Perception #2

The story picks up sometime after Jarmo heads home from what happened in part 1. It is still the same day but in the evening.

In his darkened apartment Jarmo can't seem to stop replaying the noises in his head. The strange, unfamiliar noises. Just what was that? Jarmo recalls heading out of the hospital and hearing one-liners and something about twinkies. "Twinkies? What's special about them? Do they have chemicals in them that cause hallucinations? Are they laced with trinity?" Jarmo walks to his bathroom and sees if he can wash his face. He looks in the mirror and looks into his own eyes. He peers into his pupil and stares into the black pit and starts to wonder, "can I trust my eyes" as he starts to wash his face off and continue to try and piece together whatever facts he can about this case and why trinity is being distributed so much recently. After thinking some more Jarmo decides to call it a day and head to sleep.

Loud ringing can be heard hours later. It's Jarmo's cell phone. It's now morning. A groggy Jarmo reaches for it and looks at the caller ID. "Mr. Ramirez eh?" Jarmo answers, "it's Jarmo. So what do you have this time, Ramirez?"
"What I have is, what you need baby. Information."
"About?"
"There was an explosion!"
"What's with you telling me about explosions man?"
"There was one at the hospital that chick was at. Thought that might be of importance to your investigation"
"Looks like I have some snooping to do."

As Jarmo gets ready to go back to what remains of Kelsey Crusher hospital he gets another call. "Who is it this time?" Jarmo answers the phone "hello Jarmo is busy at the moment please call later."
"I know it's you Jarmo! Don't play around with me today, I want you in my office and I want you here 5 minutes ago!"
"Oh, crap, looks like I have to deal with ol' captain Mcclusky." He makes his way to the police station and as he enters he's greeted by a female police officer, with medium length brown hair and square frame glasses. "Hello, Frida you're looking cute as a button as always, is the captain still in his office?"
"Yes he is, I'd better hurry there if I were you." she replies, smiling warmly.
"You wouldn't want to be me kulta* you're great as you are." Jarmo says with a slight smile and even a bit of tenderness, which is rare for him. He then makes his way to Mcclusky's office and immediately spots something odd on that table.
"Is that... trinity?"
"It is. We got it from busting a lieutenant working for Mr. Frank." Mcclusky chuckles for a little bit and adds "you know you always did have good eyes, being able to spot this tiny bit of trinity on the table so quickly."
"Do I? ...Well, anyway what was it you wanted to speak to me about, sir?"
"Right, right. That explosion at the hospital. I heard you were there not long before it happened. I'm being pressed by the F.B.I now to give some information, basically I'm being forced to have you tell me something. An agent died sometime after that but before today apparently. His name was Peter or Parker or something."
"Why would they think I would be of help in that situation?"
"Like I said you were at the hospital, they figure you ought to know something about what happened there, and if whoever killed him came from there."
"All I can say was I was at the hospital, I heard things start to escalate and I high tailed it our of there."
"So you have no information about this agent's death"
No, I don't sir."
Mcclusky sighs "well, then that's all I'll have to say to them. You're free to go Jarmo."
"I have a question for you now though, sir?"
"What is it, Jarmo?"
"This Mr. Frank do we have any leads on him, are we working on busting him?"
"Right now, we have a few leads, we're not actively trying to bust him but he if say, he happens to be caught today, we won't be complaining."
"Thank you sir." Jarmo leaves his office and recalls his talk with the two thugs he fought yesterday.

As Jarmo walks away he thinks of where mr. Frankie may be. "A guy like him probably hides in plain sight. Must be in a business building downtown, just in an office neatly tucked away. That's how they like to roll."

While downtown Jarmo notices a person walking across the street. He had a bandanna and a cast and looked awfully familiar. After looking a bit harder for a few seconds Jarmo realized who it was, and crossed the street. "Hey, how's it going Bret? Remember me? I see you needed a cast after that throw I pulled off on you." Jarmo says in a very friendly voice.
"Ahh, I do remember you! I'm sorry about trying to beat you up the other day, after getting beat up like that it made me rethink my course in life. I'm on my way to Mr. Frank now to tell him I'm done selling drugs... and to run for my life afterward."
"You're going to Mr. Frank eh? Well, then you lead me to him without him being wise that I'm nearby, I'll handle that part by the way, and you won't have to worry about running for your life. How's that sound?"
"Doesn't sound too good with just you trying to get to him, but it sounds a lot better than doing what I was going to do with my busted arm, by myself."
As Bret makes his way to Mr. Frank's building, Jarmo shadows him. Finally as Bret reaches Mr. Frank's office Jarmo makes himself known to Bret and tells him to just do what he originally planned to do, and at the right time he'll burst in.

