The Bureau's team

He agreed to her demands and headed towards the shop. It was a very basic lottery system of spinning the wheel which had many white balls but one red ball and one golden. Red guaranteed the lottery but golden gave extra prices. He paid at the cashier and let Mimi spin the wheel.

From all the earlier events, he was anticipating a golden ball. And indeed, a shiny golden ball dropped from the wheel when it stopped.

"Congratulations! You have won the golden reward."

The man took him to a room where there were multiple boxes. He opened one to show a chocolate pie inside, meaning all the boxes here were filled with chocolate pies. But instead of the anticipated response, the man noticed that the little girl was about to cry.

Aiden quickly said, "Can't we get potato chips instead?"

The man hesitantly replied, "But that is the reward for the red ball sir."

"Can't you just give me potato chips equivalent to the price of these chocolate pies?"

"I'll contact the manager."

It was roughly 5 minutes later when the guy entered the room again. "The manager has agreed to give you potato chips of the same value."

"Thank you. Please keep it here itself, deliver it only when I give you a call." But after taking a quick look at Mimi's face, he took a packet and placed it in her empty hands which had already completed the previous packet. "I'll take just one for now." 

It was a short but welcome distraction. Coincidentally, he also caught sight of the bus approaching the nearby stop. He sprinted madly towards the stop and managed to get on the bus, getting off near the third site of murder after approximately 15 minutes. The buses took different routes so the time it took for one to go from one place to another varied depending on what bus you took.

Going in, he noticed that the work was still going on. People were going about and examining every small thing. 

How much manpower is being dedicated to it?

When he entered with Mimi in his hands, Hellen and Valeria who were conversing on a sofa of the living room nearby immediately got up and approached him.

Valeria excitedly began chatting with Mimi while Hellen only gave her a once over before gazing at Aiden.

"Long story." He shrugged. 

The next 20 minutes he told her about everything which happened, during the course of which Valeria joined. When he turned around, he noticed Mimi was sitting alone on the dining table with potato chips in her hand.

"It might not be good to involve her too much in this." Valeria reminded him as he was about to bring her. Hellen followed up, "The Bureau is way more sensitive than you think."

He relented. When he was finally done, before they could even get to asking questions, Hellen's phone rang. She looked at them.

"The Bureau's team is here."

Hellen and Valeria got up at once, with Aiden following behind them. He took a glance at Mimi, who seemed to have noticed it. She waved excitedly at him with a wide smile, crumbs of potato chips stuck to the edges of her lips and fingers. 

Unlike the time when he tried to leave her behind at the management center of the park and she cried loudly, this time she seemed to know Aiden wasn't leaving.

She dug back into her bag of potato chips as Aiden turned and followed the two ladies out.

He took out his phone and browsed through the chat if there were any new discoveries in the meantime that he was out with Mimi. 

There were a few, he committed that to his memory and glanced around. 

"Didn't you say they were here?"

"I don't see them either."

Valeria agreed as both of them looked at Hellen. 

"How do you think they'll arrive?"

She smiled. 

"A car right? A team of the Bureau must obviously be allowed one."

"A modified van or bus maybe?"

Valeria offered another answer. Instead of answering them, Hellen smiled and looked up.

As if on a cue, a loud deafening roar, caused by the whirring blades, was heard in the sky as a rapidly enlarging helicopter came into view.

Aiden's eyes widened a little in admiration while Valeria's expression froze, eyes fixed on the helicopter. A silent mutter escaped her lips, "I want that too."

The three of them stood in place as the sound kept increasing, their line of sight slowly decreasing with the helicopter. It landed accurately on the empty road in front of them after hovering above for a few seconds. As soon as it did, its doors opened up.

A tall young man in a sports outfit stepped out of it first. Next was a petite, chubby, young woman in tracks and sweatshirt. Following after her was a young man, neither too tall nor too short but had a scowl on his face. The last two were a middle aged man with a book in his hand and a short but lean young woman. The helicopter flew away after the tall young man who had descended first said something to the pilot.

"Why did they send youngsters?" Valeria asked no one in particular. Before the other two could reply, the young man standing far away with a scowl on his face seemed to have heard her. He barked, "Do you think we are inexperienced? Imbecile. I have the authority to kill you for speaking such nonsense."

Who said anything about being inexperienced. 

Aiden thought but wisely chose to keep his mouth shut. The young man had just taken a step forward when the tall one blocked his way with his hand. "We're on a task. Less with your antics."

Without waiting for him to rebuke, the tall young man, who seemed like the leader for the operation, reached out for a handshake as he introduced himself. There was no smile on his face contrary to the petite chubby young woman who was already looking around the town with a slight smile.

"Hello. I am Alastair, leader of this group. Who is Hellen here? I've been ordered to cooperate with her."