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pretend-its-witty · 2 months ago

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Suites and Blanks

“Sit.”

The four agents in white jackets each took a seat at the table. The room was sparse with a bare light bulb throwing meagre light onto what could charitably be called a conference room, but in reality was a spare storage room, with a cork board and table with chairs thrown in at the last minute to serve their current purpose. It was common knowledge that the agency was running out of funds but this was just a new low.

“I assume you all have been briefed about the current state of affairs,” grunted Captain Bridge. He made an imposing figure with his sharp grey uniform under the harsh white light of the room. His agency-issued hat cast the planes of his face in stark relief.

The agents had, in fact, been briefed about the current state of affairs. There had been an unexpected shift of power and loyalty in the city. The wealthiest and most powerful families that rule Felt City had done so somewhat amicably for the past 50 years. Until now, that is. The question is, why?

“I need the four of you at the top of your game,” the Captain declared. “You’ll be dispatched to your respective posts in 48 hours after which it’s every man for themselves. No contacting the agency, each other, and definitely not your families. Your only point of contact will be an anonymous secure line at the phone booth second closest to your posts which will only respond to the extraction code.”

He eyed the agents seated before him. “Do I make myself clear?”

Three heads nodded.

“Uh, Captain?”

An agent, the newest recruit, had her hand raised.

“What is it, kid?”

“Why are we going in at the lowest level of their organisations and working our way up?,” she asked. “I mean, for the MacGowans, I understand, but what about the rest? Wouldn’t a more direct approach yield faster results…?”, the agent trailed off once she noticed the stares she was getting.

Especially from Captain Bridge. The look he was giving her was long-suffering and tired, though it was only 6:00 in the morning.

“Aksoy, right? Zeynep? Where are you from?”

“Shelf County, Captain. I was transferred here for my first assignment.”

“Figures,” he sighed. “You’re not from around here, so you wouldn’t know.”

“Captain?”

“There’s a lot going on behind the curtain, rookie,” Captain Bridge took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair. “Explaining it t-” He stopped and reached into his pocket, pulling out a phone.

“Crap. I gotta take this. Vuota.”

“Yes, Captain!” Another agent stood at attention.

“Get the rookies up to speed on what they’ll need to know if they’re going up against the Suites,” the Captain moved to the door. “When I get back I expect to not have to give a lecture on who really runs our city.”

Agent Vuota nodded. “Yes, Captain Bridge.”

“You have 30 minutes,” the Captain said, looking down at his phone. “I’ll explain your objectives to you all once I get back.” He shut the door behind him with a definitive click.

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“What do you know about the Suites?”

Laura Vuota did not have her coffee that morning. Being woken up at 4:00 in the morning after a gruelling 36 hours doing recon was not what she’d call an ideal way to start the day. Being tasked with standing in front of a bunch of rookies and going through the criminal history of her city was not making it any better.

“It’s what the locals call the powerful families of Felt City,” said Weiss. “I think the name came from a tabloid article in the 70’s? Something to do with their logos and organisation colours?”

“That’s correct, Agent…?”

“Noah Weiss… ma’am.”

“No need for that, Weiss. This mission has us all at equal rank,” Vuota said. “And, yeah, that’s what we call the four major families that run our city. There’s f-”

“There’s four of them,” interrupted another agent with his feet kicked up on the table. “There’s the MacGowans, the Sterlings, the Vangelis, and the Delacœurs.”

Vuota crossed her arms over her chest, “Aksoy, Weiss, this is Agent Daiki Shirakawa. He has worked for the Agency almost as long as I have and is prone to lord it over your heads.” Shirakawa gave her a shit-eating grin.

“Wait, the Delacœurs?” asked Aksoy. “As in, John Delacœur, Mayor of Felt City?”

“The one and only,” smirked Shirakawa. “The Delacœurs are the biggest political family of Felt City going back generations. The current patriarch, John Delacœur, is the Mayor. His wife, Pauline, is his most valued Council Member and Felt City socialite.”

“Their daughter, Vanessa Delacœur, takes after her mother. Socialite and philanthropist, the papers call her society’s darling,” Vuota groaned.

“And that’s not a good thing?” asked Aksoy.

“Not if her charities and philanthropy end up lining the pockets of the city’s most prominent authority figures. Judges, police officers, archbishops, you name it,” Shirakawa said. “Isn’t it odd how her brother has remained the City Attorney for so long? Even after all those allegations about bribes and drug abuse? Those always seem to vanish into thin air, don’t they?”

“Speaking of the papers,” Weiss cut in, “you mentioned the Sterlings. They run the city’s largest newspaper and broadcast channel, right?”

“Right again,” smiled Vuota. “They control the majority of the media and the press in the city. Anything you see on TV or read in the papers, doesn’t get there without Phyllis Sterling’s knowledge.”

“And as you can guess,” Shirakawa continues, “Sterling media is a family business as well. Just like the Delacœurs, Phyllis roped almost her whole family into working for the channel and the paper. Her wife’s the COO and major investor, her brother’s the chief editor, and the list goes on.”

“Next up are the MacGowans, Felt City’s largest mafia family,” Vuota said, leaning against the cork board. “The Agency has dealt with them the most, so we have the most information on them. The rest of the families are… slippery. Especially the Vangelis.”

Aksoy and Weiss stared blankly at her.

“Nevermind,” she sighed. “We’ll get there.”

“So, the MacGowans,” said Shirakawa with a clap of his hands. He was straddling his chair with his arms resting on the backrest. “Cillian is the mob boss. His wife, Fiona, is his right-hand woman, his Consigliere. He has a daughter, Nora. She’s the Underboss - Cillian’s second in command. His health has been steadily declining so whenever he’s out of commission, Nora’s the one who runs the show. Connor is the MacGowan family’s fixer, and Nora’s husband. Any problems or difficulties pop up, Connor makes them go away. One way or the other.”

