#across the building to enter my code before it automatically called the police

[dykehayleywilliams]

leaving the office before 9 pm everyone cheered

[joshslater]

Putting Reek in Greek pt 2.

A follow-up to the Putting Reek in Greek story. Similar stories and bonus material on my Patreon.

I could hear the envelope slide against the floor as I opened the door. I don't get much mail, it's mostly email or automatic web services, so I was intrigued by what had been put through the slot. The yellowish padded envelope didn't show any logos, only Gaz Taylor and my address neatly written on it in blue ink. Never before had I got a mail with handwritten address, not using that name at least, so I grabbed it quickly and kicked the door shut. I used to care about keeping my work no further in than the hallway, but I've been ever laxer about it. No boots in the bathroom is my current standard. Curious I sat down in the kitchen, turning the envelope in my still work-grimy hands. It was taped shut with some real packing tape, so I took the knife from my belt and carefully cut it open. I grabbed soft, black cloth from inside the envelope and unfolded it on the table. A black tank top with the text “I HAVE THE DICK SO I MAKE THE RULES” across it. So they'd found me. Perhaps they'd known all along. Why send this now?

Then it hit me. This was the half-year anniversary of the most momentous decision in my life. The drugs, the haircut, the tattoos. I was barely allowed on the plane that day after, coming straight from the police station. Back at Stansted after a horrible flight, both for me and those around me, I had no keys, no phone, no money. The girl at the information desk clearly didn't want anything to do with me as I approached. I think she was shocked to hear me ask a proper question. I told her that I'd been on a stag do, but lost my phone and wallet. She very helpfully provided me with an emergency eight-hour Transport For London travel card and allowed me to call my landlord to unlock my apartment door for me. I told him my keys had been stolen abroad and I was arriving late. This way I could get all the way from the airport to my apartment building, enter the front door code, and get into my unlocked apartment. Thankfully there weren't a lot of people traveling at that hour, so I could keep enough distance that people wouldn't be bothered by the smell. The looks I got from people just seeing me were bad enough.

As I entered the apartment I just dropped my essentially empty bag on the floor, slid myself down the door, and joined the trunk on the floor. Everything just hit me. Nothing on my body was mine. My body was barely mine. I had lost my job, my appearance, and even my name. As I looked into the apartment it didn't feel like it belonged to me either. It belonged to some other guy, not to Gaz.

I stood up again and dropped what little clothes I had on me on the floor, headed into the bathroom, and had my first proper shower in I can't even bother to figure out how many days. I was happy to not use the pool shower at least, but as I washed my body I kept finding things to hate. Ugly tattoos, some I didn't even know the meaning of, all over my body. I knew there was a giant "GAZ" on my back, but didn't want to see it in the mirror for myself. God knows what else is back there. I should know, I realized, but I didn't care right then. I just wished the soap would make it all go away, like body paint down the drain. It didn't of course.

After I dried myself off I looked into the mirror. Just as promised the hair, even damp, formed a big, daft dollop on top of my head. There wasn't that much change overall though, was there? I could cut the rest of the hair short and in a few weeks it would look like an actual haircut. I could replace the gaudy glass ear studs for something more respectable, or not bother with anything at all. The top of the St. George tattoo on the neck would still be visible though, but wearing a suit that would be the only thing revealing any tattoos. No one picks a neck tattoo as their first and only tattoo though, so people would know there were more of them.

I fell asleep as soon as my body hit the bed and I slept deep. None of the alarms on my phone woke me up. The phone was somewhere in Greece, presumably, and I didn't have a job to go to anyway. The phone on the wall next to my apartment door buzzed me awake. Without waking up properly I jump out of bed, ran to the door, and answered it. In the other end, down by the front door, was a DB Schenker delivery guy claiming to have a package for me. I pressed the button to open the door and at the same moment realized I was still naked, standing on a pile of rank-smelling clothes I'd worn from a police cell in Greece all the way back here.

I kicked away the pile so it wouldn't be visible from the door, ran back into my bedroom, grabbed a white T-shirt and my workout shorts from the wardrobe, and ran back to the front door, dressing myself on the way. The doorbell rang as I was pulling my shorts up. I ran my fingers through my hair, as I usually do after putting on a T-shirt, only to feel the naked, shaved sides of my head. My heart sank a little bit.

On the other side of the door was a delivery man, about the same age as myself. He didn't bat an eye when he saw me, but only held out one of their tablets for me to sign. In fact, he didn't look that dissimilar to me. Short crop, studded ears, and tattoos up his arms. "Sign here". I was just about to sign my name when I saw "Gaz Taylor" on the display. I'd never thought about what my signature as Gaz would be, not that it mattered much on the shitty tablet with that dinky pen. I scribbled something and got a fairly big box in return.

The delivery guy was out of my sight in an instant, running down the stairs. I closed the door at looked at the big box. Who would send something to me using the name Gaz? The smell of sweaty clothes still lingered. It took me a second to realize it wasn't the box or the pile of clothes down the hall that stunk. It was me. All that slow release Human Growth Hormone they pumped me full of made me smell like a locker room. I could again feel my heart sink even further. I had only slept since my last shower, so I should smell like lemongrass or whatever scent the shower soap was, not gym and armpit.

I grabbed my spare keys from a hook next to the door and used them to cut through the packaging tape of the box. Inside it was all the stuff from my hotel room in Greece. The only thing missing was my cabin bag. Even my phone and wallet were there. As I rummaged around in the box of summer shirts and board shorts my arm, filled with ugly tattoos kept distracting me. I stood up and looked in the hallway mirror.

What I saw there made sense, as ugly as it was. No one would question a guy looking like me wearing a T-shirt and shorts. It would be the shirt and tie that would make people look, and I so didn't want people to look. Perhaps what I needed was to play this character for a while, figuring out how to move forward.

I called the number one of the lads wrote on my arm in Greece and only a few minutes later I had landed myself a job in the construction industry. They were desperate for workers. I showed up early morning the next day. By the end of the week I was into a routine working 7-4 every day. Roy, who ran the site, had been helpful the first day and showed me what I needed to buy and where to get it. I looked like anyone else on the crew by the second day. Sturdy boots, work bib, sweatshirt, and helmet, all purchased for cheap at a second-hand shop and all covered in fine dust by lunch. Since I was the new lad I got all the worst tasks, often the heaviest ones. While it sucked, at least I didn't need to go to the gym to get a workout. My work benefit gym membership had been revoked anyway when I was fired.

I had a lot of expensive stuff, the apartment, pension fund, stock, savings. Unfortunately it also wasn't cheap to live where I lived. Getting a job was a good start but not enough, so I decided to find a smaller apartment and let the nice flat out furnished. That way I could keep a lot of my stuff there while someone paid the rent for me. I boxed away stuff like my clothes into the building's attic and moved to a small apartment in Brixton. It all happened much faster than I would have predicted, and only two weeks since the vacation I was a construction worker living in a different apartment under a different name in a different part of London.

That's when I got the message from Michael. He was an old date that hadn't really developed into a relationship, but we've had sex a few times since. He wanted to meet me, and I thought why the hell not. I can at least scare him away. I probably surprised him by suggesting Nando's chicken in Brixton as our meeting place. He had gotten there before me, and when I showed up in my work clothes he didn't recognize me even when I sat down at his table. He was dapper as always, and good-looking. It took seconds for him to work out who I was. "What the fuck happened to you!?" was the first out of his mouth. Over a chicken dinner I recounted my vacation in Greece, but his reaction was strange. He clearly listened intently to what I was telling, but he appeared more and more distant. When I started to tell him about the construction work he cut me off. "I have no fucking idea if you are shitting me or not, but this is the hottest shit I've ever heard." He grabbed my hand and continued. "I'm so fucking hard right now. Let's pay and leave now, or I'll fill my trousers with semen."

He paid for everything and we hurried to my apartment. Everything there was a mess. I had barely moved in and had a combination of too much stuff from the old apartment and too little furniture. There were work clothes, former gym clothes, and even the rags I got with me from Greece strewn around, all smelling like my locker room self, but Michael didn't care. Perhaps it made him even more aroused. What followed was one of the more passionate fucks we've ever had, and lasted longer than previous hookups we've had. After he'd freshened up and got dressed, just before he left he said "Whatever kind of role-playing you are doing, keep it up. This is seriously hot."

That made me think if I should really embrace this while it lasted. I created a new Grindr profile for Gaz Taylor and watched my notifications blow up. The worse I made my profile with phrases like "constantly sweaty tatted construction worker" the more interest I got. I quickly fell into a routine of ending each workday with a few hours of fucking some banker or insurance clerk.

I was quite versatile before, but all but a few matches wanted me, the construction worker, to take charge. What had started out as newbie tasks had kind of stayed with me at the site. No doubt the Russian growth hormone I'd been overdosed with in Greece had played its part, because together with all the heavy work tasks assigned to me I had filled out remarkably over the months, rivaling the most muscular of the workers on the site. I decided to keep the haircut, more or less. High and tight, but without the perm. Looked a bit harder without it.

I looked at the back of the envelope again for a return address but there was none. The tank top hadn't been washed in the six months since I wore it, but its fragrance had mellowed to almost nothing. I looked inside the envelope and found a card.

"Gaz! We always knew you would make a great lad. I hope Roy hasn't been too hard on you. We did ask him to load you a bit to pump those guns of yours. Cheers! The lads"

[atinyidea]

Glitch | Ateez Gang! AU | THREE

⟶ gang!au, hacker!au, love triangle? poly? female!original character

How curious it is, the fact that the police just gave a media conference, confirming ATZ’s involvement in Kyungri’s families newly-appointed murder, just as she sat down for her best friend, Jaehyeon, to be tattooed by one of the gang members?

⟶ glitch ml! main ml!

⟶ prologue | previous | next

⟶  note! @atinyluna @iis4d @untainted-memories !! if anyone wants to be on a tag list for this fic just let me know!

⟶ 4000 words

⟶ edited 08.03.2020

THREE: The Loft, 15:03,

Saturday 25 October 2025,

“Ah! There she is! Our princess has arrived! Finally!” The voice of her boss, Noh Gongmyung, filtered through the hidden speakers and to her ears as soon as she stuck her key into its lock. With a roll of her eyes, she looked up to where she knew a camera was and sharply turned the key, opening the sliding door.

“I’m not a princess, Gongmyung. How many times do I have to tell you?”

“At least once more!” The speakers hummed as she slammed the door shut, it’s automatic locks clicking into place. Kyungri could just hear the grin on his face from his words.

She walked up the metal floating stairs that led to the loft, her workspace and also home to her boss. She hadn’t cared that she worked in someone’s house, she knew well enough how well she worked when she was in the comfort of her own space. When they started working together Gongmyung hadn’t lived in the loft – it was a home away from home for both of them. However, while Kyungri chose to stay at home with her aunt and younger cousin, Gongmyung realised that he spent all of his time in the loft and that the gas money was not worth the thirty-minute trip from his house to the loft every day.

So he moved in.

He had offered Kyungri a room of her own and, while she did take it, she told him it was mainly for when they had to work long jobs. She didn’t like taking their not-so-legal jobs back to her aunt’s house.

