“Dude,” a muffled voice said from the other side of her door, “wake the fuck up.” Someone knocked a few times before giving up and twisting the knob.

Alain blinked as bright, white light from the hallway poured into her darkened room. Groggy, she sat up and ran one hand through her hair and over her face.

“T?” she mumbled. “What are you doing?”

“You told me to wake you up so we could look at apartments.” T was speaking faster than normal and her eyes were wide and bright. “Come on, let’s do this. I’m too bored.”

“Yeah, alright,” Alain said, setting up and kicking the covers off of her feet. Her legs swung over the edge of the bed and she sat there on the edge of her bed, knuckles digging into the soft mattress, until she gained her bearings. Her turmoiled thoughts about the upcoming mission had lulled her into a deep sleep that she wasn’t expecting. With a final yawn and a wistful look at the warm blankets, she stood, stretched, and made her way into the living room.

T Money was sprawled out on the couch, rapidly flipping through the TV channels with a remote. Alain looked at the TV, the flickering images that barely had time to register on the screen before being switched, and then back at T Money. She shook her head and fetched her satchel from next to the door.

Alain sat down next to T Money on the couch, pushing her feet off the couch to make room for herself. She rummaged through the worn, brown leather satchel before she found the file she was looking for. T switched the TV off as Alain pulled out the guidebook. She flipped through the shiny book until she found the classifieds section.

“Here are the apartments that I can choose from,” she told T, handing her the book. Alain reached into her satchel again and found a red permanent marker. As T Money scanned the listings, Alain fiddled with the marker, uncapping and recapping it.

“Dude, have you checked the prices of some of these?” T glanced up from the book. “It’s weird, the ones that are located on Portland are extremely cheap while the ones on Shoreside are expensive.”

“I read in the book that Portland is the industrial area,” Alain said, “so maybe those aren’t the nicest ones? I’m not sure.” She paused. “Did that M Dog guy mention where his contact lives?”

“Somewhere on Shoreside Vale, I think,” T said, scanning the listings again. “He’s going to make a few calls to his guy tonight and get back with me tomorrow about it. There shouldn’t be any problems. Supposedly this guy, D Ice or something, owes M Dog a huge favor. He wouldn’t tell me why.” She paused again. “Dude, before we start looking for an apartment, maybe we should figure out where we want to live. This place is composed of three islands, right?”

“Right,” Alain agreed, and proceeded to tell T what she knew about each island.

“We probably want to stay on either Staunton Island, then, or Shoreside Vale. Portland doesn’t sound like it has very much to offer.” T sighed. “Too bad we can’t visit before we make this decision.”

“Yeah,” Alain murmured, setting the marker down. “That would make finding a place a lot easier. It doesn’t really matter to me where we stay, but I don’t think we should stay too close to M Dog’s contact. Just in case.”

T nodded. “That makes sense. If he’s like M Dog said, we shouldn’t have any problems out of him at all, but you can’t trust people you’ve never met. Does Staunton Island sound good to you?”

“Staunton would be best, I think.” Alain yawned. “That way, we’ll be in between both islands and it will be easier on us as far as traveling goes.” She picked up the pen again. “Let me look at the apartments.”

T handed her the guidebook. “Most of the listings are for northern Staunton. I assume most of the businesses are on the south side of the island.”

Alain circled each apartment listing for Staunton Island. “Probably.” Eight ads were circled when she slipped the cap back on the marker. “Okay, we have a few choices here. There are two studio apartments, one…” she stared at the paper, hard, before continuing, “wooden shack,” T Money tried to muffle a snort of laughter but couldn’t, “one single bedroom, three two bedrooms, and one warehouse.”

“Oh, man, a wooden shack,” T’s peals of laughter reverberated through the apartment, “Alain, we have to check that one out.”

Rolling her eyes, Alain crossed out the studio apartments, the shack, the one bedroom apartment, and the warehouse. “No way. We’re going to call about these two bedroom apartments. There are three of them. I can’t vouch for any locations, but one is located on the southern part of Staunton, in a large apartment building. It has an elaborate security system, too, according to the ad.”

“Nice,” T said, “we should call about that one. What about the others?”

“Neither mention security,” Alain said, “although one has a basement car port.” She handed the guidebook back to T Money. “What do you think?”

“The first one has the best to offer, with that security system, but the others are low profile, if you get what I’m saying.” She raised an eyebrow and continued when Alain didn’t comment. “Two strangers move to Liberty City, immediately shack up in a nice, secured building, and attempt to get in with the underground? That probably isn’t the best idea.”

“Ahh.” That thought hadn’t occurred to Alain. “So we should cross it off?”

“No, not necessarily. I’m just saying that we should call about the other two, first. Let the nice apartment be a backup.” With a devious grin, T said, “And let this be your first lesson in Crime 101. Never, ever let fellow criminals think you have something to hide. They’ll see that as a weakness and work to exploit it.”

“Okay.” Alain filed the advice away neatly in her mind.

