[General POV]
The explosion was broadcast live on TV as news channels began covering the incident after the initial attack.
Although it was almost midnight, millions of citizens were tuning in.
"We received some breaking news. Most of the fundraiser attendees evacuated before the explosion happened. We're still waiting for the list of names of those who were left behind," a news reporter said to the camera urgently as the fire kept spreading.
The fire department and the bomb squad immediately mobilized to the scene.
"It feels like America is going to hell in recent years with all of these attacks," Jay said, waking up at 3:00 AM after getting a phone call from Claire.
He and Gloria watched the news together, with Gloria holding his arm tightly before praying for Edward's safety in Spanish.
Claire and Phil watched the TV together, concern etched on their faces. Suddenly, Alex walked downstairs and stood behind them, asking, "Mom, Dad, what's going on?"
"A-Alex, honey, why are you up?" Claire was surprised. She quickly turned off the news, not wanting Alex to know the situation, but Alex said, "Enid already told me everything, Mom. Turn on the TV again."
Back at the hotel, Mr. Ahmed grinned maniacally as he searched for Edward inside the convention hall, among the fire.
"Come on out, one billion dollar man! You have no place else to go! I'll make sure to make it painless!" Mr. Ahmed shouted.
Edward's voice rang out, echoing from multiple directions, making it hard to pinpoint his location. "Is there a painless way to put a bullet in someone's brain? Also, do you even know how to claim the bounty? Because I've checked—there's nothing about it online."
While the execution was happening, he took out his phone and let his AI search the web again, but he still couldn't find the details of the hit.
"If a chance is thrown in front of you, you do it first and think about it later!" Mr. Ahmed shouted before shooting at a shadow he thought was Edward.
Edward laughed childishly, his voice echoing again, like Boy Wonder in Batman. "Miss me~ Miss me~ Now you have to catch me~" he said in a sing-song voice, which made the terrorist shoot multiple times as he thought he caught a glimpse of Edward's back.
"Stop running away and face me!" Mr. Ahmed said, not realizing that he was stepping onto a rope loop. As he stood beside the hole in the wall, Edward suddenly appeared beside him and said, "I'm right here!"
He gave the terrorist a lariat, and Mr. Ahmed was thrown off the building. The rope around his legs tightened, saving him from falling to his doom. "AHHH!" he shouted in horror as he dangled on the side of the building.
The SWAT team finally arrived at the convention hall and saw only Edward there.
"You guys are late… again," he said with a smirk, referring to the time he got kidnapped in New York.
Rosa and Jake finally breathed a sigh of relief when they saw Edward fully intact. Rosa suddenly clenched her teeth in anger and rushed toward Edward, giving him a punch on the bicep.
"Ow?! What's that for?" Edward asked in disbelief.
"You could've just left on the helicopter! Why did you put yourself in danger?!"
Edward was stunned for a moment before he shook his head slightly and lied, "Well, I wanted to. Then the explosion happened, so I missed the timing."
Jake laughed and said, "Rosa, why are you mad at him? He fought the terrorists all alone and saved everyone, like John McClane in Die Hard!"
Both Edward and Jake chuckled together. Rosa rolled her eyes before she finally smiled, thinking everything was over now.
Rosa and Jake escorted Edward to the hotel lobby, where hundreds of people were staring at them—Edward, to be exact.
"Mr. Newgate! What happened at the convention hall?" a reporter shouted, demanding answers. Edward just smiled and waved at them as he walked outside.
Suddenly, the trio was stopped by a few men in black suits. Rosa's instincts told her something was wrong.
They showed their badges and said, "We're from the FBI and NCS. We'll be in charge of escorting Mr. Newgate from now on."
Rosa growled, saying spitefully while glancing at the agents' names and IDs, "Until the commander of the operation says otherwise, the NYPD will be in charge of him. Now move!"
"Sorry, Detective, but we cannot do that," one of the agents said as she tried to force her way through.
"Now, now, Rosa. There's no need to get mad," Edward said, patting Rosa's buttock slightly. Rosa was taken aback. She widened her eyes and glared at him, but she also sensed a certain heaviness in her back pocket, which made her keep her mouth shut.