The loft was quite large, having three separate rooms, one bathroom and an open-plan kitchen-living room that they turned into what Gongmyung called The Hacker’s Cave.

After a few years of making modulations to the loft, the two of them decided to buy the whole building, converting the downstairs area into space for their unsanctioned work. More specifically it was essentially a giant closet, locked under a padlock and a fingerprint scanner. Gongmyung had wanted to add a retina scanner but Kyungri thought that would be pushing it a little too much. They had only just been able to hide the fingerprint scanner in the wall, having a camera outside the door would just be suspicious.

She typed in the code specific to her entry and opened the door to the loft. Closing it behind her and listening for the tell-tale click which signified the door was locked again. 

Once, a while ago now, Chaeyoung had called everything over the top and that the two hackers were overly paranoid. Now she just called them “hacker spies.” Chaeyoung was the only one of her friends – and family – that had been to the loft, that had seen inside the loft. Kyungri didn’t exactly know why Chaeyoung had been let onto their little secret but she couldn’t say she was complaining. Gongmyung liked Chaeyoung too, which was always a plus, he referred to her as his second employee even though Chaeyoung couldn’t hack anything to save her life. She was a good informant and strategist though, which is why she fits in so well in their unofficial jobs. Kyungri wondered if Jaehyeon even knew they partook in felonious jobs too.

“Good afternoon, princess.” Gongmyung grinned at her, twisting his spinning chair around to face her as she entered the room.

“I brought you a coffee.” Kyungri smiled at him softly, holding the paper cup out to him, her own still half full in her other hand. She had stopped at another café, one closer to the loft, on the way – having forgotten to buy it when she was at The Café – so it was still piping hot. Just how he liked it.

“You’re buttering me up,” Gongmyung stated, taking the coffee anyway, leaning back in his chair and letting out a satisfied sigh as he took a sip. “What do you need?”

“A favour,”

“Of what kind, pray tell?” He raised an eyebrow, leaning forward in his chair.

Kyungri took a second to reply, speaking slowly like the words hurt to say, “I need your help.”

“You? Need my help?” Gongmyung emphasised, placing his free hand to his chest as if he was clutching his heart. Kyungri’s eyes closed as regret washed over her. “Our Great Hacker, the Pyo Kyungri…” he placed his coffee down on a nearby table, “wants her poor, old mentors help? The honour!” He shouted dramatically. Kyungri was tempted to just walk back out, but before she could, Gongmyung had shot up from his chair to place a hand against her forehead. “Are you feeling ill?”

She swatted his hand away, a small scowl taking over her features. “You’re thirty-four.” She rolled her eyes. Poor and old my ass, she thought. “Can you not be a dramatic dick right now? I ask you for help all the time.” She grumbled, finally taking her jacket off, hanging it on the back of the couch.

Gongmyung grinned at her. He didn’t have to verbalise his acceptance to help, he would help Kyungri even if she hadn’t asked. With the flourish of a hand, he turned to kneel on his chair with one knee and kicking off from the floor with the other, using his chair to glide across the room towards his set up area. Kyungri shook her head slightly, walking after him. Sometimes she wondered how he was the older one.

Gongmyung’s set up was… over the top, to say the least. He had lined a wall with monitors, twenty-four in total, with four servers ranging in sizes and psychedelic colours underneath them. Kyungri had always wondered why he kept a few servers upstairs, especially when they had a whole room dedicated to server’s downstairs, but she couldn’t fault him for wanting to keep the ones he built from scratch separate. When the monitors weren’t being used – by the surveillance cameras or from completing several long-range hacks at once (or downloading the latest version of his favourite video game, unreleased to the public) – they linked with each other to create one big screen. Usually when the loft had visitors – sometimes the police liked to pop in uninvited – the monitors served as a functioning TV. Gongmyung’s over the top personality and a rather large bank account had saved them from suspicion numerous times.

Kyungri had often told him that it wasn’t necessary, that everything could be done on a singular screen. He had always answered her with a simple “I know, this is just more fun!” to which she would roll her eyes, silently agreeing with the eccentric man. Their set-ups were like them: total opposites. While Gongmyung’s took up half a room, Kyungri preferred to stay mobile. She was simplistic, having three of each kind of electronic (two for her and one as a backup). Three phones – two iPhones and a Huawei – three tablets – two Samsung and a Huawei – two iPod and three laptops – her treasured Microsoft laptop and her two new ones: a MacBook and a Huawei laptop. (They had done a job for the company Huawei and were gifted with their electronics, which they kept after completely wiping them and making sure they were secure.)

In a way, the two hackers were described by how they worked. Gongmyung was over the top, in your face with a dramatic flair that everyone had to appreciate no matter how hard they tried not to. Kyungri was mobile, working incognito, on the move, classic. It was why they worked so well together: he was the guy in the chair, and she was the girl on the move.

(Chaeyoung loved to refer to their little team as spies. “We could totally be Charlie’s Angels.” She had said once. “We just need the third angel.” At her words, Gongmyung drew in a theatrical gasp, hand to his chest, offended. “How dare you say that I’m not an angel.” That day was fun.)

“What’s got you in a rough patch?” He asked, grabbing a neon pink keyboard – the one that was connected to the hot pink server, the one he kept separate because it was the only one connected to the dark web.

Kyungri pulled her own laptop out. Her trusty laptop lovingly named Microsoft (All her laptops were names as such: Mack the MacBook, Huawei the laptop.) and began typing away, still standing up next to him. “Two people apparently don’t exist anywhere other than a singular police file.”

“Now, this is interesting.”

“That’s the weird thing! It’s like these men only exist for the purpose of one measly police file and nothing else.”

“You only used your laptop to search, right? Microsoft?”

Kyungri nodded.

“Perhaps your server isn’t strong enough. Run the searches again with Huawei connected to the server room downstairs. Maybe you’ll get wider search field parameters.” Gongmyung grinned. While he wasn’t exactly a patron of the black net, he did have access to it and its connections – anything was findable for the right price. “Also, just send me all you’ve got, and I’ll get in touch with connections.”

Kyungri nodded again.

“This is quite unusual, isn’t it?” Gongmyung said after a few minutes of silence as he read over the information she had gathered. “Jo Jowon. Choi Jongho. Pictures.” He mumbled, narrating as he typed out an invisible email – an incognito way of communicating with his contacts without a trace. “I don’t think my contact is online at the moment. It might take a while to get a response.”

Kyungri nodded a third time. She wasn’t in a rush. She just got easily frustrated when things didn’t go right, quickly.

“So the police are re-investigating their deaths.”

“Yeah.”

“And Soonchul is the lead.”

Kyungri hummed in agreement.

“You have to know that ATZ aren’t even five years old yet. The crash was –’’

“Seven years ago. I know.” Kyungri cut him off, fingers stopping their tapping as she looked over at him. “I figured that out the same hour I heard the police were suspecting them.”

“So why are you still looking for them.” He asked, also stopping, having finished for now.

“I don’t know. Something doesn’t feel right, it’s bugging me.”

“Ah, and then these two boys don’t seem to exist.” He realised, teasing her slightly, “you can’t resist.”

“Soonchul is trying to pin my family’s death on a gang who hadn’t even formed yet. It’s sloppy, and I don’t appreciate it.” She shrugged, turning her attention to a monitor on the wall, where a figure had walked to the front door. She looked away after realising she knew who it was, continuing her little speech. “I don’t understand the connection. I’ve been waiting for six years for them to re-open the case and when it is, I can’t help but feel angry.”

“My father wants to find ATZ, everyone wants the Pyo Crash case solved once and for all. He’s killing two birds with one stone, trying to twist everything together by his own will.” Chaeyoung called loudly, having heard the last part of Kyungri’s sentence as she entered the door. She leant back against it, waiting for the click before she wandered into the room. While she wasn’t a hacker, Chaeyoung worked with Kyungri on their out-of-hours jobs. She had her own keys and her own password for the loft, she was part of the team. She shrugged her black trench coat off, throwing it haphazardly in the direction of the couch, not bothering to see if it fell on the floor or not. “I went to lunch with him last week, he wouldn’t stop muttering about how he was going to get the station to look for ATZ and get off his back about the Pyo case.” Chaeyoung rested on Kyungri, her arms over the now seated Kyungri’s shoulders and her head resting on her shoulder. Kyungri leant back into the orange-haired girl, trying to give her stronger stability to lean against – she knew she was tired.  “We are talking about my dad, right?”

“Bit of a poor solution. It’s not even thought out well.” Gongmyung tsked.

Chaeyoung yawned a little, “I don’t think the station cares if I’m being honest. They’re just happy he’s finally doing it.”

“Anyway, now that both of you are here, I can brief you of tonight’s job.”

“Sure thing GM but, can I go get pizza first? I came straight here from the café, and I’m starving.” Chaeyoung’s tired expression had cleared into a livelier one at the thought of food through her words still slurred a little. Gongmyung mirrored her grin and pulled a silver card out of thin air, holing it out in front of her.

“It’s on me or rather, on you. That’s your card for the night, there’s five million won on it.” He told Chaeyoung, emphasising the amount on the card. “It’s for the job, to keep up appearances. You have to be expensive to look like a regular at an expensive club.” Chaeyoung nodded, plucking the card from his fingers. She pressed a gentle kiss on Kyungri’s cheek before standing, walking to the door and scooping her coat up from the floor on the way.

“Got it! You want the usual?” She called over her shoulder as she opened the door.

Kyungri and Gongmyung hadn’t left it a second before they chorused a ‘yes’. After the orange-haired woman had left Gongmyung turned to Kyungri, another card in his hand.

“Thank you.” Kyungri smiled at him softly. He reached out the same hand to pat her hair gently. “While she’s gone I’ll go shower, the world knows I'm quicker. She’ll need at least an hour just for her shower.” Kyungri let out a laugh as she slapped her hands against her thighs as she stood.

“I’ll keep you updated.”

“Ah yes, we can play Is Gongmyung’s Voice Louder Than The Shower again.”

The bathroom was standard compared to the rest of the building. Kyungri only really used it for its essentials – to shower and to use the toilet – while Gongmyung couldn’t care less what a bathroom looked like. Chaeyoung kept bringing in little decorations around every now and then, but they always seemed to go missing after a week or two. The walls were tiled in white, a toilet sink and shower the only appliances inside. On one wall hung five towels, two were black, two were hot pink and the last of was a white hair towel, stained with diluted hair dye. Also hung on the wall, above the sin, was a large square mirror.

Kyungri stared at her reflection, letting the shower warm-up before she got in it. She had bags under her eyes that would need to be covered properly before they left for the job, no one going to the club would flaunt their designer eyebags. She’d have to get Chaeyoung to fix her up with the strong stuff later. Kyungri took her hair in her hands, looping it through her fingers. It was getting quite long, the black hair dye starting to leave her roots. They weren’t that bad, her natural hair a dark brown anyway, but she knew they would bother her is she didn’t get them done again soon.

