Once Upon an Us

There were many abnormal things about Theodosia Rossi, but she tended to ignore them all and favour the bulletproof dumpster.  Just like the many abnormal things, there were many reasons she ignored the many abnormal things. Most of them were not pleasant to think about (like the time she drowned someone in a kiddie swimming pool) and she prefered pretending they hadn’t ever occured.  This particular endeavor became difficult whenever she was pulled from the confines of her room by Jude Brannon, one of her best friends and one of the reasons her life was abnormal. “Get in the car,”  he told her, climbing into the driver’s seat.  Thea raised an eyebrow at him but climbed in nevertheless.  One quick glance at the passenger seat told her what this was about and she groaned.  “Yeah, yeah, fancy Nazi meetings require fancy dresses. At least you don’t have to pose as a waiter and serve them their every need.” “No, I have to bend to their every whim in a dress and you can do it in slacks and a nice shirt,”  Thea argued. Jude rolled his eyes. If they’d had this argument once before, they’d had it every other time.  “Do you want to wear the dress again? See how comfortable it is?” “I’m good.” He did not need to relive that particular instance again.  It was bad enough Thea had convinced him to try on the dress while she tried on his suit.  There were still photos of Jude frowning in the dress hidden around his house thanks to Thea.  It was as if she didn’t want him to ever forget the moment he’d tripped and accidentally ripped an expensive evening gown right down the front. As a way to steer the subject away from that, Jude turned to her and said,  “We’re picking up a new recruit, by the way.” “‘New Recruit’?  What are we? Hitler Youth troop leaders?”  Thea asked, making a face that made it difficult for Jude not to laugh. “Pegin’s orders,”  Jude told her. Thea frowned and looked over at him.  Jude just shrugged and said, “I don’t know. Something about needing more people around in case something goes wrong.  Besides, Fritzie is cool. I actually told Pegin about him.” “Fritzie?  You know him?” “Yeah, we go to the same gym and everything,”  Jude said, grinning happily. He pulled to a stop in front of a small apartment complex and Thea looked up at it.  It wasn’t very extravagant, just plain and small. Of course, she lived in a bar so what could she say? “How long have you been working on this ‘recruitment project’ for Pegin?”  Thea asked, turning back to look at Jude. He grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck as he counted the months.  It wasn’t often Pegin gave them separate missions without telling the other. “Seven, maybe eight months?”  Jude guessed. If Thea was upset, she didn’t show it.  She just nodded then turned back to the building, wondering aloud how this Fritz person was going to know they were outside. With a wicked grin, Jude hit the horn and Thea jumped.  He laughed and hit it lightly a couple more times. Thea swatted at him and he stopped, laughing as she swore at him.  A few seconds later, the front door to the complex opened and a tall, blond man walked out. “That’s Fritzie?”  Thea asked, watching as the man walked toward the car with a big smile.  When Jude had told her some dude named Fritzie was joining them, she’d imagined a scrawny guy who could barely run a mile.  Instead, Fritzie was over six feet tall, built like he’d been in the military, and could clearly knock someone out in one swing if he wanted to.  And he was grinning like a kid on Christmas when he slipped into the car. “Fritz, this is Thea,”  Jude introduced, grinning at Thea.  “Thea, this is Fritz.” “Nice to meet you,”  Fritz said, offering his hand.  Thea twisted in her seat to shake his hand at an awkward angle.  “Jude’s mentioned you before, I think.” “Probably,”  Thea shrugged, glancing at Jude as he sped away from Fritz’s apartment.  “He’s a bit in love with me.” “No, don’t tell him about our secret affair,”  Jude deadpanned, giving Thea a look. She just grinned.  Fritz gave them an odd look but Thea brushed him off. “I’m kidding,”  she assured him.  Fritz nodded, still looking a little uncertain about the situation.  “So, Jude tell us about our mission.” “Right,”  Jude replied, pulling around into an alley to hide the car for a moment. It was simple.  Yakov Romanoski had a file they needed.  According to Pegin, it contained information on past OSS operatives and missions.  Romanski’s mission was to hand it off to Erich Hoffman, one of Adolf Hitler’s right hand men.  Thea was to get close to Romanski, convince him to invite her to his private room in the hotel where the mission would take place.  