"It really is such a pleasure, as always, to see you again Miss Leonhart. It's been far too long since you last paid me the honor of visiting. I was starting to fear that you'd discovered a different broker to rely upon."

"You know where everybody goes, who they meet with, and when they do it. Your eyes are everywhere in this city. If I was meeting with somebody else to buy intel, I have a hard time believing that you wouldn't know about it." Annie replies to the slightly portly, balding man as she follows him down the hall and into his well-decorated office. He ushers her in with a broad knowing smile as if to say, "Touché", in response to Annie's claim.

He wears a finely-tailored and expensive looking suit, with a bright red tie and Italian leather shoes upon his feet. His office matches the proclivity of his wardrobe; the furniture having been hand-carved out of wood with ornate and intricate decorations. Books upon books sit upon a large shelf tucked against the back wall, Annie assuming that each one has probably been read from cover to cover more than once. He gestures for her to take a seat, and she obliges him as she does so; getting comfortable in the cushioned wooden chair while he walks around and does the same in his large leather chair on the opposite side of his mahogany desk. She now sits face-to-face with the man she knows only by the pseudonym, "Pockets", so named due to the wealth of information he's seemingly able to pull out from nowhere. It's the only thing about him that belies his otherwise impeccable professional style, but he rather enjoys the mild whimsy of the nickname.

"Well, I know that you aren't typically one to engage in much idle chit-chat, Miss Leonhart, so shall we proceed straight to the business which has brought you here?" Pockets asks with another small grin, already aware of the answer he's going to receive even before Annie nods to him to do just that. She's been a client of his for almost a year and a half now, and it doesn't take long to understand the way that she operates. Sitting across the desk from him in an oversized, unbuttoned, light gray suit jacket with the sleeves rolled up past her elbows, a shirt on underneath it of blue and white horizontal stripes, a pair of rather dark blue denim jeans, and a pair of black combat boots, her composed and icy demeanor indicates that this meeting will go exactly as all of their previous ones have.

"Of course. You have come to me seeking assistance in determining a certain somebody's identity, is that correct?" Pockets follows up as he spins his chair a bit to the left and begins flipping through a stack of folders sat upon his desk, glancing up at Annie occasionally while thumbing through the papers inside.

"Somebody has been beating me to my contracts recently. I show up and the target has already been taken care of. I don't like having my time wasted, and I don't like not getting paid." Annie says flatly, her steely blue eyes narrowing a bit as she sits back in her chair with her small legs crossed. Three times over the past month, she'd been hired to do a job only to discover that somebody else had already beaten her to the punch. That many occurrences in such a short span of time led her to believe it couldn't just be a coincidence. She wasn't entirely sure what was going on, but that's what she was here to find out.

"Ah yes…you aren't the only one who has contacted me about this problem as of late. It seems that there's an enthusiastic fellow out there who possesses quite a knack for interfering in what others believe to be their business." Pockets replies as he bends down and opens up one of his desk drawers, the irony of his words not lost on Annie considering that Pockets has made an entire business off of other people's business. The broker of information lets out a small "Aha!" as he apparently finds what it is that he's been searching through his things for, smiling back up pleasantly at Annie and shutting the drawer back up now that he's pulled out a rather thin blue folder which assumably contains all the information that the diminutive yet intimidating young blonde desires.

Annie doesn't speak as her informant opens the file up and starts reading excerpts of it under his breath, only watching him as he does so and reaching behind her head to adjust her loose ponytail a bit. Within a minute, Pockets has found himself content with everything he's just scanned over, and he closes the folder back up to place it down flat atop his desk, hands folded neatly over it.

"Rest assured however, Miss Leonhart, that I am quite confident when I say to you that I believe I have surmised just who the individual in question is. I don't think I need to tell you though that this information is not something I can just give away for free. After all, I don't enjoy not getting paid just as much as you don't." Pockets says leaning forward in his leather seat a bit while Annie remains against the sturdy wooden back of hers.

"I imagine most people would share a disdain for not being paid to do what they're best at. I've already arranged to have the funds transferred over to you through our secure line. Now tell me what you have." Annie replies staring straight ahead at the stout, middle-aged man seated across from her, watching the corners of his mouth curl into another grin before he speaks.

"Wonderful. Well in that case I suppose there's no reason for me not to share with you what I've uncovered. I am glad that you are presently seated for this as well, as the information I'm about to share might be quite a lot for you to handle." Pockets says, causing Annie to raise her thin eyebrows slightly in confusion. "Now this was not a very easy discovery to make whatsoever. The perpetrator in question that you, and others like you, have been recently plagued by is quite skilled when it comes to covering up his own tracks. I was rather fortunate, I must say, that he left me with the tiniest of cracks to slip through in his defenses though. From there, it took some time, but eventually I managed to reveal all of his secrets. Therefore, I can tell you with only the most miniscule margin of doubt, that the man you're looking for is none other than one Mister Eren Yeager." Pockets continues before finally unveiling to Annie the identity of the person who's been interfering in her contracts, and for just a brief moment in time the blonde-haired ice queen breaks her ever-present composure with the look of shock on her face.

