BEIJING PUBLIC SECURITY BUREAU TIAN"ANMEN AREA BRANCH Frank w.a.n.g rubbed the bridge of his nose and tried to stifle a yawn as he sat at his desk, staring at old security footage.
Since he was young Frank had had his heart set on becoming a detective. He entered the police academy despite the protest of his mother who wanted him to return to the UK and continue his education there.
When he"d done this Frank had been filled with lofty dreams of being an incredible officer who would be catching criminals left and right. He thought his life would be like those crime dramas on TV, where every scene was filled with excitement and action.
Yet now he was. .h.i.t with the reality, being a rookie straight out of the academy, he was basically a coffee delivery boy for the other detectives in the office. Actually a coffee delivery boy was an understatement, he was a full time lackey.
And since he"d become a detective, the moment he"d been a.s.signed to the Crime Control section at Tian"anmen, he"d been stuck in the office doing paperwork or surveying security footage and doing other people"s work.
Even if action did happen in the area he was never put on the front-lines or allowed to help.
"Maybe I should switch to the VIP protection department or public security. All the guys there seem to be busy, or at least doing something worthwhile." Frank w.a.n.g grumbled to himself.
"Oi Detective w.a.n.g go and get everyone coffees!" Yelled his direct superior, Chief Wei, from across the room.
Immediately Frank bowed and shouted, "Yes Sir."
"I should just bear with it." He thought as he left the office, "everyone starts out at the bottom. All the detectives here were once rookies that had to deliver coffee. I only left the academy half a year ago, one day I"ll be working on the real cases. Soon, soon."
Frank w.a.n.g was still thinking "soon" as he stood in the line at the coffee store. In his uniform he stood out like a sore thumb. As he got to the front, he said, "The usual" and the barista began preparing a batch straight away.
Frank stared at the pretty barista who had her hair tied in a long ponytail. "She"s beautiful" is all he could think. She was the only perk of having to run off and buy coffee all the time.
Her name tag read, Qi Zhou.
Frank coughed and said, "It"s so late but you guys are still open."
Qi Zhou glanced up at him with her large clear eyes, "Our store is open 24 hours, you come here all the time and you didn"t know? I always work the night shifts and I always see you."
Frank felt his face flush a little. It was true he was always getting tons of coffee this late at night. And it said on the front of the store, open 24 hours. "That was such a dumb thing to say, I might die of embarra.s.sment" he thought.
Just as he was about to change the topic, his phone buzzed. It was Zhao Detong. He rolled his eyes.
The only reason this devil would call him so late was either to get drinks, or use his status as an officer to get out of some kind of trouble.
He wanted to ignore the call but he owed Zhao Detong quite a bit from back in the day and they were sworn brothers, he couldn"t ignore a brother.
"Detong, what is it now?" Frank coldly answered.
"Whoa is that the way to answer a call from one of your best friends?" Zhao Detong sounded slightly offended but Frank didn"t care.
"What do you want? You didn"t get yourself into any trouble did you. Well sorry, I can"t help, I"m on duty at the moment." He was about to hang up but then he heard Detong yell.
"Oi Oi that"s not why I called, geez why do you think so badly of me? Actually don"t answer that." Detong"s voice suddenly became serious, "The reason I"m calling you is because I"m worried about Mao Lu."
Moa Lu!!!
"What happened to Mao Lu, is he okay?" Frank shouted into the phone.
"I can"t get a hold of him and he didn"t turn up for his shift tonight at Roaring Tiger, so I"m worried that something might have happened."
"He didn"t turn up to his shift." Frank w.a.n.g sighed whilst switching on his bluetooth earpiece and putting his phone in his pocket. He grabbed two large bags filled with coffee and thanked the barista as he walked out of the store. "Are you pulling my leg or something, just because he isn"t answering your calls and didn"t turn up to a shift, doesn"t mean you should be worried about him. Maybe you p.i.s.sed him off and he turned off his phone and went to get some s.p.a.ce. Even Mao Lu needs some chill time."
Zhao Detong snorted over the phone, "Even if Mao Lu was mad at me he wouldn"t just disappear and ditch a shift. He would block my calls but ditching his responsibilities isn"t like him."
"Well then, maybe he met someone and got distracted by them."
"Do you think I wouldn"t know if Mao Lu was seeing someone, and I contacted all of his friends and they don"t know where he is either." Zhao Detong retorted, "and you know what happened two years ago, I have a right to be worried."
