[Fic] Smooth Criminal
Title: Smooth Criminal
Author: Aja Golde (jellybeanz_04)
Summary: A tribute to Michael Jackson. Sally’s undercover in a grungy part of L2 trying to capture a smooth criminal.
Warnings: Angst, death, action sequences and blood.
Notes: My first time posting on this comm. This is not a response to the month's challenge (I just noticed there was one!)
More Notes: Story based off of MJ’s song “Smooth Criminal.” I do not own the lyrics or any part of MJ’s enterprise. I am not affiliated with MJ in anyway. I am not making money off of this. If you can read and listen to music at the same time, then go ahead and blast “Smooth Criminal” from your speakers. Can you spot the lyrics I’ve hidden in the story?
The chair creaked when she sat down, the wooden legs trembling under her slight weight. She sat by the tiny window, letterbox in size, overlooking a maze of dark alleys and crumbling, slumping buildings. The room in which she sat had one light, a dim overhead fixture that buzzed and blinked. The carpet was flat and gritty; it was a horrendous dark orange that was marred with dirt and cigarette burns. There was a loaf of broad on the counter in the kitchen, which was joined to the living room. She didn’t have a fridge or any other food. She wasn’t planning on staying long.
She adjusted her gun concealed in her jacket, listening to the yowls of hungry cats and the grumblings of men doing illicit business. The sounds of graffiti and fist fights filled the night air, reaching her through the thin walls of the apartment she was staying in. Even on the fourth level, she could still discern what was happening on the ground. And the man she was expecting had yet to show up. She expected him to use the fire escape, but she heard no grating sounds. If he tried to pick her lock he would be met with a bullet in the chest.
Sally breathed out, adjusting her posture in the hard wooden chair. Sirens, which were ringing night and day, now increased in volume. She had rarely slept during this mission. She tried, but the night sounds always kept her up and alert. Her bedroom was as bare as the kitchen; the tiny little room had only a mattress in it. Well, it had also housed some of her ammo, but she kept what she could on her person. She didn’t want someone breaking in and making away with everything she had. Now everything she owned was tied and belted to her. Tonight would be her last night here, if she had anything to say about it. She closed her eyes briefly, fingering the remote in her pocket. She shivered as the cold metal stung her flesh.
Her partners were stationed in different apartment complexes, serving as her backup. They weren’t supposed to interfere with her operations and tonight she hoped they stayed well away. In case things took a turn for the worse. But she forced herself away from such thoughts, reminding herself that any actions she took would be worth catching the criminal she was tracking and tempting.
This criminal was many things. He was a pimp, managing a whole network of buyers and sellers; he was a drug lord, forcing dealers and their suppliers to work for him; he was a murderer, getting rid of those who didn’t comply with his rules. He was keeping L2 in the dark ages, and also stirring up trouble for the Preventers. He was trying to take over salvage businesses, controlling prices while also using salvage to construct his own fighting machines. Sally gritted her teeth. As one who enforced the law, she could not allow pimping, drug dealing or murder. As a Preventer, she couldn’t let another war break out. If this man was trying to build mobile suits, then it was her job to stop him. And any sacrifice was worth it. She ran a thumb over the remote in her hand, and told herself that she had to be the one to make the hard decisions to save others.
Sally had been trying to infiltrate his ring for nearly six months, talking to his subordinates, and trying to get the weaker guys and his enemies to spill his secrets. She still didn’t have a face to this criminal, but everyone called him “Smooth”. And smooth he was, managing his empire without leaking his real name or face. But there had to be someone who knew, she just had to find that person. In six months she had gone quite far, because she would do anything for a mission. Any sacrifice was worth it. Any. But Smooth always tested people before he let them into his inner circle, or so some of the higher-ups had told her. Through an elaborate system his underlings had gotten in contact with her, telling her that Smooth was considering letting her into his “family”. But she had to be tested.
She had been euphoric. At last, all her work was paying off. Smooth knew where she lived; she had made sure of that. But when he would come, how, and with what, she wasn’t sure. But he always tested people in-person. Or so she had been told. She could’ve been lied to, but she prepared anyway.
Her window shattered. She rolled out of the chair and brought her gun out of her jacket, holding it in front of her. She breathed harshly, her face pressed to the floor, the rancid smell filling her nostrils. She looked from her window to the wall, where a bullet was nestled, the flimsy plaster cracking and chipping. She held her position, ears strained for noise. But no one climbed the fire escape and no one was on the apartment stairs. Still she lay pressed to the floor, and wondered if she had been discovered, or if it had been decided she was not worthy of Smooth’s inner ring. Unless the gun shot had been his test. She wondered if her partners were all right, or if they too had been discovered. At least one of them was watching her apartment at all times. One of them had to have seen the incident. She prayed they just didn’t run out and come to her aid. Smooth, or whoever he sent, would probably mow them down.
Half an hour passed and still Sally hugged the carpet. Snipers could wait hours. She could wait days.
