Collab w/ @Jeddaven
Danzig, Germany
He patiently waited outside the brightly bustling building, still barely glistening to life in the early morning while the soft pitter-patter of a morning’s shower rained atop his head. At four in the morning, the staff of the library slowly eked themselves into an opening position, the few assistants and staff unhurriedly etching papers and toting about carts through the hazy windows which peered out into the morning streets. Its sign, printed in both German and Polish, had yet to be illuminated for its opening, the phrase “Ludendorf Library” able to be shined on by the faint light which emanated from the library’s interior.
He twitchily shuffles in place, impatiently tapping against his briefcase as he cast his gaze alongside the door. The agent had half a mind to give it another tug, but the glances from the staff within held him to suspend his disguise for long enough to avoid outright suspicion; It was only through his miraculous baby-faced looks that the agent well in his thirties still had the appearance of one of Danzig’s many collegiate students, looking to do some quick cramming before exams like so many before them.
But, as he cast his gaze side to side along the street, waiting for his contact, he heard the distinct ka-chunk! to his right. The double-door of the library slowly suspended open, the elderly librarian faintly smiling to him as she held it open. He returned the smile back, swiftly dipping into the library with a quick “Thank you.” Soon, he dipped into the long center hallway, into the back and around the rightmost corner. Pulling out his keyring, the agent fumbled about, fuming through keys as he urgently flipped from key to key, the weight of his briefcase as he had now carried the handle in his mouth straining the back of his neck.
“That contact had better come soon...”, he thought, switching through his keys...
A sound echoes from the space behind him, a woman dressed in relatively casual office wear, simple greys and blues that could’ve passed for any plain old accountant or law student working in any number of buildings nestled away in a business district. The tip-tap of her shoes was whisper-quiet, barely noticeable even in a deathly quiet library. Her face was downcast, perhaps simply due to the sheer stress of summer exams, raven-black hair framing a deathly pale face. Letting out a frustrated groan, she slumped back against the wall next to him, running her hands through her hair.
“Fuck exams. I just got a ninety-six on my microeconomics test, but I still feel like I should be tossing myself off the nearest bridge. Aren’t exams the worst?”
He cast a glance over at the woman making her interjection, slowly raising an eyebrow as he sidelined over the last of his keys. He held the single, final key up in unceremonious fashion, quickly injecting it into the locked door. Slowly, he retrieved his briefcase’s handle from his mouth, a few rapid blinks soon following.
He sighed.
“I don’t wanna talk about that exam…” he warily responded, “My professor already won’t let me do a re-take. And it’s brought the average down by at least a letter grade…”
Exhaling long and hard, the agent puffed out his final, world-exhausted sigh. Grasping slowly to his left, he swiftly and gracefully opened the door to the private room, extending his hand to his guest before him.
“But at least we can study for the next one, right?”
“Ninety-six points, ninety-six more months off my lifespan.” She laughed, though the sound was, likewise, incredibly exasperated, moreso a half-hearted attempt to not sound like the ethics of drowning oneself were the first thing on her mind. “Still have to pass the course, though.” She shrugged, trotting inside with an economics textbook full of notes cradled in her arms.
“One step at a time, one step at a time…” he laughed right back, dotting in right after her entrance.
He unhurriedly closed the door behind them, slowly moseying over to the sole birch table set in an off-set corner to the room, adorned by three half-plushed blue-padded chairs which had clearly seen better days. The metallic incandescence shuttered over the room at so early in the morning, such lighting clearly obscuring the faces of the two as he set his briefcase square upon the center of the table.
Looking over at her, his face quickly turned from a smile into a staunch stone-face, quickly eyeing over the room, corner to corner, wall to wall. He addressed her in an unenthused, stern tone.
“Want the good news or the bad news first?”
“I was about to ask you the same thing.” She sighed, her expression likewise turning sour. “Fucking Amerykanów have gone insane, but there’s a silver lining. You checked for bugs?”
He shrugs, giving off an exhausted sigh at the same time. Slowly, the agent approached one of the chairs, pulling it out in a fashion more befitting for a senior than the spiritedly young man he so clearly was. Taking a seat, he stared right back up at her.
“Yeah. Not gonna do me much good, though.” the agent answered.
