Intruder arc

## Smile

"Mr Chau," greets Liu.

"Boss," replies Chau, opening the car door.

Liu nods in thanks, settles in.

Chau closes the door, goes around to the driver's seat and folds himself in.

"Good news," announces Liu, smiling, as Chau pulls into traffic. "You'll soon be off chauffeur duty." Taps away on a mobile. "I've sent you the address; report there and do as she says."

"Got it, boss."

## Surveillence

Hannibal sits in the cramped van with a tech, mentally cursing Wei's creative streak with one voice while with another, admitting that he screwed up and probably deserved this. And then both voices curse out Wei's creative streak.

The kid slunk to school in the morning, interacted with almost no one (thermal tracking. yay. couldn't just ignore the kid during school hours), slunk to his mom's in the afternoon (this week; next week it's dad's. Hannibal prays he won't still be here next week.), stocked up on calories, retreated to his room until supper time when he emerged to inhale his body weight in food, then hid again until morning. He should probably be eating more, honestly, and that was as remarkable as this particular punishment got.

(It's not thumbtacks. Hannibal would take getting his fingernails pulled out over thumbtacks (unless that involved thumbtacks, in which case, pick the next worst thing on the list).)

At least a grandmother had insisted on making them lunch. [B]

Hannibal bites back a sigh, mostly focuses on the screen.

.

The kid begins his afternoon scurry home.

Someone larger than high school-size strolls the same way.

Hannibal checks them against the log of 'larger than high school-sized people seen walking around this time along this route' to no avail.

The tech flicks the police database search to the main screen.

An enforcer charged with various batteries, almost always in favour of one of This Professor's competitors on the fight scene.

And, look at that, kid's brother sent 'em to the emergency room a few years back. That's probably not good.

/**blocked:** [Bogie] [3] approaching Beanpole (attachment)

A minute later:

/**blocked:** I'll take care of it

Hannibal acknowledges, coordinates with the driver of Wei's car.

.

3: a Cantonese variation of; noted

B: Whose grandmother made whom lunch? Not altogether clear.; the typical referent for any elderly woman in Chinese is 'grandmother' (I became aware of it from one Weis headcanons fic). I like to think the proprietors of a number of establishments are kickass old ladies (not unlike that episode of the Blacklist (tho I think she was French).); AHA! Gotcha.

## Rosetta

(Shortly after "Surveillence")

""Excuse me?"" asks a young person.

Derek turns. "Yea?"

They're a couple years older than Derek, of East Asian descent, and wearing jeans and a flowered blouse. "I'm looking for the breakwall park. You wouldn't happen to know where it is, would you?"

"Yea, it's--" Derek points. "--that way. Straight up this street, right at first big crossing, follow the signs to the Town Green." Rubs his neck. "It's a bit of a hike from here."

They twirl a lock of dark, casually curly hair. "I'm /**really** bad at directions. Would you walk me there?"

Uh huh.

Derek heads home. "You're talking to the wrong brother, mx. Logan's in Sydney. I think."

""Pretty sure I'm not.""

Derek turns back.

"People following you, though, do."

Derek's stomach goes cold.

Twirl's five years older, suddenly. "If you would come with me, Mr Jones."

"I'll jus ...." Swallows, gestures vaguely in the opposite direction of the park. "Home."

"I can protect you." Twirl smiles. "I highly doubt anyone will ever bother you again."

Derek's calm. "Sure."

As if on cue, a town car pulls up.

A huge person emerges from the front passenger door.

"Boss." The giant opens the door, offers an arm.

"Thank you," Twirl smiles.

The giant helps Twirl in, turns to Derek.

Derek copies Twirl, though his 'thank you' comes out rather flat.

The giant closes the door.

A moment later, the car purrs to life.

.

No more words!

(Though they have tea and Derek remains in the 'this can't possibly be actually happening and I am strangely calm' state of mind.)

## Meta

* no idea what Hannibal did, but because he's here and not in Hong Kong, the triplets don't have that extra layer of protection and without it, since Hannibal's one of the few people 'close' to both them, Liu, and the fight club, the triplets get caught in the raid instead of spirited out by Hannibal to fight another day.
* Liu's watching out for Derek for two reasons: cementing to Logan that Liu is not a person to mess with, but also rival fight contractors are hoping on sabotaging the Professor and the Tangs' fight by taking out part of a trio.