Post by Alex K on Mar 16, 2018 5:10:39 GMT
For an alleged "top secret" organization, SHIELD's not that hard to find information about if you poke around for more than a couple hours (and maybe call in a "tech support" favour from a former client.) Of course, I hadn't found <i>everything</i> there was to find out about it, but I had found enough. A name. Several names, in fact, but the name I'm talking about was a useful one. A security guard. Security guys were better than agents as potential informants because they were usually really shitty at their jobs when they were off the job where agents were the dedicated ones who actually cared about their work. They always signed NDAs these days but got really bad at remembering it when they were at the bar after hours or on the weekend. More often than not they weren't paid enough to care about those NDAs when they weren't actually working.
A little basic detective work put him at a local NYC bar where more of his buddies went to after work and on the weekend as well. A...surprisingly decent watering hole, actually, now that I was sitting in it and having a brew. I leaned over my brew (a delightful local craft brewery) as I sat in a booth mere feet away from the bartop where like five of them were getting drunk and talking about the previous day's work, which had been <i>boring as fuck</i> since nothing ever happened at SHIELD except what they were told to ignore, which was hard because the scientists were always shouting at each other in the hallways about various dramas that were unfolding in the <i>highly classified</i> labs they guarded. My guess would be these idiots were at the very bottom of the totem pole and that was fine with me because it meant they didn't give a shit and if threatened, would spill all the beans in a heartbeat, because this shit wasn't worth it.
Nobody grows up <i>wanting</i> to be a security guard. Usually it was the type of job that one kind of fell into because it was hard to find other work when a licence was cheap, training was quick, and there was always a demand. SHIELD was arguably a <i>higher-quality</i> job to get, and she'd bet they put these guys through a moderately rigorous background check and some somewhat better training, but in the end, a security guard was a security guard was a security guard, and they were all only as strong as their weakest link, which happened to be William J. Smith, currently excusing himself to go to the Little Boys' Room.
I gave him a minute or two to make his way down, still laughing at some awful joke one of his fellows had told, before casually slipping out and heading to the bathroom entrances. There was a small hallway the bathrooms were located at the end of, which was great because nobody would see me quietly slip into the wrong door and lock it behind me. I waited until he was washing his hands in front of the mirror above his sink and then grabbed him by the back of his neck and shoved him, face first, into that mirror. It was a <i>very</i> awkward position that left him no room to maneuver. He might have, if my grip wasn't so strong, but with his spine in my grip he would (hopefully) be too smart to try anything.
"You're going to tell me about SHIELD," I growled, leaning in and glancing at him as he wheezed a bit and tried to look at me with half his face squished into maybe slightly-broken mirror glass. "And if you don't," I said, pausing for effect as I squeezed the back of his neck just a tetch tighter, "I'm going to make you regret it, okay?" I asked.
The man braced his hands against the wall underneath the mirror and tried to force himself back from the wall, and it might've worked on someone else, but not me. I just ground his face more into the mirror. Blood was already spilled. His face looked pretty rough. <i>"Lady, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about or why I should tell you shit,"</i> he tried to protest, words muffled. <i>"I just came here to take a piss and get drunk out there with my friends."</i>
I pulled his head back, shoved his face into the mirror again hard enough to hear a bit of a crack, and then turned him around in the space between sinks to shove him, back first this time, into the wall. This time, my left hand resided on his sternum and my right was a fist pulled back, ready to be smashed into his face. "You're going to tell me everything about your security. Names, times, patrols, what you guard, everything, and if you don't, I'm going to break you in ways you've never even heard of. If you even <i>breathe</i> of this to anyone else, I will ruin the rest of your life. I'm good at that."
He held his hands up. <i>"Lady, I don't know much, but if I tell you what I do know will you let me go?"</i> I nodded, backing up a bit, but gripping him by his coat collar now. I didn't want to rough him up more than I had to. That would be counterproductive. And that was how I found out names, security routes, patrol times, even a couple of computer logins. He told me a lot of useful shit. I extracted his name and contact information, and a promise he wouldn't tell shit to anyone in exchange for a favour somewhere down the line. I didn't mind giving that in the line of duty sometimes, but you had to pick it right. This guy wasn't important and probably not on a promotional track either if he spilled information this easily.