"They are also the police, right? I guess they want to ask me some questions since it involves a terrorist organization," Edward said before turning his back on the detectives.
Jake immediately tried to pull him back. "Edward, it's dangerous. We still haven't confirmed their identity yet."
Edward sensed something else about these agents. Their fingers were on their gun triggers the whole time, and the way they gazed at Rosa and Jake was alarming.
Edward waved dismissively and said, "Don't worry about it."
"We have already been given authority by the field commander," the agent said, which made Rosa and Jake scowl and glare at the Vulture.
"First, we need you to hand over your watch and phone. We have information that the terrorists are tapping into your devices, so we need to shut them down before going to the safe house," the muscular African American agent said, grabbing Edward's wrist.
Jake retorted, "Who didn't know that Edward would be here? Don't you guys have Instagram? There's no way they are tapping his phone and watching if they decided to attack him here."
Edward ignored Jake and said, "Sure." The agent took off his watch forcefully. Edward narrowed his eyes slightly but maintained a poker face.
He soon left with the agents while Jake and Rosa watched from afar. Jake said, "I have a bad feeling about this."
Rosa said urgently, "We have to go back to the station now. We need Holt to get Edward back. I don't trust those guys."
On the rooftop, Drasa—the sniper—said, "Should we just let him go? I have a clear line of fire if you want me to take out the agents."
"No, not yet. They have official status for now. We'll follow our boss's orders and continue to track them," Jin said in a cold tone. "Besides, the boss had already set up everything." He added.
…
An hour passed quickly. The survivors of the incident, such as Andy Samberg, went to talk about their experiences with the news reporters.
Based on the witness reports, everyone knew that Edward wasn't the one being targeted, but he stood up to the fray and saved many people today.
The clip of Edward fighting terrorists was also released after there wasn't any movement from his image agency.
Inside the 99th police precinct, Rosa asked Holt urgently, "Where is he? Do we know yet?!"
"No. I've called the FBI. They confirmed that Agent Finn is one of theirs, but they would not disclose where they had brought him," Holt said, slight tiredness in his voice.
"Ugh. This sucks," Jake threw his hands down and sighed. "We should've never let him go."
In Edward's New York penthouse, Barbara, Taylor, Selena, Willa, and Vanessa waited together while drinking some alcohol when they received the news from Jin.
Vanessa bit her lower lip anxiously before downing another shot of vodka. Taylor looked at her sympathetically and said, "He's going to be fine. You know, this is not his first rodeo."
There was an air of uncertainty in the house. No one really knew what to say.
Vanessa gripped the shot glass tightly, sweat on her palm. Although it was nearing 2 AM, no one felt sleepy.
Inside a dark underground space, Edward was escorted by numerous agents, a burlap sack covering his head.
He was thrown into a glass cage the size of a shipping container. There was a metal bed and a metal toilet inside. After the container was closed, Edward finally took off the burlap sack himself and breathed heavily.
"Ugh… Can't you evil masterminds invest in softer fabric—cotton or satin?" he said begrudgingly as he sat down on the metal chair, facing the front where numerous agents stood, staring at him.
All of his accessories had been stripped from him. His pockets were emptied, leaving him with only his suit.
"So, what's for dinner? I'm starving," Edward asked casually. His stomach growled loudly, audible to the nearest agent.
"Bring him some food," an authoritative voice commanded. Peter Kotsiopulos, the director of the National Clandestine Service (NCS), a component of the CIA that dealt with covert operations, walked slowly to the front of the cage, dragging a metal chair.
He sat down in front of Edward with a disarming smile. The circular glasses-wearing old man with white hair greeted Edward, "You know who I am, right?"
"Sure. Let's get on with the plot. I want to go back home soon," Edward said, his face already bored. It took so long for the big bad to appear that he was comparing the scene with some movies.
'Why don't I have the time skip sequence? I had to endure everything, pretending that I cannot do anything to the agents that's bringing me here.' He thought sadly.