Once alone, Thea was to knock Romanski unconscious and take the files without drawing attention to herself. Jude and Fritz would pose as waiters, ready to intervene if necessary. “But this is Romanski,”  Thea said, interrupting Jude.  “We can’t just knock him unconscious.  He’ll be able to identify me later. Plus, he’s an asshole and I hate him.” “We have strict orders not to kill him,”  Jude told her seriously. Thea frowned. “Can I please kill him?  Pegin doesn’t have to know,”  she promised, taking the dress Jude shoved at her.  He and Fritz stepped out of the car, already dressed in suits (stupid Jude, not telling her ahead of time she’d have to change). “No,”  Jude said shortly.  He shut the car door and he and Fritz walked away from the car.  Thea changed quickly before telling the boys they could return. They slipped back into their seats and Jude backed out of the alley. Jude parked the car a block away from the hotel and they all climbed out.  Jude and Fritz walked in first, leaving Thea to follow whenever she felt it had been long enough.  After about five minutes, she had managed to hijack a limo and forced the driver to take her to the front of the hotel.  She slipped out of the limousine, promising the driver if he snitched she’d have his head within the hour. She walked into the hotel and was politely greeted and led into the room the party was being held.  It didn’t take long for her to spot Jude and Fritz on opposite corners of the room, but both near exits.  Another five seconds and she spotted Romanski at the bar, looking around the room himself. When his eyes landed on her, she smiled shyly and gave a small wave.  Maybe she could kill him just a tiny bit. Jude would never notice. Jude noticed.  Hotel security did as well—though it might have been Romanski’s men who raised the alarm—three seconds after they walked out of the doors.  They were spotted by authorities moments before they reached their car but ignored the shout for them to stop. Thea dove in the backseat while Jude and Fritz hurried into the front seats.  No one but Fritz bothered to put on a seatbelt before speeding away. “They definitely got our plate number,”  Jude muttered angrily, turning a corner and throwing Thea against the opposite window.  Fritz yelped as Jude turned sharply, causing Fritz to hit the window harder than looked comfortable.  Thea glanced up to see him gripping the handle beside his head right as Jude parked the car. “Ditch,”  Jude instructed. They all jumped out of the car and ran through the nearby alley.  Thea grabbed their bag from the backseat and kicked off her heels.  She tossed them in a nearby trash can and continued down the alley. Using only alleys and backstreets, they hurried through the city and dodged authorities until they were several blocks away from their ditched car. “It’s here,”  Thea said, stopping short in front of the garbage bin.  She threw open the lid and Fritz watched in amazement and horror as Jude threw himself over the edge and into the can.  “Get in,” Thea demanded. He did as was told and she jumped in after him, letting the lid slam shut above them. “Why are we here?”  Fritz whispered, blinking quickly to adjust to the darkness. “It’s bulletproof,”  Thea answered. There was a thud followed by what sounded like Jude moaning, then a flashlight turned on.  Fritz watched as Thea dug around the trash bags, clearly in search of something. “What are you looking for?”  Fritz asked. Thea hushed him and put the flashlight in her armpit.  Tugging roughly, she pulled a door from the back side of the garbage bin but was met with a solid brick wall.  She twisted her hand into the small gap between the bin and the wall and fiddled with something Fritz couldn’t see.  When she pulled her hand back, though, she looked victorious. Without bothering to give an explanation, she shouldered the brick wall and slowly pushed it open. “Guests first,”  she said, motioning for Fritz to walk through the short brick door first.  Although he didn’t want to, Fritz crawled through the door and into darkness.  He stopped, waiting for instructions but was instead pushed forward. “Keep going, Gelfand,”  Jude mumbled from behind him.  Fritz crawled forward cautiously and jumped when he heard scraping behind him.  “She’s just shutting the door. Keep going.”  “Is this safe?”  Fritz asked, leading the way in the tunnel that had just gotten darker. “Nothing we’ve done all night has been safe,”  Thea replied from far behind him. Fritz figured that was a fair answer, but he still had a lot of questions.  He continued to lead the way forward until his head hit a wall. He stopped short and Jude’s head collided with his butt. “Press the button on your right,”  Jude instructed. Fritz couldn’t see anything, so he raised his right hand and patted the wall until he found what he figured was the button Jude was talking about.  