Evenfall (113 page)

By the time he paid them and stood, the two women seemed to be on surprisingly good terms with him. They didn't say anything as he said, "Thanks," and turned to go, but as he reached the door Tayla called out suddenly, "Next time you'll lose my test."

He paused at the door then looked over his shoulder with an eyebrow raised. "I wouldn't bet on it."

Tayla's grin was fierce and pleased. She kicked her feet up on the table and leaned back, the chair creaking, and she interlaced her fingers behind her head. "I would."

At her side, Liani either ignored their conversation or didn't see any reason to comment on it. Instead, she smiled pleasantly. "Stay safe."

Nodding, Boyd slipped through the door and shut it behind him quietly. He was just slipping the map into his pocket when he emerged into the upper room and saw Jorge, who was leaning against one of the dusty shelves. Jorge saw the white corner of paper disappear into his pocket and looked up at him with mildly impressed dark eyes.

"You are lucky," he said, moving to walk ahead of Boyd. "The Snakes are some of the few who are not afraid of
lo mαs chingσn.
They research everyone before they consider to meet so they know they are not liars, officials, bad people. Even if they meet, they do not like many. But if they like you and you pass, it is good."

"Who is
lo mαs chingσn
?" Boyd asked casually, although he knew. He couldn't imagine anyone else called themselves that in Monterrey, not when the man who did could come upon even Boyd and Sin unsuspected and threaten Boyd's life. No one else would stand a chance against that man and he would not be surprised if, like Vivienne, the man was the type who knew everything that went on.

"Someone not to fight," Jorge said darkly. "He is strong. His people are strong. He owns many passages to Monterrey and other cities nearby. He is well known and has many rivals so he hides his appearance a lot. Not many know what he really looks like. In this city, it is hard to know who you can really trust."

"What's he deal?" Boyd asked as he slid his sunglasses down and idly looked around the deserted alley they were just entering. They were nowhere near anyone else and he didn't feel like they were being watched, but that didn't mean the man couldn't be overhearing. After all, he had surprised Boyd once before so it was not inconceivable that it could happen again.

"Weapons mostly," Jorge said, his eyes narrowing. "Anything. He has many connections; he can get what he wants."

"Is he affiliated with anyone?" Boyd asked curiously.

"No," Jorge said, shaking his head. "He is on his own. But he sells for the best price."

"Would he sell to the big rebel groups if they offered the most?" Boyd asked the question so casually and off-handed that Jorge answered without realizing what he was saying.

"Yes. Once, he—" Jorge cut himself off suddenly, looking around the alley in heightened paranoia. He looked rather like a skittish rabbit sensing a fox nearby and when he turned to Boyd it was with eyes that were angry and afraid. "I want my money," he demanded.

Boyd nodded easily and slipped twice as much into Jorge's palm than he had said he would pay him. "Thanks, Jorge," he said sincerely.

Jorge looked down at the large wad of pesos and back up at Boyd. He slipped the money away and turned, then hesitated and looked back at him with narrowed eyes. "You should not ask those questions. He is too strong, even with the Snakes helping. And there are many others who are not
lo mαs chingσn
but who like questions even less. It is dangerous."

Boyd smiled and patted Jorge on the shoulder. "Got it. Thanks, man."

Jorge looked down at his shoulder with a strange expression then back up at Boyd. "Careful,
ese," he
said as a parting shot, but this time the term seemed less derogatory; it seemed to be used more in the manner it was intended, as if he was saying he knew Boyd well enough now.

Boyd's smile stretched into a grin but Jorge only barely saw it before he turned and ran away to disappear into the shadows. Slipping his hands into his pockets, Boyd casually strode away, intending to take the long route back to the apartment just in case he was being followed.

===

Sin had decided early on that this entire part of the mission was obnoxious, idiotic and a huge waste of time. What he didn’t understand, was why he needed to experience what essentially was an irritating rendition of a try out, if the human resources department of the JKS Convention Center did as thorough a background and reference check as they claimed to. He had all of the fake and forged documents needed to impress their stupid, self-important checks and he knew Jason Alvarez had worked for what he supposed was extremely impressive corporations but no; that was not enough.

In addition to that he had to obtain a license to work as an armed guard for the city of Monterrey and then even after that, he had to do nonsense “training” with a large pool of other candidates before the actual team would be chosen.

He just didn’t get it. It wasn’t exactly a position with homeland security. It was a fucking convention center.

He was particularly irritated at Carhart and whatever other dimwitted people had planned this mission because they could have easily forged in a fake license to make his job less irritating but no; they couldn’t do that. They obviously wanted this mission to fail miserably when he began killing irritating civilians who thought they knew more about guns than he did.

Generally ‘training’ went something akin to this:

“So what you have to do is—“

Shoot you in the fucking head with your own gun because it would be painfully easy to disarm you with the way you’re holding that weapon.

“Understand?”

Sin stared at the man blankly before raising his own weapon and unloading his entire clip into the paper target. He didn’t speak and didn’t even look at where he was shooting before placing the standard issued gun in front of him as he watched his ‘trainer’ expectantly.

The man, whose name he had not bothered to pay attention to, gave him a strange look and examined the target as it slid closer to them from across the range. His expression became incredulous as he took in the completely obliterated ‘head’ and he turned on Sin with a frown. “You killed it.”

“Yes.”

“You were only supposed to immobilize it…”

“Oh.”

Fucking civilians.