Exactly three hours later she heard someone ascend the stairs to the fourth floor. Either this was her partner, or someone from Smooth sent to check up on her dead body. She wondered if being alive meant she passed the test. Or if it meant she had to face yet another one. Her gun was pointed at the door. If she didn’t like the sound of his feet, she wouldn’t even wait until the door opened to start firing.
Exactly five paces away from her door, she heard two stomps and a whistle. She breathed out, daring to hope. A toe-heel sequence followed and ended with two snaps of the fingers. In reply, she smacked the floor two times and whistled. Then, for her distress signal, she slapped the floor two more times. The door handle turned.
“Don’t stand near the window,” she said shakily.
The door opened and her partner quickly rolled into her apartment, avoiding the window in case the sniper was still observing. Wufei lay nearly two feet from her.
“Sally are you OK?” he asked, gun drawn.
“Smooth left his sign,” she nodded her head towards the window.
“I thought I heard the sound of a gunshot.”
“Did you see the sniper?”
Wufei fingered his gun, looking at her closely, “Are you OK Sally?”
“Yes,” she sighed, “but it looks like Smooth isn’t showing tonight. Tell Andrew to watch the surrounding area.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
Frowning, she began to get off of the floor, when she looked up into the barrel of Wufei’s gun. Ducking, she felt the breeze of the bullet by her temple; she rolled underneath the table and fired three shots. An answering bullet hit the leg of the table, sending woodchips into her face. Reaching up, she quickly turned the table over, using it as a shield as bullets carved through the wood. Cursing she quickly ducked into the hallway, running into the bedroom, firing a round as Wufei followed her. She closed and locked the door, replenishing her bullets, pausing when she felt the remote in her hand. She shucked her jacket, keeping the remote in her palm, wires roping around her torso and legs. She hugged the wall as the door began to shudder.
Wufei delivered a kick to the door and she fired another few shots, hands trembling, betrayal making her chest cramp. But she didn’t have time to sort out details, the door was mere splinters, and bullets were flying back and forth.
Her communicator attached to her hip began to crackle. She heard Andrew’s voice.
“Sally are you OK? There’s a sign in the window.”
“He came into my apartment. Clear the area right now. Don’t trust Wufei,” she ordered, before throwing the communicator aside.
A bullet struck her hand, and she quickly retracted it, holding it to her chest as she sent another bullet Wufei’s way. She hissed in pain as the blood began to seep over her clothes and the wires and automated devices attached to her body.
“So, Sally, are you OK?” Wufei drawled from the hallway.
“Will you tell us that you’re OK?”
“Fuck you,” she whispered and then she pushed herself off the wall, and dashed in front of the door, pulling up her gun and shooting. But she had barely fired her shot when she was thrown backwards, falling over from the impact, throwing her head back in agony as she felt the bullet rip through her stomach. It skittered out on the other side. Her face was once again pressed to the floor, shoulders trembling, hands uselessly covering her wound. Warm blood began to pool over her hands, staining the carpet.
“Sally are you OK?”
Wufei staggered into the bedroom, gun raised, one shoulder covered in blood from where Sally’s daring shot had struck him.
“You’ve been hit by a smooth criminal,” he smiled.
The remote lay a few inches from her body; as Wufei pulled the trigger she reached for the remote, slamming her hand down on a button. The wires on her body began to sizzle, and she had the pleasure of seeing Wufei’s eyes widen when he realized what was attached her body.
“Are you OK Sally?”
Across the street, Andrew was carefully watching Sally’s apartment from inside his own grungy apartment. He was one of three Preventer agents assigned to monitor Sally’s apartment, and was confident in his and his partner’s abilities. But now Andrew was frantic.
He was continually trying to reach Sally via the communicator, but after her first cryptic response she wasn’t answering anymore. So Andrew relayed her orders to his partner and Preventer headquarters, informing them about Wufei’s deceit. Another minute passed before he decided to try once again. He didn’t know why she hadn’t called for back-up and he was getting worried.
He picked up his communicator, “Sally are you-“
Suddenly smoke billowed out of Sally’s letterbox window and the entire apartment rattled with a sound of a crescendo. He pressed his nose against the glass of his own window, watching as flames began to lick at the edges of Sally’s window.
“Doggone it,” he hissed, and flew out of his apartment as the local police began to show up.
“OK, I want everybody to clear the area right now,” said a policeman into a megaphone.
People spilled out of the apartment, the police setting up a barrier as a fire truck arrived on the scene.
Andrew ran away from the scene of the crime, rendezvousing with other Preventer agents in an old church. He opened the wooden doors and walked up to the front pew, sitting down and putting his head in his hands. An elderly priest lit the candles, “Sunday mass is about to start.”
Andrew squeezed his eyes shut, Sunday, what a black day. He looked up at the cross, where a hundred candles sat beneath it. Eyes running with tears, he cradled his communicator in his hand, his shoulders shaking as he raised it to his mouth.
He pressed the talk button, lips grazing against the gritty plastic, “Are you OK Sally?”
He received no answer. His communicator slid to the floor and Andrew wept.
She’d been hit by, she’d been struck by, a smooth criminal.