April 22, 2021, 09:04
Beijing, China
Creatures protection
Agency (C.P.A.)
Evdokia is hopping around in the hallways on one leg trying to put her shoes properly on. She's late again, expectantly so. She isn't the biggest fan of conferences and meetings anyways, her suicidal tendency always jumping on every opportunity of a field job she can get her hands onto. Quite honestly, she doubts any of the captains care.
General Jaehyun has summoned all the squad leaders for another recap on the successfully wrapped up cases, ones they failed, paper work that everyone somehow forgets to submit. She knows she's getting a scold, specially because almost her whole team submit their files right on time while she, the leader, almost never makes it before she gets another job, then it happens all over again and the saga continues.
Evdokia reaches the conference room after tripping twice while putting her shoe on, bids good morning to half of the agency and almost getting a concussion after hitting the wall while walking because yes, she needed to finish this report on her way to the meeting to save herself a face.
She checks her appearance in the reflecting window before entering, fixing the little hairs that managed to escape the tight high ponytail she has on. She's wearing a black tight shirt, black military cargo pants and black boots from yesterday's training. She usually dresses up in a suit for those conclaves, but she never left the office yesterday night so this casual look would do.
Evdokia knocks on the door and enters with a passing card, bowing in apology for cutting off the general and being late, not forgetting to slide the last-minute report where it should have been two days ago on a side table. She settles forthwith in her chair, seated between Reema and James. The general is talking about the sex predatory case that an incubus have committed. If Evdokia's memories serve her right, it took Keone's team more than a month to find the woman. The order was bringing her alive, the directors not accepting a peaceful death for her and ordering a special torturing room for her to make her suffer till her death like she did to humans. However, she was out of control when they found her, and Keone had to shoot her right on the spot if he didn't wish to see her rip apart anyone off his team. Evdokia feels bad for the headache the directors gave Keone. Candidly, Evdokia would have done the same. She can never risk losing one of her team, it's like losing a limb in their field of work, and on personal level, they're more than family to her. So yes, Evdokia hopes the directors won't be too harsh on Keone for simply doing his job and crushing the bad apple.
Evdokia never liked the directors of the facility. She likes to think of them like fat money pigs that know nothing better than pointing fingers and giving orders. And so she tries her best to avoid dealing with them, because wholeheartedly, she'd probably lose it and kill one of them some day.
"What got you late again?" Reema whispers, as not to disturb the general talking with Keone.
"Had office work to get done on time." Evdokia whispers back. Reema gives her a pat on a shoulder and switches her attention back to the general, who's now scheming through paper files.
"Captain Evdokia." The general calls out.
"Present." Evdokia shoots up to her feet sharply, saluting and all.
"The wild mediocre case, any updates?"
"We still haven't tracked him down." It's been two weeks since the case was filed and transferred to her. To say she's rattled would be an understatement. While her team does have one man down, she still has the best squad in the facility. The delay is unacceptable, but by the general knowing it's Evdokia on the case, he won't question it or conclude it's lack of work on their behalf, and so he hums and carries on with other captains.
"Giselle."
"present."
"The subs case, you never turned him in did you?"
"No sir. He shot himself in the head when we announced the arrival of the forces. He left a note to get buried next to his mother on the same ground he lived in, we had to respect his last wish so we never brought the corpse back to the morgue." Giselle says in one shaky breathe.
"Good. You did the right thing." The general assures her.
It takes them another thirty minutes to get the reports out of the way and Evdokia stopped paying attention after her reports were all cleared out. They talk for a while about changes in the facility, like director Lori being kicked out due to finding him working in human trafficking with minors. Evdokia is glad, she never liked him, and she bets everyone didn't either. They are also renewing the security system to a higher level, as if the magic wards around the building aren't enough, but no one argues. Evdokia understands why they keep on upgrading the protection systems. For one, all the agents in the agency have a fake identity to walk around with in the real human world. Evdokia's name changed to Elia, works as a barista in a coffee shop near a music academy in Beijing. The said shop is owned by the agency, and so are thousands of other real estate buildings built specially to provide agents fake identities. They do in fact go from time to time to work there to be rest assured that they aren't calling for the government to check in with them.
When the General is done with all the procedures and they all agree that no one is against it, the general asks all the lower ranked squad captains to leave the room, as he has something to say to the higher ups.
