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5:57pm, the 99th precinct
The elevator dinged loudly and the doors slowly dragged open to reveal brightly coloured chaos. Strings of garish orange pumpkin lights framed the gates and window frames, and spiders on webs hung from the ceiling. The bullpen was a hive of bustling activity with Jake seeming to be arguing with Holt, Amy and Gina chatting about something or other else with doe eyes and Charles in a pair of bright red, very small shorts. Thankfully, Rosa was still acting normal as she sat sharpening one of her favorite knives at her desk. Perfectly chaotic… as it should be.
‘Hey, Scully, my man! Glad to see you finally made it, now hurry up and get to the briefing room so we can do heist prep.’
‘Oh hey Jakey, sorry I was late but Wing Slutz were giving away free sauce with the new Double Decker Slut Bucket.’
‘Isn't the sauce free anyway? Also what is a double decker… ah wait never mind I don't want to know.’
‘Good idea buddy,’ the corner of his mouth drew up in a slight smile. So far so good.
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‘Okay you idiots listen up,’ Rosa, the current champion who stood proudly over the podium, said ‘as you know we've done things a little differently this year and you already have your partners.’
‘But I-’
‘-Boyle, I will not be taking arguments… the Wheel of Destiny has chosen.’
‘Okay, sorry, of course Rosa.’
‘Dude you give up wayyy too easily.’
‘It's the Boyle way, lay down and play dead and maybe the bear won't kill you.’
‘Did you just call me a bear?’
‘No?’
‘Right, whatever. Anyway, teams have been picked this year based on your elimination order from the last Jimmy Jab Games.’ Rosa looked out to the crowd smiling. ‘We will be playing for drumroll please’- the whole squad began pounding on the tables -‘every item we've ever played for!’
‘What?!’ the crowd shouted in chorus but Scully only smiled in confidence (though outwardly he remained staring vacantly of course), he’d found this out weeks ago.
Rosa thought he was dumb and never bothered being secretive around him and that had been her first mistake. She had walked into the break room, a few weeks ago now, while he and Hitchcock were in the middle of their yearly dumpling test taste, mid conversation, a phone held to her ear. She laid out her plan in its entirety from teams to prizes to motive and that's when he had exchanged a triumphant smile with his partner… they would finally win the heist this year. It was time.
He was brought back to the present by the last little bit of Rosa's explanation.
‘So by midnight you must have: 1 Medal of Valour, 2 watches, 1 crown, 4 plaques, 2 belts- the real and proposal ones-’
‘-Theyre cumberbunds!’ Holt interjected.
‘Right, whatever 2 cumberbunds, 1 medical bracelet which has been hidden in one of multiple owls and finally 3 sets of Infinitude Gems.’
‘Oh, I have a watch and so does my buddy here’- he leaned and pointed at Hitchcock who is “asleep” in his chair -‘does that mean we win?’
‘Dude no, I've obviously had replicas made of the originals,’ she rolled her eyes at him and he tried not to smile, which wasn’t too difficult considering his random facial paralysis his doctor had said was “unnatural” and “how are you alive”.
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6:43pm, the kitchen
‘So, they still have no idea about Officer Gary right?’ Hitchcock asked him.
‘Nope.’
‘And he managed to get Amy and the Captain down to the uniformed floor?’
‘Yup.’
‘And you ordered the pizza right?’
‘Course I did buddy, you think I’d forget something so important?’
Scully clapped his hands together ‘Oh goodie’ and then Hitchcock slid a phone across the table to him.
@theGinaZone: these #losers have no idea whats about to happen. #blackout #nightvision
Hitchcock, it seemed, still followed the Ginazone along with 12k others and they’d realized as much last week. Gina would obviously be live tweeting the whole thing to her “adoring fans” which meant that they could follow hers and Terry’s plan minute by minute. Their first mistake.
‘Night vision goggles?’ he asked.
‘Under my desk in the ex wife kit.’
‘Oh Michael… you genius!’