As soon as he pressed it, he heard a scraping sound and a strip of light appeared in front of him. The strip grew wider as the wall slid out of the way and Fritz crawled out of the tunnel and into a room.  Jude and Thea followed behind him and Thea shut the door. “Where are we?”  Fritz asked, looking around the bare room.  “Welcome to Bayer’s Bar’s back room number seven,”  Jude said, opening his arms and gesturing around the room proudly.  Fritz raised an eyebrow, glancing around the room. It was fairly small, not quite large enough for him to lay down comfortably based on the way he could nearly touch the walls if he stretched his arms out to his sides.  Except for a plastic chair in the corner, the tan room looked deserted. “That’s a lot of alliteration,”  he stated. Jude’s arms dropped to his sides and he frowned.  “A litter-what?”  he asked. Now it was Fritz’s turn to frown, but before he could ask what Jude meant, Thea pushed past him and walked towards the door opposite them. “He doesn’t understand big words you learn in school,”  she explained briefly to Fritz. Jude nodded and turned to follow her out of Bayer’s Bar’s back room. “I never went,”  he said plainly. Fritz’s frown deepened. “Isn’t it required?”  he asked. Jude shrugged, glancing over his shoulder at Fritz while Thea spun a dial lock then punched in a numerical code on the screen that appeared in front of her. “Not for people like me,”  he replied. Fritz decided he’d leave it at that, not sure if he wanted to know what Jude meant or not.  Instead, he followed Thea and Jude out of the back room and into what looked like a back office but was covered in computer screens.  There was one wall covered entirely with different monitor screens from about four feet off the floor to the ceiling. An empty desk was sitting on the opposite wall.  It had two monitors itself and small speakers sitting on either side of the monitor setup. “What is this place?”  Fritz asked, looking around for a place not covered by some form of technology. “Tony’s den,”  Jude answered. Thea was surprised when Fritz seemed to nod in understanding.  Fritz knew Tony? This guy was definitely not as clean as he’d tried to seem when she’d asked him why he was with them earlier.  Anyone that knew Tony was likely in trouble or well known on the black market. “Sometimes he stores snacks in here,”  Thea said, digging around Tony’s desk for something to eat.  She was swatted at before she could get very far, though, and looked up to see Tony frowning and nibbling on an apple. “Yeah, but they’re not here for you,”  Tony told her. Thea shrugged and stole his apple.  He protested loudly and tried to grab it back, but Thea easily avoided him. “I do all the hard work; the least you can do is give me a snack,”  she told him, ducking behind Jude and biting into Tony’s apple. Tony grumbled, leaving her alone and walking over to his desk. “Welcome to the land of injustice and thieves,”  Tony muttered to Fritz, glancing up at Thea briefly before sitting at his desk.  “Carol is working. Bar closes early, though. Something about the police chasing fugitives and enforcing an early curfew.”  Tony raised an eyebrow at the three in front of him. Fritz turned red while Thea and Jude ignored Tony’s gaze. “I’m sure the fugitives were just misunderstood,”  Thea replied. Jude glared at her. “Maybe they wouldn’t have gotten caught if they’d all stuck to their plan,”  he said. Tony looked up from his monitors.  “You didn’t follow the plan?”  he asked. Thea groaned and collapsed in an annoyed heap on the ground, crossing her legs and angrily biting into her apple.  She narrowed her eyes at the apple as if it had disappointed her, but that didn’t stop her from continuing to eat it. “It was Romanski,”  she grumbled, glaring at all three guys in front of her.  “I had to kill him a little bit.” “Thea,”  Tony groaned, leaning back in his chair and turning in a slow, disappointed circle.  Tony opened his eyes and glanced at Thea over his shoulder. He mumbled something in a language Fritz was pretty sure he didn’t know.  Thea immediately snapped back and they both erupted in a frenzy of incomprehensible arguing. Fritz helplessly looked to Jude, but Jude had his hearing aids out and was silently scrolling through a tablet Fritz hadn’t noticed earlier.  If only he had the same ability to block out the angry gibberish around him. “I’m just gonna…”  Fritz trailed off, pointing towards the door of Tony’s den.  He knew no one was listening, so he didn’t bother finishing his sentence before leaving the room to explore the rest of Bayer’s Bar’s back rooms.