Terminal Island Two-Step, Part II
Posted on Sun Mar 29th, 2026 @ 10:41pm by Ensign Garabed "Garo" Hakobyan & Lieutenant Commander Ryan Keel & Josef Forstinger & Lieutenant JG Jason Williams III
Edited on on Sun Mar 29th, 2026 @ 10:43pm
2,127 words; about a 11 minute read
Mission:
Shadow in the Static
Location: Terminal Island, Los Angeles, California, Earth
Timeline: April 1944, 0350 Hours
Continued From: Terminal Island Two-Step, Part I
[The Pavilion - Locker Room]
Eventually, Josef--or in this case, Herb--reached the locker room. This entire adventure for him so far had been drifting around the LA Area, and now finally getting to work. It was a nice change of pace from the sterility of the ship's halls. Though, compared to the salty air and the less-than-sanitary conditions of the docks, he couldn't tell anymore which one of those two he preferred.
He wasn't an ocean man after all, he preferred mountains. Nevertheless, opening the locker, he suddenly knew the combination to it. He dressed in some rough-looking clothes--coveralls to better protect against the elements and potential hazards that came with the job. Though the cap did stay on. Between the change he took a quick chance to look at what the supposed plumbing was all about, and damn. He could've never known he'd actually MISS a urinal. But hey, future and all that.
Eddie found himself standing in the doorway to the locker room area. His eyes took-in rows of dented grey metal lockers that ran the length of the place. Pipes clanged somewhere in the walls and a few of the morning shift men were already changing, lacing their boots against the cold floor tiles. Someone in the rear was cursing about a missing workglove.
He spied Herb stepping out of the commode, zipping up his fly.
"Smith? You just come in?"
"Yep. Traffic's terrible as always," was his rather nonchalant response. Not even looking up, moreso concerned with getting his fly fully closed up as it got caught halfway fiddling with the zipper. Funnily, he noticed his own voice, or the way he spoke had changed slightly.
"You see Kowalski around yet?" Eddie asked, leaning a hand against the grimy, humid brick wall.
At that question, Herbert looked up. Having fulfilled his objective of zipping his fly closed, he finally looked up to Eddie, giving him a questioning look. "Uh, yeah. I did. Just saw him at the dispatch office few minutes ago when I came in. Why?"
Eddie's eyebrows lifted.
"I've got a bitch of a problem with this manifest," he said, tapping the clipboard. "C-17 is a mess. The second sheet has us two crates light and I know Lawrence keeps carbon dupes up in dispatch so accounting don't start crying later. Come on then." He started walking before Herb could answer. "You can read a number, can't you?"
Herb let out a sigh as Eddie began--he already somehow knew what was coming. He rolled his shoulders a little before following behind him. "Yeah, I can. I'm not stupid Eddie." Was his last comment before setting into a steady stride. Great, what a perfect start to the work day. How could this get get any worse?
[Parking Lot / Dispatch Office]
Up near the parking lot, the dispatch office sat by itself under a buzzing amber lamp.
Two figures carved themselves out of the mist. A third was on the periphery, his hand inside his suit jacket standing in front of an old and faded Ford Deuce.
Pulling out his pack of Lucky Strikes, Tony put one between his lips as he reached the man in charge. "Hey Lawrence, you got a light?"
Lawrence Kowalski wiped his hands on a handkerchief that was stained black and brown, having already given up on life. His hair was scraggly and his hairline had decided to surrender sometime back in 1941. Lawrence's face was pockmarked from a lifetime of acne and his forehead showed lines of stress and worry.
Short for a man, Kowalski was the morning foreman--just coming on shift. He looked like he hadn't slept right for weeks.
"You said it'd be once," Lawrence muttered, keeping his voice low. "Just the once."
Tony gave Lawrence a shark-toothed grin, his eyes (which Jason had shifted his implants to look threatening) stared at the beat-down middle-aged foreman. "No, Lawrence, I told you that you'd be done with your debt when I told you that you were. Did you forget about the interest on the loan we gave you?" The smile suddenly fade, as Tony stepped right up into the older man's face, as he growled threateningly. "You wouldn't want anything bad to happen to that pretty little niece of yours, now would ya?"
Lawrence swallowed.
"Look, Tony... I got a job here. Union job. Good pay, pension someday if the war don't swallow everything first." He rubbed the bridge of his bulbous nose. "If someone figures this out--"
Tony's right hand shot up and he grabbed Lawrence's lower jaw in a vice-like grip, pushing the older man back against the wall behind him. In a dangerous whisper, he replied with a warning. "If someone figures this out, then that means you have failed your job. And if you fail in your job, well...." he left the rest unspoken to allow the older man's imagination run wild.
Frankie leaned against the hood of the car, watching the man's eyes grow wide in fear. Something inside Garo knew this was wrong. But another thought entered his mind: business is business and they're just playing bad guys in a holodeck program. An enhanced holo-program, he corrected himself.
He realized his hand had already reached inside his overcoat and was touching the stock of his revolver. For an operations officer, this wasn't common behaviour. Yet, the instinct was somehow injected into him by the program.
"Tony..." Lawrence muttered through clenched teeth as Scarpelli's grip tightened. "Cut me some slack! I've got two other foremen sniffing around from the last deal..."
Walking through the thick mist, Szymon fretted he was late. He was new to the job, and desperately wanted to keep it - union jobs were gold-dust and this could set him up for life. The Docks were unfamiliar enough he'd gotten turned around in the soupy fog, and was heading for the only bright light he could see.
