Thomas placed the case scrolls on the table and started to thoroughly read through it. It was about a case that happened five years ago, where a superhero called: The Red Hat, was attacked by two villains, ending up losing his life there.
The case looked strangely similar to his case. The Red Hat was someone without much significance in the town and was part of the SA here. He was on a train trip, going to a distant and remote town, where he'd accompany the newly found superheroes, lead them towards the place of their test.
"The circumstances are all the same…" Thomas' investigative sense worked again, telling him that these two cases were closely related.
Unlike the incident he suffered, this one got little details. The target of this assault died, and few people saw what happened.
"It happened in a train, just like what happened to me," Thomas found what he came here for, turned around instantly and left towards his department. He didn't forget to follow the protocol of the Vault to the letter, shouted at the one who brought him here to lead him out.
That superhero gave Thomas a look full of regret, as if he missed having some, seeing someone ruining his life or something.
Thomas heaved an inward sigh of relief, feeling more terrible the more he thought about his desire back then to try and find that wallet and the mysterious paper in it.
Without knowing it, he felt extreme fear and worry, feelings that he still found it hard to control. He distracted himself by thinking about the file he just read, the content, the circumstances, the investigations that ended up with nothing, and that worked.
His anxiety downgraded itself by many levels, making him finally move normally at last. During the past couple minutes, his body was shaking while he was moving downstairs, heading to his department.
As he went there, he found Trevor with Lucy. The latter was laughing about something, a weird and funny term she read, one that was called: Fake sympathy to know more.
Thomas didn't need to ask about anything to know what this term meant. It was a simple tactic of investigators, one that one would lie, try to convince the suspect or a witness that he truly cared and felt sorry for him and his cause.
This tactic would work over the younger criminals and witnesses, not someone experienced in doing evil deeds. Thomas ignored her and told Trevor about what he found.
"They are not related," Lucy acted as if she was the expert here, "this incident happened five years ago. It's obviously not related!"
Thomas and Trevor turned to look at her at the same time. It felt like she was trying to steal the limelight or something.
"What?" She felt a little nervous when the two looked at her without saying a single word.
"Nothing," Trevor inwardly sighed, cursing the day he accepted such a lousy girl. In his eyes, she was best suited to serve at the finance department. She and Jax would make the perfect duo without any doubt.
"I see the connections between the one we have here and that old case," Trevor turned to Thomas before adding in excitement, "I knew I met such a case before! It just happened a long time ago… Why did they take such time to attack again?"
"Hmm…" Thomas knew such a question made perfect sense. If this was an organised group of outlaws, then why didn't they attack again?
"It may be possible if they work over a larger scale," Thomas' mind provided the answer for him, "like… Like they are working…"
"... All over the sector!" Trevor's eyes shone brighter, seemingly stirred up by what Thomas said, "damn! This is going to be big! Let me go and send requests to other SAs, let them search for other similar cases like this."
He turned around and was about to walk, before stopping at the door, turned to Thomas and looked at him. "Good work," he raised a thumb to him, before moving away and closing the door.
"I still see the two are unrelated," Lucy said from the side, shrugging as if she just saw two men go crazy or something.
"I believe you," Thomas felt like going into a much deeper conversation with her would blow more brain cells. So, he decided to play along, make her feel like she was right about her guess.
The day was over by this, and Thomas went home. There he found Genny preparing dinner for him, and he ate with Jax, enjoyed his time after that over the rooftop of this building.
The next morning, he returned to the department, and the first thing he said when he met Trevor was to ask him about something.
"You want to go back to the Vault? For what?!" Trevor was well aware of how hard it was for Thomas to go there. So if he asked this, it meant there must be a good reason behind this.
Thomas already thought about this most of the night and didn't have enough sleep. And that was obvious in the black bags under his eyes. He didn't mind that, as back on Earth, he spent lots of nights without much sleep anyway thanks to his job.