“I think i’m about to get pinched.” he bluntly responded, “I keep seein’ the same car, same two guys in the front seat, too, always outside my apartment block. Dunno if they’re OSS or Italians.”
“The ASG can’t get them?” She asked, quirking an eyebrow.
“Seems like they’re too tied up with Urwald to really give a shit about guys like me…” He shook his head. “Was my fuckup anyway. Left too big of a trail. Cocky guy like me makes too many moves, leaves too much evidence. Guys like me don’t usually last.”
“Boss Lady hates my guts as it is, anyway.” he quickly laments, “Especially after what happened in Zagreb.”
“Right. Zagreb.” She said, chewing her lips. “What’s the good news, then? Have your tails all come down with brain cancer?”
He chuckles. “Not that lucky.” the spy chortled. A quick shake of his head returned him to his usual straightforward demeanor. He almost even sounded upbeat about it.
“Zocker has made contact with Falker. And Bächer is in with Vogelscheuse.” The guy cracked an eager smile at the news. The first good news that they had gotten in months, at least. Something to show for all of the notoriously poor work and horrid results in the past. Something which finally was starting to show signs of paying off.
“Now it’s just up to us to see if we want to aim for Ukraine or Indonesia.”
“Business in Indonesia is booming, my bosses tell me.” She shrugged, glancing toward the space on the wall where a window would’ve been. “Made a very, very large delivery recently, but there’s something you might want to know first.” She said, taking in a deep breath. “We have someone working with Fat Cat. In his office.”
“Fat Cat?!” he exclaims. His jaw could almost reach the floor, just for a brief second, right before it snapped back up into his sinister crooked grin. “That joker?! Tell me it isn’t who I think it is who’s trying to get Fat Cat to get a heart attack.”
He paused. Steadily, his grin turned to a smile, then a chuckle. A cackle, a beading, rolling laughter.
“It’s fuckin’ Sokoly, isn’t it?” He almost roars.
"You know I'm not at liberty to say anything about that son of a whore." She snorted, shaking her head. Then, suddenly, her expression went sour, as though she'd just laid eyes upon a horribly mangled corpse.
"As for my bad news - poor thing he has on the strings heard something big. New initiative - based on the reports, we're looking at sweeping economic policy. A compulsory 'work program'" she said, making air-quotes in the most obvious way humanly possible, rolling her eyes all the while. "It's bad news for our working comrades, bosses tell me, but the information's easy to spin."
“Leave it to the Yankees to always find a new low…” He spat out, a disgusted, disdained expression on his face, the likes of which not even were reserved for the worst of foes. But, of course, America always had to be number one in everything. Even in being the worst.
“New policy’s gonna make them have a real bad season… not like i’m the biggest fan of baseball, y’know. I prefer football.”
Doting around, the agent swiftly began to tap his fingers against his leg and along the tabletop. His hand motioned sooner and sooner toward his briefcase, all the while tapping along to some foreign beat. Tap, tap-tappity-tap. Tap, tap, tap-tap. Tap, ta-tap-tap… All the way until a single tap! reached the buckle of the case.
“Regardless...study guide’s in here.” He motioned to the briefcase, “Hope it helps you out more than it helped me.” the agent smiled toward her.
"Ah, I'm sure you'll be fine!" She beamed, rolling her shoulders. "Indonesia or the Ukraine, though... My parents would love to go to Indonesia, if you don't mind. My idiot brother is obsessed with Komodo Dragons. Didn't you say your father was a travel agent?"
Her response forced a smile from the agent, chuckling at the mention of it. It sure was a thought, to be brought back from all that way and dragged into the present, its light to bear for all to see!
“Yup!” he spotted back, spiritedly turning with a grin of his own, “He says that the area around Batavia is wonderful, the people so friendly...he always goes on and on about how great it is!”
He casted another glancing grin at her, almost as if to be knowingly puzzled.
“Or...is it ‘Jakarta?’”
Once again, she simply shrugged back, flashing a toothy, pearly-white grin, her expression practically bursting with radiance.
"I've heard Surabaya is especially fascinating to visit, actually - even with the IJA crawling all over the place." She said, nodding back. "I have some friends there that'd love to meet you."
