Chapter Text
The scent of death filled the air, thick in the ash that blew up into the sky with every fresh gust of wind. This death was pungent; burnt metal and plastic, a blight added to the smog of London's outskirts.
Eret stared at the ruins of the warehouse sat on the cusp of London's sub-urban fringe. People bustled around them, fire fighters calming down from their lengthy call-out. Phil was off to their left palming money out to the fire department supervisor with Dream close to Eret's right, hands hovering by his sides. The man was ansty, hood strings pulled tight after having woken up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.
The site they'd been called to in the early hours was an old warehouse, one their parents had owned. Situated on the cusp of London, it was cheaper than almost everything inside of the capital but still expensive. It was one of few locations they'd recovered from the man's dirty grasp. A location that was now burnt to cinders.
Thankfully, before the arson there had been no one inside. It was a stock warehouse from day to day, and thus was kept in order by an idle skeleton crew and no more.
Wind gushed around the wreckage. Eret watched the charred remains of shelving units and panneled walls stir in the gales and lift up into the atmosphere. They flew in a foreboding, swirling march, twirling and spinning like a flock of crows before the wind further scattered them.
Guess we'll have to tick this location off the list, they thought blithely and turned to Phil as he approached them. "Well?"
"Five in the morning they got a call, some old lady a few kilometres west reported bright lights. Said fireworks but the crew got out here to a half-burnt warehouse." Phil reported, his long green coat lapels flicking in the wind as his eyes washed over the crowd of fire fighters replacing their gear in their trucks. There were two red monstrosities perched around the gravel drive; two looming beasts that were safely held within Arkhos' payroll. "All stock's lost with no human casualties. Two-fifty's been paid to the fire department. News is on the down-low and there's been no reporters so far."
"Good. We'll send Puffy out to the woman," they hummed. "Make sure she's the little old lady we like to hear about in good deeds."
Cara Puffy had come to them with the spoken CV of "I can speak" and had been remodeled for Eret's own purposes into "I can ask the right questions". She was a smart girl, capable of more than she gave herself credit for and Eret hoped to cultivate that self-esteem in her.
She was a people-person. Almost empathetic, Puffy knew how people would respond before they did themselves. And she used this to her advantage, saving harder to swallow questions for when people got riled up. Eret had taken her with them on the Unus Annus meetings and had been impressed by her cavalier attitude and well-timed rhetorics.
They trusted her and she was one of the best for the job.
"You sure that's necessary, boss?" Phil queried politely, hands shoved into his pockets against the chilly onslaught of wind. His green and white striped bucket hat prevailed, remaining on his head despite the odds. "The files on the skele crew say a few were smokers. I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to root out the schedules and question a few guys."
"Then I'll set Puffy on them as well," they said, effectively cutting down Phil's argument. The mid-day sun hovered over them and the sight of its rays reminded Eret of warmer weather. On that line of thought, it was colder than usual for it to be coming up to Halloween. "Are we done here?"
"Seems so, boss," Phil nodded. Dream was silent but they hadn't expected a response from him anyway.
"Patton," they summoned. The fire department supervisor perked up, bald head shining in the sunshine and strode over to them, quickly joining their gathering of three.
"Ma'am," he bounced in place, smiling despite the tired droop to his shoulders. Eret liked him, they really did - Jason Patton was quirky and kind, with a devilish sense of humour that really came out when he made his one-liners. Although, their liking of him did nothing to disguise the fact the man had a small issue on knowing when to call them in on a situation.
Like, for instance, now. Eret could've been in bed, pretending to sleep, instead of standing half-frozen in a field at the ripe hour of 8 AM. It wouldn't have mattered, had the warehouse been a flagged one for carrying important goods, but the fire dept were privy to some files such as that and this warehouse was certainly not one of the important ones.
They offered a curled smile. "Don't call me out for something as simple as this ever again. Not unless my name's going on a paper for the wrong reason, got it?"
Patton stiffened, sunny expression falling to a stiff mix of fear and anxiety. "Y- Yes, ma'am. I understand. My sincere apologies, ma'am."
"Don't worry about it," they waved off, smiling softly to ease the man. Patton deflated, relieved, and offered a bright smile in return before flouncing off to check up on his men's packing abilities.
"When are the kids off for Halloween, Phil?" Eret asked as they walked over to the car. Dream took the backseat silently, leaving Eret to claim the passenger seat as Phil elected himself as driver.
"A few days from now, for two weeks, boss. You thinking about that trip?" The blond grinned.
"No. Just wondering," they yawned. "I'd appreciate it if you could find out the exact dates and text me before tonight."
"No problem, boss."
The kids were off for eight days for the autumn break. Including the two weekends, it was twelve days. From the twenty-first of October to the first of November, they were free from school, which meant Eret could plot out a trip with at least a week's leeway.
