((file dated 10th january 2011, location not specified))
Breaking into Copy&Print shop proved fruitful. They had proper copy machines, and high quality scanners. And fortunately, also a few sharp paper knives for manual editing. I scratched off most of the repair lacquer my client had used on the documents of Jane-Eight. But I could do nothing to the corners my client had cut away with scissors, probably cutting away official information where and when these documents were created. Most of these documents were just filled with shrink jargon and boring tales of Jane-Eight's therapy. My client probably tried to censor things in order to protect privacy of Jane-Eights private matters, but she also censored some **** which is essential for me to know in order to find this missing kid. For example, who were the people counsiling Jane-Eight? After removing repair lacquer off I found out Jane-Eight was treated by Jonathan S. Feldom during 2007 to 2008, by Abraham L. Reyes from mid 2008 to late 2009, and by Allison Riaz from late 2009 until march 2010. And then it is mentioned that the child had gone missing. Now, which of these names would suit a hot, tall latino chick? Princess said in Pocket-D she was Jane-Eight's counselor. So, Princess, your name is Allison Riaz.
My Macbook batteries ran dry, but the Copy&Print shop had a real computer I could borrow while I put my Macbook recharging. Internet search engine lookup revealed all of those shrinks were working at FBSA Young Offenders Holding Facility during the time Jane-Eight was treated. So, Jane-Eight, you were one of the patients in FBSA Young Offenders Holding Facility. Or should I say a detainee? Strangely enough, when I took a another look at the reviews and evaluations of Jane-Eight, she is generally characterized to be a very intelligent, socially gifted, cheerful little girl. Nothing indicates any reason why she was held in custody. Searching the internet with keywords Allison Riaz revealed that this chick was originally a french fashion model, who later started to appear in television with some american TV-preachers. Rumours link her to Nighthunters, a Paragon City based superhero team. So, she's most presumably a superhero, too.
Still, there is yet no way to determinate the real name of Jane-Eight. But I found out more about her current age. Jane-Eight's photograph was actually a computer print. Scanning it, and manipulating the scan revealed it was printed with a photoprinter manufactured by a company bearing initials "HP". After a quick visit to a russian hacker site I had tools to read the hidden info these printers print on every print. "Computer name" referred to FBSA Holding Facility, and the user logged on while printing this document was "jsfeldom", referring presumably to mister Jonathan S. Feldom, counselor of Jane-Eight during the period 2007 to 2008. Time of print was september 2007 about 9am. If she looked about a 5 year old in the picture taken in 2007, she'd probably look like a nine- or ten year old by now. Judging the name of the file folder (nameless patients), and the name of the photograph file on disc, they presumably did not know her real name, either.
Still this info doesn't yet help me much to find her. She's about a ten-year old girl by now, and she was a detainee in Steel Canyon FBSA facility until march 2010. Guess I've gotta find out what happened in march 2010, and I also need to check if anything happened in september 2007 that could be linked to this girl. I also could go around waving her picture to smugglers and informers around the Isles, and ask if they'd seen a girl looking like that, but I'd rather not.
((file dated 12th january 2011, location not specified))
It's been awhile since I read news about things going on in Paragon City. I found out a lot of interesting trivial information. Such as the "kill" that made my life a living hell since last year september, wasn't a kill after all. The intended target survived. Yes, she is still alive. Maybe I should stick my neck out from my hiding spot and check if the vampire is still after my blood? Or maybe not. But checking news archives and checking my other sources revealed nothing that could be linked to Jane-Eight, happened in september 2007. At least not in Paragon City. Lot of those articles I read didn't include pictures, and if there was a five-year old involved, for example, in a crime case.... I think they'd kept her identity secret, anyway. Crime case? Yes. Superhuman powers? Yes. I mean, she was put into FBSA young OFFENDERS holding facility in september 2007, I can presume there was a reason why she was locked in there. Empathy isn't my strong area, but shutting a five-year old into a holding facility has a harsh tone in it. But, then again, there was someone called Tomb and-
Holy ****, she isn't Tomb, is she?
