[sup][h1][center][img]https://i.imgur.com/CrdmdEe.jpg?1[/img][/center][b][center][color=FFFAFA]B L A C K P A N T H E R[/color] [color=black]B L A C K P A N T H E R[/color][/center] [/b][/h1][/sup] [h3]Six Months Ago[/h3] [i]“Welcome back to BBC World News. Our stop story tonight comes out of Africa, as the nation of Wakanda is now without a king. King T’Challa announced in a statement earlier today that he would step down from his duties as head of state. This comes amid weeks of protests that have rocked the tiny country. With more on this, we go live to Samira Chakrabarti reporting from neighboring Sudan.”[/i] [hr] [h3] Now Little Mogadishu Brooklyn [/h3] “Mr. Wolde, my hot water heater isn't working again.” Isaiah Wolde peered through the opening in the door at Mrs. Leul. The elderly Ethiopian woman stared up at him with a mixture of sadness and hopefulness in her eyes. Unable to do things like she once could, and with Mr. Leul long dead, the building superintendent was her own personal superhero. This was the third time in the past month that her pilot light had gone out. It was always a quick fix. If it were anyone else Isaiah would have just shown them how to reset it so he would no longer be bothered with a minor inconvenience. But he knew there was no way she could do it on her own. Besides that, he didn't mind too much. She reminded him of his own [i]umakhulu[/i], now long dead. “Let me get my toolbox,” he said in Oromo. It was just one of many languages Isaiah knew fluently. That was a must to do his job. Almost any job in this neighborhood required everyone to know almost as many dialects and languages as a UN diplomat. On any sort of map or realtor directory the Brooklyn neighborhood was called Mapleton. But the people of Brooklyn called the six square block area “Little Mogadishu.” African immigrants from all over the massive continent settled the neighborhood starting in the mid 20th century. Back then it was one of a small number of places on the American eastern seaboard Africans could find refuge among those with a similar background. And while it was truly a pan-African mix of nationalities, the higher than average concentration of Somalians gave it the nickname of Little Mogadishu. Ten minutes later Isaiah walked out of 4C with Mrs. Leul singing his praises. She'd tried to pay for his services with Ethiopian sweetbread known as himbasha, but Isaiah politely declined. He patted his mid-section and said he was watching his waistline. “Just let me know if you have any other problems, Mrs. Leul,” he said. “You know I will,” she said as she closed the door behind her. Isaiah’s smile disappeared when he saw the NYPD officer trudging up the stairs to the fourth floor landing. “Can I help you, officer?” he asked. The cop hiked his utility belt up a little higher on his stomach and eyed Isaiah. It was the same look of mild annoyance any police officer developed with enough time on the job. The look put Isaiah’s mind at ease. He wasn’t there for him. He knew that was mostly paranoia on his part. If they came for him they would need more than just some middle-aged constable to take him down. A whole SWAT team would have to bust down his door, and even then it would be a close run thing. “I’m looking for 6C,” he said, his eyes flashing down to Isaiah’s toolbox. “You the super here?” “Yes,” Isaiah said with a slight nod. “4E is around the stairwell corner. The Chinwe family.” “That’s the one,” said the cop. He pulled out a notebook and pen as he got closer. Isaiah saw the nameplate just below his badge had MARTINEZ engraved on it. Martinez scribbled something in the notebook while he talked. “What’s your name, sir?” “Isaiah Wolde.” “How long have you been superintendent here?” “Five months.” “Where were you before that?” “I was the superintendent for an apartment on 63rd St,” he lied. “Does this have something to do with the Chinwes?” “Just collecting details, sir,” Martinez replied in a border tone while he wrote. Isaiah wasn’t worried about his lies catching up to him. If Martinez ran his name through a computer he would find a detailed paper trail on Isaiah Wolde dating back to the early 2000’s when he supposedly arrived from Ethiopia. Immigration documents, tax returns, employment history, even a marriage and divorce certificate somewhere along the way. It was all a complete fabrication from start to finish. Every now and then it paid to be close with a CIA agent. “What can you tell me about the Chinwes?” “Quiet,” Isaiah said with a shrug. “They keep to themselves for the most part. Grace is very nice, and Charlie is a good boy. Very bright.” “When was the last time you saw Charlie?” A slow realization dawned. That was the reason for Martinez’s visit. “I don’t remember,” Isaiah said with a head shake. “Maybe last week." “Okay, that’s all I got for you for now. I may have some follow ups if necessary.” “You know how to find me,” Isaiah nodded. Martinez thanked him for his time and headed towards 4E. Isaiah dawdled on the fourth floor and pretended to examine a light fixture while Martinez knocked on 4E and was let in by Grace Chinwe. When the door closed he slowly walked back towards 4E. Even through the thick walls he could easily hear the conversation between Grace and Officer Martinez. “How long has it been since you last saw your son?” “Early last week,” Grace said