First day on the job

My head was pounding. The wine was a dangerous thing. Bryson and I should not have snuck in that entire box. I think a dozen bottles were a bit excessive, yet here we are. I rolled over and opened my eyes. Last night I had placed a Gatorade and aspirin on the nightstand. I love me.

Bryson stood in my doorway.
"Why did we do that?" I giggled.
"Celebrating can be fun."
"Cleaning up after the party sucks." He crawled into bed with me, which was hard concerning its a full.
"What are you doing?"
"Coming to check on you." He mumbled into my pillow.
"You're laying down with your eyes closed."
"You're doing fine." As I stood up, I laughed
"We're agents now, we got this. Come on." Grabbing his arm, I pulled him after me.

Joe had breakfast made like normal but Henry and Kurt were in the kitchen already.
"Good morning," I said as I poured a cup of coffee for Bryson first. He clearly didn't set out Gatorade and aspirin for himself. Lifelessly, he sat with his head on the table. I grabbed some aspirin and placed it down with his coffee.
"Bryson, are you good?" Henry poked at him. Kurt watched me with an observant eye. It wasn't that we couldn't drink, we were not supposed to bring alcohol in.
"I don't feel good," Bryson mumbled.
"Good morning agents!" Calum beamed as he entered the room. Pride seemed to be pouring from every ounce of him.
"Good morning Calum." I sat next to Bryson and kicked his foot. He sat up and grabbed his mug.
"Coffee." He whispered. Kurt eyed him.
"You look hungover." He finally said. Everyone looked at Bryson. He was about to blow our cover. I refuse to be reprimanded on our first day as agents.
"I think I have a cold. I have a shit immune system. When I stay up too late too many days in a row I get sick." Everyone seemed to buy it but Kurt.
"Would you like cold medicine? I have some." He said cooly. Bryson better says yes.
"Uh, sure. Thanks." For almost blowing our cover, I hope it's the nasty liquid kind.

Kurt returned to the kitchen with a battered-looking bottle of cold medicine. It was cherry, the worst kind of them all. To hide my smile I took a sip of my coffee. Bryson winced before he took the shot of medicine. Everyone seemed to watch him with amusement.
"Thank you." He handed the plastic cup back to him.
"No problem." Kurt nodded and exited the kitchen again. I wasn't sure he bought Bryson's story but it satisfied him to watch Bryson do the shot.

After breakfast, we funneled into the room across from the classroom. We had been in here a few times for meetings but this was now our daily room.
"That shit was awful," Bryson said in a low voice.
"That's what you get for being hungover." I giggled. He and I were the last two to enter the room.

Mr. Gold was already in the room. He took a sip of his coffee as he glanced at his watch.
"Alright, now that we have all the agents in the room, we are going to do a recap." Mr. Gold stood in front of all of us. "In these red circles, there has been counterfeit money confiscated. We have yet to determine why. The bills weren't big bills, only twenties." That was odd. Fake money but in small bills? The red circles were a scatter plot on the map.
"So where do we think the money is coming from?" Bryson asked.
"We think it's coming from multiple distributors," Joe said. A lazor appeared on the screen. "These clumps, these clumps, and these clumps. We think there is a man somewhere in the middle."
"What kind of town is it?" I asked. Everyone looked at me.
"Well, it's a smaller town. The population of roughly 8600."
"And we think there are multiple distributors?"
"What are you getting at Lawrence?" Mr. Gold asked me flat out.
"In small towns everyone knows their neighbors, right? Statistically speaking, the crime rate is low. So to assume not only multiple people are involved seems a bit far fetched."
"So what are you suggesting?" Henry asked.
"Maybe it's not multiple, what if it's one?"
"Just one?" I nodded.
"We will keep it in our list of options." I was brushed off.

After some discussion, we were dismissed. Henry and Kurt went to open the store. Bryson followed Calum, begging him to learn some of what he does. Joe went back to his tech stuff and Mr. Gold returned to his office. With nowhere else to go, I sat in the room, studying the board and the town.