A trip to Cuba had been a long time coming.
For months, the sub-sect over there had been patchy and sparse with debriefs and check-ins. At first, Eret hadn't worried too much, because (ex) Dr Steffen Mössner was in charge. Mössner, they trusted, because he was reliable and always had good reasons for all his actions.
At first, the perceived almost radio silence was taken as a job gone deep - something spiralling that had taken more concentration to deal with than wanted. Dream had made a noise at seeing the first missed status report but Eret had been in a good mood that night and they'd let it slide. Because Mössner was good. He was experienced, had been in the gang business for upwards of fifteen years amd he knew his stuff. They trusted him.
A month later, they received word Mössner was dead. He'd been dead for three months, replaced by young, spritely Elaina. (That was all they had on her - a name and nothing else but a few adjectives used to describe her on the roster Mössner had submitted a month before radio silence.)
Elaina was a new face on the scene. Eret did not know her; not like they had Mössner. Thus, worried she was new and simply couldn't figure out how to correctly correspond with the mainstream sect, they asked for George to initiate a learning pack.
Inside the pack was a greeting, instructions on how to report to Arkhos' HQ and a generalized indoctrination. There had been no response. There were no following reports.
By now, as of when they were sitting in their bed, blankets pooled around them, laptop warm in their lap, it had been nearly five months since any form of correspondence with the Cuban subset. Eret was worried something had went wrong whilst simultaneously being annoyed that one of their most reliable men had died and left an entire section crumbling.
Maybe I should've paid him more, he was obviously good at his job. Eret mulled, tapping away at the encripted files they needed. Cuba wasn't somewhere they visited often - in fact, after Spain and the man they quite disliked warmer countries with stifling humidities, and so their visits out of the UK were sparse. Due to their lack of knowledge on the place, they'd resorted to clicking through the files on the Cuban subset before they booked any hotels.
The main Cuba branch of Arkhos was situated more centralised to the island. The Cuban HQ was on the outskirts of San Cristóbal, Pinar del Río, while there were a few smaller groupings along Havana and Artemisa. According to David's old files, most of Cuba was accessible through the A4 and the autopistas that ran through San Cristóbal, hence why the man had picked the location.
Luckily, there was an airport in San Cristóbal. This meant all Eret had to do was book a fancy hotel with a pool within about a mile range and pop their head of transport, Skeppy, a text so that he could organise for their private jet to land on the airport's runway.
They grabbed their steaming mug of coffee from their bedside table and blew on it as they scrolled through possible hotels to stay in. It was obvious they were taking the entire Waston family with them, Dream included, but the main question was if Tubbo wished to come along as well.
Well, they'd book a room for Tommy and Tubbo that Tommy could have to himself if the other darling didn't want to come.
Satisfied at the five star hotel they'd decided on, Eret fired off a text to Phil: Have bags packed for three day trip, 23rd to 26th Oct. Make Tommy ask Tubbo if he wants to come too xx
Five minutes later, the reply will do! ;) came through.
"Psst, Tubbo," Tommy whispered, leaning obnoxiously over his desk as he fought for the boy's attention. They were in english, the new teacher off on a spiral about Greek gods that Technoblade would've loved to hear. "Tub-"
"What?" Tubbo mouthed, turning around from his seat in front of him. Tommy grinned at him, thankful Miss Alyssa (what sort of teacher asked kids to call them by their first name?) was almost deaf to them whispering. It was funny to see other kids whispering and to have her hammer down on them with her Disappointed Voice and then have her completely ignore him and Tubbo plotting anarchy in the middle of the room.
With his friend's attention now on him, Tommy pulled the folded paper Phil had given him before he'd left for a later work shift. It had been his dad's day off, a complementary from Eret, but something had come up and he'd been forced out of bed anyway.
He'd taken the initiative to read the note before folding it up into a paper plane to throw at Tubbo. It was a holiday invite, from Eret. They wanted Tubbo to come with Tommy and the others. They were going to Cuba.
Tommy had never been anywhere outside of the UK. Phil was always too busy to take them anywhere. He supposed this was different, because the boss was taking them on a three day trip.
The plane shot towards Tubbo, arcing just before it got to him. Tommy watched with wide eyes, prepared to need to get up and walk down the staged arena to grab the plane that would inevitably collapse in front of the teacher, but then it curled again, completing a loop-de-loop and sailed down into Tubbo's lap.
Heart thumping, Tommy tuned out Miss Alyssa's ramblings, attention solely on Tubbo as the boy opened the plane up. It took his bee-loving friend a moment to read the couple of words before his shoulders jumped.
Tubbo turned, beaming a brilliant smile. He nodded frantically, overjoyed. Tommy grinned back, throwing him a thumbs up.
He couldn't wait to explore Cuba with Tubbo.