No. These two look different. And they are of different age. Presumably them both been held in the same facility for awhile was a coincidence. I could also guess Jane-Eight escaped the facility 21th march 2010, when Under Scare allegedly attacked the facility. Names and pictures of six inmates gone missing were published in newspapers that time. Jane-Eight was not among them. Maybe she didn't escape that day, maybe she did. There's nothing to prove either way. Another dead-end. No clue to follow in there.
Princess said she wanted someone to find that girl in Rogue Islands. How would she know Jane-Eight is in Rogue Islands? I could go and ask Princess in person, but I guess she possesses superhuman powers and she would just maul me into chunks and take this case from me. And I'm not going to let that happen. God dammit this is something I hate.... but I need to do it: I need to go on foot around Rogue Islands and ask people if they've seen this girl. ****. I'll go and have two or three bourbons first and hope I figure out a better idea in a bar.
((file dated 13th january 2011, location not specified))
I went to a bar in Sharkhead Island. One scotch, one bourbon, and one beer later, I had an idea. Better one than going around Rogue Islands and betting on my luck someone might not only have been Jane-Eight, but also willing to talk about it to a stranger. A stranger covered in dirty bandages. The idea -this better idea- was to find out why Princess thinks Jane-Eight could be found in Rogue Islands. Maybe it could give me a vital hint from where to start my search in here. I had names of the counselors who had treated Jane-Eight the whole time she was in custody in FBSA holding facility. If I only had access to internet, I could find out their email-addresses, and send them email from a bogus email-address, making them believe the emails were sent by Princess. I could pretend to be Princess, and ask them.... where they think Jane-Eight would have gone in Rogue Islands. For example. But for that, I needed internet access. I had another wonderful idea of snatching someone's smartphone, and hooking it into my Macbook. Unfortunately, in a bar I could afford to have a drink, the patrons were not rich enough to own that kind of fancy phones.
But I knew a nightclub nearby of higher class. It was a nightclub favourited by many Family middle-class and upper-class businessmen. Of course, someone had gone rampage on Family late last year, killing and injuring many of them so I was expecting security of that nightclub to be paranoid. But I got in, easier than I thought. Before I was able to snatch a phone from anyone, I saw who was the performing nightclub singer that night in there. It was Princess herself. When I realized she had seen me too, I didn't do anything stupid, like trying to run for the door. I just waited until she had a break, and she came to me and took me backstage to have a chat. Guessing she was presumably a superstrong and superpowerful, I gave her the folder when she asked. Of course I didn't tell her I already had multiple copies of it stored in my hiding place. I am not going to type in here all we talked about, but she was in Rogue Islands trying to find the girl herself, because nobody else was able or willing to do that. She didn't exactly tell me not to look for that girl, but she didn't exactly help me anyway on the case, either. I guess she didn't believe in my abilities to find the girl, because she agreed to pay me 200,000 dollars if I found the girl alive. Two hundred thousand dollars. I could use that money.
Then she called two bouncers to throw me out of the club.
After landing chest and chin first on pavement I could have stood up, gone back to my hiding place and licked my wounds like a stray-dog. But I didn't. I wanted those 200,000 dollars. Heroes have that something that somehow make them to keep their promises. She had promised me 200,000 American dollars and I wanted them. All I needed to do now was to find that little girl. Alive. And before she could find her herself. Because Princess was undercover in that nightclub, I guessed she was following a clue. I had an opportunity to find out what she knew now, and take it from there. I hot-wired a car nearby, and I waited until I saw Princess coming out from the nightclub, and entering a limousine with a man in a suit. I didn't recognize who that man was, but following them to Marconeville through Rogue Island ferry I found out the address of the mansion limousine drove to. Ok, now I got a clue. Princess was probably following a trail to the little girl. Now I only need to get on the same trail, and pass Princess. I've gotta find the Jane-Eight before she finds her. I need the money.
