All three detectives present at the se stayed for awo hours before they disbanded - hard w as they might be, all three of them still needed a break after one day of work even if it was an urgent case. In turn, they would o leave it to the night shift officers to guard the se and exami some more just in case they fot or missed anything. Before he left, Marcus put in an official urgent request to the power pany that sent this team to inquire information about each of the team members - but given the usual rea speed of these local half-city-runned pahey would probably get ba in at least a few hours or even days.

  “Detective, your father’s bill.” When Marcus finally set foot in the front door of his apartment plex, the doorwatch handed him a small paper bill, on it was the bance of 20 dolrs.

  “What’d he do this time?” Marcus sighed and took out his wallet.

  “He broke a few windows and threw up on the floor, so we ed his wounds and had Mr. Wells take a look at him. He would bill you separately.” The doorwatswered: “We put him ba the couch.”

  “Thank you Mr. Bke, much appreciated. ” Marcus took out two bills, a amount of 25 dolrs and hahem to the doorwatch.

  “No problem.” Mr. Bke took the bills without saying anything: “It’s almost 15 years, so - I apologize if he should cause you any more trouble. I would defialk to him.”

  “I know, I know.” Mr. Bke shook his head: “I know someone who was on that cruise as well, hell, probably everyone does - they just asked me to join a memorial service. Just - take care of your dad, will ya? One ot live like that.”

  “I’ll try, thanks.” Marcus sighed: “Have a good one sir.”

  Elvin, Marcus’ father was lying on the couch when Marcus came home, in a cradle position and was covered in bs. There were some more empty bottles on the ground, but the stench of cheap alcohol in the air had almost all dissipated. His right hand was bandaged up in a firm aiculous fashion. Though this very apartment plex was in ahat was far from bei and the people living in it were mostly just barely getting by, Mr. Wells, the unofficial “plex doctor” was still careful and beyond “professional” to his patients.

  After giving his father another b because of the temperature readings of the thermometer of the room - he couldn’t feel much of the cold ever since he had a good handle of Ferocious Tiger Style, whiot only toughened his body, but also afforded him a good amount of Qi which became almost ever-present in his meridians, providing him additional resistao ive external influences, like low temperature in this case.

  Before doing a quick meditation and practice session and going to bed for a short nap, he took a cold shower per his daily routine and tried tanize his thoughts about the matters at hand.

  First is the seemingly normal and simple case of the car crash and the missing son of Rick Benson. He couldn’t help but feel this was a case where there was much more to it than it appeared - maybe it was because the eagerness of the father to find his son and the not-so-subtle iion of c things up, maybe it was because of the strange and chilling facial expression of the dead young woman and the weird feelings he had when he was at the se. Kevin apparently was thinking that he might e into tact with something paranormal or “un”, yet there was little crete proof of that. He was not oo immediately believe or dismiss the cims of ghosts, spirits or other supernatural occurrences. He just prefered to deal with things he could see, hear or feel.

  Throughout his not lo not short career as a w enfort officer, he had indeed entered some truly bizarre and somewhat terrifying cases where supernatural presence might have been the only reasonable expnation - but he also had to remind himself that these kind of expnations could in many ways just be cop-outs when the leads ran cold and there was information missed or hidden. And this kind of cop-out would eventually lead to ziness, ina and utter irresponsibility. He did not want to fall into that - he could feel his stomach ing just at the thought of it.

  Having double and then triple checked the locks and windows, straight into his bedroom he went. The main bedroom was empty, because it was kept for his father, who rarely used it.

  The m, after a short nap of barely over 3 hours, Marcus woke up even earlier than usual and headed directly to the local electric power pany, by the name of “S&S Corp”, to inquire information about the emergency reparations team. And just as he suspected, even with the team brutally murdered, the power pany did not fully process the request yet. It was in a state of “pending review”, whatever that meant.

