Josh Heynes and Jenn Walters walked through the double doors that constituted the main entrance to the Office of Legal and Military Operations, the headquarters of the Neo-Tokyo police force among other things, wordlessly and side by side like they had so many times over the years. The way they performed their entrance felt like a carefully choreographed routine at this point. Every muscle movement, every breath, every little noise down to the millisecond, including the mechanical whine of the doors as they parted to let them in.

A casual observer might have mistaken them for a couple that also happened to be colleagues, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Nevermind the 15-year age gap – that wasn’t the big issue anyway – the real obstacle was the fact that Josh was married. And he preferred to stay faithful. If they were both single, there was a chance they’d be romantically involved at this point. But they knew not to tread where they shouldn’t.

“So what do you make of Miss Harady’s testimony?” Josh inquired of Jenn as the two of them walked down the hallway towards the main elevator.

“Which part of it?” Jenn asked in response.

“The last part. Right before she got stabbed.”

Jenn sighed heavily before replying, weighing what she’d heard internally. “Mixed feelings. If what she said about Harashima is true, then everything we’ve known about him was nothing but a carefully crafted illusion. A facade to hide his true nature from the world.” She paused for another sigh, then continued: “I’m concerned about her safety as well going for-ward. There’s no telling if she’s going to be attacked again and, if she is, where and by whom.”

“I’m with you there,” Josh muttered heavily. “We should put her under the witness protection program. She’s an im-portant piece of the puzzle with the dirt she has on Harashima.”

“Yeah,” came a sharp but concerned reply from Jenn. In that moment, they came up to the main elevator, and Jenn hovered her hand over the Call button. They waited for the elevator to reach the ground floor and entered it, and Josh hit the button for the 21st floor, where the police force’s offices were situated.

“Remember,” Jenn said to Josh in her ‘friendly re-minder’ voice as they began ascending, “lead the meeting in Jangl. Just for Shinji’s sake.” A necessary reminder, given that consideration for his non-English-speaking colleagues was a skill Josh had to admit he was still brushing up on, even after ten years of working with Shinji.

“I know,” Josh replied with a mix of thankfulness and frustration at Jenn stating the obvious.

Barely half a minute passed between the elevator be-ginning its ascent and the pair reaching their floor. They exited into the main hall of the police offices and began their trek towards the one where the rest of Josh’s team was already waiting, agreeing to speak to each other no more. Not without the full team present and accounted for.

They entered a medium-sized conference room way in the back, greeted by the sight of three other police officers that had been assigned to the Harashima case. Shinji Furuki, Devin Nichols and Goro Satou. Out of the five of them, Shinji was the only one that didn’t speak English, so Josh would have to carry out the meeting in Jangl – a creole that mixed English and Japanese, with hints of Chinese. For Shinji’s sake, as Jenn had said.

“Alright, crew,” he addressed the room as he closed the door. Josh had been in the police force the longest out of every-one in the room, so he’d naturally been assigned as the lead in-vestigator on the Harashima case and held the kind of authority the rest of the officers didn’t. They saluted him accordingly, Jenn included. Having received the team’s greetings, Josh continued: “Got some more pieces to the Harashima puzzle. Bust out your notepads.”

Nobody made a move. They didn’t have to. Josh’s order in the moment was purely metaphorical.

“Officer Walters,” he addressed Jenn and guided her to paste the new information they had onto the holographic whiteboard, breaking from the Jangl for that single line. He figured Shinji wouldn’t be offended over him switching to English for so much. He took a quick look at Shinji and scanned his facial expression just to make sure. No visible offense taken on Shinji’s part, far as he could tell.

Jenn performed a series of motions in front of the white-board, and mere seconds later, a couple more images and some more text – mostly from Enez Harady’s testimony file – had appeared on it.

“Latest addition,” Josh addressed the room while pointing to the image of Miss Harady, “Enez Harady. Cyber-netics engineer at DanariTek. Assigned chief of the team that produced Harashima’s cybernetic penis. Got stabbed by a co-worker right as she walked out.”

“Fatally?” inquired Devin.

“Not very,” Jenn replied. “Likelihood of survival is 92% according to the medics.”

“So what’s the rest of her deal?” Shinji then asked.

Josh proceeded to explain, a subtle sense of concern coloring his tone: “She’s got dirt on Harashima. Very serious allegations that would destroy everything the guy built. Got good reason to suspect that’s why she got stabbed too. Assailant likely eavesdropped and wanted to silence her, prevent her info from going public.”

“So put her under witness protection?” asked Goro. “Is that the plan?”

“Yeah,” Jenn shot a sharp reply. “She’s already too important to the case to lose.”

“And the other new face?” came a follow-up inquiry from Shinji. Josh had somehow already forgotten there was another new face – he had to turn his eyes to the whiteboard for a second to remind himself. When it came to him, he turned his gaze back to the others and continued: “Steve Falk. The stabber.”

“Could we bring him in for questioning?” Devin asked.

Josh inhaled a little deeper and sharper, slightly startled by Devin’s inquiry. “He’s, uhh… unavailable for testimony,” he confessed.

“Overly itchy trigger finger again?” came an accusatory inquiry from Goro. Josh merely nodded in response, a tangible sense of regret to the motion. The rest of the room sighed collectively.

“We’re going to have to report you to the CEO at this rate, Josh,” Shinji said to Josh like a disappointed father. “Has your eyesight gotten so bad that you can no longer tell the difference between a head and a knee?” He wanted to sound sarcastic, but Josh had eliminated enough key pieces to prior in-vestigations that he no longer had the energy to muster the tone. Had made enough of these mistakes for the other officers to suspect that they hadn’t been entirely accidental for a while. But Josh was impulsive – arguably a little too much so to be a police officer. He just wasn’t willing to admit that to himself.

“Let’s keep my eyesight out of this meeting, alright?” Josh hollered an irritated response, then continued in an attempt to steer the conversation back to the development of the investi-gation: “Anyway. New priority is to get Miss Harady into the witness protection program ASAP. We’ll continue investigating once we know she’s safe.” With a nod and a subtle wave of his hand, he then muttered: “Dismissed.”

And thus, the meeting came to a close, and the other of-ficers left the conference room.

Except for Jenn. She stood beside Josh for a moment longer, waited for the others to leave, and when the two of them were alone again, she laid a gentle hand on Josh’s shoulder and said to him: “Don’t let Shinji get under your skin. I know it hurts, but he just cares about you. Like we all do.”

Josh sighed repentantly. He knew Jenn was right. He knew Shinji was just making sure he wouldn’t repeat his past mistakes. And yet he had, too many times to count. Can’t teach an old dog new tricks, he supposed.

“Thanks, Jenn,” he muttered and clasped a hand over hers, reinforcing his gratefulness for her support. A moment later, both of their hands fell off his shoulder in a synchronized motion.

“Want me to go check on our stabbing victim?” Jenn then asked Josh.

“Sure,” Josh replied neutrally, neither ordering nor stopping her. “If you need me, I’ll be in my office.”

“Roger,” Jenn muttered affirmatively and walked out of the conference room, with Josh following and heading towards his own office not long afterwards.