The water was hot against her skin; it almost burnt. But that’s how she liked it. She liked being warm and would often cuddle herself up under at least three blankets when she could. She closed her eyes and leant her head back, letting her hair fall down her back, under the steady stream of water. She liked showers, they were relaxing. However, she could never spend more than fifteen minutes in there. She washed out the shampoo in her dark locks and applied the conditioner, twisting her hair into a makeshift top-knot to sit for a little while as she bent over slightly to shave her legs. Kyungri liked having smooth legs but, in reality, she hated having to shave them. Just as she finished up with the razor and went to wash the conditioner from her hair, the bathroom door bounced open startling her a little but not enough for her to make a sound.

“I’m back, and your pizza will get cold if you take forever!” Chaeyoung shouted over the flow of water. Kyungri shook her head in amusement, continuing to wash out her hair.

“Thanks, Chae.” She shouted back. She could feel Chaeyoung’s cheeky grin as she heard her laugh.

“OH! Before I forget! After you left the café earlier, I overheard Mr Tattooist and his friend. Whose name is Yoosang by the way and, he’s completely one-hundred-per cent cute. Apparently San did something, and you didn’t notice? I assumed it was that he tried asking for your number by the way Yoosang laughed at him, but I had already given him your number, so it got me thinking.”

Kyungri switched off the water, stepping out of the shower. She didn’t rush to cover herself in front of Chaeyoung, but she wrapped a pink towel around her body because the window was open, and the breeze was cold.

“Just be careful around him okay, he’s like super pretty to look at but, now I have a funny feeling about that tattooist. Like there’s something hidden about him.” Chaeyoung spoke seriously as she sat on top of the toilet as if it were a chair.

“You gave him my number?”

“Before he was being shady!”

Kyungri couldn’t help but laugh, and after a few seconds, Chaeyoung had joined in.

“I also went outfit digging so finish up in here and then just come through to the room, yeah?” Chaeyoung smiled up at her tall best friend. Kyungri returned the smile and kissed her cheek as Chaeyoung departed from the bathroom.

She left the bathroom, hair and body wrapped up in pink towels and headed towards the living room. She didn’t care that she was in just a towel around Gongmyung, he was essentially her brother for all intents and purposes. 

“I did tell Chae you were in the shower, sorry she interrupted you.” He told Kyungri as she stopped next to him at the table. From where she was sat on the floor on the opposite side of the table, Chaeyoung grinned up at Kyungri with a wink.

“It’s not like she doesn’t do it every time anyway but, thanks,” Kyungri replied to Gongmyung with a small amused smile. She propped a hand on her waist, her other hand holding its wrist as she focused back to Chaeyoung. “So what are my options, Chae?”

“Under very tight time restrictions, not fair by the way,” She glared at the man in the room for a second, “I’ve given you a dress and a crop-top-shorts combo.” Chaeyoung gave her a dazzling smile, hands shaking back and forth like she was in a jazz number. Kyungri nodded a little, looking over both options. “I get to wear the other one so, please choose the one I don’t want,” Chaeyoung added with a rushed mumble and a little squeal, her hands shooting into the air to show off her crossed fingers. Kyungri rolled her eyes a little, the smile growing on her face. She should have known.

The dress was a lively red colour, the woven cotton was laced with glittered fabric to give off a shine under every angle. It was lined with cream-coloured silk, smooth to the touch. It was also quite small, and Kyungri knew it would fit Chaeyoung better. The orange-haired girl had even paired it with a pair of black criss-cross stiletto heels in her size.

The other outfit was quite racy, but Kyungri really didn’t care. While she preferred to live her life in leggings and jumpers three sized too big for her, she knew her body was fit. She looked after herself; going to the gym every other day and running two miles every morning. Her core was strong, ready for anything that was thrown at her. She knew she had abs, not rock hard, but there was some definition there. She knew she would feel comfortable in the crop top (which was actually just a fancy lace bralette) and matching shorts. It was placed with a peached coloured jacket - a thin material studded in large sequins - and a pair of black sneakers that were jazzed up with the same peach colour, but the sequins were extra small. She loved it, she knew that Chaeyoung had expected her to choose that outfit and so, just to mess with her she picked up the dress and turned on her heel towards her bedroom.

“Kyungri!” Chaeyoung called after her. Kyungri couldn’t help the giddy laugh that left her lips as Chaeyoung started chasing her.

“You’re too easy to wind up, Chaeyoung.” She told her once they had stopped running around. Kyungri handed the dress and heels over to the shorter girl with a teasing smile over her lips. Chaeyoung grumbled a little under her breath, making her look slightly younger than she was than how she acted. Kyungri was reminded that Chaeyoung had only just turned twenty the other month.

Kyungri returned to the living room to scoop up her outfit, and the two girls left Gongmyung to eat his pizza alone. Which wasn’t particularly unusual.

An hour and a half later, Chaeyoung was out of the shower and drying her hair out with a hairdryer as Kyungri nibbled on the last slice of her own pizza, still in her towel as she worked on Sam, her Samsung tablet. (Truthfully, she had been distracted by Twitter.) The two girls got dressed together, helping one another with small adjustments and styling choices. Chaeyoung helped Kyungri twist her long hair up into two twisted space buns, doing her makeup for her since Kyungri was kind of helpless. Kyungri had pulled a detailed braid through one side of Chaeyoung’s hair, decorating it with small metal loops and hair gems. By eight P.M they emerged from Kyungri’s bedroom, dressed to the nines and glowing. Gongmyung, who had seen them dressed up for club jobs before, let out a little wolf whistle as they came into view.

“Stunning, as always.” He complimented them. Kyungri gave him a small, yet confident, smile as Chaeyoung dipped down into a curtsey.

“Thank you, I know. I know.” She spoke in a fake posh accent, dramatically waving her hands around as if she were royalty. They all made their way to Gongmyung’s set up, waiting to get briefed.

“The club is called X-Clusive.” He began, sitting down in his chair. The two girls sat down together of one of Kyungri’s huge beanbag chairs, sharing a tablet to see what Gongmyung would be talking about. “The official job Kyungri’s on tonight is to figure out how one gets through all their security. There's a singular back door entrance under a set of seven different electronic locks. The bouncers are given a printed version of the guest list, which is very specific, so as a fall back you will both be on it as yourselves.

“However, for your second job tonight, you will be known as Park Hyeri and Lee Chanmi, two old college friends who reconnect after seeing each other at a fancy club. There is talk of a gun pass happening in the high levels of X-Clusive tonight. The gangs are unknown, but connections think NCT will be there. You are to observe and relay information. Do that by any means necessary, we don’t know who else we’ll be dealing with.” He finished. 

Both girls nodded once in unison. 

“Great. After that, you’re free to stay as long as you want and spend as much as you want. Stay alert, I want to be able to get to you if anything happens, got it?”

Again, the girl’s nodded, grinning at one another. Time to go clubbing.

[sevenpabosandabunchoffans]

Criminal Minds {Jung Hoseok}

After Namjoon realizes he doesn’t exactly like working as a detective at the local police department, he leaves, determined to finish a case by himself. After months of nothing, a new development comes to light, motivating him to enlist the help of someone else. The two of them build a team from the ground up that’s independent from any government or police force, solving cases purely for the benefit of helping others and doing what’s right. One day, a newcomer enters their lives, begging them to let him join, too.

:: characters: namjoon, yoongi, hoseok

:: genre: angst, thriller, Criminal Minds!au

:: warnings: graphic descriptions, blood

:: word count: 1600

Min Yoongi

With the decision to work together, Namjoon and Yoongi immediately searched for a building to house their business. They managed to find an old assessment center, complete with a lobby and reception desk, two meeting rooms, and a handful of offices, for a fairly cheap price, quickly deciding to make that their home. They spent the next month furnishing the area, wanting to be able to get to work as quickly as possible. They had been putting the finishing touches to their individual offices when they were finally contacted with a case.

Yoongi was arranging his desk when Namjoon entered the office. “We got a case.”

The older male looked up, somewhat surprised. “Really?”

Namjoon nodded, holding up some papers that had been faxed over. “We’re going to Gwangju.”

They agreed for Yoongi to drive the three hours while Namjoon briefed him on the case. “A family was murdered on their farm about 45 minutes outside of Gwangju.” Namjoon flipped through the papers to find the victims. “42-year-old Kim Jihoon, his 38-year-old wife, Min Jihye, their 20-year-old daughter, Kim Jieun, Jieun’s 2-year-old son, Minjoon, and a family friend who was visiting, Jung Hyunjung.”

“Do they know the cause of death?” Yoongi inquired.

Namjoon nodded, pulling out the picture of found murder weapon. “Blunt force trauma to the head. They found a bloody hammer in the kitchen. The blood matched the victims, sadly there were no prints.”

Yoongi sighed. “Why can’t there ever be a case where we automatically know who the bad guy is?”

Namjoon looked at his partner and chuckled. “What would be the fun in that?”

After meeting with the detective in charge of the case, they made their way to the farm. “So, you said nothing had been stolen?” Yoongi clarified, looking around the first of the crime scenes, the married couple’s bedroom.

Detective Chae Hyungwon nodded. “We found money hidden all over the place, and it doesn’t seem that any jewelry or other valuables were taken.”

Namjoon looked at the blood stain on the bed. “Judging from that, and the fact that they were struck on the front of the head rather than the back, this was a personal kill.” Namjoon made eye contact with Yoongi and immediately knew that they were thinking the same thing. “They knew their killer.” He turned to Hyungwon as Yoongi left the room. “We’re gonna need a list of everyone that had any connections to the family.”

Hyungwon nodded. “I’ll have some of my people get right on that.”

“Joon~” Namjoon followed Yoongi’s voice, finding him in Jieun’s bedroom. Yoongi turned around holding up a laptop that someone had very obviously tried to get into from the “this device has been locked for the next 24 hours” message and countdown on the screen. “What would they have been trying to find?”

“I guess we’ll find out.”

After Hyungwon requested the officer with the most computer skills to meet them at the farm, they huddled around the kitchen table as Jung Yunho managed to bypass the lockdown and password screen of the laptop. “What exactly are we looking for?” Yunho asked, clicking on a few files.

“Anything that could be of interest to our killer.” Yoongi answered. After a few minutes of searching, the screen began to glitch. Yunho lifted his hands up, waiting for the device to calm down, only to see the mouse seemingly moving by itself and random files being pulled up at lightning speed. “What the fuck is going on?”

“Someone’s hacking it.” Yunho replied, placing his hands back on the keyboard and tapping at the keyboard.

“Can you find who it is?” Namjoon asked, watching as a “files downloading” bar appeared on the screen.

“Already on it.” Yunho muttered, pulling up a code system to try to trace the hacker. As quickly as the files had appeared on screen, they disappeared, seemingly leaving no trace that anyone had been in the system. Just as the duo were about to sigh in defeat, Yunho turned to them and said, “I got them.”

The door opened to reveal a middle-aged woman. “Hi, ma’am,” Namjoon greeted as he and Yoongi held up their badges. “Is your son home?”

The woman, very obviously confused, pointed behind her into the house. “He’s downstairs in his room, but what do you need with my Hoseokie?”

“We just need to ask him a few questions, ma’am.” Yoongi replied, smiling at her as she let them into the house. She pointed them towards the staircase leading to the basement, where Hoseok had moved into when he’d graduated college and moved back in with his parents. As they descended into the room, they could hear Coldplay blasting through some speakers, eventually seeing a guy around their age surrounded by a few computer screens. The bottom stair creaked under Namjoon’s weight, alerting Hoseok to their presence. He spun around and, as soon as his gaze landed on them, his eyes widened as he jumped out of his chair, looking ready to flee the country. “Hey, why do you look like you’re about to run?” Yoongi asked, hand ready to pull out his gun should it resort to that.