I let him go and then made my own exit a few minutes later. I listened in as I made my exit from the bar. Some concern but he passed it off as a slippery floor in the bathroom and an unfortunate accident. Good man. Smart man. I'd be able to rely on him in the future. I made sure to drop a bill on the bartop as I walked past for my beer so I wasn't a skipper. (That would be rude, after all.)
A little basic detective work put him at a local NYC bar where more of his buddies went to after work and on the weekend as well. A...surprisingly decent watering hole, actually, now that I was sitting in it and having a brew. I leaned over my brew (a delightful local craft brewery) as I sat in a booth mere feet away from the bartop where like five of them were getting drunk and talking about the previous day's work, which had been <i>boring as fuck</i> since nothing ever happened at SHIELD except what they were told to ignore, which was hard because the scientists were always shouting at each other in the hallways about various dramas that were unfolding in the <i>highly classified</i> labs they guarded. My guess would be these idiots were at the very bottom of the totem pole and that was fine with me because it meant they didn't give a shit and if threatened, would spill all the beans in a heartbeat, because this shit wasn't worth it.
Nobody grows up <i>wanting</i> to be a security guard. Usually it was the type of job that one kind of fell into because it was hard to find other work when a licence was cheap, training was quick, and there was always a demand. SHIELD was arguably a <i>higher-quality</i> job to get, and she'd bet they put these guys through a moderately rigorous background check and some somewhat better training, but in the end, a security guard was a security guard was a security guard, and they were all only as strong as their weakest link, which happened to be William J. Smith, currently excusing himself to go to the Little Boys' Room.
I gave him a minute or two to make his way down, still laughing at some awful joke one of his fellows had told, before casually slipping out and heading to the bathroom entrances. There was a small hallway the bathrooms were located at the end of, which was great because nobody would see me quietly slip into the wrong door and lock it behind me. I waited until he was washing his hands in front of the mirror above his sink and then grabbed him by the back of his neck and shoved him, face first, into that mirror. It was a <i>very</i> awkward position that left him no room to maneuver. He might have, if my grip wasn't so strong, but with his spine in my grip he would (hopefully) be too smart to try anything.
"You're going to tell me about SHIELD," I growled, leaning in and glancing at him as he wheezed a bit and tried to look at me with half his face squished into maybe slightly-broken mirror glass. "And if you don't," I said, pausing for effect as I squeezed the back of his neck just a tetch tighter, "I'm going to make you regret it, okay?" I asked.
The man braced his hands against the wall underneath the mirror and tried to force himself back from the wall, and it might've worked on someone else, but not me. I just ground his face more into the mirror. Blood was already spilled. His face looked pretty rough. <i>"Lady, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about or why I should tell you shit,"</i> he tried to protest, words muffled. <i>"I just came here to take a piss and get drunk out there with my friends."</i>
I pulled his head back, shoved his face into the mirror again hard enough to hear a bit of a crack, and then turned him around in the space between sinks to shove him, back first this time, into the wall. This time, my left hand resided on his sternum and my right was a fist pulled back, ready to be smashed into his face. "You're going to tell me everything about your security. Names, times, patrols, what you guard, everything, and if you don't, I'm going to break you in ways you've never even heard of. If you even <i>breathe</i> of this to anyone else, I will ruin the rest of your life. I'm good at that."
He held his hands up. <i>"Lady, I don't know much, but if I tell you what I do know will you let me go?"</i> I nodded, backing up a bit, but gripping him by his coat collar now. I didn't want to rough him up more than I had to. That would be counterproductive. And that was how I found out names, security routes, patrol times, even a couple of computer logins. He told me a lot of useful shit. I extracted his name and contact information, and a promise he wouldn't tell shit to anyone in exchange for a favour somewhere down the line. I didn't mind giving that in the line of duty sometimes, but you had to pick it right. This guy wasn't important and probably not on a promotional track either if he spilled information this easily.
I let him go and then made my own exit a few minutes later. I listened in as I made my exit from the bar. Some concern but he passed it off as a slippery floor in the bathroom and an unfortunate accident. Good man. Smart man. I'd be able to rely on him in the future. I made sure to drop a bill on the bartop as I walked past for my beer so I wasn't a skipper. (That would be rude, after all.)