The lights went out around 3 minutes later as promised but of course, once they had their goggles on, they could clearly make out Terry lifting the briefcase out of the interrogation room, table still attached via handcuff, and taking all of it somewhere down the back staircase. He watched Hitchcock jot its location down in his notebook before stashing it away once more.
The lights came back on and they were both back in the kitchen as if they never moved. 3 minutes later another notification.
@theGinaZone: the queen has her crown at last (^^^) #basicbitchesbeware
At least it gave them a basic idea of timings and an indication that Terry seemed not to be a duplicitous double agent. Their second mistake. A second notification came through moments later, this one telling them their pizza was in the oven, Scully licked his lips.
‘Okay, who was that?’ Charles asked… or Bill… he can't tell honestly.
‘I don't know Charles, who was it?’ Gina raised her brows.
Before anyone could reply, the balcony door opened and foam bubbled from over the threshold. This was a Holt and Amy idea, neat and just mildly inconvenient, as written in their plan. A plan Jake had found on the cloud and edited over and then Hitchcock had found open on Jake's desktop and secretly invited himself to. With this distraction, Amy was to send officer Mark up to secretly retrieve the bounty. Scully wondered which item he would take. A question answered in the form of a bright pink caboodle being snuck around a corner and into a back room. He also noticed a very harried Terry half walking half carrying Cheddar down the rear stairs.
@theGinaZone: winners never lose, the cheese has been deposited #onlyinitforthemischief #cheddrthed0g
Clever, Gina had made sure to change her hashtag slightly as, like everyone knew, both Captain Holt and Kevin followed the real hashtag. It also meant he and Hitchcock knew their team's motive: chaos. They could be left alone in that case.
Moments later, their pizza arrived. ‘Ah dicks, they forgot the garlic dip. Now what are we meant to dip the crusts in?!’ Hitchcock shouted upon opening the greasy cardboard.
‘It’s okay buddy, just go back to the store. It's only around the corner, you'll be back in no time and then we can start phase 2.’
Five minutes and another failed “water mains break” attempt from Charles and Bill later, the elevator dinged into the cacophonous room. Scully looked up to see multiple armed individuals entering the room in dark clothing and chest armour, faces painted partially green in an attempt to obscure their identities it seemed.
‘All right, nobody move and everything will be okay!’ a man, the leader he supposed, shouted in a deep Eastern Russian accent.
His blood ran cold… this wasn't in the Google Doc, Gina hadn't tweeted it and Charles hadn’t added it to his weird truffle meatballs/ preemptive victory gloat blog entry. Scully had also been a cop for over 30 years and had served in New York in the 80’s which he could only describe as a crime filled cocaine laced hell! Due to this he (and half of the NY police force at the time) had been involved in at least one hostage situation-come-heist. This was definitely one of those. The most damning piece of evidence wasn't the guns or the look in their eyes but instead the fact that someone was guarding each of the doors… the most important part of a heist.
He had to think and he had to do it not only fast but also as covertly as physically possible. What did he already and immediately know?
- There were currently 10-12 armed gunners spaced out around the room
- They were walking around taking people's phones and weapons but not their money or other valuables
- They weren't here for revenge otherwise nobody would be alive right now
- Hitckcock was outside and so was Terry, unless either were stuck downstairs
The things he didn't know were:
- What was their intent?
- Were they just on this floor or was the whole building under siege?
- Had anyone got word out to the outside for backup?
- How long had they got before things potentially went south?
The one that had taken his phone had seemed to forget about his pager, probably not even aware of what it was considering his age which Scully could guesstimate at around 25-28. Motive… hmm? He thought back to the time when he and his partner had been in Organized Crime. He remembers being told that most Eastern European young people tended to go after their weaponry, not money or resources, something about Cold War parents and constant mentions of the ”mighty American war machine”. He also remembered how Americans tended to try and deplete resources as it was the quickest way to kill a populous and how the Middle Eastern hackers would aim to crash a monetary system as they had been depleted by the “mighty USA” in much the same way throughout history.
This was a police precinct however, so it could be something as simple as freeing a trapped gang member from holding, taking an important hostage for leverage or disposing of an incriminating piece of evidence. The motive was important for sure but not as important as getting word out and saving his friends.