“What would you do if two random men entered your room?”

Namjoon held his hands out to show that they weren’t going to hurt him. “We just need you to come with us, so we can ask you a few questions.” Hoseok visibly swallowed before nodding in agreement.

“I honestly have no idea why I’m here.” Hoseok said for the dozenth time as Yoongi stared him down from across the table in the interrogation room.

“Let me show you.” Yoongi finally spoke up, opening the file and laying a few pictures of the victims in front of him.

Hoseok’s eyes widened and his skin lost its color at the gruesome images. “A-are these those people from the news this morning?”

Yoongi nodded and lay a few more pictures on the table, this time of evidence, finally placing a picture of Jieun’s laptop directly in front of Hoseok. “And you know what this is?” Hoseok shook his head no, looking at Yoongi in confusion. “This is the computer of Kim Jieun, one of the victims. And funny story, we were looking at the laptop, trying to see if we could find anything that could point towards the person we’re looking for when someone seemingly hacked into the device and downloaded nearly everything.” Hoseok gulped, trying to avoid eye contact with Yoongi. “And you know who that hacker was?”

“I swear I had no idea it was related to this!” Hoseok confessed, slightly surprising Yoongi at how quickly he gave in. “Some guy e-mailed me this morning, saying that his computer had crashed, and he needed to recover his files, and that he would pay me a million won to do it for him.”

“Is this something you do often?”

Hoseok shrugged. “Usually I just retrieve test answers and stuff for high school kids, sometimes changing their grades in the system. Occasionally I get stuff like this, though, but never for this kind of pay out, which is why I accepted so quickly.”

“Can you tell us who paid you to hack into the system?”

“He didn’t tell me his name.” Hoseok rested his elbows on the table in front of him. “He just gave me the network info, so I could get into the computer, then a deposit was made into my account after I sent him the files.”

“Did you happen to look at the files?” Hoseok shook his head again. “Would you be able to do us a favor then?”

A few minutes later, they were back in Hoseok’s room and he was logging into his online bank account. “What do I need to do?”

Namjoon pointed to the most recent transaction, a deposit of one million won. “Can you trace the source of this deposit?”

Hoseok scoffed. “And here I thought you were going to ask me something difficult.” He pulled up a window on a different computer screen and typed at lightning speed for a few minutes until an account number appeared. “Do you want me to find who this account belongs to?”

“You can do that?” Namjoon sounded somewhat impressed as Hoseok began typing again. A name and some information popped up. “Park Hyunwoo.” Namjoon read off. “I’ll call Hyungwon and tell him to go look for this guy.”

As Namjoon walked away to make the call, Yoongi clasped his hand on Hoseok’s shoulder. “You really enjoy doing this, don’t you?” Hoseok shrugged with a light nod. “Would you like to have a job that involves this? You would get less pay, but it would be legal, and extinguish any chances of you getting arrested.”

Hoseok bit his lip, contemplating the offer. “Let me get back to you on that.”

Eventually, Park Hyunwoo was taken into custody, confessing to the murders, “I was convinced she was cheating on me, so I tried to get into her laptop to find proof. She caught me, and I freaked out. I didn’t mean to hurt her or her family.” Yoongi and Namjoon went back to Seoul and finished setting up their offices.

About a week after the case was closed, they were enjoying some beers together back in Namjoon’s office when the bell they’d placed on the receptionist desk out front dinged. They went to see who would be coming this late at night, shock washing over them as they saw Hoseok standing at the desk. “Is that job offer still up for grabs?”

Jeon Jungkook

[i-would-rather-be-queen]

B.A.P Yongguk AU ‘The Righteous and the Wicked’

A/N: By all rights this should be fleshed out a bit more but it was getting so long and I didn’t want to commit to another multi-chapter fic when I have so many other things I want to write. OTL Please let me know if you like it guys. ^^ WARNING: Some violence.    

~ 

It was a mistake going up. 

Never go up when being chased. Because when you run out of room there’s nowhere else to go. It wasn’t the first time that night you’d done something stupid. What was supposed to be a simple slip inside an empty building had turned into a mad dash for your life.

Running up your seventh flight of stairs your legs and lungs were on fire. The only place left to go was the roof. Using your shoulder you slammed through the door and entered the open space. Clearly somebody had designed it as a gothic garden of sorts. A refuge in the midst of the sprawling city. Large potted plants and ivy decorated the dark stone square as well as a handful of gargoyles posted on the ledges.

Eyes searching for something to barricade the door, you found nothing. In desperation you peeked over the side of the building. There were no balconies, no other roofs within jumping distance and a fall from this height would undoubtedly kill you.

Your pursuers now blocked your only exit, their eyes locked on you as their target. It only took a second for them to catch you once you were cornered. They began patting you down, searching your pockets or any hiding places stitched into your clothes. “Where’s your phone? What’d you do with it?”

Hidden, hopefully where they’d never find it. When you realized you’d been discovered you found a place to squirrel it away in the building and then texted your editor where it was. You wanted the evidence stored on your phone to be exposed even if you couldn’t be the one to do it.

They became violent when it was obvious you were refusing to answer. There were a few good blows to your stomach that probably would have brought up your dinner if you’d had any. Still you kept on your feet until you were backhanded by a closed fist.

Crashing into the stone behind you, your head bounced off the statue of one of the gargoyles. Automatically you reached back and pulled your hand away to see it wet with blood. Rough hands grabbed you and threatened to push you over the edge.

A grating, popping sound came from above. Casting your eyes skyward you saw fine lines and cracks expanding along the gargoyle’s body. Pieces began to crumble and flake off like slate.

Then it moved.

Wings stretched as it rose from a crouch to stand to its full height. It was the size of a man. In fact its visage had even changed from an unnatural creature to look like one.

The men ran away in horror, their screams echoing down the stairwell as they fled. Thrown to the ground in their haste to escape, you lay frozen as you watched the creature with fearful eyes. It sprang from its perch then peered down at you inquisitively.

Underneath the flaking stone that now resembled clay was flesh and intense black eyes. He seemed human except for the bat-like wings that remained and blotted out the stars above. Despite its human-like appearance you were surprised when it spoke in a voice deep as the ages.

“You.”

“M-me?”

“You are the one who called me.”

“I don’t- I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was just trying not to die.”

He—it—he, you weren’t sure, reached out and you flinched. He touched the back of your head and then showed you the tips of his fingers now stained red. “The blood of the righteous is the only thing that can wake me.”

“So…you’re not going to kill me?”

“No.” His expression was remote. Grim even, as if not all of him had not completely transformed from stone. “Why were they trying to hurt you?”

“I’m a reporter. Those men belong to an underground human trafficking operation I stumbled upon. And now they want me dead before I can prove it.”

Solemnly he nodded his understanding. “Then I’ll protect you until you can.”

“What?” This couldn’t be your life. Maybe you’d hit your head harder than you thought and you were laying on the ground unconscious. Hell, maybe you were dead. Dubiously you asked, “How would that even be possible? You’re not exactly inconspicuous.”

The night kept throwing you curve balls. Without saying a word the leathery wings started to disintegrate, virtually melting away. Before long there was just a man standing there. 

It was entirely possible you were in the midst of some trauma induced delusion. Reality may no longer be your friend. “Ok…I guess that’s not a problem then. Uh, what do I call you? I mean, do you have a name?”

“Yongguk.”

You really didn’t know what to say. The events of the night had pretty much broken your brain by this point. Exhausted but happy to be alive you decided to roll with it. Grabbing your phone from its hiding spot the two of you left without incident. It was a nice bit of luck after the evening you’d had but you weren’t about to push it. Not having any other idea what to do, you took him home.

When you entered the pass code to your front door your dog started barking. Which was normal but for the first time you wondered how he would react to a living, breathing gargoyle. Or for that matter how Yongguk would react to him. Cautiously you asked over your shoulder, “You don’t eat dogs do you?”

He squinted but said nothing. Alrighty then.

Upon opening the door your dog’s gaze focused on the tall man behind you, watching closely. As soon as Yongguk saw the dog something surprising happened. He kneeled down and grinned. Patting his thigh he beckoned the dog over. After a quick sniff your dog’s tail started wagging vigorously and he licked at Yongguk’s face eliciting a laugh from the gargoyle. An actual laugh. Perplexed you stared at the two of them until Yongguk looked up and your heart stuttered in your chest. The smile had lit up his entire face. How could that dour face now look so angelic?

Quickly he composed himself, though he wasn’t as gloomy as he’d been. “I haven’t seen a dog in a long time. I’ve missed them.”

“A long time, huh? I think we have some talking to do.” Quickly you heated something in the microwave to eat then the two of you sat at your kitchen table. After a few bites you said, “Time to spill. What the hell is going on?”

He sighed and appeared less than enthusiastic but began his story anyway. “A long time ago I was the leader of a band of warriors in charge of protecting a certain territory. Then a new authority took over the land and tried to use us to extort money from those who were supposed to be under our care.”

“None of us could do it. The penalty for leaving our duties was death but even that was preferable to what we were being asked to do. We were able to hide for a while but eventually they caught us.” He rubbed his hands over his face and the guilt he felt was palpable in the air.

“We were made to pay the price of our disloyalty not just with our lives but our freedom. A man of magick came to imprison us. One by one I watched my brothers’ bodies harden and skin burn away as they were transformed into these hideous creatures. I was last and told that we would only be released from the spell if touched by the blood of a worthy person in need.”

It seemed too outrageous to believe. But you’d witnessed his transformation yourself, what else could be done but accept it? Certainly nothing more that night, you decided.

Offering Yongguk the couch you asked if he’d need any blankets to which he gave you an odd smirk but declined. Too tired to wonder about any more mysteries, no matter how small, you headed for your bedroom.

Several hours later you woke in your bed and would have thought everything was some strange fever dream if your body and head didn’t hurt like hell. Deciding to check on Yongguk before you took a shower you went out to your living area and received yet another shock.

He was stone again.

In the middle of your apartment he sat like some huge lawn ornament. Dumbfounded you walked over and poked his shoulder with your index finger. There was no give, no elasticity to indicate he’d ever been anything but granite or whatever he was made of.

So much for protection. At this point you pretty much gave up trying to figure it out and got back to trying to break up the operation. After cleaning up you headed out to talk to your editor and the police. Gone the rest of the day you came home about an hour after dusk. The first thing you did when you entered your apartment was look for Yongguk. He was gone.

Before you could worry too much he emerged from the bathroom, steam following in his wake. He rubbed at his hair with a towel while another one was wrapped low slung around his waist. The flood of desire that unexpectedly pooled in your abdomen caught you off guard.

“I’m glad you took a shower. I mean, not that you needed one, but that you felt comfortable enough to, um, get naked. I’m going to stop talking now.”

His lips curled in the cutest way, clearly amused. “Yes, thank you. It was nice. Smelled like you too.”

