Jenn was sitting in the lounge of the police department floor, sipping on her coffee, letting it do its job in sharpening her senses for the day ahead. The ever-gorgeous Neo-Tokyo sunrise filtered through the window and colored the interior a pleasant amber that did its own part in making her feel more awake. It was one of her favorite things about mornings at the Office of Legal and Military Operations. Casual pre-work conversation with her colleagues being a close second.

She was sat on a half-circle-shaped couch around a dull-looking metallic table that followed its contours, alongside the other members of Josh’s team – excluding Josh himself. He’d never been one for casual banter over coffee. So much had be-come evident to Jenn when she offered to take Josh out back when she’d started working here. It was enough to tell her that the poor man put his work before everything else. Had he ever even taken a vacation? Not as far as Jenn recalled.

“Any predictions for how the case develops today?” came a question from Goro in Jangl, setting the topic of dis-cussion for however long it’d take Josh to show up.

Jenn swallowed the drop of coffee that was currently in her mouth before presenting her own answer. “I wish I did. Lot of different ways it could develop. Mostly I’m just looking forward to finding out more about how Miss Harady connects.” In no small part because she felt bad for Enez. Poor girl had turned from a witness into a suspect not even overnight.

“Shame about her criminal record,” Devin commented, mirroring Jenn’s concern. “In her state, I would’ve preferred to get her into witness protection.”

“Which would’ve been breaking protocol given her background,” came a counterargument from Shinji.

“Yeah, but still,” Devin sighed, sounding particularly de-feated and deciding to drown his disappointment in a sip of his own black liquid.

Jenn budged in with a thought at that point: “Her testi-mony holds significant weight over the case either way. It al-most doesn’t matter whether she’s a witness or a suspect. But I do wish she’d stayed the former.”

“Because that’d place her in a better position given the nature of her evidence?” Shinji asked.

“Yeah. Exactly,” Jenn confessed. A memory from yester-day came to her in that same moment. She leaned over towards Shinji and asked him: “Actually speaking of her, what did you tell Koji about her?”

“I didn’t tell Koji about her,” Shinji replied, looking at Jenn as if she’d accused him of an information leak.

Her expression of curiosity turned into one of confusion. “Then how did he know?” Admittedly a question she knew the answer to, but she felt it worth asking anyway.

Goro was the quickest to pipe in with a potential scenario: “Could’ve just looked at her file. After all, Koji’s one of our higher-ranking officers. Not like his access is limited to cases he’s handling himself.”

“That much is true,” Jenn muttered a grateful response for Goro’s reminder.

“Speaking of higher-ranking officers…” came an alert out of Devin. Jenn turned her gaze to the direction he was looking, greeted by the sight of Josh finally making his en-trance. “Morning,” she hollered to him.

Running his gaze across the couch his crew was seated on, he merely stated: “That’s everyone already accounted for. Good.” A sign that work for the day was about to begin.

“Meeting time?” Jenn inquired.

“Meeting time,” Josh confirmed.

Josh watched his team slither into the conference room and take their seats as he stood by the whiteboard, their movements ever so routine-like, as if they were ballet dancers and Josh was their overly punctual instructor. Once they were all in place, Josh cleared his throat and opened the meeting. This time, re-membering to open in Jangl. Jenn’s reminding was starting to work its magic.

“New piece to the puzzle. And this one is pretty big – you’ll see what I mean in a moment.” He did a series of swiping and plucking motions with his fingers over his wrist comm and the whiteboard, pasting a new file onto the latter and then tap-ping on it. Sound – speech – started playing off it.

Two female voices, discussing a dead father, perusing the Dark Net during office hours, a big discovery… and a cabin, the location of which should be unknown to civilians.

A tangible sense of shock filled the room when the file stopped playing.

“Where did you come across that?” asked an exception-ally surprised Jenn.

“Conversation I overheard at Dan’s Dojo last night. I don’t think I need to tell y’all what this means for the case.”

A series of serious, understanding nods followed. “In-ternal parallel investigation,” said Shinji.

“Exactly,” Josh confirmed. “Find out who in the force leaked the location of the cabin. And, more importantly, wipe the info from the Net. Before anyone else gets their hands on it.”

The officers ran quick glances across each other, as if knowing it couldn’t possibly be anyone on the Harashima team but still ever so slightly suspicious of one another.

“What about the women?” came a question from Jenn. “Got ID’s on ‘em?”

“No. Figured it wasn’t that important. But we know one of them is Yoshiro Busujima’s daughter, so that gives us a lead if we need ID’s later. Either way, I don’t think they’re danger-ous.”

“Not dangerous to the investigation, sure,” came a state-ment from Devin. “But dangerous to themselves. Or at least the daughter is.”

“So what’s the play?” Goro inquired. “Do we let her get to the cabin and snoop around in there? Maybe arrange her a cab ride?” The latter question was colored with heavy sarcasm. “Or do we stop her from skipping town?”

“I was going to suggest the latter,” Josh replied without hesitation. “Poor girl doesn’t realize the depth of the shit she’s getting herself in. We wouldn’t be responsible police officers if we let her get her own hands dirty.”

“You’re not wrong,” Jenn agreed. “I’m in favor of stop-ping her from leaving.”

Josh nodded, asking the room: “Objections?”

Nobody raised a hand. Josh took that as an unequivocal vote in favor of keeping the lady in the city.

“Next topic,” he said now that their plan regarding the mysterious “private investigator” had been settled on. “We still need a testimony out of Miss Harady regarding her murder attempt of Harashima.”

“Problem is,” Jenn interrupted, “I don’t think she’s will-ing to just dish it out in the same way she gave us her earlier testimony. Got that impression when I dropped by her room with Devin yesterday. And you’re not exactly a gentle soul either, no offense.”

“None taken,” Josh muttered in response, admitting as much to himself. “So what are you thinking?”

Having already formulated a plan – Josh could tell by the way she looked at him – Jenn gave it to him: “It’s going to have to be a one-on-one interrogation. And the crucial part is that it doesn’t feel like one. Disguise it as a casual conversation, lean into her vulnerability.”

“Got a person in mind?”

“Yeah.” And Josh knew exactly who she was going to name. “Myself.”

He could think of no one better to pull it off. “Be my guest,” he said with no further comment. Jenn merely nodded gratefully.

“Alright,” he muttered in the tone of voice that usually conveyed a meeting reaching its conclusion. “We know our next few courses of action. Keep up the great work, everyone. Dis-missed.”