((file dated 14th january 2011, location not specified))
The limousine I had followed took Princess to a mansion owned by Marcelo Giannini. A family upper-middle-class boss. I needed to find out what Princess and Marcelo were talking in there, and I needed to find that out, fast. Probably Princess was busy using feminine means to pump -pun intended- information out of Marcelo as soon as they had arrived to the mansion, and presumably leaving the mansion in the morning. Security around the mansion was tough'n tight, sneaking into the mansion was out of the question. The only way to get info what Princess and Marcelo were talking, was to bug that mansion with a listening device, somehow. I was in a real hurry. I broke into a hardware store, and then extracted some useful stuff from an almost unlocked carage nearby. Using my ingenuity and my trusty old swiss army knife, I put together an improvised cell-phone launcher. Using polymer stock of my assault rifle, I liberated a pedestrian from his cell-phone, set it on auto-answer, and then used foam to both seal the cell-phone to fit the barrel of the cell-phone launcher, and to protect the cell-phone from rough landing inside the house. Then I hooked up the launcher into car-engine exhaust manifold, and pressurized the pressure container with exhaust gas.
My devious plan was to launch the cell-phone through an open window into a room where Princess and Marcelo were doing whatever it was what they were doing, and then calling that cell-phone and listening to clues of Jane-Eight's whereabouts. Alas, even the most ingenious plans sometimes fail.
I am very good shot. I hit the window just as I expected.
But the window wasn't open.
Someone had closed it while I was busy building my cell-phone launcher.
After the cell-phone crashed through plate-glass window, I revised my plans and tried to get away from there. Unfortunately, it wasn't possible. Mister Giannini had hired a supervillain to protect him, and this supervillain was very very fast. And this supervillain bodyguard had a pulverizing left hook.
I woke up in the mansion. Tied into a chair. Marcelo Giannini (accompanied by Princess) came to interrogate me, asking who had sent me to assassinate him. I answered him nearly wholly thrutfully, but he wasn't pleased. Nor did he appreciate my witty question how he thought I wanted to kill him with a cellphone wrapped in foam. When mister Giannini gave his bodyguard an order to put a bullet in my head, Princess stepped in front to the gunbarrel to protect me. Yup, just as I had calculated, she didn't want a murder charge. I presumed she was a superpowered heroine, which I slipped out of my mouth at that moment, expecting she would beat them all up and release me off the ropes. I was getting rather uncomfortable been tied up in ropes too tight. I wanted a quick solution and I wanted to get away from that uncomfortable chair. Unfortunately, at that moment it seemed Princess had no supernatural powers beyond gifted natural levels, or maybe keen military training. I mean, she put up a good fight, knocking out the superpowered supervillain, and some of the armed henchmen, but she was then stunner-gunned down, and trapped helpless inside an impervium net. Then we both were dealt some unnecessary violence, and I tried to save my teeth by telling mister Giannini the whole truth of us both, Princess and myself, trying to find a girl gone missing in Paragon City about a year ago. Mister Giannini obviously had some mixed feelings of satisfaction, having now a Nighthunter hostage (even though Princess kept saying she had not anything to do with Nighthunters anymore) and amusement why we had gone such an effort for a girl, who had obviously been snatched by no-one else than Nipper Snatcher. Mister Giannini even boasted he knew a lowlife middle-man heartless enough to be in contact with Nipper Snatcher: a dope-dealer in Mercy Island called Thin-Meeks-Jim.
So typical for villains. When they get the upper hand of situation, they start to blab away valuable information.
Then Princess started to talk, and I guess she was trying ask mister Giannini to show mercy and blah blah. Fortunately for me, everyone's attention was drawn into Princess so I was able to work my magic and leave the scene without anyone noticing. Once outside the mansion, I hopped into the car I had previously confiscated, and sped away as fast as I could. I may had lost a couple of teeth, but now I had a proper clue: Nipper Snatcher. I thought for a moment should I do something to help Princess, but then I came into a conclusion: nope. She is a Nighthunter anyway, mister Giannini sets up a ransom, then Nighthunters come for her rescue and teleport Princess into safety and everyone's happy. And I get my 200 000 dollars. Though, first I need to find Thin-Meeks-Jim, Nipper Snatcher and the current residence of Jane-Eight.