"We found a similar case there, who said we can't find more if we didn't dig deeper?" Thomas expressed his viewpoint, hoping to get more access to the Vault. Just from his visit there, he found not only a clue to the current incident he experienced, but also to the mysterious wallet.
He wanted to pay more visits to that place, to dig all the old cases and check if there were other wallets found or not.
"This… Do you know how strict that place is? Getting access again without proper reasons won't pass," Trevor sighed, knowing that Thomas just wanted to help nothing more.
"But we found evidence there, a lead that can expose more about this case, about many others…"
"Thomas… Stop it," Trevor raised his hand to stop the excited Thomas before he'd get carried away by his wild thoughts, "I understand what you are trying to say, but those up there… You still don't get it, they don't care about our department, about our investigations and all this. They only care about killing and catching more villains, even if most cases won't get solved."
"..." Trevor's words reminded Thomas of the large number of closed cases he read yesterday without reaching a conclusive result about them. He felt weird back then, like how he felt when he read all the omitted parts in the scrolls of all cases.
When he recalled this point, he wanted to speak with Trevor about it. But for a reason, he felt like even mentioning this would bring more trouble his way. So he remained shut about this, only sighed and said in honest regret:
"We could have made lots of progress about this case."
"I know, but this isn't how things are done in our world," Trevor was totally supporting Thomas' point of view, but he knew more than this new cub in the team, "go inside and work with Lucy over this case's files and reports. Don't think too much about this, ok?"
Thomas nodded then left, headed to the department where he worked with Lucy over these files. He knew he lost his chance this time, but who knew, he might get another chance out of the blue, just like how this happened.
In the middle of the day, and as Thomas tried his best to ignore Lucy with her annoyingly naive comments and opinions about what the two were reading, Trevor came back from outside.
"Thomas, I need a word with you," he motioned to Thomas from the door, and the latter followed him outside, "I tried to get you an access, but failed."
"You did?" Thomas was truly touched by Trevor's actions. Even if he said previously that there was no hope, he did try to grant him access to the vault.
"Don't get dejected by this, if it's up to me, I'd have let my department rule the SA, hahahaha!" Trevor laughed, but for a reason Thomas felt bitterness and self-mocking feelings from him, "anyway. It's not like there isn't another way to dig about such cases."
"There is another way? What? Tell me!" Thomas' eyes went wide as he grew excited about this. And when Trevor told him the answer, he couldn't help but smack his forehead with his palm.
It was a simple and easy to guess answer. "The public library of course!" he muttered to himself while walking out of the SA building after the end of the day, "how come I never thought about this? There are records about newspapers and reporters do love speaking about such tragic incidents, right?"
According to Trevor, the big boss refused his request as there was no urgent reason for this. Thomas and Trevor saw an opportunity in what Thomas discovered, but others saw this was enough accomplishment.
Trevor wanted him to go to the public library, check all the newspapers stored there, look for any clue about any incident like this.
According to Trevor, the public library held records about papers not only released in this place, but from various places in the sector. That meant he couldn't only find clues about similar cases here, but also at other places far away as well.
The plan was simple. The moment Thomas found anything useful, Trevor promised him to go back and nag the big boss about it. This would be another clue, and he'd have more right to ask for more visits to the Vault.
"Oh, what's going on?"
After three days, Thomas already grew used to his new lifestyle. He asked Jax about the public library, and he got a lousy answer from him. The most trusted answer he got from Genny later on.
During the past days, Thomas was busy with a new thing, cooking! He knew he was pressuring Genny, who didn't have to cook anything for him. So, he started to go out, buy different food, and returned home to try out his luck. The stove in his apartment wasn't that much different from the one he used to have back on Earth. But back then, he didn't need to use it frequently, mainly buying ready food from shops back there.
If he tried to do the same here, he'd spend a fortune for this. The culture of fast food wasn't yet developed or even introduced in this world. The only places he could go and buy food from were fancy restaurants, ones that would empty all his monthly salary for just one or two meals.
