Case - 1 : Struggle.

I slogged through the list of coordinates on the pages and began reading through them to compare them with the ones that were logged in the police report.

My fingers scanned across the pages as I began working around with the pages I had folded to mark the ones that 'Hmm…these match, these match too….hmmm…..'

My heart sank as the movement of my finger became harder and harder over time with more and more of the datasets matching across both the reports. I slowly became uncertain if the two fools had handed over to me the same report once again.

'Why did these two fools go to the city of moderates anyway?'

'The only place where their report diverges from the official report is the waiting time around the banker's house.'

'The official report states that K.M was the one that went inside the house while A.V waited outside, probably waiting in their vehicle, and that both of them stayed in the area for about three minutes.'

'Meaning their attack was planned, and they knew exactly what Neuinio was doing and when…?'

'While their own report shows that they had already left the area during these three minutes and had reached a different position altogether.'

'But the police wouldn't take this as evidence since it was location data from a jailbroken custom system used just by BloodSHA. Although the official reason was that the location data could be inaccurate and manipulated, in reality it was a much more sinister reason. It was to disregard data gathered by the BloodSHA on any shady deals going on between the higher class societies of the world.'

Pausing to think about what the discrepancies could mean, I unbuttoned my coat and folded it to create a rudimentary cushion, which I used to lean back on the chair by padding out the rebar.

'Maybe I can extract some information from the common areas?'

Closing my eyes, I imagined the scenario playing inside my mind.

'Two thugs move throughout the city, perhaps they were selling their self synthetized JOI pods? Possible, but they didn't stop anywhere on their trip except when they returned and when they reached Creek's Food Zone.'

'Perhaps they had a deal with someone at the Food Zone? But since my clients currently haven't given me information regarding who they were meeting, they think that the other party isn't related to this trap.'

'But given how Suimanto controls the BloodSHA's tracking blockchain, I don't doubt that they were in some way involved in this setup, if it was a setup in the first place.'

'The involvement is not likely to be a high level compromise but a low level one, this is too sloppy to be someone with any actual power.'

But this doesn't help me right now in any way, after all how foolish would I sound if I began speaking about Suimanto being involved in the deaths of a simple banker.

'I'd probably be dead before anyone even began to look into the death of the banker itself.'

'No. I need something more definitive.'

'Like what?'

'Something that can give me a definitive reason why the ones that murdered the man were not A.V and K.M.'

'Hmm….can I prove K.M was not at the scene of the crime?'

'No.'

'Can I prove that the banker was dead before K.M arrived at the scene of the crime?'

'The picture was taken at 7:20 pm in the evening….hmm….when was the report about the crime initially filed?'

I picked up the case files and began reading through them once again, as I came across a page that detailed the transcript of the emergency comms that had been evoked in this situation.

Dispatch: Bram County, AAB what is the location of your emergency?

Caller: I just saw two men drive away in a vehicle while holding what looked like a waver.

Dispatch: Are you sure they are not the police mam?

Caller: Yes. I think they just used the waver to kill my neighbor.

Dispatch: Where exactly is your location mam?

Caller: Trojan road at the end of the Lethe street.

Dispatch: Have they already left mam?

Caller: Yes.

Dispatch: Can you describe their vehicle and their direction to me please?

Caller: Erm….they were riding a low black angular Hoversteed, moving toward the center of the city.

Dispatch: I see, Can you describe them to me mam?

Caller: One of them is wearing a black mask, with a white jacket and a dark violet pant, while I couldn't see the other one since he was behind a projection window attached to the bike that scrambled his face, but I could hear him, his voice sounded like the thugs on the shows.

Dispatch: I see, Mam please wait at your spot the police will arrive soon.

Caller: Do you need me to check up on my neighbor?

Dispatch: No mam that is not necessary at the moment, please remain where you are.

Caller: You're telling me it might still be dangerous?

Dispatch: No mam but we're not sure of it at the moment so kindly stay where you are. Are you inside your house mam?

Caller: Yes. I was watching through the windows. My neighbor is usually home around this time and parks his hoversteed in my spot, so I have to constantly tell him off.

…

'Hmmm…..I skimmed through the remaining duration of the emergency comms and then flipped back to the beginning as I focused on the words, 'My neighbor is usually home around this time…''

'So it was possible for someone else to have planned this?'

'But clearly there are two people that are part of the robbery…and why did she say they were riding a hoversteed….? Do thugs still use them? I thought they went out of fashion a couple of years ago.'

'Hmm…..I need something more substantial.'

'How did the lady know that they had used the waver to kill her neighbor? There wasn't a fight. Clearly. And it seems like there…'

Quickly checking the police report about any signs of any forced entry I found out there were…

'...was no forced entry into the house, so no sound to alert her.'

'.....did she really come out just to check on the parking space?'

I checked the map provided inside the report and looked at the house that had the label 'Victim' and another one that had the label 'Caller Report., both the houses were opposite to each other.

'Huh? Why would a lady living on the opposite side of the street be worried about someone parking on her side of the road?'

'...what in Suimanto's name is going on?'

'Hmm…..I need something more concrete.'

I flipped through the pages to try and find something more among the information I already had but I didn't find much.

'Hmm….that's odd.'

'Why isn't there any motive stated for committing the crime?'

'Why would two random low level thugs walk into someone's home and kill him in broad daylight for absolutely no reason?'

*knock* *knock*

Softly knocking on the table once again, I was met with the same orangish blue eyes that were looking at me a few minutes ago, once again through the sliding peephole built into the heavy metal door.

