#mrstarter

Feeling a bit of a wobble in her legs, she crouched down in the sand. There were people around, but at a quick glance she hadn’t really seen anyone she knew or wanted to speak with. Instead she drew in the sand with her finger, sighing again. Ciara had never been to the beach before, it was really lovely. Probably would have been better if she wasn’t feeling so down. The sound of crunching sand next to her drew her gaze up towards there face, trying to force her frown into more of a neutral smile. “Hello?”

It’s hot.

It’s always so damn hot these days. Tierney hates it. hates it enough he sometimes finds himself actually missing Chicago and all of it’s...quirks. Almost. Never enough to consider abandoning ship and moving back though. He owes too much to the Syndicate, too attached to the people in it. Leaving is off the table. But he can imagine the cooler climate without feeling too guilty. It’d probably help if he wore something other than his usual long pants and sleeves but if Tierney is anything, he is a creature of habit. And is entirely unwilling to spend his money on clothes when he can spend it on new parts. He had to leave a lot behind in the move, and he’s determined to restock on everything before he attempts to buy other things. Even if that means he’s been sleeping on a mattress on the floor for the past month.

Which, in hindsight, might be part of the reason he’s in such a foul mood right now. There’s a persistent pain on his right side. Easily diagnosed as an out of place rib head, but it’s a painful reminder that he’s not getting any younger. He played with the idea of tracking down Felix and gives up on it almost as quickly as he came up with it. That’s way more effort than it’s honestly worth. He’s got better things to do.

Like meet with a potential client on one of Miami’s seedier beaches. It’s a simple meeting. Short and sweet, but uneventful. Tierney is expensive and killing housewives because of poor life decisions? Not exactly under his purview. Especially not for little men in tailored suits who spend most of the conversations trying to haggle him to insultingly low prices. He waits until the little man has long left the scene before he pulls his hands out of his pockets and stands up from the wall he’d been leaning on. “Fucking penny pinchers everywhere in Miami.” Chicago might’ve sucked on multiple levels, but at least the clients there knew what they were asking for. “This place gets less and less exciting by the hour.”

[When] July 24th

[Who] Open

Luke had just thrown down his suitcase stuffed with his clothes and gear. The lads had decided to hit the bar their first night before their high intensity training began. Luke loved his team, they were like a family to him, especially since he didn’t really have family of his own. The boys threw on something decent and within minutes their dorm smelt like Adidas deodorant and cologne. It wasn’t long until he found himself at a bar table surrounded by so many other athletes. The team had ordered jugs of beer but Luke would rather die than get drunk on beer. He hated how it made him feel sluggish the next day and bloated. He peeled off from the boys and head to the bar alone. 

“I’ll have a double vodka and passionfruit.” He turned and noticed someone next to him waiting to order. “Oh, and two tequilas and whatever they’d like.” He called to the bartender and gestured to his neighbour. “Welcome to the Olympics” He said with a smile and passed the shot to the other, ready to take his already. 

Being an informant is prestigious. It’s a position of tact, of secrecy; of being able to win others around without suspicion, coaxing the sweet song of information from their mouths. But, above all, to Anastasia at the very least, it meant -- for what felt like the first time in her life --  that she was important. A cog in a well-oiled machine. A well-oiled machine that was particularly well-dressed, if the familiar faces flitting around the conservatory ( bad choice, in her opinion, the risk of high humidity mixing with sleek hairstyles and silk was a wardrobe disaster waiting to happen ) in tailored suits and glamorous gowns were anything to go by. Dark eyes are drawn from bodies to leaves, from jewels to petals. Anastasia pauses, admiring the faint aroma of a flower growing from rich black soil, allowing her power to join its scent in the air until it finds a mind to wrap around like a grapevine. She plants curiosity safely amongst their homegrown emotions. Leaves it to take root. To blossom. “What do you think?” she asks airily, attention settling on the chosen companion. “We’ve been warned against touching the plants, but surely picking one little flower won’t hurt anyone?”

LOCATION: Trader Joe’s DATE: Friday TIME: 5:30 PM STATUS: OPEN

The problem with avocados is that you never know if you’ve got a good avocado until you give it a squeeze. Unfortunately, when you’ve got indelicate punchy fist hands like Cain’s it means you bruise every goddamn avocado you touch, ripe or not. He’s got about 15 avocados in his basket and none of them are good. There’s one avocado left in the entire damn store which means that Cain’s got one chance at getting good guac tonight. 

He’s reaching for it when another hand swoops in out of nowhere, closing around it like a vice.

Motherfucker. Cain is not about to buy 15 unripe bruised avocados and exit this Trader Joe’s without the only ripe ‘cado in all of Chicago. 

