of its contents.
"Thanks, uncle. By the way, how did you get here, I thought you were happy back at Greece.", he initiated the conversation, Basil just chuckles at the question.
"And I still am! But some of my...associates...have given me a job offer here. It's not the same company your parents went, but I felt bad for them and Tatiana ever since you left without telling.", his face show remorse and lament, but Alo understood that.
"Oh, cool. Speaking of Tati, how is she? Lemme guess, she failed most of her school years?", the uncle sighs irritatingly,
"She's still the childish runt you know, though she's learned to grow up eventually. Kids, am I right?", Alo snickers back, and shakes his head. There's a brief silence between them, the music of the mellow country music and some chatter at the other tables, both guys looking at their drinks, before Basil makes eye contact to Alo, not knowing what's his life now. "How about you? How did you end up here? Did you go to work or you just, you know, steal?", he obviously emphasized the last word.
Alo curls his lips inward and still glances at the mug, "I, uhh, my friend wanted someone to tag along with, and he and I scratched each other's back until we decided to transfer here. It ain't so bad here, although I need some time to getting used to.", he lied again, to cover up Richard's identity and his secret powers. He sees Basil and Tati as his family, but there are some secrets a persson cannot share to somebody directly, let alone society as a whole.
Basil nods, but as he was about to reply, his phone rings in his pocket. "Whoops, looks like my guys are there. Guess I'll catch ya' later.", he smirks as he answers the call, whilst Alo gives out a two-finger salute to his uncle as he pays the tab and left.
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EXT. TOWN - 12:00 PM
Alo roams around the serene town, his hands are in his pockets as he watches ordinary cars passing by the tall pine trees, birds flying in the sky in a V formation, the weather is all fine and dandy. He started making comparisons of the dirty and crowdy areas from his home, to this peaceful lush green environment filled with a pleasing silence.
He turns around the corner to see a normal bookstore, with glass walls at the front. Though Alo isn't a fan of books, true, he needs tons of information regarding hand-to-hand combat now that he's going to fight real bad guys like the ones that robbed the Green Bank. But in today's generation, books are considered null and useless ever since Google decided to replace the hardbound with high-tech softbound copies, in which this case, Alo finds the latter thought confusing rather the former.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Ah screw it, a little lesson wouldn't hurt.
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EXT./INT. - BOOKSTORE - 12:10 PM
He enters the bookstore, the airconditioner hums stagnantly and giving out cold air to cool off his body. He looks around the large shelves of books arranged accordingly to genres and in alphabetical order. He tries looking for some martial arts book or something that involves boxing. Guns are pretty cool, yet to him, nothing beats the old 'one-two'.
So far, there are no copies he found, but he sees a young slender bespectacled woman, presumably in her 20s, wearing what he thinks is a uniform of this store; pink polo-shirt, jeans and peach shoes. She climbs a rickety ladder, bringing a pile of books with her, possibly arranging the new arrivals. He notices the ladder had a few screws loose, but decides to watch the busy woman do her job.
After finishing arranging the books from the top shelf, she slowly climbs down, however, the metal ladder creaks loudly, until it begins to tear itself apart.
"Uh-oh.", it's what she said, before falling. Yet Alo swoops just in time for him to catch her in his arms. She winces and closes her eyes, but reluctantly opens them to see Alo, giving her a straight look and lets her down, backing off a bit to give her some space. "Thanks for the save, guy. Phew!", she swipes the little sweat from her forehead and tries to avoid eye contact from the customer.
"Have you tried talking to your manager about this?", he glances at the broken ladder. The employee just adjusted herself, "Several times already, but they didn't care much in this branch, since we're far away from corporate.", she laughed it off before looking at Alo with a simple smile, " 'Least that's out of the way, what're you looking for? Some novels? Technical books? Maybe some magazines from Playboy? Don't ask how we got that last one."
"How 'bout some guidebooks on boxing? Or something that can help me defend myself."
She perks up with the mention of the category,"Oh, well lucky for you, we recently got a bunch of those here. I just - oh.", she looks up to where she climbed up. "It's up there...", she lets out a grunt and a surrendering sigh. Alo shrugs it off, not letting the girl do anymore work for him. "Hey, it's alright. I'll come back tomor - ", the clerk stretches her arms and legs, climbing the large shelf steadily and gradually becoming faster and grabs a thick book then throws it down next to Alo on the floor, before jumping down perfectly like a cat.
