"Adalet, you're here!" Amy greets her as Adalet enters the office, "we've got a new assignment!"

"What is it?" Adalet asked.

"Andrea wants us to go patrol the Rhine Canyon oil well. She says it's important for us to know all the facets of the district..." she recites, "but on oil well? Come on! There are tons of places in Rhine Canyon nicer than a big old polluted oil well!"

She chuckled, "nice or not, it's still an important part of Rhine Canyon."

"Sorry, Adalet, I should be more open-minded..." she apologizes, "who knows what wonderful discoveries we might make at the oil well..."

"Well this is... interesting, I guess. I mean... Oil wells are certainly a big part of our economy and..." Amy trails off as they walk through the oily and smug-filled lands, "oh, I'm sorry, but this place is horrible! I've got oil on my shoes and the air is thick with pollution! It's turning the desert sand black! And I can see on your face that you're as uneasy as I am, am I wrong?"

"Yup!" Adalet replies, "don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of the oil, but there's something over there that doesn't look right... See, over by the drilling site!"

She gulped, "that doesn't sound good. Let's have a look around, quick!"

The two approached the drilling site and found a man tied to one of the S-shaped pipes running above a pool of oil. The sight was made more frightening by the obvious gaping hole in the man's abdominal, and the vulture pecking away at the flesh and organs. As they got closer to the body, Adalet spotted a red toolbox and a broken piece of plastic that looked to be from an ID badge.

"Oh dear God, was this man attacked by vultures? They ate his eyes!" Amy covers her mouth as they got a closer look at the victim, "I think I'm going to be sick again..."

"Hey! Get out of here!" Adalet yells at the vulture, Hunter barked loudly as additional support. The vulture quickly flew away with a loud squawk.

"This man was tied to that pipe!" Adalet exclaimed, seeing the chains wrapped around the man's upper torso, "someone wanted to make sure he couldn't escape..."

"Which means there is a killer at large! Adalet, we need to catch them!" Amy declared, "and maybe that badge you found will help us do just that! Half of it has broken off, but I'm sure you'll be able to find that face in the database, Adalet! And what about that toolbox? If you think a clue might be hidden inside, let's get digging!"

Adalet clicked open the toolbox first. She dug through the collection of hammers, scrapers, scraps of sandpaper, brushes, and tubes of wood filler until she found the one tool that was not like the others. A wrench splattered with fresh blood.

"The wrench you found in that toolbox is covered in blood! Could this be related to the murder?" Amy pondered.

Adalet swabs the wrench, "if it were a hammer or scraper, I could argue that someone injures themselves... But since I don't know how you could manage to get this much blood on a wrench, I'm going to agree with you on this one, Amy! Plus, look at the chains our victim is tied up with!"

"Oh, you're right!" she says, eyeing the chains again, "the killer must have used this wrench to bolt the chains to the pipe!"

She smirked, "exactly! Now, let's get the blood to the lab!"

Placing the blood sample aside, Adalet picks up the broken badge next. She compared the particle facial features of the man on the ID badge to the pictures they had on file of the drill well's workers. After creating a complete face, a name popped up as a match for the ID.

"Hm," Amy hummed, "the man on that badge you found on the crime scene doesn't look like our victim, but he may still help us. His name is Jake Drill."

"The badge says he's a drilling foreman on the oil well," Adalet read the none destroyed information on the badge.

"Which means he might have seen the murder... or even committed it!" she theorizes.

"That's why we need to go talk to this Jake Drill!" she declared.

Once Roxie had arrived to take the body and blood sample away, Adalet and Amy left in search of Jake Drill. But not without taking a picture of the victim first. They managed to find the foreman outside of the oil well's office going over some blueprints. The cops introduced themselves as they greeted Jake.

"What can I do for you, Captain? You shouldn't walk around this place dressed like that, you might slip in an oil spill," Jake warns.

"It's a risk we will have to take," Adalet assured, pulling up the picture she had taken of the victim on her cell phone, "in case you haven't noticed, a man was murdered here. Here's his picture; did you know him?"

He looked slightly disgusted as the eye-less face, "is that Mr. Green? What the... Why would anyone kill that guy?!"