in an accent tinged with her Nigerian roots. “He stormed out the house and never came back. I filed a police report two days later and it’s taken this long–” “Yes,” said Martinez. “I know. I’m sorry for the delay, we’re just backlogged with so many cases. I wish I could say your son is the only missing child in New York, but he's far from it. Why did Charlie storm out that day last week?” “The last time we spoke,” she said. “We had a fight. I had received a phone call from his school. He hadn’t shown up in weeks. I asked him where was he going, what was he doing, and who with. We had a fight and he left. I said some terrible things as he walked out the door, things I am not proud of. And he hasn’t answered his phone.” “Okay, I just need a description of the boy and I’ll put together an official BOLO–” Isaiah stepped away from the door and started downstairs. Charlie Chinwe was fifteen, a seemingly bright young man. A few months ago Isaiah had paid him good money -- at least for a teenager -- to help him install new security motion lights around the building. He seemed to take to electrical work quickly and efficiently. In the two days he’d helped Isaiah had gotten to know the boy. He loved cars and working with his hands. He seemed to intuitively just know how things worked. He had almost gotten into a nice magnet school for science in Mid-Town, but his mother couldn't afford the tuition even after scholarship help. His mother had fled Nigeria while pregnant with him. He was born and raised in this country, never knowing his father or family back home. He’d grown up on stories of Nigeria and raised on traditional values, but to him it may as well have been the moon. Why should he care about that country at all when it caused his mother to flee and birth him on foreign soil? It reminded Isaiah so much of himself at that age: Fearless, headstrong, and unsure if what he wanted in life. And now he was somewhere out there all alone. Isaiah entered the ground level apartment that served as his home. He put his toolbox down and walked towards the closet. He pushed the clothes on the rack aside and felt for the false bottom floor. If he was going to find Charlie, he’d need a more… durable set of clothes. [hr] [h3]Red Hook, Brooklyn[/h3] Charlie Chinwe sat behind the wheel of the junky stolen car. It took him all of two minutes to break into the shitbox with a slim jim and hotwire it up. After that he cruised to the spot to pick up O and the other two. Charlie cruised to the entrance of the Terrace and put the car in park. That had been almost twelve hours ago. The four of them kept their eyes peeled on the comings and going of the high rise housing project. Charlie looked up into the rearview mirror. O sat in the back with an unlit cigarette in his mouth. O’s eyes never stopped watching and observing. TT in the front passenger seat stretched and yawned. “Yo, O, can we get some food or something? I’m about to bug the fuck out out.” “Go ahead,” said O. “But you gotta walk. I’m staying here.” TT and Roc got out the car and started down the street. Charlie looked back up into the rearview mirror saw O looking at him. It wasn’t so much looking at him as it was looking [i]into[/i] him. It unnerved Charlie slightly and how aged O’s eyes seemed to be. It was crazy how street life seemed to pass at a different speed. O was only two years older than him, but the boy seemed to be middle aged in the way he approached things. Wisdom, thought Charlie, earned after years of ripping and robbing on these streets. “Why you staying, youngin'?” O asked. Charlie shrugged. “It ain’t a stakeout if we go get something to eat in the middle of it, now is it?.” O grinned, the cigarette still between his lips. When he spoke the tip of it bounced up and down. “Well, what you seeing since you acting like some hardcore Semper Fi motherfucker?” Charlie ran his hands along the steering wheel and exhaled slowly. He did his best to not let his voice crack as he spoke. “KT Crew works around the clock. Product comes in twice a day. When they bring the reup they also move the money out. The slingers look like punks, but the guys who are the couriers look like soldiers. Not the fuck-with-me types.” “So, you being a ambitious stick-up boy like you is, how you gonna separate them fools from their product?” “Fuck the drugs,” said Charlie. “Let the courier go in with the dope. We follow him as he leaves with the cash and hit him up then. Money splits easier and spends a whole lot quicker. They can always buy more dope and coke.” “Okay, okay,” said O. “I see you. You out here watching and thinking. More than the other two knuckleheads. And when would you try to stick up the courier?” “The late shift. Less police presence around when it gets to be about three or four AM and less people out in the Terrace. The courier won’t have much backup if shit goes bad.” O chuckled and clapped his hands slowly in praise. Charlie lowered his head so O couldn’t see the smile on his face. For the first time in a long time he felt like he was being seen and valued. It felt like he had an honest to god father in his life for the first time. And Charlie was smart enough to realize how fucked up that sounded, but in this moment he was ready to go to war with O and his stickup crew. “My nigga,’” O said proudly. “We gonna make a soldier out of you yet.”