The next morning Anna sees Issac’s car, it is washed and polished and looks nearly brand new. She moves up the stairs and reaches the office door. Hearing her knock Issac opens up the door and Anna comes in. She looks confused, as she enters the office. Issac looks at her and says, “Cleaned it all up!” and smiles at her. All the mess in the office is taken care of, the floor is cleaned and mopped the files are in their respective cabinets and the photos on the wall are all cleaned up as well.

Issac looks at Anna for a brief few seconds and says, “You don’t talk much Anna, you only talk when needed. I find it…well strange sometimes.” Anna takes notice of this and replies hastily, “Why do you find it strange? I don’t want to waste time talking about other stuff.” Issac nods and says, “No, it’s not a bad thing if that’s what you think I meant. It’s just that my intuition says that people are silent when they are hiding something. But, it’s just intuition. It can be right or it can be wrong!” hearing this Anna says, “Right, I’ll keep that in mind. So should we start our work on finding the second scientist?”

Issac picks up a file and says, “Here is everything we know about this guy. His name is Lee Ming, his address is mentioned and also his qualifications.” Anna nods as she looks at different sections of the file. Suddenly Issac’s phone starts ringing, it’s Jeff and after he is done talking to him Issac turns to Anna and says, “Anna, Jeff just told me that Lee is dead. He needs us at the crime scene. Let’s go” Anna whispers “Shit” and gets up from the couch.

They both sit inside Issac’s car and they reach the location of the crime scene. The body of Lee was found at an abandoned factory, as they drive closer and closer to the factory they can see a few police vehicles arriving too. Issac and Anna leave the car and head inside the factory, Jeff meets them both and gives them a small briefing, “Few teenagers thought they could have some fun in this old abandoned factory, turns out it didn’t go so well. One of them found Lee on the ground. The kids were terrified but they did the right thing, called the headquarters.”

Issac questions Jeff, “The kids didn’t touch any evidence did they?” Jeff answers, “No, they barely had the guts to call us. Why don’t you look around, see what you can find out!” Issac and Anna take gloves from an officer and move towards the dead body. Issac searches his pockets but doesn’t find anything, there is nothing on the ground near him, he stands in front of the body and pretends that he shot Lee and starts moving away from the body.

He keeps moving till he reaches the front gate of the factory, there in the mud he finds some boot prints and near the wired fence he finds a torn piece of cloth black in color. He calls Anna and asks her if she found something inside the factory while he was outside. Anna tells Issac that she saw Lee’s watch and it behaved in the same way Sebastian’s watch did. “So let’s believe that Sebastian’s watch was broken, but Lee’s watch what about that?” Anna questions.

“It’s no coincidence, but I still don’t know how we can connect that to their deaths or even the kidnapper.” Anna speaks out, “What if we are wrong, I mean what if there is no kidnapper and only a killer? What if these scientists are hiding and this killer is finding and killing them?” Issac listens to her and starts thinking, after a few moments he replies, “Yes, that could be a possibility, a kidnapper would want ransom, but no word from him or her at all. Good point Anna!”

He calls an officer to take pictures of the boot prints and run a search on them back at the headquarters. Issac and Anna go back to Jeff and Issac asks, “What does MSAT say about all this?” Jeff clears his throat and replies, “Glad you asked. The strange thing is they asked the other scientists that work there if they know these missing scientists, but no one does. They exist in their database, but no one knows who they are!”

Issac scratches his chin and says, “You sure Tom isn’t dirty? I mean maybe he is ordering his people to shut up, maybe they were working on something Tom doesn’t want us to know?” Jeff shrugs and says, “At this point we cannot say anything, we can assume but it won’t make a difference!”

Issac shares Anna’s findings and thoughts with Jeff and he seems to agree with her too. “Yes it is very much possible, they weren’t kidnapped at all. They probably were hiding from the killer!”

“This killer is too perfect, uses no weapon, no poison, how does he or she kills them?” Issac replies to him, “The killer is getting sloppy, left boot prints out in the mud. I want them analyzed and send the reports to my computer alright!” Jeff nods as Issac and Anna leave the crime scene. Issac takes Anna to Grab-a-Grub and orders pancakes with coffee again. As the order arrives he looks at her staring outside the window and says, “The order just arrived!”