"So you knew the victim. What can you tell us about him?" Amy asked, reading her notepad.

"His name was Bruce Green. He's some kind of scientist, often came to have a look around, kept asking us about earth pollution, that kind of thing..." Jake recalls, "to be honest I never really understood what he was on about. He'd take some earth samples then go back to his fancy laboratory, a few miles south from here."

"Do you know if anyone had anything against Mr. Green? Did he bother the workers?" she prodded.

"Nah," she shrugs, "he never made trouble for himself. And Miss, we have more than enough work to do without wasting time killing people!"

They thanked Jake for the information and his time then began making their way back to the hummer.

"Mr. Drill seemed nice enough! Very dirty, though... I mean that literally, of course!" Amy clarified.

"Well, working with oil all day long, you're bound to get messy!" Adalet responds, "lucky for us he recognized the victim, Bruce Green, and knew that he worked in a nearby laboratory. We need to head there next!"

Adalet and Amy left the oil well and began driving in the direction Jake had pointed them in of the laboratory Bruce worked at. After explaining to the security guard why they were there, they were shown into the main lab that Bruce used. Adalet looked around and found a strange device similar to an incubator, but it had a small stock of corn growing inside of it. Along with the corn, she also found a torn picture partially hidden underneath a table.

"Whoa, this lab is pretty impressive, don't you think, Adalet? I wonder what the victim was working on..." Amy muses as she looks around the room, "but of course. That's what you've been trying to figure out! This capsule looks like a solid lead! Is that what they call an incubator?"

Adalet turned the device around in her hands, "if I had to guess, yes. It's got a corn stalk inside and it seems something was written on the incubator..."

"Well I know you'll retrieve what was written in a flash!" she praised, "and you also picked up... a torn photo? Alright, let's try and piece it together!"

Adalet placed the incubator onto a table and opened her case beside it. She grabs her brush and carbon powder and dusts the front of the incubator. She recovered a before message addressed to the victim, but unfortunately, the writer did not sign their name.

"So someone wrote "Bruce, we did it!" on that incubator... Was our victim working on this corn?" Amy wondered.

Adalet didn't look up from where she was taping the photo, "sounds like it to me! It also sounds like he had a partner, so whoever wrote this message could tell us more about Bruce. Let's get this incubator to Hannah so she can find them!"

"Great idea!" she agrees as Adalet finished repairing the photo, "and that's some pretty impressive headgear! And that's Zuma Tlatoani, the Aztec tribe chief we met on our previous investigation together! But who is that next to him... Wait, is that our victim? Why is he wearing an Aztec hat, Adalet?"

"No clue," she replies, not seeing anything written on the photo, "but we don't have time to wonder, so let's go ask Zuma directly!"

After leaving the lab, making sure to take the photo and incubator of corn with them, Adalet and Amy drove out to the Aztec tribe to talk to Zuma about his connection to the victim.

"It's nice to see you again, Capt. Adalet," Zuma greets with a smile, "and your partner as well... I guess..."

Amy stared at him in disbelief, "are you being gruff because I refused to call you "Chief" last time we met? Come on, Mr. Tlatoani, when murder is the topic of the day, courtesies are overrated."

"Murder? Does that mean you are here to talk about death once again, Capt. Adalet?" he asked nervously.

"Yes," Adalet confirmed, "Bruce Green has been killed, and we've found evidence that you two were close. Did you give this headgear to him?"

"Bruce is dead? I am sorry to hear of it. And yes, that headpiece was a gift from me," Zuma confirmed, referring to the item in the picture, "he came to me to learn more about the desert. I respected his interest in Mother Nature."

"Giving traditional Aztec headgear to an outsider looks like a deep mark of honour. Was there anything else at play here?" she inquired.

"We were friends. It is not so often we meet people who are humble enough to ask for our wisdom..." he answers.

"I hope that last remark wasn't directed towards me, Mr. Tlatoani," Amy huffed, "anyway, I agree, Adalet, we're done here."

"Adalet, do you know how many times in a career you get to autopsy a man eaten alive by vultures?" Roxie demanded.

Adalet opened her mouth.

"Never, that's how many!" the coroner answered her own question.