" - row.", the clerk picks up the book and extends it to the amazed teenager. "Here you go. Championship Fighting: Explosive Punching and Aggressive Defense, book by Jack Dempsey. It's old but a lot of people recommend this for training."
Alo receives the book but glances at her, "Thanks. How much?", the clerk takes out a notepad then looks at him, "5 dollars and 50 cents.", the two head to the cash registrar, where Alo paid for the book, and smirks at her before leaving. "Before I go, uhh, mind telling me your name?", the clerk is taken aback by the question, but she tells herself its for business' sake.
"The name's Johan. Johan Estrada. But around here, people like to call me, 'Jo' ".", she smiles at the same time, arranging the stuff on her counter, mouthing a phrase "Joe Mama".
"Alo. Joshua Alo. See ya'!", he leaves the store.
"Thanks again! Feel free to stop by!...or something 'cause we're gonna close later...Damn it...", ruining her first casual conversation with a customer.
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EXT. BOOKSTORE
Alo heads back to the headquarters, when somebody whispers his name.
"Alo, over here...", Richard is crouching in an alleyway of the bookstore, hiding from for reasons unknown.
"Richard! What the hell are you - "
"Sssshhhh! The cops saw me in the bank, then I bolted out of there as soon as I can."
Alo is confused, looking around like a lost John Travolta. "I ~ don't hear any sirens..."
"For now!", Richard quietly screamed, "But I know what the robbers used to break in the vault and how they got out."
"Look, why don't we discuss this back at HQ, then we can go to the next step. This time I'll call the cab."
Richard nods stoicly, "Right. Be careful. We don't know who we can trust.", Richard vanishes away in pixels.
Alo sighs and gazes at the quiet unnamed town.
"Don't know who we can trust, huh... "
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EXT. HOUSE - 8:30 PM
Basil walks along the pavement with his motorcycle, saving up some gas. He squints his eyes to see his front door slightly ajar, he stopped for a moment and observes his house from the outside. There he saw a sole light bulb flickering in the kitchen, yet nobody is there sitting. Basil swallowed timidly before dropping the bike to a nearby fence, and heads to the front door.
The door creaks once he grips the doorknob and enters the house.
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INT. KITCHEN
Basil reluctantly walks into the kitchen seeing a suspicious duffel bag on the clean table. As soon as he touches the zipper, a click of a revolver behind his back. Basil didn't even dare to raise his hands and playing it cool, his eyes are locked on the bag. "What's this, hm? You said we're done."
"Yeah, about that...Boss wants something else.", a rough voice replied. Basil breathes in a calm way, "He already got the whole family apart, his shares are my shares, what more could he ask from me?!"
"The daughter...", Basil freeze in terror, now this mysterious boss is now coming for Tatiana. However, Basil turns around, facing the masked thug.
"You know what I said to your "boss"?"
"You'll handle everything, is that right?"
"Exactly. You can take their property, you can take their happiness, but don't you EVER take his runts. - ",
"Oh, so you don't want the money, then?", he asks.
"Fuck your money. I just want my skin intact.", the masked man smiles beneath the cover and lowers the gun. "Good choice.", and then takes the bag from the table, leaving the house. Basil sits down the table, regretting his decisions on being responsible for the death Alo's parents, the blood is still stained on his hands through the years.
He didn't want to admit to everybody, but he also mourned for them. Then again, it was this client of his that blackmailed him into giving up personal information, which is his entire job and why he is rich in a span of months. And when his client threatened him for Alo's parents, well...in this reality, its survival of the fittest.
"By the way," the masked man returns to Basil. "Do you know what the boss told me whenever he finishes his dinner?"
"What?"
"He said - ", pulls out a gun and aims at his head. " - no leftovers.", he chuckles and fires all 6 bullets into Basil's brain, bits and pieces splattered across the kitchen table. His body now slumped on his chair, dead. Right after that, the killer left with the bag.
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INT. BASIL'S RESIDENCE - TATIANA'S ROOM - ATHENS, GREECE - MIDNIGHT
Tati sleeps in her household clothes, a common habit from the Philippines, in her bed. The door creaks slowly, letting another masked man enter her room, unnoticed. The masked man takes out a handkerchief with doused with chloroform, it is unclear whether the dosage is lethal or enough to put Tati's sleep not just one night but two. Maybe three, if they are lucky.
The masked man slowly covers Tati's nose and mouth, instead of getting the jump on her. He let the scent of the chemical gets closer and closer before the vicitm finally succumbs to the effects. The man presses a lapel in his right ear, "I got the girl. Ready the van."