“Cillian also has three Capos, handling drugs, money laundering, and arms respectively,” Vuota nodded. “They’re only known by the code numbers Cillian’s given them - Two, Three and Four.”

“That leaves the Vangelis,” Aksoy said, deep in thought. “Who are they? What do they have to do with the rest of the families?”

Vuota laughed, “The Vangelis are the founders of the Spader Trust.”

Weiss gasped. “THE Spader Trust?! Sponsor of Aldrich Memorial Hospital and Pike University? That Spader Trust?”

“Someone’s been doing their homework,” Shirakawa chuckled. “Yes, that Spader Trust. Isabella Vangeli is the founder and President. Unlike the other Suites, the Vangelis don’t involve much family. Only Isabella’s brother, Matteo, the Vice Chair. The rest of the board members are all handpicked associates of Isabella and Matteo, going back to their school days at Harvard.”

“This is the family we have the least information on,” Vuota said, running a hand over her face. “Who their parents are, how they got rich enough to establish a trust that funds most if not all the schools, hospitals and banks in the city… all of it is still a mystery.”

This was a lot of information in one go, Shirakawa understood. But if the four of them were to have any hope of succeeding in their mission, it’s best they learned now.

“Okay,” Aksoy started hesitantly. “So these families, these Suites, they run Felt City. Do they answer to any one family? Or are they each on their own?”

“That is where our predicament lies, kid.”

Aksoy jumped. She turned around to find Captain Bridge leaning against the far wall of the room, stirring a cup of coffee.

Damn it, she didn’t even realise he had come back inside.

“Until twelve hours ago, the Suites worked together, more or less,” drawled Captain Bridge as he walked to the front of the room. “The Delacœurs controlled the city and made it easy for the other families to flourish, the MacGowans did the dirty work, the Vangelis kept the cash flowing, and all the while the Sterlings convinced the public that none of it was true.”

“Then, we receive intel that the MacGowans trashed two of the Sterlings’ broadcasting stations that John Delacœur’s grandson happened to be visiting. He was critically injured and many of the Delacœur and Sterling men were killed.”

“That doesn’t seem like working together,” Weiss frowned. “What happened?”

“We don’t know yet,” the Captain sighed. “We do know that John had the men who were responsible for the mess arrested and that the Vangelis bailed them all out. The last update from inside sources says the Suites have unofficially split into two opposing sides, the “Black Suites” - the Vangelis and the MacGowans, and the “Red Suites” - the Delacœurs and the Sterlings.”

“But we don’t know why?” Vuota asked.

“No, we don’t. That is where you four come in.”

Shirakawa sat up. Weiss leaned in. Aksoy held her breath. Vuota crossed her arms.

“Your objective,” Captain Bridge began, “is to find out what has happened between the four Suites in the last twelve hours.”

He threw a bunch of folders, that Aksoy didn’t realise he’d been carrying, onto the table.

“Once you leave this building, you will be referred to only by your codenames - Blanks. In order of your tenure at the Agency, Vuota - you will be Blank 1, Shirakawa - Blank 2. Weiss, you’re Blank 3, and rookie, you’re Blank 4.”

The Captain pointed to the folders on the table. “The folders with your codename on it have the details of your assignment - which Suite you’ll be infiltrating, what rank on the hierarchy you’ll start at, and most importantly, your extraction code. Remember, this mission is recon only. I don’t want any of you daisies playing the hero and getting us all in trouble, am I clear?”

“Yes, Captain,” four voices chorused.

“Good,” he hummed. “For the safety of the rest of your teammates, you will not share the details of your assignment with each other. Should one of you get caught, you’ll have the benefit of plausible deniability.”

The agents nodded. It would be bad for the mission if the rest of them were ratted out just because one of them got lousy.

“One more thing,” Captain Bridge said, putting both hands on the table. “Keep an eye out for Grinshade.”

“Grinshade?”

“Want to take this one, Shirakawa?” the Captain asked.

“They’re a known associate of all four Suites,” Shirakawa said. “Grinshade has been known to facilitate negotiations and meetings between representatives of the families, but their allegiances are unknown. Whether they are a neutral party, or a threat hidden in plain sight is yet to be seen.”

“We don’t know who they are or what they look like,” Captain Bridge grunted. “We’re not even sure if it’s one person or multiple belonging to a separate group. Only that they go by the name Grinshade. Any surveillance attempted by us has been unsuccessful, any photos we’ve managed to get of them are blurry and near incomprehensible. We think they have some kind of scrambler that stops cameras, CCTV or otherwise, from getting a shot we can use.”

“How would this Grinshade help us?” asked Weiss.

“We don’t know that they will,” answered Shirakawa. “ They might help us or they might kill us. We have to be careful if we ever come across anyone we suspect might be Grinshade.”

Captain Bridge leaned back. “You have 48 hours to prepare. Pack your essentials, do your research. Train. 48 hours from now, you will leave the premises and until the record of your extraction code on our comms, you will have no ties with the Agency. You will be on your own. The four of you have been chosen for this objective by the Agency, because they believe you are the best suited for the task. I trust you understand the gravity of your mission and expect nothing less than success from each of you.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets.

“Good luck.”

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Notes: Hi, this is my first time writing something over 500 words, I think it's pretty obvious that this whole story is based off of playing cards, like a suite of cards is a major family and such. I hope you like it, any and all constructive criticism is appreciated. <3

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