Did a gargoyle just low key hit on you? He looked like a man though. Was he even a gargoyle anymore? “Uh, do you still have your wings?”

He nodded and they sprouted so rapidly from behind him you were startled. Yongguk kept them spread for you to see as you inched closer. “Wow. Can I touch them?”

“If you like.”

Lightly you ran your fingers along the spine of the wing, noting the membranous tissue that connected the ribbing. Dry and leathery it twitched and Yongguk sucked in a breath. Quickly you pulled your hand away. “I’m sorry, did that hurt?”

“No.” Somehow his voice had become even deeper. “It doesn’t hurt.”

Standing this close you could feel the heat emanating from his body. You were hyper aware of his presence making you feel like there were tiny sparks dancing across your skin. It was intoxicating.

He was the one to shatter the moment, backing away abruptly and seemingly flustered. To your even greater astonishment he almost seemed…embarrassed? Shy? You weren’t quite sure. But he didn’t face you as the wings once again dissolved and he returned to the bathroom.

After he reemerged he refrained from making eye contact and wanted an update on what happened while he was ‘sleeping’. His word, not yours.

You told him the cops hadn’t been interested in your photos, claiming it would take more substantial evidence. Subsequently your boss was hesitant to go forward with the story. It began to occur to you that maybe some people had been bribed to look the other way. No matter. You’d just have to get enough proof that it couldn’t be ignored whether they were on the take or not.  

There were leads you’d been working that day. Most of them hit dead ends but a few panned out. Rumors of locations people were being held until they could be transported out of the area. Naturally it was assumed to be an old warehouse but the problem was that with the economic decline in the city there were plenty of those to choose from.

Soon you and Yongguk developed a pattern. Sleep during the day, scout at night, and ignore the attraction that was building between you. He was a serious individual that appeared focused only on helping people in their unfortunate circumstances. And of course you were too, but it didn’t stop your heart from fluttering when he stole glances at you, or how you began to admire his gentle wisdom. He wasn’t one to say much but when he did you fell for him even more.

Finally the two of you found the right location. You took many pictures, making sure to get good shots of faces of the captors as well as the operation. There would be no denying what was happening now.

Once you were done you wanted to leave quickly to protect the evidence and expose the ring. But Yongguk couldn’t abandon the people. You understood, you really did. But the two of you weren’t the law here. The warrior in him refused to back down and he took flight. Unwilling to let him do this alone you followed on foot.

Yongguk took care of the kidnappers while you aided the victims and tried to shepherd them to relative safety. Once they were in hiding you saw Yongguk had led the remaining captors to the roof where it was easier for him to maneuver. He was outnumbered though and you couldn’t just stand by without helping him.

Again your lungs and legs burned as you ran up the stairs of the multi-story warehouse. It was beginning to be a habit you really didn’t want to keep. On the way you spotted a metal pipe and grabbed it. Your arrival startled a few of the men long enough to take one of them down with a swing of the pipe.

Two men were struggling with Yongguk but the other switched his focus to you. Though you got in a few good hits and may have cracked a few of the guy’s ribs, he disarmed you easily. He snatched a hold of your clothes and dragged you to the edge of the building. It struck you that you’d survived being thrown off a building a few weeks ago only to meet the same fate again.

Fueled by revenge the man tossed you over the side like you were nothing. Your brain locked in terror as it registered nothing but air around you. Before you could scream you heard a roar from Yongguk.

The ground was rushing up to meet you but instead of impact there were arms encircling you. Yongguk had caught you and was slowly ascending toward the roof which was now empty. You suspected the two hindering Yongguk might have ended up going over the side but maybe they had run off like the other man clearly had. You didn’t care enough at the moment to check.

Once he landed Yongguk crushed you even harder to himself. It was fine, you felt like you were about to shake apart and he was holding you together. Or maybe that was him shaking, you didn’t know. The two of you stood there, basking in your relief, and you didn’t miss how his wings arched around you protectively.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” His words were rushed and it was the most human he’d ever sounded. Not at all like the reticent man you’d known the past few weeks. He wouldn’t stop apologizing.

So you kissed him to get his attention then argued, “What are you sorry for? You saved my life.”

“I put your life in danger by not listening to you.” He kissed you again, though this time his agitation seemed to be receding. “I should have listened.”

His hands spread wide against your back, holding you in place as you laced your fingers into his hair. “It’s ok. You didn’t let me fall.”

As the adrenaline drained from your system you stepped back but he wouldn’t let you go far. Apparently if you scared Yongguk it took a while for his protective instincts to relax. But you were wondering something else, something you’d been dreading knowing the answer. “We have the evidence to turn over. The ring will be broken up. Will you go back to being stone again?”

“No. Once I’ve been released I’m free. At least during the night anyway.”

“So what now?”

His eyes drifted away to stare off in the distance. “My brothers are out there somewhere.”

The sadness in his voice squeezed your heart but you didn’t need the added incentive to say, “Then let’s go find them.”

~

BTS Jin’s Supernatural AU

[thomasdiy-blog]

My Latest Opinion Regarding Gun Control

New Post has been published on http://www.thomasdiy.com/opinions/my-latest-opinion-regarding-gun-control/

My Latest Opinion Regarding Gun Control

Primary concern: On February 14 a devastating school shooting took place in Florida opening a new gun control debate over school safety. I personally have friends who have served as volunteer firefighters and I’m very concerned about fire safety inside our public schools. All this talk about installing metal detectors and bullet resistant windows. Brings serious fire safety concerns which I think needs to be brought to congress’s attention. In the event of a structure fire students may suffocate and die from smoke inhalation. Which is the number one killer of structure fires. Turning our schools into prisons with bullet resistant windows is a very bad idea. Congress keeps asking law enforcement how can we make our schools safe. I ask Congress to speak to Fire departments across our country as well. Because fire safety is just as important.

Purchase age: I think the minimum age for anybody to purchase a firearm should remain 18 years of age. However for somebody to purchase an assault weapon they must be 21 years of age or have served in the military.

Ban bump stocks: We need to update the automatic weapons ban. Which would include a complete ban of electronic devices capable of turning a assault weapon into a fully automatic machine gun. This ban would also include the banning of bump stocks or any device to modify any type of firearm into a fully automatic gun be made illegal.

Mental health: As an individual I currently suffer from mental health related issues. I personally don’t want to lose my rights to bear arms. However I want to share a personal story with you. Several years ago my mother’s now ex-boyfriends was struggling with alcohol and drug abuse. He was forced to have an ankle replacement surgery do to ongoing health problems. Which is when the problems began. After several weeks he was forced to have emergency surgery after developing a severe infection. High on pain medication and abusing alcohol. He was walking around on a broken leg. IV bags and medical supply all over the yard. We went to her local mental health provider and tried to have him committed. But we were unable to do so. We called the police and they would not do anything because it was his place of residence. Ultimately we were forced to get a restraining order. If people struggling with alcohol and drug abuse. Can not give medical assistance how are you going to stop a psychopath with a gun?

We need some kind of reform that makes it easier for people to become committed. You also need some formal reporting system that protects people’s privacy. But also allows mental health providers to report their psychological state law enforcement. The system should be first name, last name and ZIP code. Law enforcement agencies could use search radius based off of zip codes. Similar to that of online dating sites. Mental health providers would be allowed to post a brief description along with the individuals status.(Normal, Concerning, Suicidal, Public Safety Concern, Dangerous/Threat). Law enforcement agencies could run the individuals name against existing databases and tips. If law-enforcement has existing tips regarding this individual. That information can be taken before a magistrate/judge were law enforcement can request a search warrant. The mental health provider will be prohibited from disclosing the individuals medical records. However they can write up an issue a psychological report based on the individuals medical records regarding the individual’s psychological state. If law-enforcement finds this information to be alarming they can return to the magistrate/judge for a search warrant of the individuals residents. The psychological report or medical records would not be allowed for any kind of criminal prosecution.

I also think it’s very important that you know this. If you tried to pass any type of legislation that prohibits people with mental health conditions from owning a firearm. Many people such as myself and others will stop seeking mental health treatment. Those who have mental health problems and are in desperate need of help will refuse mental-health treatment over fear of losing their right to bear arms. This will result in a suicide or mass shooting. It is important that people can seek out mental health treatment without fear of losing their gun ownership rights. People’s psychological status can change very swiftly, family member is killed in an accident or a tragedy occurs. One day you could be perfectly fine and the next completely suicidal. However as part of national security I think it’s important that all mental health providers allow walk-in patients for emergency counseling free of charge. This would allow anybody that is emotionally upset to reached out and speak to somebody before a crisis occurs.

Police officer not responding: What we learn from the Florida school shooting is a security officer stood by and watched students die. I want to see a new law passed that apply to police officers and security officers nationwide. In the event that a officer fails to engage armed individual the person could face minimal two years and prison on the charge of (Failure To Act). (Failure To Act) would not apply to any officer that has arrived on scene and is in the process of arming themselves or equip the essential equipment such as a radio or body armor. (Failure To Act) would apply in the event that the lost of life is ongoing. Most police departments currently have policies that requires police officers stand by and wait for backup in serious situations. However this law would prohibit the practice in the event that the loss of life is ongoing. Officers must respond at all cost and engage the shooter or face jail time.

Fire and police alarms: Every school in our country currently has fire alarms which promotes students evacuating from a school. I personally think that every school should have three types of alarms. Fire alarms, Police alarms, EMT alarms. Fire alarms would be to evacuate the building. Police alarms would notify law enforcement and promote a school wide lock down. EMT alarms would go to a schools nursing station and notify EMT. Midwest schools should also be equipped with tornado alarms. When the systems are installed. It shouldn’t cost much more to install police alarms which would be part of the alarm system. These type of alarms fire and police should be required in all buildings nationwide not just schools.

School security: School policies should prohibit parents from entering school during school hours. All principal offices should have a dedicated entrance for parents to pick up their children. When I was a student the way you enter a school is through a side door. Down the hallways and into the principal’s office. This puts schools safety at risk. Parents should be entering directly into the principal’s office. Once inside there should be a waiting room that separated from the principal’s office by plexiglass. A secured area for the school’s resource officer will be located at the entry door along with a magic wand or mental detector. All local law enforcement agencies will assist with morning arrivals reduce cost for security personnel. So when school buses arrive there can be a minimal of eight officers on scene to process students through metal detectors.

Arming teachers and classroom safes: I personally think the only way to keep costs down and to ensure student safety is to ensure that our teachers be armed. However this policy should not be enforced on any federal or state level. It is very important that arming schoolteachers be managed on a county level and be decided by the school boards. The local sheriff will be allowed to write policies on how guns are used in schools. The school board will decide on what schools are allowed. For security concerns school boards will not be required to disclose. If there schools allow armed teachers. Teachers that are armed must be required to take special self-defense training including firearm training. The self-defense training would require teachers stand with a firearm on their side and an individual stand behind them and remove it. To pass the training the teacher must be able to recover the weapon. No guns should ever have a live round inside the chamber unless life threatening situation occurs. I also support the ideals of gun safes inside the classrooms. So that the weapons are not carried directly on teachers.

