PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

Nearly two hours after leaving that apartment, Yulei was still patiently watching the events after her play. About an hour ago, smoke billowing from the room caught the attention of some neighbors who called the authorities. In less than fifteen minutes, a team from the fire department arrived on the scene, something that was quickly followed by a team of military personnel who arrived on the scene a few minutes later.

“How is everything?” Sara’s voice came from Yulei’s comlink.

Observing carefully the arrival of another military vehicle from which one of the people she was waiting for got off, Yulei answered. “The ice princess is on the scene”

After a brief pause, a second military vehicle arrived at the scene, bringing a smile to Yulei’s face. “The lioness is here too, I didn’t expect them to arrive at the same time.”

Sara, who was in the operating room, made a couple of notes and mental calculations before answering. “Aware, Orchid has already contacted the doctor; Everything is set. You can leave the place, and try to rest, today will be a long day.”

Yulei seemed genuinely relieved that everything was going well on Kira’s side whose code name was Orchid, it didn’t matter that hers wasn’t a difficult task, Yulei just wanted things to go well for her friend.

With her task completed, Yulei exited the lookout point, and after advancing a couple of alleys, she entered another rest point to change her appearance. This was one of the advantages of the sudden abandonment of the population in Green Seed, as it allowed someone like Desmond to use a lot of untraceable funds to acquire a large amount of property in other people’s names.

Given the growing size of her canary network, Natalie had made sure to prioritize those she could trust, people who now owned many small businesses around town; places with back doors where no questions were asked.

.....

That was the problem with a country so focused on military power, people with nothing to contribute to the army were still pushed aside; too weak to withstand the abuse and cruelty of this new world. If you added a person like Natalie to the mix, you created the perfect recipe for need and mental manipulation, which is why Garden’s canaries were so helpful and so loyal.

Whatever the case, it didn’t take long for Yulei to make her way back to the restaurant, not before changing her appearance a second time at another resting point.

Back at the place where both Silvia and Sofia had just arrived, both women gave each other a sharp look before each of them declared her position and reason for being in the scene.

On Silvia’s side, she was requested to come to the scene by someone in intelligence to assist someone from the internal investigations department; while Sofía was precisely that person of internal investigations.

Sofía had certain suspicions about Silvia being here, given that her own arrival on the scene had been orchestrated by someone else, it was reasonable that Silvia’s would be the same; something that bothered the captain.

However, Sofia had already had to lie to get here so she couldn’t afford to mess with the local staff until she found enough evidence to take full control of the case.

Strangely, some kind of silent agreement was created between Silvia and Sofia, both had their own reasons for being here and they were suspicious of the other party. Still, their objective was more important than said suspicions, so both of them decided to start the investigation before anything else.

The scene was just as Yulei had arranged it, an accidental overdose death; the problem was that the victim was a high-ranking member of the intelligence department and a huge quantity of drugs was found at the scene.

Both women were skeptical, as soon as they saw the place, some kind of instinct told them that everything seemed too perfect. The corpse was visible to everyone as soon as they passed through the entrance. With almost six kilos of illegal products still next to the corpse; it was almost as if someone wanted him to be found like this.

On the table next to the body there was also a weapon, a 9mm pistol of a model not very commonly seen in the army. Being careful not to step on anything in her path, Silvia put on a pair of latex gloves and walked over to the gun to take a closer look.

Sofía, on the other hand, was checking the corpse for marks or anything else that suggests that this was not an accident. unfortunately, nothing came to light; although she would still wait for the medical examiner’s report.

Silvia motioned for someone from the forensic staff to come closer and pointed the gun. “I don’t think that is his service weapon, it seems that the serial number on the base was erased, take it to ballistics, I want you to tell me everything you can about that weapon.”

The man took the weapon and stored it properly as evidence following Silvia’s orders with an obviously respectful attitude. Sofia watched all this, but she didn’t say anything, firstly because she had given the same order and secondly because she was quite interested in the respect that everyone seemed to show Silvia.

“Do you usually handle a lot of crime scenes?” Sofia asked before passing a note to another person from the coroner’s department, essentially asking for corroboration on the cause of death.

When Silvia heard the question, she was looking at the pan of burnt food on the stove with a thoughtful expression. Nonetheless, she still responded. “Strictly speaking, my duties do not include this kind of work, but I have been involved in multiple criminal cases in the last few months; most include gang activity and drug dealing. I made some good arrests and at some point, the intelligence department started sending me these kinds of cases; although my official assignment is still as a combat unit.”

Sofía was as interested as she was suspicious of what Silvia said and tried to investigate further. “I can understand that they want a capable person, although it becomes a problem when higher-ups start asking you for things outside of your official assignments. How did you get involved in those gang cases in the first place?”

Silvia wasn’t stupid, she could feel that the other party was trying to get information out of her, this kind of well-directed casual conversation was almost a basic course in espionage and counter-espionage. Ironically, Sofia being so inquisitive and suspicious made Silvia believe that Captain Sofia was less and less likely to work for Desmond in any way.

“Two groups of idiotic members of opposing gangs had a big fight, one too flashy, I was sent to the scene because I was the closest patrol. The number of drugs seized almost gave me a promotion, in the end, that arrest led to others and I ended up here.” Prepared to be questioned, Silvia mixed a good amount of truth with a good amount of lies. At the same time, Silvia left the kitchen without commenting on how suspicious the convenient semi-arson that led to the body being discovered was.

Sofia subconsciously ignored such an angle of investigation because she was always under the premise that someone else already had their hands behind this matter, so she ended up overlooking Silvia’s little mistake.

What followed were hours of investigation where the scene was reviewed from head to toe, as tedious as it was to see the half dozen forensic agents process the scene little by little, Silvia and Sofía stayed until the end.

Every time a new piece of evidence was found, both girls would take a good look at it and throw out their own theories as they exchanged ideas and points of view.

To the disappointment but not surprise of both Silvia and Sofia, no evidence was found that anything else had happened. So far, the intelligence lieutenant’s death still seemed like an accidental overdose.

Both women were disappointed that they hadn’t found even a hint of what they both knew was the truth, but they also understood that they were unlikely to find such a thing in the first place.

What was found was another ten kilos of illegal substances hidden under one of the furniture in the apartment room, in addition to a large number of credits and esper crystals. As if drugs and cash weren’t enough, a hidden ledger was also found in the main room that spoke volumes about what the dead intelligence agent did in his spare time.

On one of the drug packages, the one that appeared to be the most recently acquired, a gang seal was found that was probably not removed because the lieutenant died testing the contents.

“Do you recognize the seal?” Sofía asked, somewhat exasperated by the long wait.

Silvia was also a bit tired, but the memory of her sister showing improvements after a single injection of what Desmond gave her, made the ice princess stand as steady as a mountain. Silvia didn’t need to look at the seal, she knew exactly what answer she had to give, though she still gave it a glance to keep up appearances on her own.

Pretending that she pondered for a moment, Silvia replied. “That should be the Wild Walkers gang, nothing is surprising about them other than the fact that they work for the Minora family.”

The mention of the Minora family immediately caught Sofia’s attention. “Wait, do you know the Minora family?”

Silvia gave Sofia a slow look before answering. “Who doesn’t know them? If it weren’t for the fact that every request I make has been rejected, I would have finished those bastards by now.”

Silvia’s words corroborated many of Sofia’s suspicions; it was a pity that she was not aware that Silvia only gave an answer taken from a script that she had been given.