‘Haha, alright, who did this? Was it you Charles?!’ Rosa fake giggled and Scully realized she didn't know it was real!
‘No, I bet it was you and Jake and you're just trying to throw me off the scent!’ Charles fired back.
‘It wasn't us, but this is awesome, it's like real life Die Hard but this time with actual Germans!’
Oh chipsticks none of them knew it was a real heist. He wouldn't panic anyone yet as it may play to his advantage having them cause their chaos… that or get them shot. As discreetly as he could, he pulled out his pager from the clip on his belt and entered the phrase:
“tomorrow’s party is at 58 Joralemon Street, bring the Mamma Mia album.”
This had been their emergency secret code for years, a few subtle tweaks but the address remained the same. 58 Joralemon had been a house for years, but in 1907 ended up in the hands of the IRT who had gutted it and transformed it into a subway vent. To this day, only the facade stood and the interior was unusable to the public. A little known fact and therefore a perfect but subtle cover. The Mamma Mia album had once been a Queen album but both shared things in common in that their titles formed a code… now for Hitchcock to reply. He could only hope his partner remembered the code as he didn't really want to have an oopsie to save the day… his doctor said he needed to stop doing it or he'd be cut off from all fats and sugars and he liked pizza too much for that.
A buzz vibrated in his hand and the text read:
“okay, I was thinking we could start with money money money waterloo or under attack?”
He typed back quickly, the buttons easier than the touch phone screen ever was:
“definitely under attack but also maybe add gimme gimme gimme.”
They had come up with the three suggestions as money pertained to, well, money; waterloo pertained to opposing governments or sides; and under attack was a general siege. Scully had then given more information, adding gimme as a way to suggest potential stealing. This had turned up after Madonna -whoever that was- had been in the news in trouble for using a sample of the song. It was clunky and odd but the best way they could think to be subtle if either were ever searched.
Quietly and with little interruption for some reason, he got to work on his part of the plan. The first step was the obvious things: move the copier 5 inches to the left, take 1 pen from the pot on Amy’s desk and place it on the floor, loosen the lid on Charles’ mini travel sized canyon stank and take a wheel from both Jake's desk and office chair.
Moments later, Scully watched as Kevin met eyes with Rosa across the room and made some sort of hand gesture. Rosa who in turn made the same hand gesture to Jake. Jake, not in as much panic as was currently necessary, walked over to the holding cell and opened it, pulling a con out alongside him. Slowly, the con pulled his cap, mask and sunglasses off revealing the one only only-
‘Hey yo it’s ya boy Mr Douglas Notacarthief Supercool Judy and yes I legally had my name changed!’
Around the room there was silence.
‘Awe c’mon, I thought I'd at least get a shocked reaction from Gina! Why are none of you excited or shocked?!’ Jake whined.
‘At this point bud, Judy is like Cheddar, he turns up once a year and causes havoc with you. It’s like a slightly homoerotic buddy comedy,’ Gina replies, not looking up from her phone.
‘Yeah, we’re like Brokeback Mountain, right?’ Judy smiles deviously.
‘No!’ a chorus shouted back.
‘I've never watched the movie but I think Jake and I are more like Brokeback than they are!’ Boyle countered.
‘I know you have this whole jealousy thing going for ya Boyle, but just quit while you're ahead there buddy.’ Jake gives him a sort of wide eyed look.
‘Nobody move, nobody try anything otherwise I'll shoot-’ the man paused and looked around the room ‘-hmm that guy’ thankfully he pointed at a horrified looking Kevin as opposed to Scully who is usually the target but needed not be right now.
‘Oh my god it is like real die hard!’
‘No Jake, wait… I don't think this is a heist ploy, look at the doors.’
An audible gasp was heard ‘they’re guarding the doors!’
‘вранйо Димка’ one man says to another.
‘Oh my god they're Russian this is awesome… They even have cool Russian bad guy names!’
But they didn't… not quite.
‘Shut up Jake.’
‘Not the time dude.’
‘No man.’
