“That’s - that’s an insane idea.” When Gloria and Sue retrieved to a local dim sum shop for recon, Sue shook her head immediately at the idea of Gloria becoming a consultant for the PCPD: “This is - even if we ignore the obvious problems with working with the badges, long hours, crap pay, shitty coworkers - if the collective knows you’re working with them, they’d have many more excuses to investigate you and to dig up dirt.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” Gloria played with a piece of shrimp dumpling in her bowl, a wry smile on her face: “It is definitely to be expected from them. But - I don’t have a choice, do I?”

“I can ask Turner for some more information - we went to the central archive once already. So - I can try ask him another time - ”

“No, you’ve done quite enough. What you’ve been doing is already very risky, I can’t let you do that.” Gloria raised her hand and cut Sue off: “I’ll - I’ll work with him. I’ll try my best to squeeze my way to that case, and get as much as I could from them. I suspect they’ll want some help and intel regarding our community, maybe the rituals and the paranormal. And - to be honest, I’ll share some information if it’s called for.”

Sue sighed, then held Gloria’s hand: “I understand - I think I do. Now, I’m not gonna try to stop you. But - just be careful, okay? Promise me you’ll be careful. And let me know if there’s anything I can help you with. Anything you hear, tell me and I will ask Turner for help.”

“I figure some day we’ll have to treat Turner for a good meal, maybe something more, even.” Gloria looked into her friend’s eyes and smiled.

“Oh, piss off. No one’s got time for that!” Sue laughed out loud, then she lowered her eyes and stared at the ground: “Maybe - maybe when we have time, eventually…”

“It will be over soon.” Gloria held her friend’s hand tight: “Soon. And then, maybe we can save up some money to move.”

“Maybe, maybe.” Sue took a sip of her lemon tea: “So, how are you going to proceed with this? You’re gonna frequent his precinct? You’re gonna take less shifts at Luoshan’s coffee shop?”

“Yeah - I‘ll talk to her in a bit. I can’t imagine having much spare time after this. ” Gloria shook her head, then she looked up at Sue: “But - that’s enough about me today, anything you wanna talk about? You found anything suspicious or interesting?”

“Oh, right, we did find something interesting.” Sue nodded as she finished the food in her bowl: “The wood carving of the cat you found from inside cat granny? It’s related to some kind of three-dimensional talismans, and apparently it’s very likely connected to that underground temple - because from some record found by Turner, those cultists had a three dimensional carving of the ancient dragon Shyurak on their altar. He thinks it’s a practice of visualization - I am not very familiar with this but thought you may know. One thing’s for sure though: whoever made the carving inside the cat granny, has access to the old records of her or may have seen her in real life.”

—-----------

“Okay - how much do you trust this - this Gloria Lee?” Sitting on top of his working desk in his small office, Kevin asked Marcus, while munching on a piece of shrimp dumpling, made by his mother.

“She saved me once, and from some very unfriendly circumstances. I think right now I’m the shady one.” Marcus shrugged: “And - you know how people from the South Eastern District think about us - ”

“Yeah, but - ” Kevin swallowed, then took a gulp of his milk tea: “She still stole Shrevas and Keryn’s case files.”

“It could be for a good cause. COULD.” Marcus shrugged as he looked at the screen of Kevin’s computer: “I’m not disagreeing, it’s important that we’d be cautious. But I do believe it will be mutually beneficial. After all, for those willing to talk to us there’s not many that are gonna be as familiar with the paranormal as a temp watcher of a coffin home.”

“Yeah, I get your point.” Kevin sighed: “What did the captain say?”

“Still waiting for his response - he’s been quite busy lately. ” Marcus shrugged.

“He’s been really busy since that ‘motorcycle accident’ huh?” Kevin air-quoted with a coy smile: “I wonder who could have hurt him like that.”

“There's still some stench on him. I’ll see if I can get something outta him.” Marcus chuckled. Before he could say anything else, Kevin’s computer chirped.

“Looks like the pattern matching algorithm found something.” Kevin put down his plastic bento box with his pair of metal chopsticks placed inside and hopped off his desk to sit on his working chair.

“What’d you find?”

“Well, this is not good.” Kevin frowned: “It’s kinda all over the place - South Western District, three cases. Northern District, two cases. South Eastern District - one case.”

“How restrictive are your filters?” Marcus also frowned: “This might be - might be a little too frequent? And how come there’s only one case in the South Eastern District? Even if the community collective is corrupted as hell, there’s no reason - ”

“Hmm, I - I think I have a theory.” Kevin leaned back on his chair: “How familiar are you with The Association of Local Churches?”

“Um - I’ve known about it, but not much. It’s a powerful entity, a huge, huge group, right?”

“It’s VERY powerful.” Kevin scratched his nose: “I heard it from my mother - she knows someone who works there. If there’s one thing I remember about that lady, is that she always comes bearing gifts. Sometimes it’s expensive snacks, sometimes it’s free shoes and clothes, sometimes it’s travel vouchers. And recently I heard the gossip that the association is investigating something, in collaboration with the community collective. So - ”

“So they have the authority to do investigations, and since they are also responsible for dealing with paranormality related issues - ”

“They snuffed the cases, using their investigative power.” Marcus nodded: “It - it makes sense.”

“So - what now? Do you want to check out those cases? I don’t know about the Northern District, but I think we can still pull some strings to get case information from those in the South Eastern District…”

Before Kevin could finish, Captain Ko knocked on the door: “Kevin, Marcus, briefing room, now.”