  “I’m sorry, officer. But that request is still being processed, it’s under administrative review. We try to rush them for you. But there’s not much we do.” The dy at the front desk id down her phone and said to Marcus with a professional routine smile: “Without the permission of the respective departments, we are not able to divulge personal informatiarding our employees - ”

  “Even if they’re dead and we’re trying to find out who murdered them? I talk to someone in charge?” Marcus sighed, shook his head and then took his pho: “I put our captain on the phone - ”

  “Detective!” Just this minute, a man’s voice with slightly exaggerated friendliness ahusiasm interrupted Marcus and the dy at the front desk. When Marcus turo the dire where the voice came from, he noticed it was a man with shiny and well-groomed hair and mustache, and a shiny ag on his chest: “I am the on-call executive maoday, what I help you with?”

  “Hello.” Marcus shook hands with this man while trying to read his ag: “Mr… Fke, I am Detective Cai from the 17th Prect of PCPD. I put in an urgent information request te st night to request some personal information about a certain emergency reparations team you sent out st night…”

  “Oh, we actually sent out three teams st night, I wonder whie you’re talking about?”

  “The oh six members, to fix the sub station at the er of Emerson Street a 11th Street.” Marcus said: “We have a situation on our hands - they fell victims to what we presumed as murder. So I am here to collect their personal information as a part of our iigation - in particur their associations, personal works and any other information that could help.”

  “Oh, my, god.” Mr. Fke gasped and covered his mouth: “That’s - that’s horrible! What happened?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out, so as a part of our iigation - ”

  “I totally uand, detective, let’s sit down and we will help you in any way we .” Mr. Fke poio the side and then snapped his fingers at the young dy at the front desk: “Forward that request to me, I will personally approve it right now. And call Mr. Saks immediately.”

  Mr. Saks turned out to be a corporate sel, who sat beside Mr. Fke and had a rec device.

  “Sorry for this red tap and formality, but we’ll o record our versation so that rovide training for future members of our pany.” Mr. Fke smilde and pulled up a dot on his tablet: “Okay, so I’ve skimmed through your request, detective, and I fully appreciate the work you do. But I would like to ask some questions first, if that’s okay with you.”

  “Sure. Just make it quick.” Marcus repressed his urges to raise his void responded with a quid simple answer.

  “Of course, of course.” Mr. Fke exged looks with Mr. Saks, then proceeded: “Do you have any specific proof or evidehat the murder happened?”

  “What?” Marcus almost scoffed, but then had to calm himself down a little.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be iive, but we haven’t heard from the team on any of this, and our on-call ter did not receive any alerts or calls for help from them - so as you imagine, we are just as blind to the situation than anyone.” Mr. Fke re-framed his question with a smile: “So, as the one reviewing this request, I would like to see some ev - ”

  Before Mr. Fke could finish his sentence, Marcus raised his phone and showed him a few distantly-shot photos of the se, whicluded sights of the bodies from some distand without revealiails of any of them.

  “Oh! Oh!” Mr. Fke jolted back as if he just saw something really horribly disturbing and horrifying that he had never seen before: “Okay! Okay! Sorry about that! I think that’s enough! Yes!”

  “Any other questions?” Marcus dimmed his phone and asked.

  “Oh! Yeah! Sorry! Oh!” Mr. Fke’s rea seemed just as exaggerated as his friendly enthusiasm: “Yeah, just another question then I’ll approve this request - could you provide us any updates on the case when you do find something?”

  “That’s - that’s not up to me. You’ll o unicate with our captain, Captain Ko.” Marcus shook his head.

  “Uood, uood.” Mr. Fke nodded and looked at Mr. Saks once again: “Now, I’ll have my people pull the information and present it to you.”

  “Actually, I have a question of my own.” Marcus said: “I would like to talk to some of the team members’ coworkers, you help me with that?”

  “Yes, of course! Just wait here a moment, I’ll find some people that talk to you.” Mr, Fke adjusted his fine and luxurious looking suit: “And I apologize for my - my unprofessional rea.”

  “Not a problem, I appreciate your help and cooperation.”