"What do you need?" K.M asked, dropping most of his pretenses that he had been carrying till now, his tone a little colder too.

"Can you search for the name 'Vera Morrigan' and tell me what comes up?" I spoke, dropping any sense of fear too, in a casual tone as if I were talking to a colleague.

K.M stared right at me for a few seconds before turning to A.V and speaking out loud, "What he said."

I heard A.V stamp his foot in a frustrated manner as his voice carried over into my wonderful room that had a single low burning lamp light hanging from the ceiling.

"Goddamn K.M you want me to leave a trail on the real web? Are you crazy!? You want to cut short our remaining time here too!?"

"Just do it." K.M said in a no nonsense tone as I heard A.V grumble again, but a little more silently, presumably focusing on using his interface to ask the OceanicNet for what I'd just asked.

It wasn't long after that A.V shouted over, "There's nothing but a bunch of reports about her being a key witness in our case!? Did you really find anything at all!? Who even is she in the first place!?"

K.M glared at me through the peeping window while I closed my eyes for a second and replied back in a loud tone, "Try filtering by reports from earlier before the incident was picked up by Suimanto."

"What good will tha-"

A.V's voice froze as if he'd forgotten to speak, or more like his voice module had malfunctioned, but it quickly returned with a loud shout that caused K.M to leave paying attention to me and look at A.V instead.

"WHAT IN THE NAM̶̼͒E̸̬̓ ̸̣̆O̴͈͗F̷̟͐ ̷̯̽S̴̻̉U̵͍͆I̵̖͑M̶̝͛A̸͍̕Ñ̴ͅT̷̛̰Ô̸͕!!!!"

A.V's generic voice cracked by the end because of his loud shouting that caused both me and K.M to try and instinctively cover our ears in our own ways, me biologically with my hands, while K.M using his sound settings on his interface screen.

"What did you find?" K.M asked calmly.

"Fuck Brutha' he did it! This lady! This bitch! She can't be used as a witness! She went through a MindWipe a few months ago!"

K.M's eyes focused back onto me as I smirked at him and spoke in a confident tone, "I can't do much more from in here. You'll need to let me out."

I watched K.M leave the door and walk a few steps away from it, before returning and beginning to open the heavy metallic door.

*CLANG* *THUD*

The bold that kept the heavy metallic door bolted shut opened with a thud after K.M began walking into the room, but the thing that was in his hands left me feeling tensed about the encounter.

"You really did it brotha'" K.M spoke as he moved closer, while I began to stand under the pretense of trying to stretch my sore legs.

"It seems it was a great choice to choose you, in spite of the rumors about your behavior that are generally circulated around the block."

I looked at K.M with a no bullshit relaxed look like I had not a single care in the world, I don't think I actually did but it was good to pretend anyway, and asked him in a calm voice, "You'll be needin-"

*SLAM*

Before I could react I felt the butt of the waver he was holding slam into my skull, my knees buckled with the throbbing headache returning with full force as my body reacted to the next moves instinctively.

I kicked off of the ground in my semi conscious state and lunged at K.M with A.V still lost staring at his interface screen that only he could see and pulled his neck.

K.M flew back with my momentum as he began to crash to the floor along with me, but I just balanced myself by forming a tight knee lock that definitely broke my thirty three-year-old kneecaps but ended up directly snapping K.M's neck under the weight of his own lower prosthetic body.

I watched from the corner of my eyes as A.V reacted to the situation with a sudden jerk and began arming his waver for a shot, but I ducked further forward and slammed the door shut in his face as I hear the *BUZZZZZZ* from the waver reach its peak and shoot into the thick door.

A warm sensation reached first my hands and then my blood and then my bones that no doubt caused every cell in my body go through some level of erasure, but I kept my head protected by ducking away from the door and towards the wall out of the range of the beam that I roughly calculated at a glance from experience, as the quantum waves passed through everything in my body because of my proximity to the door, but I ignored the heavy pain I was facing and picked up the waver K.M was carrying earlier.

K.M tried his best to glare at me with his eyes that were still frantically spinning around trying to regain balance.

'Huh. Looks like the fall damaged his gyroscopic balance chip. Good for me. I don't have to worry about him moving around for now.'

I charged my own Waver as the door opened in slow motion with my waver *buzzing* as blood poured from my nose and my body felt lighter because of the several cells inside my body that had been erased and shot the waver right into his feet with it set to erase any metal in front of me.

Just as the door fully opened my waver fired the waves without affecting me in anyway as I watched, A.V's legs simply entirely vanish before he could even take another step into the room along with his waver.

A.V like K.M fell down and due to the wrong angle of falling with unequal weights snapped his neck but remained alive as the chips worked overtime to go into a backup emergency mode to keep his blood pumping and his lungs breathing, even though his nerves had been killed.

I heard A.V Scream something using his voice box, but nothing in my head seemed to be working as intended after being hit in the head while I was off of my medicine.

'Remember, an officer's safety is the first thing on duty! Only if you can remain safe will you be able to protect everyone else.' I heard a voice that I usually heard only during my nightmares, a feminine voice that now only became a source of my hauntings, instructing me to stay safe.

I pushed myself from the door, pulled it shut and bolted it with a loud *SCREEEECH* as I dropped my waver and kicked A.V's waver that had been dragged outside along with the door.

"Ahhh..." I groaned as I clutched my head and went on my knees out of pain as I collapsed without control and lost consciousness.