Chapter 19: The Line Jim Can't Uncross
The head man himself was on a bit of a spree currently, shutting down weapon research facilities but only replacing them with labs researching other things when they'd finally gotten another project off the ground.
The biggest reason this wasn't a massive PR disaster for Stark was that there weren't any layoffs because of it, the personnel were simply given extended holidays or transferred to other departments.
Not that there wasn't a big scandal going at the moment. Some guy with energy whips had attacked a formula one race that Tony Stark had gotten himself into, the CEO had nearly been assassinated… but that only seemed to increase Stark Industries' reputation.
All this meant that in New York there was but one Lab that could've had Doctor Octavius on staff.
"We're here," Louise said, zipping her jacket up and stepping behind me. The lab was in an odd place, the building used to be an apartment complex, something that I would've thought meant that there couldn't be much in the way of dangerous experiments, something about public safety.
But if the Doc had been working here when she claimed that her experiments would kill at most three people? Then I'm going to say that some shit might be here.
"What's the plan?" I asked her as we stared at the doors to the building, the Stark Logo acting as a beacon to our eyes.
"Go in the front, tell whoever's manning the desk something… and just make a lot of noise," She told me, her voice low and her mouth now close to my ear. "I'll sneak in and get a look into their project files, see if we can't find what we're dealing with."
With those words, Louise walked away from me, a grin on her face telling me how much she was looking forward to this.
"Am I sure I'm the reporter?" I asked, feeling confused at the events happening. Making my way through the front door, the thing sliding open for me before I even get within arms' reach of it as my mind continued to churn out ideas.
How could I distract them? Fake a heart attack?
No, that would only lead the guys to call an ambulance and I would hate to be the reason why someone else didn't get theirs in time.
Act crazy? Start throwing chairs around? Maybe speak gibberish at the same time?
No, while it could work out to get them to call security, it's also something that could get their guard up and get in the way of Louise sneaking in. This would need a gentler hand than such direct methods.
My plan set, I walked towards the man sitting at the front desk, his smile clearly painted on while his eyes were staring out blankly towards the wall nearby. The glow of their computer screen was hitting their face in such a way that I could tell it had gone to screensaver from the light shine.
"He-he-hello," I stuttered out, twisting my foot on the surface of the floor as if I was a character out of Oliver Twist and letting my eyes fill with tears. It was time for a performance. "M-mister, I s-seem to be l-lost."
"Oh," the man raised one of his rather grey eyebrows up, his eyes shifting over to look at me in better detail.
But I didn't let our eyes meet, deciding instead to let mine drop to the ground. He didn't say anything for a few seconds, instead humming and underneath that I could hear the sound of a button depressing under his desk. For some reason, this guy found me very suspicious and was calling security.
"Where do you want to be?"
My mind froze, having not really considered the answer before now but I could use this to my advantage.
"Ah… hum," I went, letting my tongue rise to the roof of my mouth to create a lot of gibbering noises.
Adding to my guise I started to scratch the back of my head, rubbing the skin beneath my hair with just enough force to be believable. "Yeah, I know that I wanted to be… in a residential neighborhood a-and p-people pointed towards this d-direction but now I'm worried that I'm in the wrong place…"
Letting the sentence trail off, I continued to nervously grind the heel of my foot onto the ground. Not with all that much force, only enough to make it look convincing to this man's eye.
"What seems to be the problem?" A Newly arrived man piped in, a Stark Industries security uniform on his body, as he adjusted a baton that was fixed to his waist and giving me a passing glare before his eyes fell to his fellow employee.
"Nothing Frank," The sitting man of the two waved his security guard friend off.
"Just a false alarm, kid was afraid that he'd gotten lost. But I wouldn't worry about it kid, the building was an apartment complex a few years ago, but Stark bought it out, the idea being you could work and live in the building. It only took a year's worth of renovations. "
"S-so. I'm in the right place," I heard my phone beep, signaling that I've just received a text. Didn't need to check it to know that it was Louise, telling me that it was safe for me to back off. "And by which I mean that as in the area… not this building."
The rest of my sentence was said in a rush like I was trying to win a contest for who can speak the fastest. It only added to my performance of being a meek, nervous foreigner not sure of where things were in the big American City… something that was only mildly true.
I wasn't sure where things were in the big American City.
"That's right," he nodded to me, his hand turning to the security guard, the guy the man had called Frank. "Why don't you show him out?"
The two of us, as in Frank and me, shared a brief glance, a period of time where I had dropped my meek act but only for a second. Something that the guard hadn't noticed, as far as I was aware.
"Sure, that would be nice," I replied, getting in there before the guard could either accept himself or deny the request. "And again, I'm sorry for bothering you guys."
"It's fine, sir," Frank replied, his thick New York accent nearly causing me to laugh out loud now that I'd noticed it. My mind almost brought up the phrase I'm walking here! because that was the kind of thing that I'd expect from that sort of tongue. "Just glad we could help."
x-x-x
(Jim O'Reilly)
The O'Reilly father hadn't wanted to get in involved with this sort of work. At least not when he started his criminal career two decades ago, as a young man looking to make a quick buck to help his ailing mother.
Jim had stayed away from drugs, he'd stayed away from… the more mature enterprises and he never touched… whacking people.
But as he moved away from his prior connections, he moved away from belonging to the Kitchen Irish. Jim found that his morals were being tested in ways that not even the Mob had forced him. No one had said anything about prostitution yet… but now?
O'Reilly was about to engage in an act that almost hit the same cord inside him.
So with a heavy heart, he walked into a pub, one open even into the early hours of the morning.
There weren't many people there, on the outside of the place, not yet but the Irish liked to operate from this place, so there were always at least some people there. Hiding in case some rival came in thinking that they could take on the Kitchen Irish.
But the former member knew that none of that mattered, it wouldn't make a difference for what he was about to do.
"Sean," Jim yelled out, his hands in his coat pocket as he approached his former boss or at least the man that he used to report to. O'Leary had been the guy that brought him into this life, not by threat but by a promise of a better life. "We need to talk."
There was dread in his voice, something that Jim couldn't hide no matter how much he tried.
Sean O'Leary was only a few years older than Jim but his hair had greyed much more thoroughly.
Where O'Reily's red hair was freckled grey, the older man's was the inverse, with red flecking grey. On Sean's chin was a massive beard, oddly lacking any flecks of grey at all but Jim knew that his old friend liked to dye his beard.
The man only wore suits, the cheap kind that had patches at the elbows, the material that would never even bothering to match the color of the rest of his jacket. The browns and blacks clashing in a way that made O'Leary one of the more recognizable figures in Hell's Kitchen's crime scene.
"If it isn't Clean Jim!" O'Leary grinned, his blindingly white teeth contrasting against his dirty attire. "What are you doing back in these parts, thought you wanted out of the game?" he continued, referring to the excuse O'Reilly had used to get out of doing any more jobs for the Irish groups. "Don't tell me, you missed the life?"
Jim scoffed, shaking his head, absentmindedly thinking about how it was impossible to miss what he never lost.
"Something's come up," Jim explained, his heart beating rapidly in his chest as Sean waved him to follow into the back of the bar that he'd been sitting in. Back into an area that they wouldn't be overheard in.
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