"You seem confident that you can go back home tonight. I'm curious about the basis of your belief," Peter said with a condescending expression. Edward rolled his eyes in disgust.
At the 99th precinct, Rosa and Jake had a secret meeting in the closet.
"So when he touched your ass—"
Rosa interrupted Jake quickly, "He didn't touch it."
Jake teased, "Maybe brushed on it a little—"
"Shut up, Jake. He only did that to give me this." Rosa said before taking out a smartwatch from her back pocket.
Jake widened his eyes. "Oh my God. He gave you a gift?—Wait, sorry. The classy watch throws me off a little. The witness said that there were spies targeting his watch at the start. The agents also focused on it when they brought him away. So I'm guessing there's something in here that people are willing to die—or commit acts of terror—for."
"I've already told Holt about this. He told me to go to Cybercrimes, but honestly, I don't trust that the FBI won't have people in that department," Rosa said with distress.
Jake became slightly serious before getting an idea. "Oh! I know an internet-savvy girl who helped me with some of my cases before. She can help."
"You mean Abby?" Rosa looked at Jake in disbelief. "She's interning."
"But she's an intern at the forensic department—which is similar to how the Flash lives his double life."
"Or she could be Dexter," Rosa retorted subconsciously. Jake grinned widely as Rosa got the reference and said, "Even if she's Dexter, she's living by a code of conduct. In this case, I don't think it will be detrimental to Edward if she can crack the password."
"Oh, there's no password," Rosa said as she swiped on the smartwatch screen, entering the main menu. "But there's nothing inside that can help," Rosa added.
"Maybe it's encrypted?" Jake said as he grabbed the watch from Rosa.
They went to Abby's house, who had a twintail hairstyle. Being a night owl, Abby wasn't sleeping and was tuning in to the news report about the attack.
"Edward's life and death depend on me?" Abby had tumultuous thoughts, but she decided to help.
After connecting the watch to her computer, Abby found a hidden data vault inside the smartwatch. "It's password protected," she said anxiously, tapping on the keyboard quickly to get into the system.
"We have one try. If it fails, the defense program will delete everything stored inside," Abby turned to the detectives.
"Oh, it's a puzzle. What did a certain disgraced ballerina's hair look like at the height of her career? What's this? Who is he referring to?" Jake was confused when he read the message on the screen.
Rosa looked upward and sighed in exasperation. "Pink," she said. "The answer is pink."
"Oh—really? We only have one chance." Abby looked at Rosa with concern.
"Just type in 'pink!'" Rosa snapped. Abby flinched and quickly typed in the word. As the password was entered, a picture of Rosa with pink hair and a ballerina costume, smiling brightly as she danced, popped up on the screen.
Jake opened his mouth wide, feeling in a teasing mood, but as he turned to Rosa, he saw she was fuming, so he closed his mouth again.
The picture floated around for ten seconds before the program was finally revealed. "Live stream?" Rosa was confused when she saw one of the program's names.
"He also stores videos of the terror attacks. I guess he's filming everything for his safety," Abby said with an excited smile. "As expected of Eddy," she added with an affectionate tone.
"What's with the smile—" Before Jake could say anything, Rosa clicked on the livestream program. There, they saw the NCS director sitting in front of Edward. Facial recognition exposed the identity of the man and his status to the screen.
Although he was stripped of his gadgets, one of the buttons on Edward's suit was a mini camera, and it was filming the entire thing.
"What does the head of NCS want with Edward?" Rosa narrowed her eyes.
"W—Wait! N—NO! The program! It's connecting the livestream directly to the internet!" Abby yelled urgently.
"Maybe that is what the program is supposed to do." Rosa said in a serious tone.
Back to the blacksite. Jin, Matt and Kingpin, who was a huge muscular man with a prominent scar on his head, encircled the entire building.
"Block the signals to the outside world. And deal with every agent who's coming back to the site to report." Jin ordered.
Kingpin rolled his eyes and said lazily, "Can't we just go inside and kill everyone? What's with all of the hard work?"
"Just follow the order," Jin said firmly before he jumped off the roof to infiltrate the black site.