((file dated 16th january 2011, location not specified))
So I went to Mercy to look for Thin-Meeks-Jim. A dope-dealer with connections to Nipper Snatcher. Yes, I knew Thin-Meeks-Jim by his name, and I knew roughly where to go looking for him. But his connection to Nipper Snatcher was a surprise to me. Though, if I knew someone like Nipper Snatcher, I'd not boast about that, either. Some people especially in Paragon City scare their kids that if they misbehave, or go missing, they might get snatched by Nipper Snatcher, and taken into Rogue Isles. Quite a boogie-man, eh? But yeah, this boogie-man was real. This Nipper Snatcher has been blamed for taking some kids gone missing in Rogue Isles, too. Fortunately he is not too active, just taking a kid or two in a year. And there's never too much evidence to point into him. If there was, he'd has his butt handed to him by some do-gooder hero from Paragon City. Also, some Rogue Isles successful businessmen wouldn't like a thought of a villain of that kind running free and threatening their kids in here.
I have to admit once Nipper Snatcher was suggested to be the one responsible for Jane-Eight's disappearance, I became pessimistic of finding the girl alive. I mean, a popular theory of why Nipper Snatcher steals the kids, is that he eats them. Ok, if that is really why he steals the kids from their parents, I personally think he must have a couple of screws loose in his head: it is totally unnecessarily to provoke negative reaction of the public by stealing kids, when he could just stick to adults. And have more meat to salvage per each kill. But it wasn't yet sure if Jane-Eight was taken by Nipper Snatcher. I had 200 000 reasons to hope her being still alive. Digging Jane-Eight's half-eaten body out of a grave wasn't something I wanted to do.
Going to Thin-Meeks-Jim and asking him "Hey, are you buddies with Nipper Snatcher?" didn't feel like a good plan. That's why I camped into an old, rather abandoned house near Jim's whereabouts, and watched him carefully. I had calculated it would take at least couple of days for Nighthunters to get Princess free from Marcelo Giannini, and about a week for someone not familiar with Mercy Island underground to find someone like Thin-Meeks-Jim from Darwin's landing. That's why I was surprised when after a day of surveillance, I saw Princess walking to Thin-Meeks-Jim and starting to carry out a plan I had previously dismissed myself. Of course Jimmy tried to split, but the woman obviously had some kind of martial arts background, and didn't let Jimmy to run away. Using state of the art improvised technology crafted by yours truly, I was able to listen their conversation down there, below my hiding spot. Jimmy gave the woman an address of Nipper Snatchers alleged hideout, and then Princess left. After she had left, Jimmy was a good boy and he made a telephone call. I was able to hear the name of the one Jimmy was talking with on the phone: Caroline Dianne Lundgren. A rather wealthy woman living in Cap-Au-Diable. I moved into Cap-Au-Diable, and started to snoop around mrs. Lundgrens top-floor apartment in Aeon City. When night fell that day, positioned on a roof of an opposite building, I was able to see inside the apartment of the Lundgren family. And Jackpot....
...I saw Jane-Eight in there.
Alive.
She looked okay, and even happy living in there with mr. and mrs. Lundgren.
Then I immediately called Princess and told her I had found the girl she was looking for. And I asked Princess, if she was really going to keep the promise she made for me. And she answered yes, she said if the girl she was looking for was alive and I could lead her to her, Princess said she would gladly pay me those 200 000 dollars. I once again raised my scoped rifle, making sure the safety was on and there was no cartridge in chamber, and I looked once again at the child Princess commissioned me to look for. Yes, she was definitely Jane-Eight. Alive and well. Looking exactly same as she did in the picture of her. I told Princess the exact address, and she told me to wait after she had met the girl herself. I agreed, and stood there on the roof. It took less than an hour for Princess to drive in Aeon City in her ridiculous tiny yellow-grey car. I looked her through the scope, as she entered the building. And I once again scoped inside the Lundgren apartment, and looked at Jane-Eight through crosshair.
Then I subconsciously understood something was wrong.
Something was very wrong.
I looked at the picture of her, and then again at her. She looked exactly the same.
At that moment I was unable to explain why I felt something was wrong, but now, it of course, is so obvious.
