“Meticulous as ever. And still has that award-winning personality I see,” Garfield muses.

The rookie walks up to the pair. “Are we done here Sarge?” he whined. “I’m getting a major case of the munchies.” The rookie rubbed his stomach to put emphasis on that statement.

“You should’ve grabbed something before we got here, Baughn,” the sergeant scolds. He chuckles and then turns to Jones. 

“We need to hide back to the station anyways and log some of this evidence. You two and close out from here, yeah?”

Jones smiles amusedly at the two partners. “You two go on. Detective Moreau and I can handle the rest of this investigation,” he said to the two men.

The sergeant and Buaghn turn to leave the area. The sergeant sends a wave back to Jones. “We’ll catch up with you later then.” 

“I heard there’s this really nice ramen place in Central Market. Can we try that out, Sarge?” Baughn asked his superior as they departed the area. Jones watched them leave then turned his head back to see his partner standing behind him.

He jumps a barely noticeable bit and groans in annoyance. “Jesus Christ, how many times do I have to tell you not to sneak up on me like that, Beatrice.”

The woman paid his reaction no mind as she looked down at her scanner. I have finished having a look around. I believe I have a solid theory on what happened hear.”

Jones stands up and removes a cigarette from a pouch in his pocket, places it in his mouth, and begins lighting it. “Is that so? Then let me hear it,” he replies. Beckoning her to continue.

Moreau nods and continues. “Firstly, the weapon,” she starts while shoving a crumpled round into his face. 

“Usually, any and all records of purchases made by individuals are stored in a database that we can easily access along with any other information. Thing is, this weapon doesn’t show up at all. On top of that, Mr. Conner has no recorded weapons handler license on file.”

“So, he obtained the weapon illegally then,” Jones chimed in. “That’s just a normal occurrence here. For what purpose would he need it though?”

“I’m getting to that.” Moreau looks over to the dead man's body.

“A few days prior to this incident, Mr. Conner abruptly ended his employment at Tomaru Corp, stating a family emergency as his reasoning. Said his nephew came down with a severe illness and that he might pass and that his sister was in a wreck. Thing is, his sister also apparently moved to Japan and broke all contact with Mr. Conner. This brings me to that boot print I spotted over there.

She gestures to the smudge not far away. “I attempted to construct a possible projection of the assailant off of it, but got nothing.”

Jones places his index and thumb on his hair-covered chin. “So, he suddenly drops from one of the highest paying positions a person could wish for at one of the most reputable companies in the country abruptly. He lies about family issues being the reason, illegally gets his hands on a sidearm, though, in my opinion, that part is not too outside of the ordinary for this city, and then he is murdered out of the blue.”

Moreau nods. “It is my belief that someone had it out for Mr. Conner here. In an act of fear, he broke all ties with the Tomaru Corporation and armed himself, hoping to escape whoever was after him. He was then cornered here, where he was killed.”

She tilted her head towards the bullet in her palm and rolled it around absent-mindedly. “Perhaps Tomaru Corp. has something to do with this, seeing as he left them abruptly,” she states. Jones blows out a puff of smoke. 

“But it’s just a theory,” he says. “A big company like that would not be stupid enough to ruin its reputation over one worker. But who knows? They are a corp.”

Moreau stops rolling the bullet. “He used armor-piercing rounds.”

This caught Jones’s attention. “APR’s? On an unregistered, illegally obtained firearm. What would this guy need those for?”

“Well, maybe he had the right idea. He clearly hit whatever he shot at,” Moreau states. But seeing as there’s no blood trail anywhere other than this guys'…”

“Who would even be ballsy enough to go after a Tomaru Corp employee,” Jones thinks out loud.

Moreau sighs. “I have my guesses.”

Jones could somehow sense what was on her mind and passes her a concerning look inturn. “They can’t break the laws, Beatrice. It was probably some cyborg like Organo or some augmented hitman sent by the company.”

