“I simply couldn't believe it. The amount of work needed for such a thing was unprecedented in anything they have done before!” Jared heard Cass say as he sat down. The woman did seem like she had more to say, yet the two others seemed to stop their conversation abruptly the second that they realised the third officer had joined them. “Jared! I see you’ve gotten out of bed. Is everything feeling fine?”

Jared had to smile, happy to have somebody worrying about him in any capacity. Looking at the time, he had indeed overslept by a few minutes or so. Maybe half an hour, if one really needed to be specific about it, but the man was sure nobody wanted to be that precise.

“I have a small ache in my chest and shoulder, but it’s not the worst thing that’s happened to me. I’ll walk it off soon enough,” Jared said, as he got himself seated comfortably. He regretted that a small bit, instantly walking to rise from his chair again so he could get himself something to eat. Yet it took no more than a glance at the kitchen counter before his boss was up and moving to get him something to eat. That was most certainly not okay. “You don't have to bring me anything, boss. I can do it myself!”

Casandra got up a bit too quickly at that point, trying to push himself faster by putting pressure on the top of the chair. That made his chest tense to provide the strength, making him likewise cringe and falter in his movement. That then caused Cass to hurry over and stop Jared from falling, making it so that all three had risen from their seats all due to one glance at a counter. Just how powerful had the man become during his time spent asleep?

Making sure that the others knew of his good health, even if there were a good few hiccups, Jared was able to make his boss understand his full ability to make his own food. Cass actually supported him in that aspect, insisting that he makes tea for all of them to show off just healthy he was. Jared had not fully understood the need to prove it since they had all accepted ti as fact before, yet there had been nothing really against it either way.

That ended up with the man bringing over a large kettle full of hot water mixed with a few bags of his special blend. Jared was quite the master at the art of brewing if he was so humble about it. A decade spent making it himself had caused some amount of skill in it. And it was a very necessary skill either way.

Most teas were just much too weak for the man’s taste, Jared not able to treasure what he could only see as some dirty water. That was why he had originally made his own, mixing up premade bags into one large bag. It had been an expensive endeavour, positively tripling the costs of his tea-brewing, but it had created a taste filling and powerful enough to leave him wanting more and more. Even more so when he mixed an energy pill or two into it. The liquid just made it so easy to dissolve it all. In a way, it was one of his many energy drinks, able to keep him up days in a row. Not that they truly did it so much nowadays, yet it was clear that the drink would be great to have soon.

The three were quiet for a minute or two. Jared enjoyed his tea during that peace and quiet, yet even his ordinary brew couldn't do much to hold up the power of silence in a group. He had heard such heated voices only a few minutes before, the energy of it flowing right over to his body because of it. That energy needed to be brought back again, and Jared would go after it with all his power.

“Has there been any updates while I was asleep?” Jared asked, trying to hone in on just what they had been talking about before he came into the room. From the wording alone, it was clear that Cass had been talking about something important. “I heard something about work before, so I guess something happened?”

Their faces did not light up at that. Neither actually moved their faces too much at his question. Yet the two did move a little back in their chairs at it as if they wanted to be distanced from the world entirely. Jared couldn't get himself to really note the last detail, instead of focusing on the humour of the two being synced in their movements. It wasn't every day he saw such a display.

“Technically, it all happened while you were still awake,” Cassandra said, sipping at her newly brewed tea. Not the old one, of course. The woman had poured that one in the sink, much to the dismay of the two around her. Jared could still not fathom how one would ever think about wasting such a precious beverage.

“What happened while I was still awake then?” Jared asked, more than a little curious. Had they found another batch of bodies? It wouldn't be the most surprising thing in the world. The man actually still needed to get out into the wilderness and load on the corpses from his most recent fight. He couldn't really imagine Cass doing that, and neither was his boss able to, the man needing to stay within the station and take calls constantly.

The two others looked at each other for a moment, before his boss sighed softly. Jared was just growing more and more curious by the minute, not liking the fact that the information was held just out of his reach. The anticipation truly was killing him. His broken ribs had nothing on what was happening at the current time.

“A large line of stores was broken into without our notice,” Officer Grunwald, the most composed man in the world, said, clearly not happy with what had just come out of his own mouth.

Yet that reaction wasn't something Jared could really focus too much on, the man waiting for the other to drop. A line of stores had been broken into without their notice and…? What else? Where was the other end of the punchline? Where was he supposed to gasp in shock and horror?

“And? Did they steal some very valuable items?” Jared asked, clearly not understanding just what was so severe about this. It wasn't the first time they had broken into a store. Doing more than one in a single night was perhaps a little surprising, yet it wasn't truly that groundbreaking.