"Alright, Bret are you ready?"
"Ready as I'll ever be cop." Bret says with a tinge of fear in his voice.
Bret opens the door to Mr. Frank's office and approaches him with an air of caution. Mr. Frank is an intimidating individual, he's not overly large but fairly tall, dark skinned, wears a business suit and a perpetual poker face.
"Why have you come here today, Bret? I have no use for you today"
"Right, well, about that, you see I uh... well, I..."
"Well?"
"I uh... I want to quit."
Mr. Frank snickers. "You want to quit huh? You handing in your two weeks notice? You expect some severance pay?" Mr. Frank starts to laugh harder "severance pay!" Mr. Frank starts to guffaw now. "That's hilarious!"
"Yeah, I want out!" Bret says loudly.
"What if I say no?"
"Then I'll just leave anyway."
"You ain't leaving nowhere, Biggs, plug him."
Upon hearing that Jarmo rushes into the office and as soon as he steps foot inside sees a fountain of blood come from the back of Bret's head.
"Darn it! He could've been a good source of info. Oh well, I guess I'll have to make sure the bigger fish gets fried tonight!"
"What? What kind of line was that? Biggs get rid of this random guy too."

"Hey, I thought that was good. Anyway..." Jarmo notices Mr. Frank's henchman Biggs is appropriately named being at least six foot nine or somewhere around there, he looked to be near seven feet. He also noticed Biggs slowly fix his aim on Jarmo. "That slowness will cost you." Jarmo notices a flipped over chair near him and ducks down to make himself a smaller target and immediately kicks the chair to Biggs as he does it. It barely hurts the big man but it does distract him enough to Jarmo make his next move which is draw his gun from the back of his pants and move closer to Biggs. Jarmo executes a leg scissors and takes Biggs off his feet. As soon as he's off his feet Jarmo kicks the gun away from Biggs and aims the gun in his hand to Mr. Frank. "You're under arrest Frank"
"That's Mr. Frank to you."
"Not to me now, and not to any of the fellas in prison, I'll tell you what they will call you though, it starts with a B and rhy-"
"I get it random guy who I just learned is a cop."
"Right well, stay where you are so I can take you downtown."
"We are downtown..."
"Shut up! As you know in your rights you have the right to remain silent anyway."

Mr. Frank smiles.
Jarmo asks "why are you smiling? That big guy is getting back up isn't he?"
"Yep."
"Dagnabit" Jarmo sighs and executes a reverse leg sweep and brings Biggs down again.
"Stay down will you?"
"Never! You can't keep me on the ground can you?"
"Can I?" Jarmo presses his gun on Biggs head.
"You don't have the guts to do it! I know you cops!" Biggs violently swings his left arm at Jarmo and as Jarmo tried to quickly react his finger squeezed the trigger involuntarily. Jarmo stands slowly. With a  quiet authority Jarmo tells Mr. Frank "put your hands on your head, get on your knees." Mr, Frank listens. As Jarmo attempts to arrest Mr. Frank, Mr Frank reveals a blade he had hidden on his person and attempts to slash Jarmo. Jarmo with a fierce, yet silent determination in his eyes sways to his right and delivers a jaw jacking uppercut as he did to Paul in the previously only this time the force seemed to be greater than before and Mr. Frank could swear he felt a wind push his body up, though it couldn't be proven. Mr. Frank lands on the ground with a heavy thud. Jarmo finally arrests Mr. Frank.

Sometime after, Jarmo gets a call from Mcclusky with new information and learns that Mr. Frank worked a deal with Cesar Monticello as a part of a way to spread his influence in Nevada without being too open and seeming like he is brute forcing his way in. He then gets informed of his new orders, investigate Cesar Monticello and help the F.B.I in finding out his contacts in Nevada. For this he'll get  a partner to back him up. "Who?" Jarmo asks.
"Officer Frida."
"Officer Frida!? But she's still a girl this would be too dangerous for her."
Frida makes reveals she's been there listening to Jarmo and says to him "No need to worry about me, I've got a lot of tricks that people won't even see coming, I can handle myself, you'll see."
"Well, then we've got a lot of snooping to do, I'll see ya tomorrow kulta bright and early."
"But what about now, where do you think you're going."
"I'm tired, I'm going home and sleeping."
"But...!"
"Let him go Frida he's excused for today, he's been through a lot."
"I suppose he has. I'll see you tomorrow Jarmo! I'll show I won't be easy to push over, you'll see!"

Well, that's it for Perception chapter 2! Hope you enjoyed it, I'll see you next month! In the meantime follow my podcast on iTunes the Ikaricast for a variety of geeky discussions, follow me on twitter for my random thoughts on everything @ikariradio and lastly go to my deviantart where I take cheap commissions. http://fighterxaos.deviantart.com where I take cheap commissions.

*about kulta. Kulta is a Finnish word for gold, it can also mean "baby, honey, dear, or sweetheart" and the latter meanings was the context the word was being used by Jarmo toward Frida.

That picture used in the top can be viewed here on deviantart, just a sketch of how Jarmo looks http://fav.me/d5am0t4