A chorus of shouts erupt.
A thought still nags him; he had picked up Russian too, having learnt it during a two month undercover op years ago and that word meant something. The thing is he only knew basic Russian and he couldn't quite recall the word however, he had noticed the use of the name Dimka a shorthand pet name for someone called Dimitri most usually. Now why would a hardened criminal use a pet name for their partner… unless they were partners or perhaps related in some way. He would keep this in mind.
The smell of the pizza wafted up from the kitchen table of which he had returned to and he couldn't help himself. Slowly, as not to draw fire, he opened the box and stared in delight at the cheesy greasy glorious halo of pizza. Ripping a piece off, he brought it up to his mouth and took a big bite, savoring in the cheesy delight.
‘Wait guys, am I allergic to gluten or lactose… I forgot?’ he said, as though he were thinking aloud in panic.
The entire squad turned to him, a Baroque painting of horror, and a flurry of voices echoed.
‘Both Scully, both!’ Jake.
‘Dude, you have to know it's both right?’ Rosa.
‘Oh god!’ Gina.
He turned to the biggest looking bad guy meekly ‘Uh, can I uh go to the bathroom?’ he mumbled.
‘No, you will stay here and you will do as you are told or I'll get Sergei here to shoot your legs off… and just so you know he isn't a very good shot’ and then he winked, the smug bastard.
‘Dude seriously, just let him go! For your own safety and the safety of everyone in a 6 mile radius. We promise he won’t do anything, he's a little clumsy and has been at his desk for the last 30 years,’ Rosa said directly to the bad guy from before and then turned to him ‘No offence dude.’
‘Oh none taken,’ Scully said, his stomach rumbling over the last word.
His friend's eyes widened.
‘Okay, okay, he can go’ the man spoke with a hint of concern ‘but if he tries anything stupid he loses a leg… or penis. Sergei really has no direction.’ A sly smile spread over his face.
Scully shot up off of his desk, stumbling slightly and trying to maneuver around the small space. He ended up catching himself on a filing cabinet he hadn't noticed in the hall and knocking off a stack of manila folders and files. Quickly and haphazardly, he grabbed the files and threw them on top of the cabinet before shuffling off towards the men’s bathroom.
Once in the bathroom, he carefully extracted the knife he had taken from the cabinet from where he had hid it within the sleeve of his shirt. Rosa kept an innumerable amount of weapons around the precinct for reasons she refused to share. Not many knew about her knives, of course, but Scully had seen her stashing one once and had found her out. He wasn't sure how any of the other detectives hadn’t, they were better qualified than him by far.
‘Owie ow!’ he shouted, having somehow managed to cut himself.
Quiety, he took a breath and grabbed some hand towels from the side to wipe the small cut on his finger before moving onto phase two of his plan. Set traps and take out enough guards to free his floor so they could stage a siege from the inside since it seemed whatever “help” Hitchcock had called for wasn't planning on showing up anytime soon.
As covertly as he could, Scully forced a stall door closed with one of the department phones he'd swiped from a desk playing a recording he'd rather not think about; took off his shoes and placed them just under the door; and skittered out towards the back rooms.
First, he found the old pneumatic tubes, then he poured a bucket of water or two on the floor of one of the store closets and finally, he took the hinges off of a door and propped it up so it looked untouched. Now all he had to do was go back to the bullpen and set phase 3 in motion.
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8:07pm Bullpen
Scully quickly regained character, holding a hand to his stomach and forcing himself to sweat through his sweater vest- which thankfully wasn't hard considering how much he sweat daily and how stressful this situation was. He was “guided” back to his seat with the ice cool end of a bad guy’s gun and shoved down into his chair with a little too much force. Right, he thought to himself, how was he going to set this in motion.
Thankfully 30 seconds later his plan was set in motion for him.
‘Иван, что это?’ the leader spoke, gesturing over his shoulder to a noise coming from the back.
Scully knew what this was of course. It was the burner phone he’d never bothered turning off. Moments later, he heard the bathroom door swing open, a gruff shout and then booted feet stomping back out into the hall. Another few seconds later, scully heard a deep and guttural scream of pain. Perfect.