[newstfionline]

Why Grenfell Tower Burned: Regulators Put Cost Before Safety

By David D. Kirkpatrick, Danny Hakim and James Glanz, NY Times, June 24, 2017

LONDON--The doorbell woke Yassin Adam just before 1 a.m. A neighbor was frantically alerting others on the fourth floor of Grenfell Tower about a fire in his apartment. “My fridge blew up,” the man shouted.

Residents of Grenfell Tower had complained for years that the 24-story public housing block invited catastrophe. It lacked fire alarms, sprinklers and a fire escape. It had only a single staircase. And there were concerns about a new aluminum facade that was supposed to improve the building--but was now whisking the flames skyward.

The facade, Mr. Adam said, “burned like a fire that you pour petrol on.”

The incineration of Grenfell Tower on June 14, the deadliest fire in Britain in more than a century, is now a national tragedy. The London police on Friday blamed flammable materials used in the facade for the spread of the blaze and said the investigation could bring charges of manslaughter. Hundreds of families were evacuated from five high-rises that posed similar risks.

Flames consumed the tower so quickly that arriving firefighters wondered if they could even get inside. People trapped on the higher floors screamed for their lives through broken windows. At least 79 people died, a toll that is expected to rise as more bodies are recovered. Survivors have charged that the facade was installed to beautify their housing project for the benefit of wealthy neighbors.

A formal government inquiry into the fire has just begun. But interviews with tenants, industry executives and fire safety engineers point to a gross failure of government oversight, a refusal to heed warnings from inside Britain and around the world and a drive by successive governments from both major political parties to free businesses from the burden of safety regulations.

Promising to cut “red tape,” business-friendly politicians evidently judged that cost concerns outweighed the risks of allowing flammable materials to be used in facades. Builders in Britain were allowed to wrap residential apartment towers--perhaps several hundred of them--from top to bottom in highly flammable materials, a practice forbidden in the United States and many European countries. And companies did not hesitate to supply the British market.

The facade, installed last year at Grenfell Tower, in panels known as cladding and sold as Reynobond PE, consisted of two sheets of aluminum that sandwich a combustible core of polyethylene. It was produced by the American manufacturing giant Alcoa, which was renamed Arconic after a reorganization last year.

Arconic has marketed the flammable facades in Britain for years, even as it has adjusted its pitch elsewhere. In other European countries, Arconic’s sales materials explicitly instructed that “as soon as the building is higher than the firefighters’ ladders, it has to be conceived with an incombustible material.” An Arconic website for British customers said only that such use “depends on local building codes.”

For years, members of Parliament had written letters requesting new restrictions on cladding, especially as the same flammable facades were blamed for fires in Britain, France, the United Arab Emirates, Australia and elsewhere. Yet British authorities resisted new rules. A top building regulator explained to a coroner in 2013 that requiring only noncombustible exteriors in residential towers “limits your choice of materials quite significantly.”

Fire safety experts said the blaze at Grenfell Tower was a catastrophe that could have been avoided, if warnings had been heeded.

“How could that happen in our country at this time?” asked Dennis Davis, a former firefighter who is vice chairman of the nonprofit Fire Sector Federation.

Mr. Adam, 44, had seen posters hung by the management company telling tenants to shut their doors and stay inside in the event of a fire. But Mr. Adam, his wife, his daughter and his pregnant sister ignored the instructions and ran.

“Anyone who listened to the fire brigade and stayed where they are,” Mr. Adam said in an interview the next day, “they lost their lives.”

The first call to the London Fire Brigade came at 12:45 a.m., according to an official statement. Six minutes later, as the first firefighters reached the scene, brigade veterans struggled to fathom the speed of the blaze.

“That is not a real block with people in it!” one firefighter exclaimed, his astonishment captured in a video that later was shown on the BBC and Sky News and was shot inside his vehicle as it sped toward the building.

Other firefighters in the vehicle were heard gasping in horror.

“There are kids in there,” one said.

“How is that possible?”

“It has jumped all the way along the flats--look!”

How “are we going to get into that?” another asked, using an expletive.

Flames in an ordinary fire burst out of windows, moving from the inside out. Grenfell Tower burned in reverse, moving inward from the building’s exterior. The flames quickly tore upward in streaks through the facade, filling apartments with toxic black smoke. Torrents of orange and red branched out of the first streaks and shot upward. The flames encased the building in a cylinder of fire.

“I have never seen such a phenomenal fire, a building engulfed top to bottom in flames,” Dany Cotton, the London fire commissioner, said later that day. More than 200 firefighters battled the blaze. They brought 40 fire engines and other vehicles.

“Committing hundreds of my firefighters into a building that at points looked like it couldn’t possibly stand up due to the level of fire--I actually felt physically sick with anxiety about what was happening,” Ms. Cotton added. But the firefighters went in.

The building they entered was built in 1974 in an architectural style known as Brutalism, and the original concrete structure, built without cladding, was designed to contain a fire in one apartment long enough for firefighters to prevent it from spreading very far. But the building’s floor plan gives a picture of what happened. Refrigerators in most apartments appear to have been positioned against an exterior wall, next to a window and just a few inches from the cladding installed in the renovation.

When the refrigerator on the fourth floor burst into flames, the fire ignited the flammable cladding and shot up the side of the building. The London police confirmed that on Friday and identified the refrigerator brand as Hotpoint. But experts who saw footage of the blaze had known the culprit at once. “You can tell immediately it’s the cladding,” said Glenn Corbett, an associate professor of fire science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

The first well-known use of aluminum cladding on a high-rise was on the Alcoa Building, in Pittsburgh, erected as the manufacturer’s headquarters. Makers of cladding promoted it as both aesthetically striking and energy-efficient, because the aluminum surface reflects back heat and light. Demand for cladding surged with rising fuel costs and concerns about global warming, and over time, producers began selling it in a thin “sandwich” design: Two sheets of aluminum around a core made of flammable plastics like polyethylene.

The cladding is typically paired with a much thicker layer of foam insulation against the building’s exterior wall, as was the case at Grenfell Tower. Then the cladding may be affixed to the wall with metal studs, leaving a narrow gap between the cladding and the insulation.

But by 1998, regulators in the United States--where deaths from fires are historically more common than in Britain or Western Europe--began requiring real-world simulations to test any materials to be used in buildings taller than a firefighter’s two-story ladder. “The U.S. codes say you have to test your assembly exactly the way you install it in a building,” said Robert Solomon, an engineer at the National Fire Protection Association, which is funded in part by insurance companies and drafts model codes followed in the United States and around the world.

No aluminum cladding made with pure polyethylene--the type used at Grenfell Tower--has ever passed the test, experts in the United States say. The aluminum sandwiching always failed in the heat of a fire, exposing the flammable filling. And the air gap between the cladding and the insulation could act as a chimney, intensifying the fire and sucking flames up the side of a building. Attempts to install nonflammable barriers at vertical and horizontal intervals were ineffective in practice.

As a result, American building codes have effectively banned flammable cladding in high-rises for nearly two decades. The codes also require many additional safeguards, especially in new buildings or major renovations: automatic sprinkler systems, fire alarms, loudspeakers to provide emergency instructions, pressurized stairways designed to keep smoke out and multiple stairways or fire escapes.

And partly because of the influence of American architects, many territories around the world follow the American example. But not Britain.

British schoolchildren study the Great Fire of London, in 1666, the way American pupils might learn about the Boston Tea Party or the first Thanksgiving. But the legacy of the fire is also still felt in Britain’s building codes, experts say. London’s original great fire leapt across wooden buildings. And since then, British building codes have focused primarily on the principle of stopping the spread of flames between buildings or, within larger structures, between units.

With fire prevention in Britain, “you put all your eggs in one basket,” said Edwin Galea, director of the Fire Safety Engineering Group at the University of Greenwich. And for decades, this was fairly effective. Britain has long reported far fewer deaths from fires relative to population than the United States, and typically, fewer than 350 residents die each year in fires (compared with more than 3,000 in the United States).

But as early as 1999, after a fire in Irvine, Scotland, British fire safety engineers warned Parliament that the advent of flammable cladding had opened a dangerous loophole in the regulations. The Irvine fire saw flames leap up panels at Garnock Court, a 14-story public housing block. One resident died, four others were injured and a parliamentary committee investigated the causes.

“To a certain extent, we are hoisted by the petard of what happened here in 1666, the Great Fire of London, and we look at fire as a horizontal problem, with a fire in one building affecting the exterior of another building,” Glynton Evans, a fire safety adviser to the firefighters’ union, said to Parliament. “The problem with cladding is that it will, if it is able, spread fire, and it will spread it vertically.”

The firefighters and engineers warned Parliament that British codes required only that the aluminum used in cladding resist ignition, even though the heat of a fire would breach the surface and expose the flammable material inside. Nor did the British rules require a test to evaluate risks in real-world conditions.

“If the cladding cannot resist the spread of flame across the surface, then it will vertically envelop the building,” Mr. Evans warned, in testimony that now seems prophetic. “In other words, the fire will spread to the outside of the building, and it will go vertically.” Many other fire safety experts would repeat those concerns in the following years.

But manufacturers argued against new tests or rules. Using fire-resistant materials was more expensive, a cost that industry advocates opposed.

“Any changes to the facade to satisfy a single requirement such as fire performance will impinge on all other aspects of the wall’s performance as well as its cost,” Stephen Ledbetter, the director of the Center for Window and Cladding Technology, an industry group, wrote in testimony to Parliament.

“Fire resistant walls,” he added, “are not economically viable for the prevention of fire spread from floor to floor of a building,” and “we run the risk of using a test method because it exists, not because it delivers real benefits to building owners or users.” (In an interview last week, Mr. Ledbetter said his group had updated its position earlier this year to warn against the type of cladding used at Grenfell Tower.)

Business-friendly governments in Britain--first under Labor and then under the Conservatives--campaigned to pare back regulations. A 2005 law known as the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order ended a requirement for government inspectors to certify that buildings had met fire codes, and shifted instead to a system of self-policing. Governments adopted slogans calling for the elimination of at least one regulation for each new one that was imposed, and the authorities in charge of fire safety took this to heart.

“If you think more fire protection would be good for U.K. business, then you should be making the case to the business community, not the government,” Brian Martin, the top civil servant in charge of drafting building-safety guidelines, told an industry conference in 2011, quoting the fire minister then, Bob Neill. (“Should we be looking to regulate further? ‘No’ would be my answer,’” Mr. Neill added.)

Mr. Martin, a former surveyor for large-scale commercial projects like the Canary Wharf, told his audience to expect few new regulations because the prime minister at the time, David Cameron, wanted to greatly reduce the burden on industry, according to a report by the conference organizers.

Two years later, in 2013, a coroner questioned Mr. Martin about the application of building regulations in the case of another London fire, which killed six people and injured 15 others at a public housing complex called Lakanal House. Mr. Martin defended the existing regulations, including the lack of a requirement for meaningful fire resistance in the paneling on the outside of an apartment tower.

A questioner told him that the public might be “horrified” to learn that the rules permitted the use of paneling that could spread flames up the side of a building in as little as four-and-a-half minutes. “I can’t predict what the public would think,” Mr. Martin replied, “but that is the situation.”

Moving to a requirement that the exterior of a building be “noncombustible,” Mr. Martin said, “limits your choice of materials quite significantly.”