The right hands of the remaining captains are called in, Valodya for Evdokia, Ufuk for Reema, Japar for Keone and Dahlia for James. Even though it might be a little competitive between all teams, they're all close to each other. Close enough to consult each other with cases when they meet a road blocker with cases from time to time.
Valodya walks in side to side with Ufuk, both carrying beverages for their captains, green tea for Evdokia and black coffee for Reema.
"did you see Dahlia on your way here?" James asks both men, checking his phone while he's at it.
Valodya hums conformingly, pulling the chair between Evdokia and Reema to sit.
Later, Dahlia and Japar arrive and the general walks back up to the portable screen.
He talks them through all the new recruits, showing every single man and woman one by one, distributing them under each captain for the training.
Evdokia has always loved seeing the newbies. She loves seeing that little fire in their eyes that she only gets to flare up more over time. She doesn't expect perfection but rather empathy. Empathy in their field is almost like an unspoken sin, but Evdokia begs to differ. She believes that one doing the right thing isn't always what the protocol has to offer. Sometimes the creature's heart should speak louder than the mind, and she makes sure she plants that seed well into her recruits brains. Might get them in trouble from time to time? Sure. But as long as they won't have to carry the burden of what if I had done that, then they'll get over it.
After listing and rechecking in with all the captains they're dismissed. While Valodya had something to do, Reema, Evdokia and Ufuk walk back to their offices which are all neighboured. Evdokia feels a sharp pain in her arm on the way but she brushes it off, probably a cramp from over doing it in the training yesterday. She's back in her office in no time, back to the same pile of reports and papers she needs to sign and confirm.
She decides to let it be for another day. She instead goes to the side mini couch she has on the side with a coffee table and all. She makes a mental note to tell Ira to bring her green tea because she's out of it, again.
The weather today is nice, and it's a good thing the magic wards around the CPA building doesn't block out the breeze. She takes a deep breath and tries to ground herself to the present. Evdokia's mind hasn't been at it's best for the last few days. She's having nightmares about the war again.
She tries not to think about it and puts off to sleep, and even if she prayed she doesn't get nightmares before she clocks out, they still hunt her nevertheless.
*
April 23, 2021, 02:36
Case 143-67-454
Juggling between FBI and CPA jobs was never that big of a deal. In fact, she takes the FBI work as a resting period between her CPA cases. The only downfall in the equation is that her team in the FBI is not the same as the CPA. She still cares and respects her team members, but they fails in comparison when it comes to her found family in the CPA. she does occasionally ask for task forces of her CPA team when she feels like it.
Its two and a half noon, and they should be able to raid the compound safely as planned.
"Heard you got engaged. " KeLei expresses.
Evdokia hums as she scans through the camera's footage, trying to choose the right time to kick this operation off, her carat ring shining against the blue light of the screen.
"What?! And you didn't tell us?" JinZhu takes offence instantly.
"It's only been like a week, and we haven't met other than at the office." Evdokia doesn't really have that strong of a connection with them anyways. She prefers keeping her private life off the table when it comes to the FBI teams.
"So it first took you five years to introduce us to your boyfriend, and now you weren't going to tell us about your engagement?"
if Evdokia had to choose, she wouldn't have introduced them to Jean in the first place. It was a mistake, she was sick that day and Jean insisted on picking her up from the agency. He also works at the FBI but as a commander, two different departments that never interlock. They were not surprised to know that much. In their field of work, its tough to have a relationship outside of the agency, but it's also crucial to keep it professional between them, and so picking different departments is always a go to option between couples who were together at the academy.
Evdokia sees the men starting the deal and exchanging goods and that's when they let their gauds down.
"we're going in now, everyone gear up. Move, move, move!" she waves with her hands in a spiral with her index as she puts on her bulletproof vest and takes her sniper into her hands. They have a four teamed task force along their side this operation given the number of dealers and their bodyguards that will be attending this day.
Evdokia gives the cue for everyone to start the raid and they kick the operation off, Evdokia's eyes as sharp as a hawk spotting the dealers she needs to close the case and open their way towards more drug gangs.
She shoots them all one by one in the back of the knees, a plan set for success, while the rest of the task forces make sure no one gets to escape the compound while they're at it.
There's heavy fire at some point on both sides, but they run out of resources in no time, while being entirely besieged.
After all the men and women are down, Evdokia orders for them to get clasped and moved out, while she inspects the compound and what it has to solidly validate her usage of four teams for this case.
And she thinks it is actually quite rewarding, seeing the amount of cocaine laid out on the inspectors tables.
She holds one of the bags, weighing it with her hand.