“Maybe…,” Moreau replies.

Jones closes his eyes with a sigh and toses out the cigarette. “Let’s head back. We’re not going to find much else here it looks like.” He starts to walk off as two of the medical Auto Droids approach to secure the corpse.

“Oh, pardon me, ma’am,” one of them says as they walk past Beatrice. She gives them an odd look that seems to last for one hundred years. A look of contempt with a hint of disgust. She found flashes of old memories trying to force their way through her mind briefly. She mentally shoves them away and walks out after Jones.

A few minutes later, Mr. Conner’s body was being loaded up into the back of a medical emergency vehicle. Its red, white, and orange lights illuminated the water-covered street and alleyway as pedestrians moved about, glancing periodically to see what was going on as they moved. This sight was all too commonplace, so people did not really seem interested. Beatrice sat in the passenger side of an all-black sports car a couple of paces away as her superior talked to the medics for a bit. She looked back down at some of the information on her scanner with slightly furrowed brows.

The things that were still bothering her were the lack of anything left behind by the killer, the crumpled-up bullet, and the fact that the victim was an employee at the most powerful corporation existing in the latter half of the 21st century. Whoever is behind this was good at covering their tracks. Her attention was pulled by the sound of the driver’s side door opening as Jones got in the vehicle.

He let out a long, exasperated groan as he sat back in the seat. “You know, sometimes I wonder why I stay in this shithole,” he muttered as he started the car.

“So where will it be today?” he asked Beatrice. “Burgers? That ol’ ice cream parlor near the fairgrounds?”

“Home,” she responded nonchalantly.

Jones sighed. “You know, you could stand to have a little fun and relaxation every once in a while, Beatrice.”

Beatrice chuckles at the thought of ever being relaxed. “Oh yeah? Like what?”

“Like not working and drinking your life away,” Jones says back sincerely. “Stop trying to be like you old man for once.” She gives her partner an emotionless stare then turns away from him and places two black Bluetooth earbuds in her ears and pulls out a red cell phone to play some music. 

She stares at a photo of a little girl, herself, next to her father. The faint sounds of some alt-rock music begins echoing from her earbuds after she presses the play button. She lays back in her seat and closes her eyes an in attempt to shift her thoughts from her childhood memories to the music she plays to drown them out.

Jones shook his head. ‘Where did I go wrong with this woman,’ he thought as he pressed the start-up button of his car, the Ranger Nightstalker. The engine roared to life and smooth jazz played faintly on the stereo as Jones backed the vehicle out of the parking lot near the tram station and began driving out onto the main road.

Beatrice opened her eyes a bit to stare out of the raindrop-covered window at all the buildings and lights passing by. They drove up onto a bridge high enough to give her a view of the city in all of its outward glory. She hated this place, truth be told. But, for the past twenty-four years of her life, it has been home.

A home that has taken much more than she can give- that anyone living here could give. She absent-mindedly rubbed her fingers tenderly over the scar on her forehead as she drifted off into a nap.

The following day, the pair paid a visit to their superior’s office. Chief Nathan Armstrong, is a man in his mid-fifties with a bald head and a muscular build. He sat in his office chair behind his desk and went over the two detectives' report on the murder as he stroked his greying beard. 

“So,” he began with a slight huff. “What I’m getting here is that you two barely have any clues that may lead us to the killer?”

“Not entirely true, sir,” Jones spoke up as he stood with his hands clasped behind his back. “Detective Moreau managed to put together a decent amount of information that we could use in this investigation.”

Chief Armstrong raised a grey bushy brow. “Aaaaand? How does that help us get a bead on who the culprit is? Cause I know damn well you don't seriously believe dragging Tomaru Corp into this investigation as a suspect would be smart.”