Edward and the NCS director's conversation continued while people were jumping on the livestream.
{IloveEdward: Is this Edward's POV cam?}
{TexasCece: Why is he in a cage? Is he getting arrested?}
[10,400 people watching.]
The number of viewers was climbing extremely fast, reaching over 2 million people in just a few minutes. Although most of the United States was sleeping right now, there were still many people around the globe who followed Edward's Instagram.
The facial recognition exposed the director's name and status to the livestream audience, so the people knew who Edward was talking to.
"I'm curious about the basis of your belief," Peter said to Edward in a condescending tone, unaware that he was being flamed by hundreds of thousands of teenage girls online.
{What's this old bag of wrinkles trying to do? Acting cool?}
Edward replied after a while, "I have a pretty solid basis, actually. You're not here to kill me. Instead, the whole thing was a farce—a show of power—which means there's something else you want from me; otherwise, I'd be eating bullets on the ride here."
Peter tried to keep a poker face, but his expression faltered the more Edward continued speaking.
"So, why does the NCS want to isolate me from my guardians? You even went so far as to set up the terror attack," Edward said with a smirk.
"First, hire some spies to steal my watch. If you're part of the CIA, then I guess you know that it's a mini computer, and based on what I see on this jail cell's control panel, I can break out from here pretty easily if I have my watch. You know the information when I diffused the bomb inside the orchestra hall. So you planned it out accordingly."
{ENT: LOL, as expected of the captain.}
{WisconsinHena: Is the government going to do anything about this?}
"Secondly, the fake bounty on my head. It's leverage. It's not… real. I guess you're going to mention it during our negotiations, telling me something like," Edward used a dumb voice to continue, "If you don't agree, then we'll vaguely answer the question to the public, making it seem real."
{Lily: Edward, don't piss him off! Don't let yourself get beaten!}
{Gina: Where are you right now?! We're going to storm the place!}
The White House was in a full-blown panic when the livestream happened. It was the first time ever that dirty secret information was thrown out to the public. "Can't we block the livestream?" a bureaucrat asked.
"How? We can't even get past the app's firewall!" another shouted.
Edward was still unraveling the plans one by one. "Then, these kinds of attacks will be the norm. It's the kind of continuous harassment that will make me constantly fear for my life. Like how the first terrorist believed the bounty to be true."
"Anslo Garrick. That poor guy. He was there just to sow the seeds for the fake bounty. You must've had some sort of deal with him. He wasn't supposed to die or do anything to me, am I right?" Edward asked with a knowing look.
The NCS director smirked and said, "Correct."
Mr. Ahmed watched the livestream from jail, yelling, "Motherfucker!"
One word from the director made everyone's blood run cold: the criminals who heard the news and the citizens in the country.
"Or you can blackmail me in other ways, depending on how I react to the first one. Maybe one of the terrorists will have one of my inventions, which is highly regulated and can be traced back to me," Edward mused for a bit.
"I'm guessing the quantum network blocker because there was interference for about a few minutes before the bomb exploded. Blame the incident on me while keeping me locked up so I cannot defend myself."
"You'd say something like me planning the whole thing in a way to gain attention. Post a psychological profile that said I'm addicted to attention and will do anything for the fix. That's more of a long term plan, but I'm guessing with the blankets and all, you're planning to keep me here for a long time."
"Also correct." Peter opened the button on his blazer, sitting more relaxed.
"Now, do you want to know why I brought you here, or do you want to guess that too?" he said mockingly, his expression as if he was saying, 'Even if you guessed it correctly, so what?'
Feeling completely in control, the NCS director said smugly, "You're a smart kid. I like that. Smart people are easy to talk to."
{Lily: He doesn't even know what's happening… He's an idiot.}
{IhateBroccoli: Yeah, he's an idiot.}
{DoMe: A giant idiot.}
"I still can't figure out why you put in so much effort," Edward said with a chuckle.
Peter suddenly turned solemn and said coldly, "Because you're dangerous."
"So, that's why I'm in a cage?" Edward laughed. "What's so dangerous about me? And give it to me in detail. I want to know how I got here."
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