After the coroner’s report, a cross-party coalition of members of Parliament petitioned government ministers to reform the regulations, including adding automatic sprinklers and revisiting the standards for cladding. “Today’s buildings have a much higher content of readily available combustible material,” the group wrote in a letter sent in December 2015 that specifically cited the risk of chemicals in “cladding.”

“This fire hazard results in many fires because adequate recommendations to developers simply do not exist. There is little or no requirement to mitigate external fire spread,” added the letter, which was first reported last week by the BBC.

In 2014, the Fire Protection Research Foundation, an organization in the United States, counted 20 major high-rise fires involving cladding. In at least a half-dozen--in France, Dubai, South Korea, the United States and elsewhere--the same type of panels installed at Grenfell Tower caught fire. A 2014 fire in Melbourne, Australia, resulted in multiple investigations into the dangers of combustible cladding. Another fire broke out in Dubai, around a 60-story skyscraper, on New Year’s Eve of 2015, and yet another, around a 70-story skyscraper there, this April.

But in Britain, still no changes were made. “The construction industry appears to be stronger and more powerful than the safety lobby,” said Ronnie King, a former fire chief who advises the parliamentary fire safety group. “Their voice is louder.”

As recently as March, a tenant blogger, writing on behalf of what he called the Grenfell Action Group, predicted a “serious and catastrophic incident,” adding, “The phrase ‘an accident waiting to happen’ springs readily to mind.”

For many tenants, an object of scorn was Grenfell Tower’s quasi-governmental owner, the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organization. It was created under legislation seeking to give public housing residents more say in running their buildings, and its board is made up of a mix of tenants, representatives of local government and independent directors. But Kensington and Chelsea is the largest tenant management organization in England, a sprawling anomaly supervising roughly 10,000 properties, more than 30 times the average for such entities. Tenants came to see it as just another landlord.

The organization had promised residents of Grenfell Tower that the renovation last year would improve both insulation and fire safety. Board minutes indicate that it worked closely with the London Fire Brigade throughout the process, and local firefighters attended a briefing afterward “where the contractor demonstrated the fire safety features.” During a board meeting last year, the organization even said it would “extend fire safety approach adopted at Grenfell Tower to all major works projects.”

But the principal contractor, the Rydon Group, based in East Sussex, England, assigned the facade work to a specialist firm that was struggling financially during the project. The firm, Harley Curtain Wall, went out of business in 2015 and transferred its assets to a successor, Harley Facades.

Another subcontractor, Omnis Exteriors, said on Friday that it had not been told that the flammable Reynobond cladding was going to be combined with flammable interior insulation. That was a problem, the firm said in a statement, adding that the cladding “should only be used in conjunction with a noncombustible material.”

The cladding itself was produced by Arconic, an industry titan whose chief executive recently stepped down after an unusual public battle with an activist shareholder. Arconic sells a flammable polyethylene version of its Reynobond cladding and a more expensive, fire-resistant version.

In a brochure aimed at customers in other European countries, the company cautions that the polyethylene Reynobond should not be used in buildings taller than 10 meters, or about 33 feet, consistent with regulations in the United States and elsewhere. “Fire is a key issue when it comes to buildings,” the brochure explains. “Especially when it comes to facades and roofs, the fire can spread extremely rapidly.”

A diagram shows flames leaping up the side of a building. “As soon as the building is higher than the firefighters’ ladders, it has to be conceived with an incombustible material,” a caption says.

But the marketing materials on Arconic’s British website are opaque on the issue.

“Q: When do I need Fire Retardant (FR) versus Polyethylene (PR) Reynobond? The answer to this, in part, depends on local building codes. Please contact your Area Sales Manager for more information,” reads a question-and-answer section.

For more than a week after the fire, Arconic declined repeated requests for comment. Then, on Thursday, the company confirmed that its flammable polyethylene panels had been used on the building. “The loss of lives, injuries and destruction following the Grenfell Tower fire are devastating, and we would like to express our deepest sympathies,” the company said. Asked about its varying product guidelines, the company added, “While we publish general usage guidelines, regulations and codes vary by country and need to be determined by the local building code experts.”

Hassan Ibrahim, who lived in an apartment on the 23rd floor of Grenfell Tower, was traveling outside England the day of the fire. His wife, Rania, and their two small children were not so lucky. As the smoke and flames drifted upward, Ms. Ibrahim debated with a neighbor whether to risk opening her door.

“Don’t open the front door,” her neighbor told her. “You are not going to be able to breathe--you are just going to bring the smoke in. You have your children. Standing near the door with all the smoke is not going to help you.”

“Maybe someone outside?” Ms. Ibrahim asked plaintively.

For a moment, she threw the door open. “Hello! Hello! Come here,” she shouted into the blackened hallway. Then she gave up and retreated. “O.K., O.K., I closed it,” she said. “I am not going to go.”

Ms. Ibrahim recorded a video as she fretted over what to do--and then posted it online as the fire was still raging.

The fire service said it received 600 calls from the building that night, some lasting an hour. Speaking in Arabic over a telephone, Ms. Ibrahim said: “We are on the last floor. The last floor is the one that has not caught fire yet.”

Then, a few moments later, she said: “It’s over. It is here.”

“Pray for us,” she added.

Her husband arrived at the charred hulk of the building the next day. Today, his wife and children are still among the missing.

[oselatra]

Suffer the immigrants

Since the election of Donald Trump, undocumented immigrants and the groups that work with them in Arkansas are dealing with a wave of fear.

Miriam Bahena worries. Born in Mexico, she was brought to De Queen by her parents when she was 3 months old. She grew up there, pledged allegiance to the flag in the elementary school there, graduated from the high school there, works there now in a dental office.

NOW 21, Bahena is shielded from possible deportation by the Obama administration's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which curtailed the arrest and expulsion of undocumented people brought to the country as children. The program has allowed her to secure a work permit and stilled her mind about the possibility that she might be returned to a country she doesn't remember.

Many of her friends and family, however, don't have the same protections, and this — as is hammered home daily, weekly, hourly in the news — is no longer Obama's America. This is an America presided over by a man who kicked off his presidential campaign by descending a golden escalator to a microphone, into which he announced Mexican immigrants were rapists and criminals. After the election, there was even serious talk that he would do away with DACA. That has not come to pass, though the program's future remains unclear. The rumors of raids and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) checkpoints swirl daily in De Queen, and Bahena's mother and father have to leave the house to work. And so she worries.

"It's hard," Bahena said. "You have to have conversations with your parents like, 'What are you going to do if one day we go to the grocery store, get stopped by police, and we don't come back?' I have a 14-year-old sister that I would be responsible for if my parents were to get deported. There's no pathway for them to get a work permit."

According to the Pew Research Center, there are around 70,000 undocumented immigrants living in Arkansas, though the true number is hard to pin down. Arkansas ranks first in the percentage of immigrants living in the state without papers, with about 45 percent of the state's immigrant population living here illegally. Around 70 percent of undocumented immigrants in the state are Hispanic.

Since the election of Donald Trump, outreach groups have seen an unprecedented wave of anxiety and outright fear among immigrants in the state, both documented and undocumented. Bahena, for example, said that the fear of seeing families broken up over something as simple as a traffic stop for speeding or a broken taillight has caused many undocumented people she knows to avoid leaving the house except for work or emergencies, choosing to send their U.S.-born children to run errands and buy groceries.

Considering that there's a statue in New York urging the world to give us their tired, their poor, their huddled masses, yearning to breathe free, that should be concerning to every American.

Kathleen McDonald, a former Pulaski County deputy prosecutor, co-founded Little Rock's Beacon Legal Group, with an initial focus on technology law. In recent years, however, the firm has shifted almost entirely to immigration. It's an area of the law one can't really dabble in, McDonald said.

Speaking to the Arkansas Times on St. Patrick's Day, she noted that America has long had a love-hate relationship with immigrants. With the election of Trump, the "hate" part of that relationship seems to be coming to the fore. She said, somewhat ruefully, that he has been very good for her business. "It drives me crazy, because this is what our country is about: hardworking people coming over and making a life for themselves," she said. "If you work hard, and you do the right thing, and you're a good person, you should be able to have the American dream. But we're saying, 'No, no. You don't get to have that anymore. Only the people who came before.' "

While immigration law is her bread and butter, McDonald unreservedly calls the U.S. immigration code "ridiculous," a patchwork of rules and regulation that is as complicated or more than the U.S. tax code. "With one [immigration] form, you have to use blue ink, but with another, you have to use black ink," she said. "You have to follow the rules and that's fine and I understand that, but they've made certain parts of it absurd. If you're really trying to keep people out or make it a process to get in, don't talk about the ink. That shouldn't be the deciding factor."

McDonald said there are a lot of misconceptions about U.S. immigration law, some of them kept alive by politicians and citizens who don't actually care what the truth is, preferring instead to see all immigrants simply as job-stealers. A prime example, for instance, is the oft-repeated argument that undocumented immigrants should have "come to America the right way." The issue with that, McDonald said, is that the visa backlog is so huge that, depending on a person's home country, it could take 23 years to get approved to even apply. For those who entered the U.S. illegally, either by crossing the border without authorization or overstaying a work visa, there are additional problems. As established by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, anyone who illegally enters the U.S. and stays for more than 180 days is automatically barred from re-entry for three years if he or she ever leaves the country or surrenders to immigration authorities. Stay a full year, and you're barred for 10 years. "Anybody who has been here unlawfully is going to face some kind of bar, more than likely," McDonald said. "That creates a big hurdle."

McDonald said that one of her biggest concerns since the election of Trump is that undocumented people will be afraid to call the police if they're being victimized. As a prosecutor, she said, one of the first things she told undocumented victims of crime in meetings was that she didn't care about their status, specifically to defuse that worry. "It's bad because if someone is getting beat up or if they've been robbed, you want them to call the police. That's what the police are for. Luckily, in Little Rock and North Little Rock and other places too, the chiefs of police have specifically said, 'We're not trying to enforce immigration laws. We just want to enforce the laws of Arkansas. We're not going to be calling ICE every time we pull someone over.' The fact that they've said that, I think, is extremely important."

Trump's rhetoric and policies with regard to immigration make McDonald angry and sad. While she said she doesn't believe Trump to be a hateful racist, there were ways to accomplish what he wanted to do in less disruptive ways.

"It embarrasses me. America is supposed to be a leader," she said. "I think it's going to have a lot of negative ramifications that obviously were not intended that we'll have to deal with. There are probably some terrorists who are totally digging it. They're saying, 'Look! They're against us!' Would that not fire you up?"

Getting to a place where the country can affect real immigration reform, however, is almost unfathomably complicated. McDonald believes there's not much stomach among those who support Trump's aims for the kind of deep dive it would take to fix things. It's much easier to chant "Build the Wall" than to take on the country's labyrinthine immigration code.

"They want the tweet," she said. "And very little about immigration is the short, easy, simple tweet."

Kelsey Lam, co-founder and director at Little Rock-based immigrant outreach nonprofit El Zócalo, said that fear of arrest and deportation has always been an issue for the state's immigrant population, but has come to the fore since Trump's inauguration. Even among green card holders and those in the process of seeking legal residency, the anxiety is there, she said.