‘Максим’ the leader shouted
‘Да’ a man shouted back and ran off down the hall
Quickly, scully pressed print on a nearby computer and watched as the copier sprang to life immediately spraying the guy, Maxim, in the face causing him to fall to the ground and claw at his eyes, gun disregarded to the side. The room was a flurry, and then everything else happened at once.
A loud crash explodes from the back rooms and Dimitri sends 2 more men to investigate, Scully activates the unfurling roof banner from Cinco de Mayo that was never fixed, Charles’ Canyon Stank explodes under the desk lamp, Jake helpfully, and fully accidentally, makes a comment about amy's favorite pen being on the floor and the room descends into speedy chaos.
Scully had planned this though and knew that guy 1 had taken a pneumatically charged knife to the shoulder, guy two had pepper spray laced copier ink to the face, guys 3 and 4 found the water logged cave in and had been hit by the hingeless door or something similar, bad guys 5 and 6 were unconscious from a banner to the head that Scully had someone rewire for remote control, guy 7 bent down to inspect the pen and tripped on the invisiwire into the wonky desk chair, bad guy number 8 played himself by going to help and tripping into the desk on the same invisiwire and guy 9 took the worst body spray known to the world to the face. Now for guy number 10 who is still holding Kevin hostage. Well Scully simply decided to take him down, running on adrenaline and gluten/ lactose free pizza.
‘Damn Scully’ Judy shouts as the Russian hits the floor with a crack and a thud and Kevin darts away to safety.
‘What? Why are you guys all standing there? Come help me,’ Scully shouts, shocked at their apparent lack of faith in his skills.
‘You heard him, 99 let's go!’ Rosa said as she somehow apparates zip ties and binds the nearest bad guy up.
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8:52pm, very heist destroyed bullpen
‘Okay so we got 'em all accounted for up here right?’ Jake says, eyes sweeping the room.
‘Seems like it!’ Charles replies as he digs through the box to find his gun.
‘Right! We can't tell if the other floors are under siege too, but, considering nobody has come upstairs to help in the last few hours I'd bet they're also being held hostage.’ Jake says, seeming to have taken the lead.
‘We’ll go down and sweep the floors and Gina, Judy and Scully can stay here guarding the Russians’ Jake says bouncing on the balls of his feet slightly ‘oh my god this is so cool’ he adds, face lit up with childlike glee.
Scully nods, he didn't really want to do any more work… he kind of just wanted cake and maybe a nap since he hadn't had his mid evening nap yet.
‘99!’ Rosa shouts
‘99!’ The room echoes and runs towards the elevator, guns at the ready.
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10:34, 99th precinct, first floor
Slowly, Jake creeps around the corner, spy music playing on loop in his brain and sweat rolling down his brow.
‘Oh hey Jake’ a voice says far too calmly.
‘Hey officer Gary. wait officer Gary? Why are all these people already tied up! How did you? What!?’
‘Well actually’- Gary replied, beginning to smile.
‘No time, let's move!’ Rosa yells, sweeping through the rest of the floor along with Charles.
5 minutes later, once they have deigned the place clear of any lurking bad guys, the group head back up to the elevator, now with Amy and Holt in tow. Amy of course is in the middle of a heated FOMOW rant and Holt is asking about Kevin’s safety in a surprisingly panicked way. Well, not obviously of course, but Jake can tell that about his dad- daptain- captain!
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10:46 pm, bullpen
‘How the hell did you get a handle on us? We are best cartel in Russia and жалкий
USA’ Dimitri spoke in a heavy accent and annoyed tone.
‘Uh- well I dont really know’ Scully continued to play dumb, hoping to earn some information.
‘What do you mean, you took down almost all of my men… alone. In Russia we would call you тупой мышь’
‘Heyyyy’ Scully replied, mildly hurt at the insinuation that he was a stupid mouse… he was a clever mouse!
‘Is fine though, my men have already had plenty of time to go through evidence and acquire what we need. I’m sure they will be leaving soon!’
