In the police station, a meeting room was occupied by a series of crimes. Photographs of bloody bodies strewn across concrete floors, autopsy reports all with the same ending, and statements from police officers were arranged on a rectangular table, surrounded by unoccupied chairs and agitated police officers. On the far wall of the room, video feed was displayed on a television hung on the wall. It was paused in the middle of a spray of gunfire, making the violent moment strangely still. Evidence arranged in a neat set.<br/><br/>"We're waiting on a few more officers to arrive before we begin," said one of the officers in charge of the investigation. He was standing cross armed in front of the other police officers in the room, impatience apparent in the set of his jaw. "I trust you're all familiar with the events of the case?"<br/><br/>There were a few murmurs of assent from the group. In the back, which felt cruel as she could barely see what was going on in front, Velma flipped through the file she had been hastily handed. A string of violent shootings against groups of criminals, one had finally been caught on tape. She gnawed at her lip as she read over the summary again.<br/><br/>Lance craned his head to look down at her, and frowned slightly as he saw she was flipping through it again. She frowned back up at him, unsure of how to communicate her thoughts without speaking, which she was sure she would get.<br/><br/>She'd been on edge since they'd abruptly been assigned this case, and they had been attempting to learn the important aspects quickly before the rest of their team got there. It had been the biggest case they had been put on since transferring to the CCIB, and while Velma was glad to not being desk work, she was also slightly terrified. Mostly they had been kept on the sidelines, and away from criminals who would shoot them with arm cannons or whatever. Velma still felt entirely too normal for this department. "Who are we waiting on?" She asked in a whisper.<br/><br/>Lance said, "Jack Kavinsky," with similar softness. "Anne just contacted him, he should be here soon." Everyone around them was on edge, but Lance seemed as relaxed as always. There was a tightness in his brow, though, that indicated he wasn't entirely calm. He rubbed the back of his neck and looked up.<br/><br/>"While we're waiting, we're putting you into teams of four to begin searching for our suspect. Rogers, House, Zhou, you're with me.  Loyola, take Wakowski, McClane, and Rivera." He rattled off a few more names that meant nothing to Velma, then paused. "Vance... You're with Kavinsky, Walker, and Holt." There was a tone of apology in his voice that irritated Velma. She and Lance both turned to look at Anne. She seemed fairly nonthreatening, and there were no visible augmentations, but of course that didn't mean anything. She tried to conjure up an image in her mind of Jack, but failed. She hardly knew anyone in the department. She just hoped he wasn't one of the people who immediately hated her and Lance based on the PR scramble that had caused their transfer.<br/><br/>Of course, knowing her luck, he was.<br/><br/>-<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">"Good evening, Midnight City! How we all doin tonight?"</span><br/><br/>The radio blared in the background as Tonia picked her way through a piece of security code for a small job she'd been given. She lay on her stomach on the floor, legs crossed in the air behind her. "There it is," she murmured, tabbing through the code. "Got you, you sneaky little-"<br/><br/>"Miss Tonia?" She lifted her head in response to the mechanical voice behind her. Wally stood in the door to her bedroom, giving her his usual unblinking stare. "It's Alexander's bedtime."<br/><br/>"Alexander, go to bed!" She shouted over the radio's throb. There was a groan of dissent from somewhere in the house. "You heard me, buster." She clicked a few keys and then slapped her laptop shut. Climbing to her feet, she turned the radio off and followed the complaining until she got to the living.<br/><br/>Alexander was sitting on the floor, head resting on the coffee table, watching the news. It occurred Tonia that her little brother was more aware about current events than she was. "What's this?" She asked. There was a stern looking news reporter shouting bullet points.<br/><br/>"There was another shooting in that case that's going on right now," he said, not moving his head. "Can I stay up a few more minutes?"<br/><br/>"Have they played this same story repeatedly the last few minutes?" She asked. He grumbled, and she gave him a light thump on the head. "Go to bed. And stop watching all these violent crime stories." That was probably the maternal thing to say.<br/><br/>He stood up sulkily. "It's just the news." He slinked off. "Night," he said.<br/><br/>"Night, she answered distractedly, watching as the crime story was explained. A string of shootings, all targeted at crime families and syndicates. Tonia tilted her head, then sighed. She shouldn't be watching this, she had work to do.