I'd been in here for a while, at least an hour. My eyes were tired and my laptop battery was draining. I'd gone and grabbed it a while back to do my research on the town.
"Staring at the board doesn't change anything." Mr. Gold scared me.
"Uh, no I know. It just seems weird. I mean the places that these bills were collected at are," I stood up to point at the first red circle. "Grocery store, grocery store, Walmart, coffee shop, diner, diner, salon." I turned to face him. "These are places that it's common to pay cash. That's why it's getting marked, especially in a small town. A lot of people pay cash."
"I'm not following Lawrence."
"That's a lot of fake cash by a lot of different people in a small town. Isn't that weird to you? If it were a few people there wouldn't be seven locations, maybe three or four clumped together like a hot spot. I mean, a dozen and a half people had fake cash. That's a lot of people in a town of 86 hundred." Mr. Gold sat down and stared at the board again. He seemed to really be taking in what I was saying this time, so I kept talking. "This was just in the past four months, what about the past twelve? You can't tell me this is an isolated incident. And what about the bills we don't check? I don't remember a time anyone had tested a five or one for fraudulent money." He rubbed his freshly shaven face.
"I see what you're saying. So what is the source?"
"That I don't know." I sat down next to him. "The middle of all of it is a strip mall. No one gets cash from those."
"You might be right Lawrence. One supplier, but we have to figure out who that one supplier is." I nodded.
"And who is behind all of it."
"The wealthy."
"Rich people?" I turned to him.
"In small towns, most people are generally middle class, that's their economy. There is a group of fairly rich people in this town, it's suspicious." We both looked at the board.
"What a case." Mr. Gold let out a puff of air that resembled a chuckle.
"Yes, yes it is."

After I excused myself, I called my mom.
"Hey, honey."
"Hi, mom."
"How's it going?"
"Good. Today was my first official day as an agent." There was silence for a moment.
"What does that mean?"
"Means we get to know what's going on. We are finally looped in on a mission." There was more silence. I knew she wasn't a fan of me being an agent but this is what we did. I signed up for this. I wanted to be an agent just like my father before me.
"Do you go out in the field?"
"Well, not yet, I guess. We sat in a room today. I'm not sure how much fieldwork would be involved in this case."
"Rene, I don't like the thought-"
"I know, mom." I cut her normal speech off, she gave it every time I called. "I know this isn't what you had planned for me but I didn't have a plan. To be honest, this might have been Dad's plan for me. He named me Lawrence, it isn't a coincidence that this is an all men's agency until now. I'm good at this. Between me and my partner Bryson, I got top marks in class and I'm better in the field."
"I just wished you'd come home and we can talk about this." I shook my head, she wasn't understanding me.
"This is home for me too. This is my life now, mom. I want to do this. I enjoy doing this. Mr. Gold tells me how much I'm like my father-"
"That's what scares me!" My mom snapped. I shut my mouth, stunned. "You are just like your father. Impulsive. He loved the job and now look at him." I choked on a laugh.
"I hardly doubt his car accident has anything to do with his job."
"He was coming home from a mission!"
"He was coming home to us!" We were both now heated, slightly yelling. "There is nothing I can say to you that will make you see and understand how I feel and that's fine, but you can't tell me what to do. I'm almost 23!"
"You're still my daughter, my little girl." She pulled at my heartstrings, I sighed.
"And I always will be, but sometimes I have to grow up too. Now seems like a great time to start." There was silence again.
"Rene, I love you and I'm sorry. I'm just worried."
"That's your job, you're my mom."
"Well I got to go, Scott just got home and is making a mess." I laughed. The twins were walking tornados.
"Bye mom, I love you."
"I love you too." The line went dead.

The gun range was full and I wasn't in the mood for shooting so I went back to my room. Bryson saw me enter and followed me in.
"Hey." He plopped on my bed.
"Yes?"
"Whatcha doing?"
"Why?" I looked up at him, he simply shrugged his shoulders. "We are not drinking tonight." Bryson chuckled.
"No, no. I'm just bored. You were gone for a while."
"Uh, yeah. I was studying the board and then I called my mom." I hadn't lied about what I did, I just left Mr. Gold out of it.
"Cool." He bounced a little as he nodded his head. "Want to play GTA?"
"Not really. You ever play RuneScape?"
"No. What's that?"
"Grab my other laptop and I'll show you."