"Regardless of status and regardless of nationality, really we're seeing a lot of fear across everyone that we serve," she said. "Of course, for some people the issue is being scared of being deported or detained. But other people are more scared than before of being victims of hate crimes. People who have their documents are scared of having prejudice impact their lives. ... The whole thing is very sad. There's a kind of fear in peoples' eyes that's very fresh and difficult."

Lam said that El Zócalo has been offering guidance and information on what to do for immigrants who are pulled over by the police, and helping families make a "personal preparedness plan" of instructions and numbers to call in case a family member is arrested and deported. The group, now in its fifth year, has seen an uptick in requests for assistance from immigrants, she said, but attendance to programs that seek to empower and uplift their clients has fallen off. Lam attributes that to the fear.

"People have told us people are afraid to leave the house and less motivated to do things that would help them achieve other goals in this country right now," she said. "They're more defending their basic daily lives and families." Even so, she said, the people they serve still seem to have hope for their futures. "We did an activity with our clients where everyone had to say some number of hopes and then concerns for the country, and there were still significantly more hopes identified," she said. "People are still hopeful that things might not be as bad as some say, and that there will still be a future for them here. But I think they're maybe not as motivated to take action on those hopes right now because they really just need to be sure they're defending and prepared."

Maria Touchstone, acting director of North Little Rock's Seis Puentes Education and Resource Center, which provides support and educational opportunities for immigrants, has seen that strange mix of hope for the future and fear for the present. The English as a Second Language coordinator for the North Little Rock School District, Touchstone understands the immigrant experience. Born into dire poverty in Mexico, her parents brought her and her siblings to the U.S. in 1969 when she was 6 years old. She's since become a naturalized citizen. In those days, legally crossing the border from Mexico to the U.S. was as simple as paying a fee and signing some forms.

"They had five kids, living in poverty," she said. "They brought us here when the oldest was 6, to get an education, to become Americans and to change our lives. With a second-grade education, my father and mother were able to do that. That's the tragedy today. That family — my dad and mom, who had dreams for their kids to get an education — they don't have an avenue to do that now.

Seis Puentes, she said, may be the only standalone immigrant education center in the state. Staffed with volunteers, with classes taught by teachers from the Pulaski County Adult Education Center, their Tuesday and Thursday night ESL classes are usually packed.

"This is a haven," she said. "This is about learning and changing their lives. They know I'm like a cheerleader for them. I'm an immigrant from poverty in Mexico with no easy road. Just hard work and dedication. That's what they dream of."

To try to quell some of the fear and anxiety among their clients, Touchstone said, the center has brought in several guest speakers, including representatives of the Arkansas United Community Coalition and the Mexican Consulate and North Little Rock Police Chief Mike Davis. Since the election, she said, there's been a marked increase of interest in their ESL and GED classes.

"Because of the fear and the uncertainly, our classes are more heavily attended now," she said. "You'd think they'd be scared and aren't coming. They're coming because this is real. I think they understand that English proficiency is going to be part of the solution, if we can ever agree in this country to find a solution for this part of our country."

Education, Touchstone said, is a fundamental human right. Never far from her mind, she said, is the fact that without education and the bravery of her parents in bringing her to America, she could have been trying to scrape out a living in Mexico. "I could have been one of those ladies selling gum on a corner in Mexico in a city somewhere," she said. "That could have been me. That's the kind of poverty I come from. The only reason that's not me is because somebody sent me to school. That's it."

Sooner or later, Touchstone said, the country will have to find a workable solution for the millions of undocumented immigrants who call the United States their home. Immigrants are and have been part of the fabric of this country since it was founded, she said, and she believes the U.S. will find its way back to being more welcoming.

"Our country has to come together, has to find a solution," she said. "Diversity is not going away. These people come in here after working all day, or working two jobs, some with very low literacy skills in their native countries. We have a lady from Russia. We have a guy from Turkey. That's not the majority, but it's a reminder that the world is a small place and this is a difficult time for our country."

Jose Aguilar Salazar, deputy Mexican consul in Little Rock, said the Mexican consulate has seen an almost threefold increase in requests for services since Election Day. To deal with the nationwide surge in requests for assistance, the Mexican government has established advocacy centers at the 50 Mexican consulates scattered around the U.S. That includes the consulate in Little Rock, which has given Mexican nationals access to programs and education about immigration law, as well as paid immigration attorneys to help them update and file paperwork related to immigration status.

"The main concern of the people is about their status here, the possibility of being deported," Salazar said. "Mainly they're concerned about breaking their families. Many of them have a family and children. When a person is deported automatically they can cease to be the main support of the family, emotionally speaking and financially speaking. It's a big concern." To help ease the strain, Salazar said, the consulate is constantly providing the public with information about ICE operations in the zone covered by the Little Rock consulate, which includes Oklahoma, Arkansas and portions of west Tennessee. That includes sending officials to personally verify or disprove when they hear a rumor about an ICE raid or checkpoint. Such rumors, Salazar said, have been widespread in recent months. So far, he said, they've seen no indication that ICE is conducting random raids or traffic stops in their area. Consular officials have also held meetings with police departments all over the state to gauge whether those departments have an interest in aggressively enforcing immigration laws.

"We always have had very good dialogue with the enforcement agencies," he said. "Mexico and the United States have maintained dialogue on this issue for many years. ICE authorities have provided us with very important information that they are not making any specific activity in this moment. What they are doing is they are after those people with criminal records and also people against whom there are criminal charges. That's the new instruction by the administration and they're going to do it. But they're not checking [papers] in the streets, or making raids. That is very good to know. That way, the people can be assured that they'll not be knocking at their doors."

Salazar believes that with immigrant labor forming the backbone of many industries in Arkansas, including the agricultural and construction industry, a crackdown on immigrants may backfire and harm the economy. "The reason why people emigrate from Mexico is to get a better income," Salazar said. "I can tell you that when people come to America and satisfy the original need for a better income, they start businesses. If there is this policy, it may hurt. ... It's not going to be a good thing for them, or for the productive areas of the United States. People are going to have fear, and by themselves they're going to say, 'I'm going to a place where I won't be under such strain.' "

From a base in Fort Smith, Humberto Marquez, West Arkansas organizer for the Arkansas United Community Coalition, works extensively with undocumented immigrants, and knows their fears himself. Brought to the U.S. by his parents in 2000 when he was 5 years old, Marquez applied for DACA in 2012, and joined the AUCC as an advocate and organizer in 2014. As someone with many undocumented people in his circle of friends and family, Marquez said the rhetoric Trump used on the campaign trail was a frightening attempt to paint all immigrants as criminals. While there's been some relief that the Trump administration appears to be taking a hands-off approach to DACA for now, the fact that DACA doesn't cover Marquez's older, undocumented relatives is never off his mind.

"I know some people who have DACA are celebrating in a way, but I don't think people should be celebrating," he said. "Yes, there's the aspect of leaving DACA in place, but those who benefit from DACA, we have siblings, we have parents, we have other family members or friends who don't benefit from the DACA program. I feel that if our parents and our families are still living in the shadows, we're still living in the shadows."

Marquez said rumors about ICE crackdowns, highway checkpoints and raids on businesses are rampant in West Arkansas. His Facebook message inbox stays full of desperate inquiries for information, most of them based on something heard from a friend of a friend. Marquez spends a lot of his time these days running down rumors with local police departments, trying to dispel those grapevine concerns.

"A lot of people aren't driving, they're not taking their kids to school, they're not going out whatsoever on the weekends in case there's a checkpoint or something," he said. "We're trying to let the community know they can trust their police officers. We're also trying to train and explain to police officers that crimes will actually rise if our undocumented population is afraid of the police."

Some of the rumors, he believes, are deliberately planted to create fear. Though AUCC has been trying to educate the public through events and seminars on immigration status and the law, Marquez said attendance has been light due to widespread anxiety.

"We see it in peoples' faces," he said, "even to the point where they don't want even to show up to our events because they believe that the flyer of our event falls into the wrong hands, that person can call immigration and suddenly you have a raid or some kind of ICE operative at the event. ... If they're afraid to come to one of our presentations, we can imagine what it means to go out to work, or to go out shopping or go out and run an errand. "

As someone who loves the country and considers himself an American, Marquez said it's "frustrating and dehumanizing" to see the people he cares for limited in that way, when all they want to do is go to work and provide for their families. Growing up, he said, he was very hopeful about the vision of the U.S. as a welcoming and inclusive place. Since Trump was elected, he said, his perspective about America has changed.

"Realizing that the Trump administration was possible is a way of telling me that the system is indeed broken, systemic racism does exist, and that it's going to take more than just community organizing before we're liberated from the system of racism and oppression," he said. "Just seeing this has definitely changed my perspective on America, but my perspective has changed neither for the worse or the best. It's just changed. It's more realistic. It's more of an insight into what America is. America, which seems to be the greatest nation on earth, has a lot of flaws. As a world leader, it's sending a very wrong message on who we are to the rest of the world."

In De Queen, Miriam Bahena worries but still has hope for the country she loves. Keeping that hope alive has not always been easy. When she was in high school, she said, she worked hard to keep her grades up, served on the student council, tried anything she could to bump up her resume for when she applied for college.

"I was naive, I guess. I wasn't really thinking that there's qualifications you have to meet: You have to be a resident, you have to be a citizen for all the scholarships. That's when I started realizing, it doesn't matter if I have a 4.0 or if I've done all these other extracurriculars. I won't be able to meet any of the qualifications because I'm not a citizen or resident."

But still, she persisted. Filed for DACA. Worked 12-hour night shifts at the local chicken plant, showered off the blood, slept a few precious hours, and then got up to attend classes at the local community college, even though, because of her status, she had to pay out-of-state tuition that cost three times as much as the American-born kids with whom she'd graduated from high school. She wants to be a dental hygienist someday. Thanks to the work permit provided by DACA, she's a dental assistant now. Soon, she'll go in to renew her DACA status for the second time. She'll pay her $500 fee and keep striving for something better. She owes that to her parents, she said. A lot of the time when she's not working, she volunteers with the AUCC, helping host seminars on status and the law to try to cut through some of the fear that hangs over De Queen like a ghostly fog, detectable only to people without papers. It says something that she'd lined up four other people, all either undocumented or receiving DACA, to speak to the Arkansas Times in De Queen, but by the time a reporter and photographer drove over from Little Rock to the meeting place at the Sevier County Public Library, she was the only one to show up. She's seen attendance at local events dry up as well, brown faces evaporating from the crowds like they were never there.

It's hard, she said. Her niece is 8 and constantly worries about her mother being pulled over and deported. It's a fear Miriam Bahena knows herself, the same fear that kept her awake at night when she was a little girl, waiting for the sound of the opening door that meant her mother or father had returned safely from an errand. Now, at 21, the old fear of the unknowable dark has come back to her.

"Two weeks ago, my mom called me late at night," Bahena said. "She said, 'I need you to come pick me up, but don't tell your dad. I just got stopped by the police.' I immediately started freaking out and crying. I ran to where she was and told the police officer that I had a driver's license and asked to drive her home. He said, 'Yeah, just make sure she's not driving anymore.' Obviously she has to get around. What else are we going to do?"

Suffer the immigrants