AS SOON AS GUZMÁN WALKS IN shouting turns to whispers, music fades to white noise, and threats choke back into gasps. A disquieting silence engulfs the room, and everyone stops what they’re doing to look at him. Nobody, however, meets his eyes when he glances back at them. Instead, all attention diverts to the back end of the bar, where the more private booths are located, and where three battered patrons stand awaiting for their fate. Behind them, four reasonably sized men stand all too closely, attentive to their every move, watchful for any attempts to escape or resume the brawl. Guzmán slices neatly through the throng that’s parted with his presence and makes a beeline toward them without so much as a second thought, without so much as anger or joy or thrill to be found in his dark, piercing stare.

He stands before them and looks at them for what feels like forever, but it’s most likely just seconds. Stands, smokes, and studies their faces as though he can peel back the skin and the muscle and peek into their brains and read their thoughts as they’re being decoded and flashed through their minds. But unfortunately, that is not the power conferred to him, so in the end he blinks at the huge bouncers behind the agitators and two of them are forcefully dragged farther into the back to disappear into the dim neon-lit hallway. There’s struggle, there’s bargaining, there’s threats -- it all falls on aloof ears as Guzmán merely readjusts his wristwatch and doesn’t care to watch them leave. 

When: The First Day

Who: Open

The Olympics…

If Jordan was being honest, he hadn’t thought he would get this far. It was something he had trained for, of course, but actually qualifying was very different. As was actually showing up and seeing all of the different people from all different walks of life. It was kind of nice… until people wanted to start talking.

Jordan didn’t really want to talk to his own team or country, let alone strangers, but he was far from rude. He did the greetings and the small talk, and by the time he was done and finally had some time to himself, he felt incredibly drained. All he really wanted to do was sit down by one of those pretty Japanese koi ponds and watch the fish. It was late enough that the sun was starting to set, so he figured he would be alone. He watched the sunlight reflect off of the scales of the fish and the coins in the water and felt soothed, before he heard footsteps behind him.

Location: The sidewalk of a small residential street in Miami

Status: OPEN

Jack doesn’t get nervous. Where some of the other Syndicate members had taken the news of Benjamin’s murder as a shock, Jack had simply nodded and filed the facts neatly away into his new reality. He’s always been this way with Alma, her judgment the judgment of an unknowable deity, any questionable actions less a sign of her making a mistake than the natural results of unknowable forces moving beyond Jack’s comprehension. Her reasons are, frankly, none of his fucking business; his trust in her is unequivocal and unconditional.

Still, that doesn’t mean he has to like it. Alone at 3AM in his stuffy apartment and the irritation rises like smoke, restlessness vibrating through him like a cellphone on mute. Not at Alma, or at her order to move to this swampy, pointless state, but at goddamn Florida itself. It’s only April, but the muggy air already weighs down his lungs, flattens his hair to his sticky forehead. He spends the night trying to fix the ancient AC in his apartment, filtering through thousands of user manuals like flipping through a magazine at 100x-speed, only to end up with a pile of dusty, plastic parts on the floor, and something leaking into the carpet.

In a fit of desperate, sweaty rage, Jack cuts the sleeves off his damp t-shirt and storms out of the house, head down and brain buzzing like an overfull hive of wasps. Experience tells him that if he doesn’t find something interesting to do, somewhere to put all this goddamn energy, all those stingers will turn back on himself soon.

The fresh air is a start, at least. After a few minutes, the sweat on his skin starts to cool. Air filters in through the armholes of his ridiculous t-shirt and the smell of impending rain rises from the grass around him. Jack silently flickers from streetlight to streetlight, nothing but him and the cicadas out tonight, a solitary dog in the distance letting out a single whine before quieting. Eventually, he takes backup Juul out of his pocket, a bizarre pastel thing with smiling Hello Kitty faces that can’t be Sanrio approved. It appeared on his doorstep one morning years ago, and his best guess is that the thing was one of many byproducts of his early 2016 Ambien Phase, itself just one of many attempts to treat his-- insomnia, or ADHD, or whatever the fuck it is that keeps him up for days on end. Anyway, whatever its origins, the pen had resurfaced from a kitchen drawer during the move and he’d had it on hand ever since, enjoying the feelings of its plasticky rhinestones against his fingertips.

A shadowed figure ahead breaks him out of his thoughts and Jack’s so surprised he stares blanky at them, too taken aback to even scowl. He doesn’t know why he’d assumed he was the only restless soul out in Miami tonight, but it’s still disappointing somehow, to have the evening’s fragile peace shattered so soon. Though, who knows? It’s a weird time to take an innocent stroll. Maybe someone had come to put him out of his misery sooner rather than later.