A villain monologue at last, Scully grinned ‘thank you, now this house mouse is going to save this precinct!’
Dimitri laughed… he actually laughed. How rude! Scully ignored it and, with the gun Jake gave him, made his way up to the 5th floor evidence lockup.
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As he had expected, only two men were up there- one guarding the door and the other inside the evidence cage ripping through boxes. He raised his gun and aimed.
‘Das divanya!’ he calls out smiling.
He pulls the trigger and hits one guy in the foot and the other in the thigh which was sort of where he was aiming. Both go down clutching at their wounds.
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11:00 pm, bullpen
Scully strolled into the room, guiding the bad guys either side of him by their bound wrists. He smiled at the rest of his team who seemed to have already arrived back at the bullpen, now with Amy and Captain Holt.
‘Yipee Kayak other buckets!’ he calls out.
‘Oh come on, not you too. It's literally not that hard’ Jake calls out in apparent dismay.
‘Jake, babe, just let it go.’
‘But-’
‘-Let it go.’
‘HANDS UP AND GET DOWN!’ a voice shouted as the door to the back stairs flew open.
Finally, it seemed, the SWAT team had arrived. They did however stop dead and drop their guns to their sides as soon as they’d focussed in on the room.
‘Teddy? What are you doing here?’ Amy’s voice rang over the chaos.
‘Oh hi Amy’ he turned and smiled ‘Jake’ his smile dropped ‘oh yeah, I'm on SWAT now!’
‘Congrats Teddy that's great’
‘Well, since you're so clearly still in love with me… Amy Santiago will’-
‘-No, oh my god no! I’m married!’
‘And she is the mother of my son!’ Jake adds as Scully watches on in confusion.
‘I’d make a great stepdad you know.’
‘NO!’ Jake and Amy both shout.
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11:57pm, 99th precinct, exterior
‘Hitchcock!’
‘Scully!’
Scully made a beeline for his best friend and gave him a hug, leaning in close to his ear. ‘Did you get the last bits.’
‘You bet your ass,’ Hitchcock replied.
‘Attention squad’ Captain Holt’s voice boomed over the low hush of conversations and idle emergency vehicle noises ‘well done tonight, you've helped foil the Kirov family’s plot and saved countless lives. With that said, I’m going to Shaws and if anyone would care to join me, I shall offer to buy the first round at a $7 per person cap, no high shelf drink and no 2for1’.
‘Sound great, Captain,’ Rosa smiled.
‘So I guess nobody won the heist again this year’ Jake sighed ‘guess we'll have to reorganize it for thanksgiving or something.’
Scully smiled ‘oh but Jakey that's where you're wrong pal… Hitchcock and I won the heist!’
‘You took down an entire group of mercenaries, yes, but you didn't win the heist. Sorry bud… still suuuper confused by that whole thing though,’ Jake fiddled with his tie.
‘Oh no ya idiots we won. We won big time. Hitchcock moved forward and opened the back of one of the SWAT vehicles. ‘See’ inside as planned were each of the heist items lined up in clear view. ‘Oh yeah, take it all in,’ Hitchcock finished.
The group was silent for a second until the pin dropped.
‘Wait how did you guys manage that?’ Jake shouted.
‘What the hell man!’ Amy gesticulated wildly.
‘Hahah, nice!’ Rosa smiled widely.
‘Terry is confused.’
Once the group has calmed down and Gina has “checked each item for its authenticity on the Ginascale” silence falls over them once more.
‘Okay okay so how did you do it, I guess it's your turn to monologue,’ Jake rolls his eyes
‘Yes. I would quite like to know also,’ Holt added in his robotic way.
Scully thinks for a moment ‘Oh no thank you, Hitchcock and I were just gonna to Shaws and get some cakes and some forks and some beers and watch the bachelor.’
‘What no!’ Gina said semi sarcastically.
‘I haven't seen my buddy for hours, and besides, I’m tired’ he said, already beginning to walk towards the direction of the bar 'goodnight guys.’
‘Oh my god Hitchcock and Scully just won the heist!’