The Nineteen Year Mystery [insaney, possibly Z later]

The agreement came too easily for the suspicious detective to trust.

"Of course? That is it? You don't wish to ask what I'm investigating? No resistance? Nothing? I mean, I have heard of having respect for the badge, however this..."

She looked over the other woman skeptically again, but given her options, it seemed best to just get in the darned car. She slid in but still sat stiffly and eyed both of them as if she expected them to pull on ski masks and demand a ransom for her any minute.

"You have no questions?"

What a curious girl. She piled on questions like that, as if expecting Thracia to answer. Thracia had some interest into what she was doing there, but it must've been something important and they had interrupted. Thracia sat silently in the front seat, thinking. The girl seemed nervous, and the silence was probably making her more so as the car pulled off.

"I'm sorry." Thracia chuckled out softly, "We interrupted something, didn't we?"

"You have no idea..." Tracey began, before she remembered the need for discretion on this case, and that outweighed any impulse to act self-important as she might have. Normally she liked to talk about her work as if the whole world hinged on her solutions. "But... but I can't talk about it. Just know that you are aiding a very important matter with what you are doing now."

Okay, maybe she still was a little egotistical about it. But to her, this particular mystery was everything.

"Oh an important matter." Thracia said softly, as if teasing, "Glad we could help, right?" She glanced at Alexi, who only looked up and said "Nnh? Yeah, sure.,. Where are we going, anyway? Back to the station? I just really want to get off this train."

"If you could take me to the nearest international airport, I would consider us even..." Tracey murmured. Already she was thinking ahead, to the gunshop in Yucatana where she'd have to deal with another of these low life types her sense of justice just itched at considering business with, where she might find another piece of her puzzle... "The quicker the better... I've no time to waste in finding them..." She was so far gone then that she didn't even realize the others could hear every word she said.

"Finding who?"

Thracia responded as Alexi sped up, intending to drop Tracey, and maybe Thracia off at the airport as fast as he could. "What have you gotten yourself into?" It sounded like she was in trouble, like she was ready to run for her life or just on the edge of losing her target. That feeling Thracia knew well. "Maybe I can help... It's probably time I introduced myself, anyway." She glanced at Alexi as she pulled out her identification, hoping he would do the same as well. Alexi didn't bat an eye, keeping them on the road. There was a small smirk on the side of his face that couldn't be seen.

She reached back and handed her identification to Tracey.

"Thracia Dayna, MI6."

Tracey snapped out of it just as the other woman was announcing her credentials.

"W... what...? You are... but on the boat, you... you can't be!"

She grabbed the woman's identification out of her hand--but carefully, just in case it turned out to be legitimate--and pored over it, examining the watermark, codes, the photograph, and even the font used on the card. She wished she could check the ink under the lamination or had her chemistry kit with her. But all signs pointed to the ID being genuine. So then this woman really did work for MI6.

The big men and women behind the scenes.

She handed back the card with big eyes, her motions a little stiff. Suddenly she felt as if surrounded by all her superiors at the station. But instead of wanting to show off and impress them, she was under evaluation.

"M-my apologies for... before... I, um..."

"No apologies necessary," Thracia responded, chuckling at the woman's surprise. "I am a bit reckless, though. Sorry for troubling you, Detective." It was as if she had a more formal tone now, though her excited mischievousness was still bouncing around in her voice. "I'll help you accomplish what you set out to do, since I'm responsible for botching it, apparently."

"I'm not certain that even you could do that, Miss, no disrespect meant..." Tracey sighed and clutched the few files she had taken in her jacket pocket. This was her only lead, in so long. "They've... they've been lost since I was just a toddler, barely more than a baby..."

"They?" She questioned, "Just a toddler?" She turned to look at the detective in the back seat. "Are you looking for your parents?" Thracia cut to the point quickly and sharply. "We botched your lead?"

"That obvious, isn't it...?" she nodded, her despondence finally showing through. It was rare that the detective's mask of confidence and competence ever slipped away; it was the only thing that had kept her going in nineteen years of fruitless searching, of being shooed away because she was a young girl and could not possibly find or handle the truth. The only thing, in nineteen years spent mostly alone, seeking, hurting, as her stiff-lipped grandfather sat at the police station and didn't seem to budge a muscle to help in the search. The only thing in nineteen years of seeking answers, answers she desperately hoped would somehow make everything better, as if reason and fact and evidence were a magic salve, and found none.