Despite his ineptitude at immobilizing suspects they decided that having possibly dead civilians was a risk that they were willing to take in order for buildings and convention centers to be guarded and secured. In short, they gave him the license and then he was allowed to move on to the actual preliminary trial for the job at the JKS.

The training consisted of a variety of tests, physical and written. The written portion of the exam wasn’t really written though; it was on a computer and appeared to be nothing more than a personality assessment to make sure that you were neither a retard nor a psycho. Sin wasn’t entirely sure if that left him out but if one used common sense it was easy to see the obvious answers. He was quite surprised to see that about 45% of the applicants had none because they were sent home shortly after the test was complete.

The next portion of the trial was what he supposed was a standard medical check-up to ensure that applicants were able to perform physical activities without dropping dead of heart failure on JKS property. The doctor asked him a variety of questions about his medical history even though a copy of it had been included in his application and mostly gawked at him as he stood there half naked in her office.

“Those are some scars you have there,” Dr. Adler noted as her gaze drifted from the scar at his neck to the gunshots on his chest and abdomen and finally rested on Shane’s attempt at castration.

Sin’s eyebrows rose and he gave a one shouldered shrug. “Rough childhood.”

 
“Okay then.” She stared at him for a long moment before shaking her head and gesturing towards the scale.

He stepped onto it without commenting.

“6’4 and… 170 pounds.” She stepped back and surveyed him again, a disapproving frown on her face. “You are one point away from being considered underweight which would have immediately disqualified you from this position.”

“Oh.”

“
D
oesn’t that concern you?”

“No.” He'd weighed less before coming to Monterrey.

Dr. Adler glared at him. “Don’t you eat, boy?”

“I eat plenty.”

She frowned again and poked at his toned abdomen. “From what it looks like, you don’t consume enough calories for how much you work out.”

Sin stared at her and looked relatively unimpressed. “Are we done here?”

She sighed in exasperation. “Yes.”

The last part of the preliminary test was a basic obstacle course which he completed in less than a quarter of the time permitted. He didn’t particularly see why such a test was needed but he supposed that they wanted to make sure applicants had some small speck of endurance before hiring them. The entire process of getting a license and passing the preliminary trials took nearly a month and then he was finally officially hired. They required him to dye his hair entirely black, which he was glad about, and to also remove any facial piercing. In a strange way he was sad to see the lip ring go; he’d gotten quite used to it. On the other hand he was almost relieved because he’d begun to suspect that he was developing some kind of oral fixation. It was entirely possible that that also had something to do with Boyd though.

After he was formally hired there was a lengthy orientation that mostly involved him sitting in one of the large auditoriums with dozens of other new employees while not paying attention and then several more weeks of training. Although the training was tedious, it was not as useless as the preliminary tests. They were trained on the standard procedures when encountering suspicious activity, the several codes for the different levels of emergencies and alarms and most importantly, they were told to study the entire convention center.

He’d assumed that he would only be required to learn the wing that the event would take place in but the fact that he was given free
rein
to wander the entire complex made things a lot simpler. He made careful note of all exits, staircases and vents, even snapping pictures with the tiny, lighter shaped digital camera that Boyd had given him.

By the time late September had rolled in they’d constructed a detailed map of the center and had even mapped out several possible escape routes for the night of the attack as well as good places to plant the bombs.

It was in the beginning of October when he noticed that the east wing of the center was suddenly off limits due to ‘construction’ purposes. There were no visible signs of constructions or construction workers although he noticed several times that there were several cars parked in the lot of that wing. Questions about the strange activity led to vague answers and when he realized that even his managers seemed to have very little idea about what was going on, he came to the decision that the East wing was most likely their target area.

October seemed to be the beginning of the cooler weather in Monterrey, which meant the average temperature was 80 degrees Fahrenheit instead of 100, so that evening Sin chose to walk back to the studio. The last stage of their assignment was only three weeks away and he felt a combination of impatience to get it over with and disappointment that their time in Monterrey would be ending so soon. Despite the fact that the entire mission had seemed like a mini vacation he’d always known that eventually they would have to go back to the Agency, go back to reality. He’d thought about it many times over the last several months but now that it was so close he realized, and not for the first time, that he was dreading it.

He wasn’t looking forward to returning to his cold, lifeless apartment now that he’d gotten used to their colorful and almost homey studio. He wasn’t looking forward to the reminder that everyone who surrounded him at the Agency was an enemy; that most of them were just waiting for him to show any sign of weakness so that they could pounce. He wasn’t looking forward to trying to adapt the new side of his personality, the side that had emerged in the Monterrey heat, to his usual persona at the Agency. And he wasn’t looking forward to the way he would have to hide his new sexual relationship with Boyd. Sin had never quite forgotten Connor’s warning about what he’d do if he ever found out that Sin was ‘sexually functional’ and he didn’t really want to know if the man would actually carry out the threat.

By the time he returned to the building his hands were shoved into the pockets of his stiff, black slacks and there was a slight frown plastered onto his face. He ignored the neighbors who greeted him and entered the studio to find Boyd sitting at the small dinette with a variety of objects in front of him. “What are you doing?”

"Playing with some expensive toys," Boyd said casually, then looked over at Sin with a slight smile. "How was your day? Mine was interesting."

Sin wandered over to the table as he began loosening his tie and eyed the toys in question. "What was so interesting about it?"

"Well, first of all, this," Boyd said, tilting his head so Sin could see as he pushed his hair away from his right ear. A silver post was situated at the top, the skin a little red around it.