Another case in the bag.
*
April 24, 2021, 23:56
Beijing, China
Shui Casino
The pub is full to the brim that Evdokia has to sit solidly on the chair not to get pushed by every other person walking by. She's drinking a glass of rum, good enough to get her head a little swayed, little enough to keep her sober because she's working.
A guy next to her is crying over a breakup. How does she know that? He's wasted enough to ask her for advice over something and she's dumb enough to say sure. She doesn't think they even got to the reason of the breakup after fifteen minutes of endless babbling, but she doesn't complain, in need of something to distract her and paint her into the whole casino image, perfectly normal with no spies planted.
Eventually, the guy passes out and Evdokia orders him a cab and pays for his bill, not out of kindness but pettiness. She doesn't understand humans or the way they function. She thinks they're dumb and selfish beings. Robin would always argue that they were simply built differently, and that they have different thought and emotional process overall. Evdokia has a different idea regards it, but she never pondered upon it anyways. She asks for a refill of her glass with gin instead of rum this time, and the bar tender complies.
She's watching all the people around him from both a regular citizen perspective and a secret agent. There's a guy flirting with a girl, she seems uncomfortable, but Evdokia lets them be, not wanting to cause a scene and lose the sight of the man she's after. There's a group of male friends with two girls, they look like they're all spoiled rich privileged kids. There's also two men who look like they just got out of work, both already drunk and wasted. She sees a hulijing by the end of the other bar in front of her. They lock eyes for a second and they both instantly know they're the same. He smiles at her and nods, going back to the conversation he's having with the human girl next to him. Evdokia can't hear what they're saying but she assumes it's not their first meeting. While she doesn't agree of creatures dating humans while keeping such an essential part about them in the dark, she still silently wishes them the best together.
she feels her phone vibrating in her coat's pocket. It's Jean.
"sup." She answers.
"where are you?"
"Shui."
"don't tell me you seriously forgot about Dodo's birthday."
She's slurping an ice cube from her glass which she chokes on when he's done with his sentence.
Dodo is probably the youngest agent in the facility. The girl is a 13, no 14 now, a bright brilliant shapeshifters kid on Reema's team. Her abilities are beyond their understanding, intensely so. Evdokia has to give it up to Reema, the woman really knows how to tame down the girl's powers and using it for greater good.
"I get that you did then." Jean says blankly as he hears her coughing on the other end of the line.
"I'm leaving now, just lie and say I'm reanalysing some case." Her voice is raspy and she doesn't wait to hear what Jean has to say and she ends the call, she can't have them know she's following a guy from a closed and archived case, again. She quickly fiddles with her wallet and throws probably five times more than she should pay on the counter but it doesn't matter, they pay her well at her jobs.
She's walking away quickly when a man bumps into her abruptly that the man falls onto the ground from the clash force. Evdokia is quick to apologising but when she reaches her hand to help him up he swats it sharply. Evdokia is confused because the next thing she knows the man is running for his life out of the club.
Well, that was rude.
She doesn't dwell much on it and just leaves for her car which is parked right in front of the casino.
She's driving fast but safely. She parks in front of her and Jean's apartment block and takes the elevator up to the seventh floor. She's jumping her legs up and down in impatience, and she could tell the mother next to her is annoyed by it but she doesn't care about this now.
She reaches the seventh floor after a long suffocating ride in the elevator, she runs to the apartment door, wanting to grab Dodo's birthday gift and leave as quickly as possible. She takes her shoes off in a rush, double checking that she closed the door behind her.
She quickly grabs the gift box and goes back to the entrance door. On a last thought she decides she wants to change outfits and so she just takes off her coat that stenches of alcohol and puts on another one that was on the rack next to the door.
When she holds the old coat up to hang it, something falls from it and does an almost silent click on the floor.
Evdokia eyes the object as she puts the coat up. It's a black matt USB. She doesn't remember seeing it before and she definitely doesn't remember taking it from anyone.
Her curiosity wins over her belated appointment and she decides to drop the gift box and open her laptop to see what's on it.
She first scans it for safety procedure given the amount of secret information she has on her pc. The USB comes out clean and Evdokia opens the folder, to find that there is only one file on it.
One is a video. A one minute video. That and nothing else.
She opens the video tape, and to say she feels like she's been hit by a ball of thunder would be an understatement. Because the man she sees right in front of the camera, is non other than LiQin. Wang LiQin. The long dead and forgotten Wang LiQin.
*