Anna looks at the pancakes and coffee and raises her eyebrows. Seeing her expressions Issac says, “I’m a man of habit, but next time you can order what you want. So tell me about yourself, your family, why you chose this field of work.” Anna hesitates a little and takes a sip of coffee, “I have a wonderful family or that’s what I thought anyways, my mother is a great woman and my father is a painter, I loved my brother. He meant the world to me, I mean yes we fought every now and then but he turned out to be an asshole, he went on a road from which no one comes back, he is not a good person. I want to stop people like him from hurting others, so that is why I want to become a detective!”

Anna takes a bite of the pancake and asks, “What about you? Tell me about your wife, how you met and all that stuff!”

Issac drops his fork and looks out to the street, “Mary was a teacher, she liked to teach small children about life, and she loved to see them smile. She loved kids.”

“I met her at that spot.” Issac points to the street, “She was wearing a black gown and her brooch got lost, I decided to help her. I fell in love with her the moment I saw her. She had this thing about her. I wanted her to be with me for eternity. Tom, her father; he didn’t want me to marry her. He thought that she would be in danger…you know the nature of my work. I really couldn’t blame him for being that way. Anyways, I married and life was beautiful with her by my side until...until…”

Anna sees Issac’s expression change, she sees tears dropping from his face and tries to comfort him, “It’s alright Mr. Issac, I’m sorry I brought it up. I didn’t mean to hurt you, I am really sorry!” Issac wipes away his tears and lights up a cigarette. He takes a puff and says, “It’s okay, at least someone wants to talk about it, you know it’s really okay to cry sometimes. Nothing wrong about it really! Now finish up we have to go through the other missing scientist files, maybe we can find the next one before the killer does!”

When they reach the office Issac goes to his computer and sees the analyzed reports of the boot prints. The report says that the boots are of a male aged 24 to 25, the mud should have stuck in the sole of the boots, and if next time the killer uses them there would be some residue of the mud in the area.

He reads the reports, while Anna is working to pinpoint the locations of the remaining scientists. She is on the couch moving from file to file, when Issac’s phone rings and she starts eavesdropping on the call. She appears to be looking at the files but her ears are fixed on Issac’s call. “Nice one man, I’ll write the addresses down, I’ll check the places, yea, keep this a secret alright, no chatter of this on the radio, yea.” then Issac whispers, “No, won’t tell her either, keeping it between us!” but Anna hears it all.

A few moments after the call, Anna goes back to Issac and keeps the files on his desk. She notices the addresses written with a red pen on a sticky note. Issac looks at her and says, “All done for the day? Any idea where the next scientist might be?” Anna makes a disappointing face and says, “No, this is a tough case!” Issac laughs and says, “Yes, it is. I mean a killer that leaves very less residue of his existence at the crime scene, if it was up to me I would’ve taken an easier case, but this one is important and I guess it’s just your luck getting a hard first case. Alright let me drop you home.”

As Issac gets up from his chair to grab his coat which is on the file cabinets, Anna moves her watch over the sticky note quickly. Issac doesn’t notice her action and they both move outside to the car. Issac drops Anna near her apartment building and waves her good bye. As she sees Issac’s car move away from her, she rushes to her apartment and sits on the bed.

She touches her watch and the watch emits a hologram saying, “Select a function or say it’s name” Anna says, “Optical sensor history” and a grid opens up, she selects the most recent entry and sees the addresses. She then selects health monitoring and sees her heart rate, obesity levels, blood pressure and finally a field showing “Chronoton Stability: 55%”, she selects it and the watch shows her “Days before suffering Time Dementia: 3 days left”, the 3 days left is written in red.

Anna gets up from the bed and starts moving in her room nervously, “I…I…have to do it! It can blow my cover, but… but Fuck!” she takes a few deep breaths and gets a bit relaxed. She opens up her wardrobe and takes out a black colored hood, black pants, heavy boots and a weird mask. She changes her clothes and wears the mask which also acts as a voice changer, in a robotic voice she says, “Gotta finish the job, regardless of the consequences, I have no time left!”