The Basement

You get a hunch it might be best to focus on the auction and those special goods first. If anything or worse anyone gets shipped off, you might lose an otherwise important trail. You don't wanna imagine someone like Mindy getting sold or any of the sort, but the risk is always there. You know you cannot avoid that reality when it strikes you, so as you make your way across the greasy floors of the warehouse turned smuggler's den and nightclub you try to focus on one moment leading into the next instead of worrying about the long run.

Being a bit impulsive and reactive when out on the job has served you well most of the time, makes you less predictable. Back here the security detail is more scarce. Even when you're not straight up hiding behind some boxes, people don't pay you much attention. You just gotta look a bit more gruff and self-important and most just consider you having every right to be here. Being a bit more on the flat side comes in handy here. You draw less attention from the especially unsavory ones. An annoyed sigh or rolling eyes is all it takes to get the pushy ones of your back. Nobody's gonna take you for an outright crime boss or anything, but they figure: If you're not a regular part of this operation and still have reason to be here you must be important. Important enough not to get on your bad side.

It's a different experience to the usual subterfuge you employ. You almost feel elevated. It's an intoxicating feeling that does not nearly worry you as much as it should. Your smile grows a facade of smugness, your eyes seem sharp and indifferent, your posture is tall and your demeanor condescending. You've had enough clients and colleagues to learn a thing or two from about this sort of behaviour and you finally realise why they were all such insufferable pricks: It feels good, powerful, right. If your job wasn't to analyse and reflect on anything you come across you might easily get lost in the sensation.

With an attitude like this it's almost too easy to get downstairs. Security pats you down to check for weapons but doesn't inquire about anything else. If anything, the fact that you have syringes on you saves you. They get suspicious briefly before they pull out the unmarked ampules, allowing you to make up some bullshit story about being "Just another paying customer." Without really knowing what you just wrongfully confessed to, you are urged into the basement hall. It's almost a second stadium under the main event. The beat of the music above still echos a little down here. The place is furnished with expensive chairs and the floors are squeaky clean, almost unnaturally so. Roughly three dozen people are already here, with room for at least thrice that amount. At the other end of the hall there is a massive podium and a couple of stages for various already present wares. There's the usual smuggled goods. Fancy gems, art pieces, rare furniture, but also chemical product, Bovium-related by your estimate, and even people. They are blindfolded, gagged and bound and neatly arranged with bows and fancy revealing clothes that barely leave anything covered to begin with.

You suddenly realise that you have walked into a lion's den. But as more and more people enter, you cannot rightly leave without arousing suspicion. So you simply pick one of the free seats and wait, pondering whether or not you might get a chance to get out of the literal dangerzone or if it's perhaps worth it to stay and wait it out. Afterall, this seems like the perfect opportunity to make some headway, not just on finding Mindy but also - potentially - on a whole lot of other shit. People have been reporting a lot of disappearances, weird behaviours and odd spending habits. This might be the motherlode to the majority of your recent jobs.