It was now Beatrice’s turn to speak. “A few days prior to his murder, Mr. Conner had suddenly left his position at Tomaru Corp. He was claiming a family emergency involving his nephew to be the issue. Upon further investigation, I discovered that he hadn’t been in contact with his sister or nephew in the past two months as shown by his call history.”

Chief Armstrong leaned in a bit, curious to see where she was going with her train of thought.

“He mysteriously left his job all of a sudden, lied about the reason, illegally got ahold of a firearm, and was later found dead behind that restaurant. On top of that,” she activated her scanner and pressed a few buttons. A few seconds later, Chief Armstrong's computer sounded with a notification. He opened it up to see a few photos sent through a secure line from Beatrice.

“What’s this,” he questions, as he taps on the screen and opens the files to see two photos of crushed rounds, presumably from the sidearm.

“I managed to find these two rounds. One in a puddle, and the other just a few inches from where his body was found.” Beatrice leaned back in the chair she sat in and stared up at the ceiling as she voiced her next train of thought.

“Something involving the Tomaru Corporation spooked the man. He knew about or had seen something he was potentially not supposed to, perhaps some deep dark secret about his old job. He got spooked, knowing that whatever he did would surely lead to his death- thus got a hold of a sidearm for self-defense and attempted to flee. This is very plausible.”

“I'm sensing a but,” Armstrong says.

“He used APR's. He clearly hit whatever he was shooting at to no effect. And...” Beatrice pulls up her scanner again and taps on something. A video appears on Armstrongs' screen. showing video footage from the murder.

“Whoever this assassin is, he had access to optic camo and some armor tough enough to tank APR's. There's only two instances I can think of where a person could survive those or would need to use them. Either Tomaru Corp or someone else sent a borg. Or it was an A.D.”

The Chief chuckled a bit at her suggestion. “And why would a big named company like Tomaru Corp. go on and kill one of their own guys and not even have the brains to properly dispose of it after the job was done? Let alone higher a borg or send a bot to do such an amateur job.”

“Beats me,” Beatrice replied with a shrug. “But this is what we have to go on. And I am leaning toward the later scenario based on what we have. Besides. Your common criminal or borg most likely wouldn’t have the resources to get ahold of stealth tech.”

Jones glances down at Beatrice and shakes his head. “Auto Droids have laws preventing such an incident from happening. You know this.”

“And that's supposed to mean something to me why? We all know exactly what these machines are capable of.”

“Enough!” The Chief sat back as he gave the photos one last look over before he spoke. “If your theory ends up being fact, we’d be opening a whole can of worms with this case,” he stroked his beard once more out of stress.

“Besides, your personal history with this company, Moreau, is not lost on me. So I can't rule out your A.D. theory as being fueled by some bigoted anti-bot bias.” Beatrice scouls. “We need a way to gain us a more solid lead. Preferably without garnering the ire of that tech giant company.”

“With your permission sir,” Jones began, “Perhaps an investigation into the Tomaru Corporation is the best option we have. We can prance around the issue and come up with all the wild theories we want but- if they are involved somehow, the best course of action would be to look into the company ourselves. I mean it is one of their former employees anyway. They have to have something.”

The Chief closes his eyes in contemplation on what his decision would be. Jones stands firm and stone-faced while Beatrice plays with a few strands of her hair, appearing bored and uncaring towards the current conversation.

Chief Armstrong sighed as he looked at Jones with the utmost seriousness. “Alright, but do this by the book and be discrete. I don’t want you two making a scene and doing something that could put the whole department in the shitter. Understood?” 

Jones nods. “Understood, sir.”

Beatrice just gives a slight nod and continues to play with the strands of her hair with a bored expression.

“Alrighty then, good work, the both of you. If we find the guy that did this, drinks will be in order,” Chief Armstrong said with a smirk.

“So long as you are the one buying, sir,” Jones joked. Chief Armstrong chuckled as he responded, “I already write your checks. Technically I am paying via those, you cheeky one-eyed bastard.”

He waves at the two as they leave his office.