The expression vanishes almost as quickly as it appeared though, and Annie digs her fingers into the wooden armrests of her chair for a second before standing up and staring down at Pockets, making for quite the daunting presence despite standing only a hair over five feet tall.

"Eren Yeager is dead. Tell me that I didn't come all the way down here just for you to lie to me." She says with venom in her voice as Pockets adjusts his tie and nods lightly, raising a hand up in an effort to tell Annie to remain calm.

"Yes, I am well aware that the unanimous belief over the last three years has been that Eren Yeager unfortunately perished during the incident at the Asiata Complex, but it seems that nobody did their due diligence in making certain that he was deceased either over this time period. There was a funeral for him, but no record of his body ever being recovered, no confirmation that I could find of anybody ever identifying his corpse either."

"He was killed in an explosion. As close as he was to the blast, there probably wasn't any body left to recover. Eren is dead. Whatever your sources are telling you, they're wrong." Annie rebuts, still firm in the belief that she and everybody else has held for the last three years, which is that Eren was killed in an explosion when a covert job went horribly wrong. She was at the Asiata Complex, and she can still vividly remember hearing the boom and feeling the walls vibrate around her when it happened. The moment still occasionally haunts her in her dreams.

"I'm afraid that my sources are never wrong Miss Leonhart. I would think that you have partaken in my services enough times by now to know this. I understand that this must be difficult news for you to process, but I can guarantee you that Eren Yeager is alive and well. And…I can tell you where to find him." Pockets says as he too stands and wears a smirk upon his pudgy face, reaching a hand into the front pocket of his jacket and pulling out a small flash drive in between his thumb and index finger.

All at once Annie feels overwhelmed by the sudden possibility of her former comrade still being alive; her mind rushing with a thousand different thoughts while outwardly she focuses on maintaining her sullen demeanor, not needing anybody to detect a potential weakness in her. She reaches out to take the flash drive from Pockets, only to have the rotund, balding man pull it back out of reach.

"Of course, such information would carry a very lucrative price with it. I'm afraid that our usual fee will not cover this added bonus. You asked only for a name, and that is what you have paid for. This," Pocket states, gesturing with the flash drive still in his grip, "Will require another payment. Same standing fee as before, no negotiations." He finishes as he lays out his demands, Annie silently steaming at now being strong-armed into paying double the amount that she had anticipated for this meeting.

"Fine. I'll arrange for the transfer after I leave here. You just better hope that everything on that stick is accurate." Annie acquiesces in a bit of a huff as she reaches out her small hand and this time is rewarded by her broker who hands the drive over to her. The short, young blonde snatches it quickly and puts it directly into the front pocket of her large, charcoal jacket for safe keeping. Without another word she turns on her heel and starts heading for the office door, her business being done here.

"Oh Miss Leonhart! I'm dreadfully sorry, but I nearly forgot to mention one important detail. You see, with information as vital and sensitive as what I just gave you, I had to ensure that I went to great lengths to keep it from falling into the wrong hands. That is why I took the liberty of encrypting the data, lest anybody make an attempt to access it without my blessing." Pockets pipes up from behind Annie however, sitting back down at his desk and pretending that this information had nearly slipped his mind, Annie already well aware of where this is headed and not even bothering to turn back around to face him.

"I would be more than happy to decrypt it for you, of course. It would only just require another moderate transaction on your part, as compensation for the time and labor that it would take to do so. I'm sure you understand." He adds with a grin plastered upon his plump face, quite pleased with himself and the way he's managed to squeeze Annie for three times the usual amount of money she pays whenever she's in need of information.

Annie, however, has plans of her own already developing in her head. If the data she was now in possession of really did contain proof that Eren was alive, and it could tell her exactly where he was, she knew she needed to see it. With the encryption that Pockets claims to have placed on it though, it would be nearly impossible for her to hack it herself. Her expertise in computers and coding was nowhere near broad enough to match somebody like Pockets…but she knew someone who could; someone who would share her interest in finding out whether or not Eren still lived.

"I understand. Just like I'm sure you'll understand when I tell you no thanks. I wouldn't want you to have to waste your time undoing your own work. I'll take care of it on my own." Annie says with her hands in the pockets of her jeans as she stands there with her back turned, having to imagine the smile dropping from Pockets' face and finding it a satisfying enough image to end this meeting on; opening up the office door, walking out, and shutting it behind her before he has the chance to say a single word in protest.

Author's Postscript: Hey, thank you all for taking the time to read the prologue and introduction to what I'm hoping will be a really great adventure. I appreciate you spending your valuable time reading my work, and I promise you'll be glad that you did. Chapters in the future will be longer than this. I just wanted something succinct to get things off the ground and start spinning the wheels.

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