At 7:50 AM, Mike scrambled out of bed.
He picked up his phone and saw a message from Frank: “Take the morning off.
Relieve me at 12:30 PM.”
He chuckled and replied, “I love you, man.” This was definitely a break Frank had fought to get him.
Tossing the phone onto the sofa, he headed to the kitchen to brew some coffee.
He found some bread in the fridge and noticed half a cup of milk Sarah had left on the dining table from earlier that morning.
Once the coffee was ready, Mike poured a cup.
No sugar, just a splash of milk.
He took a long, deep gulp.
The bitter yet smooth liquid slid down his throat, jolting him awake.
With the whole morning now free, the tasks that had felt a bit rushed suddenly seemed much more manageable.
Just before 9:00 AM, Mike drove to a second-hand electronics market in Brooklyn.
The market was housed in an old warehouse, filled with cramped stalls and an air thick with the scent of dust and electronic components.
He navigated through rows of monitors, keyboards, and PC towers before stopping at a booth with a sign that read: “Used Laptop Specialists.”
The owner was an Indian man wearing thick glasses, busy dismantling a laptop.
“What do you need?” the owner asked in a thick, curry-tinged accent.
“A laptop.
Mid-to-high specs, capable of running a programming environment,” Mike said.
“I also need a router and some Ethernet cables.”
The owner finally looked up.
“You in IT?”
“Just a hobby,” Mike replied.
Ten minutes later, the owner had gathered the items and quoted a price of $700.
Mike inspected the gear.
He didn’t haggle on the price but asked for a new laptop bag to be thrown in.
The owner agreed readily, and Mike paid in cash.
If this had been money he’d earned through hard labor, Mike would have haggled for every cent.
But since the cash had come easily, spending it felt effortless.
The next stop was a gun shop—an inconspicuous little place Mike found in Brooklyn.
The interior was dimly lit, with various handguns and rifles displayed in glass counters.
Holsters, magazines, and accessories hung on the walls.
The owner was a white man in his sixties with greying hair tied back in a ponytail.
He wore a khaki utility vest, his arms covered in tattoos.
“Looking for something?” the owner asked.
“Glock 19,” Mike said.
“Civilian version.”
The owner pulled a black plastic gun case from under the counter.
Inside was a brand-new Glock 19 Gen4, two magazines, a cleaning kit, and a manual.
“Serial numbers are clean, comes with a receipt,” the owner said.
“$750, including tax.”
Mike checked the frame and the barrel, confirming there was no wear and tear, then paid immediately.
The owner placed the case in a paper bag and asked, “Need ammo?”
“Two boxes of 9mm.”
“Forty bucks.”
Mike handed over two twenty-dollar bills.
“Come again,” the owner said, turning back to organize his shelves without another glance.
Mike liked owners like this—the type who didn’t care to make small talk or pry.
He had bought this gun strictly as a backup and for target practice.
He’d register it at the precinct during his shift this afternoon.
If he actually ran into a situation at night where he needed a firearm, he would, of course, use his “unregistered” gun.
Mike hurried home and set the new laptop on the dining table.
He plugged it in, powered it up, and spent the next twenty minutes installing essential software: setting up his programming environment, a text editor, virtual machine software, and more.
Then, he opened the editor and began writing code.
His fingers danced across the keyboard as lines of code filled the screen.
Turning memories from his past life into a functional part of this world gave Mike a strange, exhilarating sensation.
He was building a web crawler.
Once he set the parameters, it would specifically hunt for information related to the “Blood Angels.” The program would automatically scan common social media platforms, forums, and local news sites, scraping posts, comments, and articles containing specific keywords.
The list included “Blood Angels,” “Skull Wing Tattoo,” “Hell’s Kitchen gangs,” and various potential slang terms and variations.
He configured multiple proxy layers so that all requests were forwarded through at least three jump points with IP addresses scattered across different countries.
Once the data was scraped, it would be stored with encryption, and the original raw data would be auto-deleted.
He copied some of the more routine code directly from forums; time was tight and the task was heavy, so he needed to save every minute he could.
The program also had a built-in anti-tracking mechanism: if it detected any abnormal traffic patterns, it would immediately cease operation and wipe its logs.
It sounded complicated, but this wasn’t even the level of code he’d used in his previous career—those professional tools were far more complex and required entire teams to maintain.
This was just a combination of several simplified programs, but it was enough for his current needs.
If he wasn’t worried about someone leaving a backdoor in the software, he could have found a ready-to-use crawler on a professional forum in minutes.
By noon, the program was running, with snippets of scraped data scrolling across the screen.
Most of it was junk: names of gaming guilds, heavy metal lyrics, and usernames of edgy teenagers.
But there were a few valuable leads. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
For instance, someone on a local forum was complaining that “those Blood Angels bastards are shaking people down for protection money again.” The replies to the thread allowed him to narrow the location down to a specific neighborhood.
Mike closed his laptop and got into his uniform.
At 12:25 PM, he arrived at the precinct parking lot.
Frank was waiting by the patrol car as usual, leaning against the hood and sipping tea.
“Get enough sleep?” Frank asked.
“Good enough.” Mike tossed his bag into the back seat.
“Got a lot done this morning.”
“Buy a new car?” Frank asked casually.
“Not yet.
Just a used computer,” Mike said.
“I’m planning to learn some programming.
I heard you can pick up some side gigs that way.”
“Smart.” Frank looked at Mike with a hint of surprise.
“Better than drinking and gambling.”
“You’re driving today,” Frank said suddenly.
Mike glanced at him.
“You sure?”
“I can’t drive all the time,” Frank said, leaning back into the passenger seat.
“You need to learn how to handle emergencies while behind the wheel.
Besides, you gave me a surprise, so I’m giving you one too.”