Almost dumbfounded, such an offer would make any man at a loss for words. Even a spy the likes of him couldn’t pass up an opportunity so brazen and wondrous!
“Well, it’s always rude to keep them waiting, isn’t it?” he noted, smirking back, “I’ll make it a mission to see that I visit them as soon as I can. Wouldn’t want to give off a bad first impression, would I?”
“Definitely not,” she chuckled quietly, crossing her arms over each other just beneath her ribcage. “They’re very important friends.”
Not withstanding any mention of decorum, he nods a few times back at her, oddly, awkwardly smiling the whole time through. He tugged at the collar of his button-up shirt, letting in whatever ventilation was prevalent throughout the midsummer air even within the heat of a 4 AM library. It was getting hot in here, wasn’t it? The agent sure was feeling the heat, and he had yet to even make it far outside for a hard day’s work. But, with the rate of how things were progressing, even just these moments almost weighed down on him with the same weight of an entire day’s paperwork just over his shoulder.
He nodded back at her, chuckling to himself all the way. He glanced back at her, tilting his head to the side as he queried:
“Guess this might be the last time we’ll be seeing each other for a while…so, uh…”
“...do you do goodbye kisses?” He smugly smirked.
Suddenly, total, deafening silence. The woman’s eyes went half-lidded, an expression that could only be described as impatiently contemptuous. Her posture, though relaxed - and she reached out towards him, only do land a light, stinging slap across his cheek.
“You’re an idiot.”
He recoiled back, groaning and gristling from the blow. Rubbing the side of his reddened, hand-printed face, he rubbed the wound in an attempt to tenderize the stinging aftershock of the resounding blow.
“Ough…” he grunted.
Slowly, he squinted, turning his grimacing, pained expression back into an approving smirk.
“...that really hurt…” the agent complained, cracking another approving grin back at her.
“...think you can kiss it and make it all better again for me?”
“Moron!” The raven-haired beauty grumbled. “You’re lucky I find stupidity endearing.”
Muah! A light, quick kiss on his reddened cheek, and the woman was moving, already on her way out the door. “I’ll have some friends look into those people bullying you. See you in Surabaya, mhm?”
Danzig, Germany
He patiently waited outside the brightly bustling building, still barely glistening to life in the early morning while the soft pitter-patter of a morning’s shower rained atop his head. At four in the morning, the staff of the library slowly eked themselves into an opening position, the few assistants and staff unhurriedly etching papers and toting about carts through the hazy windows which peered out into the morning streets. Its sign, printed in both German and Polish, had yet to be illuminated for its opening, the phrase “Ludendorf Library” able to be shined on by the faint light which emanated from the library’s interior.
He twitchily shuffles in place, impatiently tapping against his briefcase as he cast his gaze alongside the door. The agent had half a mind to give it another tug, but the glances from the staff within held him to suspend his disguise for long enough to avoid outright suspicion; It was only through his miraculous baby-faced looks that the agent well in his thirties still had the appearance of one of Danzig’s many collegiate students, looking to do some quick cramming before exams like so many before them.
But, as he cast his gaze side to side along the street, waiting for his contact, he heard the distinct ka-chunk! to his right. The double-door of the library slowly suspended open, the elderly librarian faintly smiling to him as she held it open. He returned the smile back, swiftly dipping into the library with a quick “Thank you.” Soon, he dipped into the long center hallway, into the back and around the rightmost corner. Pulling out his keyring, the agent fumbled about, fuming through keys as he urgently flipped from key to key, the weight of his briefcase as he had now carried the handle in his mouth straining the back of his neck.
“That contact had better come soon...”, he thought, switching through his keys...
A sound echoes from the space behind him, a woman dressed in relatively casual office wear, simple greys and blues that could’ve passed for any plain old accountant or law student working in any number of buildings nestled away in a business district. The tip-tap of her shoes was whisper-quiet, barely noticeable even in a deathly quiet library. Her face was downcast, perhaps simply due to the sheer stress of summer exams, raven-black hair framing a deathly pale face. Letting out a frustrated groan, she slumped back against the wall next to him, running her hands through her hair.
“Fuck exams. I just got a ninety-six on my microeconomics test, but I still feel like I should be tossing myself off the nearest bridge. Aren’t exams the worst?”