As he was new in this field, Genny volunteered to teach him. This made the two much closer than before, and she was a girl with a kind heart indeed.
He didn't have time to go to the library. He was progressing smoothly in cooking by Genny's words, despite gaining lots of mocking comments and jokes from Jax whenever he tried out the food he made.
Yet this day something new was happening in the building. When the two left the chariot that carried them from the SA, Thomas found lots of lights decorating the rooftop, something that reminded him of earth parties.
"I don't know," Jax paused, seemingly puzzled by what was going on at the rooftop of the building. Night was about to fall, and blackness was shyly introduced in the world of light of the dying day.
"Seems like a party," Thomas went to the rooftop directly with Jax, and everything he saw up there was similar to an old version of parties back at Earth.
The exposed part to the rapidly dimming sky was filled with lots of threads that had paper made torches. There was something releasing different colours of lights from these torches, but Thomas couldn't see through the thick outer paper layer. The roof was filled with many tables, with food and lots of drinks there. Music was playing from a corner, as a group of musicians were playing their instruments, six in total, with one who looked a bit professional, playing an instrument that looked like Jazz.
The place was filled with lots of faces, people that Thomas met many of before. They were either people living in the building, his neighbours, or people he met at various shops and places around this place when he went out to buy ingredients.
Soon enough the duo learnt about the occasion of this party. It was the birthday of one of those living in the building, one who was called: Tara.
"Sorry I didn't bring anything," he apologised for Tara, who was a rounded middle-aged lady, very nice and warm, very easy to speak with.
She didn't say anything and offered him drinks and food. She thanked him for coming to her birthday party, and Thomas lived a night that reminded him of old days on Earth.
He used to watch such parties, but never got interested in taking part in any. Yet for a reason, such an ice wall that prevented him from having fun before seemingly melted down by coming to this world.
He laughed, danced, chatted with people attending the party, getting to know them better. He met people who owned stalls and shops around the building, people he knew before, and new people as well.
After this party, he was now feeling like being home. The party lasted till the early hours in the morning, and again he didn't have a nice sleep.
It felt like this was his own curse. He tried to work with Lucy, and thanks to her habit of talking too much, he didn't sleep.
"I miss my morning coffee," in this world, coffee was something that didn't exist. Thomas had a severe headache that he knew a single mug of coffee would solve like magic.
As he returned back, he decided to take the rest of the day off, sleeping deeply and rest his body and mind. But like how a headache annoyed him in the morning, it prevented him from having a nice night's sleep in the night.
"They are the same," he grew the habit of taking out the wallet from time to time, examining its content. At first, he was very interested in the paper that was filled with English letters. But later on, he started to grow a different interest, and this was directed towards the weird cards he found there.
"According to that file, there were also weird cards like these, without reaching any clue about them…" Thomas couldn't sleep well, so he decided to take these cards out and examine them thoroughly, hoping to find anything new.
As usual, he spent an hour or so examining these cards, even running one test and tried to burn one down. He was trying to see if heat would reveal anything, or perhaps he'd find anything left in the ash. As he failed, he tried to use his power, ending up ruining another card.
"It's pointless," without any clue, he knew he reached a dead end here. So he stored the wallet away, thinking about his superpower.
During the past days, he never neglected training on the technique he found useful for him. He could feel his black threads growing for a few centimetres long, gaining better control at his power. He wanted to train more, but every time he tried to do so, he ended up leaving a pile of ash from the damaged furniture.
So he stopped training, and that made him feel quite depressed.
"On Earth, there were designated places to even try out firearms. I hope this place has something similar to this…"
He decided to ask Trevor the next day about this. If there was any place like that to train one's superpower, he'd consider going there as long as there was enough secrecy in that place.
But in the next morning, he was welcomed with a big surprise, something that he never expected or saw coming.
"He is gone?! Where to?!!"