“Not especially expensive. They were limited by what they could carry back to their base of operations,” Cass said, looking like she was trying to remember some specific numbers before just giving up on it entirely. “While it was still over fifty thousand dollars, it wasn't close to a hundred thousand.”

Okay… quite the sum but still not enough for any major controversy. Some stores had expensive but small items. Getting a handful of gold rings was easy enough, and with enough pockets, one could become a millionaire due to technicalities.

“Were there any casualties then? Somebody who walked in on them at the wrong time?” Jared questioned, still trying to figure out just why their faces were so grim. Civilians being silenced was a good guess on his part. People needed to be kept quiet while operations were still ongoing, and that was quite hard when the people could call the police without moving a single finger.

“There were no casualties. The scene itself was only found by civilians earlier this morning,” Cass stated, with no hesitance in her voice this time. That fact seemed very important somehow. For some reason, the fact that nobody had been close to the place in such a long while did make it an uncommon occurrence.

Which did make some amount of sense. Jared could hardly remember a time where they took less than a few minutes to get there. Having not noticed it for over a day in a row must have been quite the-

“How did we not notice that they broke into the place?” Jared suddenly asked, his brain finally getting up from whatever dumb hole it had fallen into. The others hardened their faces at the man’s sudden question, the two knowing that it would come at some point. “We equipped every store with the stuff more than a few days ago. Why didn't our external alarms trigger the moment they shut the store’s alarms down?”

“That’s the problem we’ve been trying to figure out since the start,” Cass said, sighing just as heavily as Grunawls had done moments ago. They were clearly not happy about it either. “But… we don’t think we’re going to get an answer better than just ‘because they somehow can.’ They have learned our tricks and how to circumvent them. There’s nothing we can truly do about it.”

Why did Jared even get out of bed, when his body craved so much that his already tired muscles rested for a few more weeks. This was what he was going to be doing, trying to figure out the impossible while still acting like everything was just dandy? This was hell and he had only just realised it now. Truly, he was the best officer there was on the entire force, being blind as a bat, and deafer than an old dog.

“So, we basically have to patrol the city now?” Jared asked, trying to figure out ways to counter the new inclusion. Their automatic alarms didn't work anymore, and it would hardly become better if they put another layer on top of it. The thieves knew the trick, and it wasn't like they could actually hide what they were doing that well. “The thieves might be able to disable the alarms on each store, but manual monitoring would make it possible to catch them when timed right?”

“The scale makes it impossible,” Officer Grunwald started with a shake of his head. “If we only had to watch the outskirts, it would be possible to circle the area in a few minutes' time. Yet, it would be impossible for a single person to route through every street in the entire city, and we can’t afford to all be out doing this.”

“Then what else can we do? Just give up on catching them?” Jared asked, the man’s mind unable to come up with anything else. They could in technicality try to make more primitive traps at every store and hope the thieves would fall for it, but the time to set it all up would be in the count of months. The criminals would have left the city by that point, no matter what, with their pockets filled up to the brim.

Cass and his boss stared at him, Jared not liking what they were doing. He meant it was a joke, yet the look in their eyes was making it clear that it was one of the ideas that had been discussed prior to him joining the conversation. They had fallen to such desperate measures already? Jared wasn't sure whether to laugh at the absurdness or cry at the fact that he was involved with it directly.

“At the current time, we might have to only do our best to clean up after them,” Cass said, not sounding like she enjoyed it either. “The consequences of trying to stop them outweigh everything they could possibly steal. If we-”

“Wait just a minute there,” Jared said, holding up a hand to stop her in her tracks. Something didn't make sense. “What consequences have we had due to us trying to stop them?”

They just continued to make their faces grimmer and grimmer, and Jared was liking that fact less and less. Their eyes would pop out soon enough, with all the pressure being felt in the room. He felt choked out of his mind just at the thought of having to wait another second.

“... They have shown off their dislike towards windows during their last line of plundering,” Cass said. Jared’s boss had the audacity to actually chuckle a little at that. It was the kind of laugh that a man on death row would make before he was asked which way he wanted to die.

“In what way?” Jared asked, while also trying to figure out just what kind of reason there could have been for it. Perhaps it was due to their previous interactions with store windows. The man could very clearly remember throwing one of the thieves through one of those windows. Jared was still a little surprised over the fact that the criminal had been able to run only moments after the fact. Yet could that bout with the panes have been the reason for the dislike? He thought it just might have been that.

“Jared, they destroyed every single piece of glass on an entire street.”

… huh. Jared leaned back in his chair even more than before, realising just how serious things were becoming.

Or maybe that wasn't the best kind of wording he could have done. It had already been serious before he even fell asleep. They just hadn't realised the consequences yet. Yet they most definitely were getting a general idea just about now.