He cast a glance over at the woman making her interjection, slowly raising an eyebrow as he sidelined over the last of his keys. He held the single, final key up in unceremonious fashion, quickly injecting it into the locked door. Slowly, he retrieved his briefcase’s handle from his mouth, a few rapid blinks soon following.
He sighed.
“I don’t wanna talk about that exam…” he warily responded, “My professor already won’t let me do a re-take. And it’s brought the average down by at least a letter grade…”
Exhaling long and hard, the agent puffed out his final, world-exhausted sigh. Grasping slowly to his left, he swiftly and gracefully opened the door to the private room, extending his hand to his guest before him.
“But at least we can study for the next one, right?”
“Ninety-six points, ninety-six more months off my lifespan.” She laughed, though the sound was, likewise, incredibly exasperated, moreso a half-hearted attempt to not sound like the ethics of drowning oneself were the first thing on her mind. “Still have to pass the course, though.” She shrugged, trotting inside with an economics textbook full of notes cradled in her arms.
“One step at a time, one step at a time…” he laughed right back, dotting in right after her entrance.
He unhurriedly closed the door behind them, slowly moseying over to the sole birch table set in an off-set corner to the room, adorned by three half-plushed blue-padded chairs which had clearly seen better days. The metallic incandescence shuttered over the room at so early in the morning, such lighting clearly obscuring the faces of the two as he set his briefcase square upon the center of the table.
Looking over at her, his face quickly turned from a smile into a staunch stone-face, quickly eyeing over the room, corner to corner, wall to wall. He addressed her in an unenthused, stern tone.
“Want the good news or the bad news first?”
“I was about to ask you the same thing.” She sighed, her expression likewise turning sour. “Fucking Amerykanów have gone insane, but there’s a silver lining. You checked for bugs?”
He shrugs, giving off an exhausted sigh at the same time. Slowly, the agent approached one of the chairs, pulling it out in a fashion more befitting for a senior than the spiritedly young man he so clearly was. Taking a seat, he stared right back up at her.
“Yeah. Not gonna do me much good, though.” the agent answered.
“I think i’m about to get pinched.” he bluntly responded, “I keep seein’ the same car, same two guys in the front seat, too, always outside my apartment block. Dunno if they’re OSS or Italians.”
“The ASG can’t get them?” She asked, quirking an eyebrow.
“Seems like they’re too tied up with Urwald to really give a shit about guys like me…” He shook his head. “Was my fuckup anyway. Left too big of a trail. Cocky guy like me makes too many moves, leaves too much evidence. Guys like me don’t usually last.”
“Boss Lady hates my guts as it is, anyway.” he quickly laments, “Especially after what happened in Zagreb.”
“Right. Zagreb.” She said, chewing her lips. “What’s the good news, then? Have your tails all come down with brain cancer?”
He chuckles. “Not that lucky.” the spy chortled. A quick shake of his head returned him to his usual straightforward demeanor. He almost even sounded upbeat about it.
“Zocker has made contact with Falker. And Bächer is in with Vogelscheuse.” The guy cracked an eager smile at the news. The first good news that they had gotten in months, at least. Something to show for all of the notoriously poor work and horrid results in the past. Something which finally was starting to show signs of paying off.
“Now it’s just up to us to see if we want to aim for Ukraine or Indonesia.”
“Business in Indonesia is booming, my bosses tell me.” She shrugged, glancing toward the space on the wall where a window would’ve been. “Made a very, very large delivery recently, but there’s something you might want to know first.” She said, taking in a deep breath. “We have someone working with Fat Cat. In his office.”
“Fat Cat?!” he exclaims. His jaw could almost reach the floor, just for a brief second, right before it snapped back up into his sinister crooked grin. “That joker?! Tell me it isn’t who I think it is who’s trying to get Fat Cat to get a heart attack.”
He paused. Steadily, his grin turned to a smile, then a chuckle. A cackle, a beading, rolling laughter.
“It’s fuckin’ Sokoly, isn’t it?” He almost roars.
"You know I'm not at liberty to say anything about that son of a whore." She snorted, shaking her head. Then, suddenly, her expression went sour, as though she'd just laid eyes upon a horribly mangled corpse.