"Roxie, I really wish you wouldn't get so excited about dead bodies," Amy scolded, "think about that poor man's life cut short!"

"Sweetie, if I didn't joke about death, I'd kill myself," Roxie says turning serious for a moment, "anyway! Fun facts about your victim! First, the killer cut the victim's torso open, but the vultures that were snacking on him are what killed him!"

"So the killer did use the vultures as a murder weapon! How creative," Adalet rolled her eyes.

"They definitely wanted to torture the victim. Vultures are used to dead meat, so they take their time. He was probably still alive when they pecked his eyes out! But there's more!" Roxie flips through her file, "I found traces of mucus on your victim's face; the killer must have coughed on him! Sand, oil and vulture feathers made the DNA unusable, but I found something else. In the mucus were strong traces of salbutamol, which is a drug used to calm asthma attacks. Which means..."

"Which means the killer has asthma!" Amy concluded, "at least they won't be able to run from us, will they, Adalet?"

Adalet chuckled, "let's hope they haven't been training for that! What about the blood we sent you, Yann?"

"I can confirm the blood you found on this wrench is the victim's blood!" Yann answered.

"So the killer did use that wrench... But how did the victim's blood get on it?" Amy wondered.

"They must have used the wrench to knock the victim out," Adalet suggested, "it would make it easier to tie him up! Did you find anything else, Yann?"

"There were microscopic fragments in the blood. Shards from the shell of a Helianthus annuus, also known as the sunflower seed!" Yann reports.

"Oh, I love sunflower seeds! They're such a healthy snack!" Amy grins, her face quickly morphed into disgust, "oh dear, that means I share something in common with our sunflower seed-eating killer! Ugh, makes me shudder just thinking about it!"

"And on that note, let me take over," Hannah says, getting ready to give her results, "you should have seen Yann's face when I showed this incubator to him, Adalet! I don't know much about biology, but he was super excited about that corn!"

"I'm surprised you weren't, Hannah!" Yann teased, pointing at the incubator, "Adalet, have you looked closely at this incubator? Look! They managed to make that corn grow in dry earth!"

Adalet laughed at the man's childlike excitement, "yes, I see that, Yann!"

Hannah rolled her eyes, "I still don't get what's so exciting about that..."

"Do you realize what this means? If people can grow corn in the desert, we'll never have to worry about starvation again! This could save entire populations!" Yann explained.

"I guess you have a point. So anyway," Hannah decided to move on from corn, "I had a look at the lab files, and the person who worked most closely with Bruce on this project is called Jess Prakti."

"Great! Adalet, let's go talk to Mrs Prakti!" Amy says.

Hannah gave them the address for Jess Prakti's lab and Adalet and Amy left the station, taking the incubator of corn with them. Once they arrived at the laboratory, they were shown inside by a security guard and led into the lab Jess was working in that day.

"Mrs. Prakti," Adalet greets, shaking the woman's hand, "we found this incubator with your message to the victim... You were working together, correct?"

"So it's true, Bruce really is dead," Jess sighs as she places her beaker down, "we'd been working together for five years. Such a tragedy for him to die right when we had finally succeeded!"

"You were trying to... make corn grow in the dirt?" Amy questioned.

"We were trying to make corn grow in the DESERT!" she emphasized the last word, "and we finally did it! The corn in this incubator requires almost no water to grow!"

"That is definitely impressive. But maybe some people didn't want you to succeed? Could someone have killed Bruce because of it?" Adalet asked.

"I don't think so. What we have accomplished is going to help a lot of people. The desert will no longer be a wasteland, it will stop expanding and destroying the fertile lands around it!" Jess tells them, "Bruce and I... We were going to change the world for the better. I just wish he were alive to see the fruits of his labour..."

"Adalet, I know you probably have all the key facts in mind, but personally I could use a little recap! Let's see..." Amy pulls out her notepad, "Bruce Green was tied up and left to be eaten alive by vultures at the oil well... We know he was a scientist, working on making corn grow in the desert with the help of Jess Prakti, which sounds pretty exciting! Obviously, our victim wanted to make the desert a better place."

"Adalet, you need to go! NOW!" Andrea orders, storming out of her office.