As he approached the harsh orange light of the building, he spotted two figures huddled together, obscured by the weather. Confused, he slowed, steps becoming cautious as he glanced about. Szymon wasn't sure he recognised where he was at all. The atmosphere felt heavier than the blanket of fog that had rolled in on them, stifling his breathing.
Eddie and Herb were halfway up the rise toward the Dispatch office when the night foreman slowed his pace. Up ahead, there were three shapes in the mist--one with his back against the brick wall of a maintenance hut. Too close. Another figure was doing the crowding, completely in the face of the other. The third figure was leaning nonchalantly against the hood of a Ford Deuce.
"You seeing this, Herb?"
Herb, who was following Eddie closely, slowed at the same time as he did. His eyes narrowing slightly at the scene they were approaching. Of course, in the mist, he could hardly make out who or what these figures were. But something in his head, something that long predated the holo-program and anyone around him, was telling him that something wasn't right.
"Yeah, I do, Eddie," he responds to the foreman. Slowly rolling up his shirt's sleeves--something he didn't do consciously. His subconscious preparing for trouble.
As he approached tentatively, Eddie squinted at the figures. He recognized the man with his back to the wall--Lawrence Kowalski. The morning foreman. The other man didn't appear sinister, but his body language told a different story.
"Christ," Eddie muttered, picking up his pace to see what the fuss was about.
As they approached the three men, Eddie tensed his jaw.
"Hey! You got business here?" he called to Tony.
Hearing the two men approaching before they said anything, he quickly released his hold on Lawrence's jaw, brushing and straightening the man's shirt. When the unknown man spoke, Tony turned to him with an honest grin on his face as laid his left hand on Lawrence's right shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze of reminder.
"I was just talking to my friend Lawrence here, and things may have gotten a bit tense there at the end, but, we're good now, right buddy?" He looked back at Lawrence, giving his shoulder another subtle squeeze.
Lawrence swallowed hard, rubbing at his jawline where only moments ago Tony had clamped his hands over. He cast a nervous look to The Blade.
"Yeah. Tense," he muttered, his expression turning to hurt.
Eddie looked from Lawrence to the unknown man. "That ain't at all what I saw a second ago," he said, stepping forward with the authority of a rooster.
There was a short pause as everyone seemed unsure what to say.
The night foreman didn't stop. Authority wasn't something he put on like a coat. It was baked into him from too many years of counting crates and catching his men in small lies that inevitably got bigger.
Eddie stepped closer to catch the unknown man's face full-on. He was wearing a clean suit, and not just any clean suit--an expensive one. Then he looked back to his colleague, Lawrence, seeing a red mark starting grow from where the man had grabbed him.
Somehow, it all started to make sense: Lawrence's strange behaviour for the past fortnite, how he was coming in early for his shifts and staying late. And now this. A couple of suits and a Ford Deuce sitting in the parking lot next to the Dispatch Office at four in the morning. These guys were not cops or inspectors.
He shifted the clipboard from under his arm and flipped it open with his thumb.
"Lawrence," he said, not even looking at Tony now. "I guess now is as good a time as any. You wanna tell me why C-17's light?"
Lawrence didn't answer. He couldn't. He simply looked to Tony and then dropped his eyes.
As he approached, Szymon could hear voices, tense and querulous. Another figure joined them, and he heard Eddie's voice and felt relief wash over him like a breaker across a Californian beach. The knot between his shoulders released itself slightly as he jogged towards the figures. Eddie wouldn't like it if he was much later. He'd steer him right.
Eddie nodded once, slowly. He then cast his gaze back to the well-dressed unknown man.
"Yeah," he said, shaking his head. "I thought so."
Turning toward the Dispatch Office stoop, he decided it was time to make a call.
Leaning against the hood of the Deuce, Frankie carefully reached into his trenchcoat and touched his revolver with his middle and index fingers. He hoped against all hope that he wouldn't have to use it, but he waited for Tony to signal his intentions.
Herb now knew there was gonna be trouble one way or the other. Internally, Josef knew this was but a game, a charade, a play--but, some part inside him was still on high alert. He shot one glance over to Frankie, or well Garo. Not in acknowledgement, in fact, it seemed devoid of anything. He was sizing him up--if he was going to shoot him for following the other two. And despite scantly knowing the man, decided to trust his gut instinct and say that he most likely was not.
The broader man turned, leaving Lawrence and Frankie alone at the truck to follow the other two--that is, if he wasn't stopped.
"You just keep doin' what Tony asks and you'll be fine, Lawrence." Frankie kept a hand on the inside of his coat, partly to keep the threat of pulling out his gun firmly in the mind of Lawrence--partly because he somehow felt he needed to be ready. It was a strange sensation, Garo thought.
To Be Continued in Terminal Island Two-Step, Part III
Herbert Smith (Josef Forstinger)
Civillian
USS Astrea
Frankie "No Brakes" Mancini (Garo Hakobyan)
Transporter Specialist
USS Astrea
(NPC of JB Dorsainvil)
Szymon Makowski (portrayed by Ryan Keel)
Chief of Diplomatic Intelligence
USS Astrea
Tony "The Blade" Scarpelli (Jason Williams III)
Squadron Leader
USS Astrea
(NPC of Maxun Spello)
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