“No, seriously,” T stared at Alain, “listen to me. If you’re going to act like a criminal, you have to think like one, or no one is going to believe that you are one. From the moment you arrive in Liberty City, you are no longer Agent Alain Young. You’re going to be someone different, someone darker, with a past to hide and people to find. You never want to give the people there any reason to believe you were ever anything except a criminal. According to M Dog, the people there are sharp. They can sniff you out, like a hunting dog going after a raccoon. If you want this to work, you’re going to have to be one of them…not pretend to be.”

Alain felt slightly admonished. “I know that… It’s just that I’m not a criminal, T. I’m the exact opposite. I’ve never wanted to be anything but what I am… and I don’t want to pretend to be what I’m not. The life is right for some people,” T knew she meant her, “but it was never intended for me.”

With a sad smile, T said, “Welcome to the real world, where nothing is as black and white as you just made it out to be.” Without giving Alain time to respond, she stood and tossed the guidebook on the couch. “I’m going to take a nap. Come downs are the worst.” She grimaced. “And it’s too late to call about those places tonight.”

Brushing away the twinge of shock she felt at T Money’s comment, Alain glanced at the clock on the wall. It read 7:45 PM.

“You’re right,” she said, following suit and standing. “I’m going to make a sandwich and crash. You need anything?”

“No,” T shook her head, the platinum chain gleaming. “I’m just going to crash. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Night,” Alain said, watching her friend’s form disappear into the darkness of her room. With her own troubled thoughts, Alain walked into the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator, stared blankly at its contents, and shut the door. She wasn’t really hungry anymore.

Instead of eating, she sat down at the kitchen table, crossing her arms on the cool wooden tabletop and resting her head on her arms. She thought about the assignment, about what it was asking her to do, and for the first time since she spoke with Vargo about it being Smith’s job, she wondered if she was doing the right thing.

She couldn’t answer herself. With a sigh, she and her troubled thoughts sat back down on the couch and she idly picked up the remote. Nothing on the television appealed to her and she wasn’t tired, either; her nap had stolen that from her.

With nothing else to do, she pulled the files she had received that morning out of her bag, and sat them on the end table. With some trepidation, she opened the file on Joshua Ramirez, and started leafing through the information the Bureau had gathered on him.

The first thing she noticed that was lacking from the file was a selection of pictures. There were a few, grainy, black and white photos and two color photos that were blurry beyond recognition. From the general information sheet and the pictures, she could put together a mental image. He would be tall and stocky, but not heavy. ‘Built’ was how the file described him, giving her the impression of muscles — lots of them. He had dark brown eyes (‘often mistaken for black,’ the paper read), he was a brunette, and he had strong facial features. The only remarkable thing about him was a small, black tattoo on the inside of his palm, immediately above his wrist, and the file didn’t tell her what the tattoo was of, which she found very odd.

Alain read a little more about Joshua Ramirez, about his past and his crime life, before moving on to the evidence. He wasn’t a murderer or a drug lord. From the information she had, he was more like a pusher, someone who had things and would help other people get things if they needed them. The ‘things,’ however, could be anything from mass quantities of drugs to assassins to whores. He specialized in a little bit of everything.

The evidence was more than a little boring. The phone conversations were nothing more than rendezvous arrangements. What she assumed was code words were used sparingly but gave away nothing. The leaked information, she found out quickly, was nothing special — it was all maps. Police routes, back alleys, the subway system, and the train system.

Is this all? she wondered. The ‘crimes’ committed by Ramirez were no worse than crimes her own best friend committed. Suspiciously, she wondered if she was being set up by the Bureau, if the mission was a farce just so they could test her skills. Not ready to dismiss the thought, she filed it away because she knew she was going to go through with the mission, regardless of her reservations.

With a weary sigh, she dropped the files on the coffee table and rubbed her eyes. Alain was still wired, dull energy humming through her veins, but there was nothing for her to do except think, and she wasn’t ready to face the kind of thoughts and worries she was having.

Leaving the papers scattered on the table, she headed for the bathroom she shared with T Money. She locked the door behind her before staring at her face in the mirror. Her face showed no signs of the turmoil that was inside. She stuck her tongue out at herself before reaching up and swinging the mirror open, revealing the medicine cabinet. Dozens of prescription bottles, every size imaginable, cluttered the three, small shelves. Brightly colored pills were dulled by the dark yellow plastic of the pill bottles, some with labels that bore faux names, others with names that Alain knew she wouldn’t recognize, and most with their labels ripped off. Her finger trailed over the bottles as she tried to find something that would help her sleep.

Eventually she gave up and shut the cabinet. In the cabinet under the sink, she found an old, dusty bottle of Nyquil. She drank two capfuls of the bitter green liquid before twisting the cap back on and shoving it back under the sink.

Alain rinsed her mouth out with water, turned the tap off and dried her hands on a towel, before walking to her bedroom. She turned lights off as she went, but left those in the living room on. Within ten minutes the Nyquil started affecting her, making her feel light-headed and dizzy. After twenty minutes, she was comfortably asleep in her bed.

The next morning, as she readied herself for work, she noticed that the files were tidy and neat, unlike how she had left them. T Money, she knew, wouldn’t have disturbed the papers, and she assumed the Nyquil had made her blank out. With a shrug, she dismissed the oddity, and went to work like normal.

She knew that there was always a rational explanation and gave the neat files no further thought.

***

© 2003 Brianna Jackson.