Mike laughed and got into the driver’s seat.
He adjusted the seat and mirrors, buckled his seatbelt, and started the engine.
The car merged smoothly onto the main road.
“Don’t follow too close,” Frank coached.
“Give yourself reaction distance.
See that delivery truck ahead?
Keep at least a three-second gap.”
Mike complied, his gear shifts and turns all perfectly smooth.
He had done well in driving training at the academy, and the original owner’s muscle memory was still there.
“Not bad,” Frank commented.
“Better than I was.
The first time I drove a patrol car, I nearly took out a lamp post.”
“Seriously?”
“Dead serious.” Frank took a sip of tea.
“The guy training me back then was an old-timer named McCarthy.
Had a hell of a temper.
I took a turn too sharp, and he slapped me right on the back of the head.”
Mike smiled.
“I guess I should thank you for not slapping me then?”
Frank laughed.
“Damn right.”
Over the next few hours, they handled several routine calls.
A traffic accident with no injuries; a shoplifting case involving a fifteen-year-old boy; a noise complaint from a neighbor about a barking dog.
Every time they stopped, Mike followed protocol to the letter: activating the warning lights, parking securely, and observing the surroundings before exiting the vehicle.
Frank mostly just followed along, occasionally offering a few pointers.
At 4:00 PM, they were back near the precinct.
Frank had Mike pull over next to a gas station so he could hop out to buy cigarettes.
While waiting in the car, Mike checked his phone.
There was an unread message from an unknown number:
“Officer Li, this is Erin Chen.
I have a few questions regarding the Pine Street scene.
Please call back when you have a moment.”
He checked the time and dialed the number.
“Officer Li?” Erin asked.
“It’s me.
Just call me Mike.”
“Alright, Mike,” she said.
“Regarding the deceased in the Pine Street villa bathroom—you noticed the ligature marks on his wrists.
Do you remember the exact position and shape?”
Mike searched his memory.
“Left wrist, toward the back of the hand, about two centimeters wide.
The marks were fresh with some skin abrasion, but the bruising was very thin.
It looked like it was caused by a zip tie or a thin cord.”
The sound of typing came from the other end. This story is hosted at g.com.
“Understood.
When you entered the scene, was the back door open?”
“Essentially, yes.
It wasn’t fully closed.”
“Did you smell anything unusual at the scene?
Like cleaning agents, bleach, or perfume?”
Mike thought for a moment.
“No.
Just blood and dust.”
“Alright, thank you,” Erin said.
“Any progress on the case?”
“Still investigating.
I’ll contact you if I need anything else.”
The call ended.
Mike put his phone down just as Frank walked out of the gas station holding a pack of Marlboros.
“That girl from Forensics?” Frank asked as he got in and tore open the pack.
“Asking about details at the scene.”
“She’s very professional,” Frank said, lighting a cigarette.
“I heard she was at the Midtown precinct before.
She solved several cold cases there and then actively requested a transfer to Brooklyn.”
“Why?”
“Who knows.” Frank exhaled a cloud of smoke.
“Maybe she thought it would be more of a challenge over here.”
After finishing their shift, Mike registered his new handgun.
He was told it would be a few days before he could officially carry it, to which he simply shrugged.
At 5:30 PM, Mike returned home and immediately opened his laptop.
The crawler had been running for nearly five hours.
The logs showed it had scraped over 2,000 pieces of data.
After initial filtering, thirty-seven potentially relevant leads remained.
He went through them one by one.
Most were still noise: a heavy metal fan discussing tattoo designs, a role-playing forum where someone used “Blood Angels” as a guild name, and some comments on local news where the name was used as an insult toward rivals.
But one piece of information caught his eye.
The forum theme was “Urban Legends and True Crime.” Most of the users were teenagers to twenty-somethings who enjoyed discussing gangs, cold cases, and the supernatural.
It was a hidden youth forum, with servers based in Eastern Europe; access required a referral and a password.
The title of one post was: “Saw the Blood Angels in Hell’s Kitchen last night.”
The user who posted it was named “Shadow Watcher.” The account was three months old with seven posts, all regarding New York gangs.
Mike clicked on the thread.
The content was brief:
“Last night around 11:00 PM.
Near West 41st Street in Hell’s Kitchen.
Saw three guys get out of a black SUV and enter a warehouse.
One of them had a skull with wings tattoo (the Blood Angels’ mark).
They were inside for about twenty minutes and came out carrying two black suitcases.
Didn’t catch the plates, but the SUV had a ‘City Used Cars’ advertising sticker on the side.
Did I just witness a gang operation?”
There were over a dozen replies.
Some questioned the authenticity, some asked for the exact location, and others warned the OP not to stick their nose where it didn’t belong—though the warnings seemed more like jokes.
Mike noted the key information: West 41st Street, black SUV, City Used Cars.
He opened a map app and pinned West 41st Street in Manhattan.
Street View showed it was an industrial area mixed with old warehouses.
Most of the buildings were dilapidated, and the streets were narrow.
He searched for “City Used Cars.” The results showed it was a small dealership in Manhattan, specializing in low-end used car sales and repairs.
In the company’s registration info, the person in charge was a generic name, but the registered lawyer was “James Wesley.”
James Wesley!
Mike’s eyes narrowed as he leaned back in his chair.
Kingpin!
The man Sarah mentioned last night.
Wesley was his private lawyer and assistant!
Mike only knew this because of his fuzzy memories from his past life.
If he hadn’t seen the “registered lawyer” column, he wouldn’t have even remembered the name; he only recalled a formidable hitman called Bullseye.
The Blood Angels taking suitcases out of a warehouse owned by a dealership where Wesley was the lawyer.
This was no coincidence.
He checked the time.
7:00 PM.
The sky was already turning dark.
He still had time to prepare.