"They've been gone almost my entire life...nineteen of my twenty-two years a-and... this has been my only chance... granted to me by a mafia woman, no less, the very kind of person I always swore to thwart... but she is my adopted daughter's aunt too and... this has all been so confounding... I fear that light at the end of this case is just getting smaller and smaller..."

There might have been tears in her green eyes, but if there were, the proud detective kept them hidden under her airy, wavy hair and her police cap, her head down. The weight of nineteen years made her shoulders feel impossibly heavy.

Thracia frowned, turning back to look at the road, listening to Tracey's story. Alexi listened as well, and remained silent, still looking straight ahead.

"I apologize for messing it up." Thracia said, a few seconds after Tracey had finished talking. "I'll tell you what. I'll help you. I'm sure my badge can be a big help at least. And you'll help too, right?" She nudged Alexi a few times before he gave up. "Yeah, yeah. Sure." He said, finally, smirking a bit.

"But why...?" Tracey couldn't help her naturally curious self from asking, "why would you help me, when all I've done is try to arrest you before...?"

Could it be that they understood? That they had been in a situation like hers, or seen others like it, enough to know and yet still not be numbed to it, to still have sympathy?

"Well it seems we messed up your lead. I know how I feel about that. I don't know about Grumpy over there though." She pointed a thumb at Alexi, who only managed to protest with a "Hey!" but fell silent again when she spoke. "And... well I guess you could say I'm in a similar situation. Yeah, that's it. Let me help because I know what you're going through. Or at least, I have an idea."

"If you're certain, then..." the redheaded mulled it over for a moment more, before finally nodding, "yes, thank you... I believe I will need all the help I can get, and I much prefer you to the criminals I already must visit for information. My... my next stop is in Zocalo," her British accent butchered the Mexican name, "in Yucatana, do you think you could get us some tickets for a plane?"

"Alright, alright. I think we're almost there." Thracia looked at the road, and then at Alexi. "Are we?" She asked this as if she were asking a chauffeur. Like a prideful politician sitting in the back of a stretch limo.

"Probably, most likely. Maybe. Might be." He responded, half-annoyed, half joking. He glanced at the woman next to him, who had narrowed eyes. This was serious, Thracia thought. "Yeah, almost there." He responded quickly to her expression.

Thracia leaned back, "I think I can pull some strings and get us free tickets, somehow."

"Yes, please, ah... do that. With the string pulling." Tracey shifted uneasily and looked again over the files she'd taken from Rocky. If these are correct... this gunshop in Zocalo should have the next link in the chain...

Soon they were at the city of Pirlot's busy international airport, and Tracey followed behind Thracia and Alexi as they made their way to the counter for Cernilian Airlines, both of the agents cutting the line without shame. She hung back and watched to see how they'd manage this one. One of the women working the desk, dressed in a black skirt and red blouse, with a matching scarf and hat, smiled at Alexi as he approached.

Alexi approached the woman, smiling. Immediately his actions turned on the charm. And as he opened his mouth to speak the woman stopped him. "I'm sorry, sir," she spoke with a pleasant voice, "You're going to have to wait at the back of the line."

"Miss I--"

"Back of the line, please, sir."

Thracia chuckled as Alexi's smile faded from his face while she pushed him aside. "Miss, you need to--"
"Ah!" Thracia stopped the receptionist from talking as Alexi waded his way back to where Tracey was standing. On his way back he heard the people in the line grumbling and complaining, of course. But he could hear Thracia at all. And he didn't know what they were talking about until the agent turned back to them, holding on two three tickets.

"First class." She grinned.

"You... you did it!" Tracey beamed, running over to Thracia in a rare display of joy. Her green eyes twinkled with relief and excitement, "This means I can keep searching! Oh thank you, thank you!" she grasped the other woman's hand and shook furiously, about as affectionate as a cop with a stern Rochesterian upbringing ever could be to someone who was still mostly a stranger. "Oh, this is about the first instance of good fortune I've had on this whole trip!"

Over the intercom, a polite woman announced in Rubatoian, Gaian, Gardenian, and then Maximilian that their flight would be boarding in twenty minutes, and first class could board in fifteen.

"That's... that's us!" Tracey jerked her head up at the announcement when it came on in Gaian, "let's go!"

Well she was certainly delighted, Thracia thought. Smiling brightly as the young detective shook her hand vigorously or what she thought was vigorously anyway. And it was only a few seconds after when they got called to board their plane.

And first class was really... first class. Plush couches and carpets, comfortable seats, even a fridge with drinks. "Thanks to me," Thracia declared to the two, "Looks like we'll be traveling in style when we need to."