"As for my bad news - poor thing he has on the strings heard something big. New initiative - based on the reports, we're looking at sweeping economic policy. A compulsory 'work program'" she said, making air-quotes in the most obvious way humanly possible, rolling her eyes all the while. "It's bad news for our working comrades, bosses tell me, but the information's easy to spin."
“Leave it to the Yankees to always find a new low…” He spat out, a disgusted, disdained expression on his face, the likes of which not even were reserved for the worst of foes. But, of course, America always had to be number one in everything. Even in being the worst.
“New policy’s gonna make them have a real bad season… not like i’m the biggest fan of baseball, y’know. I prefer football.”
Doting around, the agent swiftly began to tap his fingers against his leg and along the tabletop. His hand motioned sooner and sooner toward his briefcase, all the while tapping along to some foreign beat. Tap, tap-tappity-tap. Tap, tap, tap-tap. Tap, ta-tap-tap… All the way until a single tap! reached the buckle of the case.
“Regardless...study guide’s in here.” He motioned to the briefcase, “Hope it helps you out more than it helped me.” the agent smiled toward her.
"Ah, I'm sure you'll be fine!" She beamed, rolling her shoulders. "Indonesia or the Ukraine, though... My parents would love to go to Indonesia, if you don't mind. My idiot brother is obsessed with Komodo Dragons. Didn't you say your father was a travel agent?"
Her response forced a smile from the agent, chuckling at the mention of it. It sure was a thought, to be brought back from all that way and dragged into the present, its light to bear for all to see!
“Yup!” he spotted back, spiritedly turning with a grin of his own, “He says that the area around Batavia is wonderful, the people so friendly...he always goes on and on about how great it is!”
He casted another glancing grin at her, almost as if to be knowingly puzzled.
“Or...is it ‘Jakarta?’”
Once again, she simply shrugged back, flashing a toothy, pearly-white grin, her expression practically bursting with radiance.
"I've heard Surabaya is especially fascinating to visit, actually - even with the IJA crawling all over the place." She said, nodding back. "I have some friends there that'd love to meet you."
Almost dumbfounded, such an offer would make any man at a loss for words. Even a spy the likes of him couldn’t pass up an opportunity so brazen and wondrous!
“Well, it’s always rude to keep them waiting, isn’t it?” he noted, smirking back, “I’ll make it a mission to see that I visit them as soon as I can. Wouldn’t want to give off a bad first impression, would I?”
“Definitely not,” she chuckled quietly, crossing her arms over each other just beneath her ribcage. “They’re very important friends.”
Not withstanding any mention of decorum, he nods a few times back at her, oddly, awkwardly smiling the whole time through. He tugged at the collar of his button-up shirt, letting in whatever ventilation was prevalent throughout the midsummer air even within the heat of a 4 AM library. It was getting hot in here, wasn’t it? The agent sure was feeling the heat, and he had yet to even make it far outside for a hard day’s work. But, with the rate of how things were progressing, even just these moments almost weighed down on him with the same weight of an entire day’s paperwork just over his shoulder.
He nodded back at her, chuckling to himself all the way. He glanced back at her, tilting his head to the side as he queried:
“Guess this might be the last time we’ll be seeing each other for a while…so, uh…”
“...do you do goodbye kisses?” He smugly smirked.
Suddenly, total, deafening silence. The woman’s eyes went half-lidded, an expression that could only be described as impatiently contemptuous. Her posture, though relaxed - and she reached out towards him, only do land a light, stinging slap across his cheek.
“You’re an idiot.”
He recoiled back, groaning and gristling from the blow. Rubbing the side of his reddened, hand-printed face, he rubbed the wound in an attempt to tenderize the stinging aftershock of the resounding blow.
“Ough…” he grunted.
Slowly, he squinted, turning his grimacing, pained expression back into an approving smirk.
“...that really hurt…” the agent complained, cracking another approving grin back at her.
“...think you can kiss it and make it all better again for me?”
“Moron!” The raven-haired beauty grumbled. “You’re lucky I find stupidity endearing.”
Muah! A light, quick kiss on his reddened cheek, and the woman was moving, already on her way out the door. “I’ll have some friends look into those people bullying you. See you in Surabaya, mhm?”