Frank sighed a little, he also remembered what happened two years ago. At that time he was still training in the police academy and had heard about the incident much later than everyone else. Honestly, it had scared him a lot. Although he wasn"t as close to Mao Lu as Zhao Detong, Mao Lu was still an important friend to him.
"Fine, I"ll call some people I know at the public security bureau in Daxing and see if anything noteworthy happened in the area. I"ll also track Mao Lu"s phone from my computer. But I swear to G.o.d if you"re just being paranoid and he"s fine I"m gonna be so p.i.s.sed that you wasted my time."
"Noted." Zhang Detong said carelessly, and then hung up on Frank.
As Frank heard the bee eeeeep and the automatic voice say, "Your call has ended." he felt a little p.i.s.sed, but at the same time he was now concerned about Mao Lu, so he didn"t dwell on it.
….
Frank raced back to the station and began messaging his contacts in Daxing. Unlike Tian"anmen, Daxing was a lot more active with a lot more notable crimes. So the crime control department there was a lot more busy. However from his friends he found out that despite a lot of things happening today, none of them seemed to involve Mao Lu, or were near Mao Lu"s address.
Then Frank began tracking Mao Lu"s phone. At first he called him, but just as Zhao Detong had said, it seemed to be off. So he checked his phone logs. All that was needed to track a phone these days were their logs, it didn"t matter whether the phone had received calls, as long as it had been on and was sending information or signals to nearby cell towers, then it was traceable.
"Where were you last Mao Lu…" Frank muttered as he zoomed into the map, looking at the locations and the time stops.
At the start of the day Mao Lu had gone from his flat to his job at the cafe, then around 4 Mao Lu went to the business district and spent a while in B&B law firm.
Frank w.a.n.g raised an eyebrow, why would Mao Lu go there?
Frank followed the call traces and the last location Mao Lu was at before he turned off his phone was...his apartment in Daxing.
Frank rolled his eyes. So then he"s probably at his flat, he switched off his phone and decided to ditch his shift. That had to be it.
At that point Frank"s phone dinged. It was a message from his friend at the Daxing bureau. "I sent you today"s security footage from that location. I hope it"s useful."
Frank"s eyes lit up, and he checked his mail, there was indeed a link to the footage.
"Thanks" he messaged back.
Frank had asked for some security footage from a building opposite Mao Lu"s apartment. He forwarded through it, only pausing when he saw Mao Lu returning to his apartment around 6PM.
"So he definitely went home."
Frank began to watch the footage at twice the speed, up until Fei Bing Bing and Zhao Detong could be seen outside his door.
Annoyed Frank called Zhao Detong.
"Did you find anything?" Detong immediately asked.
"Nothing actually, just you wasting my time. Mao Lu came back to his place at 6pm, he didn"t leave his apartment. He must be p.i.s.sed at you guys, or maybe he needed some rest. Regardless it seems to me he"s just ignoring you."
"There really was nothing!" Detong was surprised, he"d really felt like something was off. Was Mao Lu really just avoiding him and Fei Bing Bing.
"Yes, so I"m hanging up. I"m swamped with paperwork right now." This time Frank hung up on Detong, and he almost laughed out loud. Hanging up on Detong was very satisfying.
He revelled in the feeling for a moment. And then turned to his PC. Just as Frank w.a.n.g was about to close the tab with the security footage, he noticed that the scene had changed.
Two people were now standing outside of Mao Lu"s door.
One was a rather thin figure, they wore a black suit and had a very tall top hat on. Next to him was a small girl who wore a red dress.
What was strange was that neither of them knocked on the door. They just stood outside of it, staring and not moving.
Frank felt an eerie feeling in his heart as he saw this. And that eerie feeling only grew when more people joined them. Their backs were to the camera so he couldn"t make out any faces, but they were all dressed in very strange clothes. Some wore old western attire, others wore what looked like traditional eastern clothing. It was all a very weird mix. Only a few seemed dressed in normal outfits.
All of them just stood there and stared at Mao Lu"s door. Soon there were so many of them that they filled the corridor outside Mao Lu"s apartment. And from the footage he could see many cars filling the area around the apartment building. Crowds of people all dressed in strange clothing, standing there watching Mao Lu"s apartment.
Frank couldn"t understand what he was seeing. His hand shook against the mouse as he forwarded through the footage, for three hours this scene continued with more and more people coming. So many.
Then Frank"s screen was filled with a close up of a red eye. It appeared so suddenly that Frank jumped back out of his chair and shrieked a little bit , causing other officers to stare at him strangely.
The eye swivelled in its socket and then the next instant there was just static. No more footage was visible.
"What….what is this?"