But then, I saw the Lundgren parents opening door for Princess, and leading Princess into their living room. I could lip-read them talking about Jane-Eight, a girl they had adopted. I wasn't able to follow all their conversation, because I had to focus my scope onto one persons lips at a time, and sometimes the person speaking was not facing the window. But it seemed like Princess came to talk to them about the origin of Jane-Eight, while Jane-Eight was in her room, laying on bed and reading a book. Eventually, the Lundgren parents called Jane-Eight to the living room. Princess and Jane-Eight exchanged some words, and then there was something eerie going on, because the Lundgrens acted rather suspiciously... mrs. Lundgren was very emotional, and mr. Lundgren had to take her into dining room next door, leaving Princess and Jane-Eight alone in the living room. The tone of the conversation between Princess and Jane-Eight had changed, and it didn't look friendly anymore. Then Jane-Eight jumped across the room at Princess. The jump was unnaturally quick, but Jane-Eight missed. Princess turned to Jane-Eight, and I saw Princess had a wooden stake in her hand. After a short moment, that very wooden stake was no longer in the hand of Princess, but instead buried inside Jane-Eights chest.
That moment I consciously understood why I was not going to get my money.
Jane-Eight was not alive. I bet she had not been alive for years. She was already dead when she went missing. She had been a vampire all the time.
Princess had tricked me. It was not even possible for me to find Jane-Eight alive.
I lost interest to everything what happened inside Lundgren apartment after Jane-Eight was staked by Princess.
I packed my rifle and left Aeon City.
Heroes.
Those lying hypocrites.
((file dated 10th January 2011, location not specified))
For those who don't know me, hell, I guess no-one really knows me. Anyway, I'm Justin Rust. I found this old Macbook someone conveniently had thrown away, and I thought I could write something before its my time to bite the dust. This will probably be my last hurrah, if anyone cares. I'm just another contract killer, but I have a prime principle: I don't kill anyone unless he or she really deserves it. I take contracts only on people who are downright evil: those kind of people who enjoy to cause suffering, pain and agony to others. I've only taken out people, who have no remorse whatsoever. Some of you might now think I haven't had very many assignments, but you are wrong. I've taken a shot a few times. And so far I've never missed. You just haven't ever heard about me. I'm also good in hiding. And I keep my face off sight, and my mouth shut.
That is, until recent months. Now the devil herself is on my tail, in a form of a vampire. She wants me dead because of a kill I had nothing to do with. I didn't take that shot, I know she knows that, but she still wants me dead. I don't know what was so important about that kill, and I'm not keen to ask her. I just run and hide.
Because of this, I've kept low profile. Taking no jobs. And making no money. I can't hide forever, and I need money to survive. That's why I took a job. A job which doesn't impel me to put a bullet in anybodys brains. A tall dark stranger -a woman- in Pocket-D was trying to hire a private dick to find a child gone missing in Etoile Isles. I couldn't let her waste her money on those Rogue Isles fakes'n frauds, so I took the case. I stole it, actually. But she'll thank me, eventually. I can get this done, how hard it can be? I'm good in finding people who don't want to be found. And this time I don't even have to pull the trigger. Now, what I have? The kid doesn't have a name except for Jane Doe the 8th. I'll call her Jane-Eight from this on. There's no date of birth, no info of known relatives. No info of residence. Just a photograph, medical info and some therapy progress logs and stuff like that Princess -I'll call my client that from this on- has tried to censor with repair lacquer. It seems this kid was been treated for mental stuff in Steel Canyon, Paragon City. That's going to make things difficult, I don't set my foot outside Etoile Isles. But if the kid disappeared in Steel Canyon, why Princess thinks she'd find Jane-Eight in Rogue Isles? So it looks like I'm going to have to break into a Copy & Print service tonight. I'll get this lacquer stuff off and take copies of these documents, just in case I'll lose one or two. And I need to check this photograph better. All I can say about Jane-Eight at the moment is that she looks like about a five-year-old... I guess. But there's no date on the back of the photograph. But I need to stop typing now because the battery of this Ma