"Go? Go where?" Adalet questioned.

"What's happening? Should we be worried?" Amy added.

"A sandstorm is on its way to Dust Town! You need to go there before it scatters all the evidence away!" Andrea answered firmly.

"Dust Town? But why would we find evidence about Bruce Green's murder there, Chief?" Adalet inquired, confused as to the Chief's decisions.

"Because I know this district like the back of my hand and Dust Town is the only route the killer could have taken to get in and out of the oil well!" she explained pointing to the door, "now go to the town, before the sandstorm hits! And make sure to protect your faces from the sand!"

After grabbing some scarves and protective goggles, Adalet and Amy hurried out to Dust Town to search for clues. The warm wind was blowing the sand around like a hurricane, the rough texture of the sand beating the two women's bodies as they powered through the wind.

Peering through the thick sandstorm, Adalet spotted a book laying on the ground, its cover depicting a vulture on it and a strange stain along the top of it. She also found a newspaper clipping nailed to the wall of one of the buildings, and a faded card that was almost blown away by the force winds.

"Adalet, this is insane! It's like the desert is about to swallow this town whole!" Amy shouted to be heard over the howling winds, "you think you've found new clues about Bruce Green's murder? How did you even manage to see them in that wind?!"

"I've got great eyesight!" Adalet yells back, "check out this book! It's called "Everything about vultures"! A book about the birds used to murder Bruce... What are the odds?!"

"I agree, this book must be the killer's! They must have read up on vultures before the murder and discarded the book on their way back from the oil well!" she suggested, "the book is stained with some kind of liquid... Can you collect a sample, Adalet?!"

"Once we're back in the car I will!" she promised as they began trekking their way back to the vehicle.

"And what about that paper? It reads "Grow food in the desert!" and there's a picture of corn growing out of the sand... That's the project our victim was working on!" Amy recalled, "it looks like something up for auction... The number listed could tell us more, but it's torn in half! You'll have to somehow decipher it!"

"And this paper shows another plant. Half of it is faded..." Adalet says as they climbed into the hummer, "phew! Now that we're out of the wind, let's get to work!"

Adalet passed Amy the faded card and dusting kit, while she picked up the stained book and a swab. She ran the cotton end through the stain in a left-to-right motion until it was sufficiently soaked in the unknown substance. Placing the sample aside, she moved on to deciphering the auction number as Amy finished up dusting the card.

"Did you figure out what was written on that picture, Amy?" Adalet inquired.

"The message reads: "Bruce, come be one with nature!" and it's signed by a certain Ezra Hope!" Amy reported, looking shocked, "Come be one with nature"? Could this Ezra Hope be another colleague of our victim? I'll text Hannah to get an address."

A few minutes after sending the text, Amy's cell phone dinged to signal a reply coming through.

"Got it! He lives nearby. Let's go talk to Mr. Hope, Adalet!" Amy says, plugging the address into their GPS.

"And we can send this auction number to Hannah!" Adalet added.

She placed the paper with the other sample and then started the car and followed the robotic voice's directions to their new suspect's address. They were brought to what looked like an abandoned camping site, and the only person they could see was a shirtless man sitting outside of the trailers smoking a cigarette.

"Are you... Are you Ezra Hope?" Adalet inquires, catching the man's attention.

"Police officers? Groovy!" Ezra laughed. Clearly the cigarette he was smoking contained something other than nicotine.

"Mr. Hope, Capt. Adalet found this message you wrote to Bruce Green. Were you two close?" Amy asks, showing the man the card.

"Ah yeah, the green man! He's pretty cool," Ezra gave a lopsided grin, "I like the way he always babbles on about sciency stuff. And he brings me sunflower seeds, he knows I love them."

"Well, we're sorry to tell you that Mr. Green is dead. He was murdered," Adalet informs the man.

Ezra dropped the cigarette he was smoking and his head fell into his hands, "someone murdered the green man?! Not cool, man! I liked smoking with him!"

Amy blinked in disbelief, "... smoking? Are you telling us our victim liked to... get high?"

"High like the vultures in the sky!" he waves his hand up towards the sky, "for a scientist, he was pretty down with the beauty of nature! I'll miss him!"