"From our estimates, the destroyed panes of glass themselves number in the realm of ten thousand having been destroyed. Due to the quality of each of the glass panes being in higher quality, it comes out with an average price of circa forty thousand for each piece. Though, it should be factored in that some of the glass panes were of extreme size, growing the average two-fold by themself. When the top one per cent is taken out of the equation, the average is closer to one thousand dollars per glass pane."

Jared had to put his elbows on the table, as his head tried to make the numbers heard make sense to him. There were only about fifty stores that had been broken into. While, yes, each had been equipped with multiple floors, that still amounted to each store having an insane amount of glass inside. Truly, there couldn't have been a worse street chosen by the thieves. The general design just had to have been about glassware.

"Forty fucking million dollars on pure glass," Jared stated, unable to truly figure out how a set of thieves had created so much damage. According to what had been said before, Cassandra estimated it to have all been done within a span of ten minutes. Ten full minutes had been spent making forty million dollars worth of damage.

"I can assure you that the glass would have been much cheaper if they were pure. However, all of the destroyed glass was of top-quality, and had been mixed with several polymers to create one of the most durable materials known to man," Cass said, waiting a few seconds so that Jared could get it into his head. How thoughtful of- "Also, it is four hundred million dollars in damages. You missed a zero in your calculations."

Oh god, he felt the need to vomit. Not literally, of course. Jared just felt like that was the only real response he could give without seeming like he was underestimating the situation. It was well and truly screwed up. In his entire career, there hadn't been a single time where he even had seen damage worth a hundredth of that. This was a situation worthy of the record books. When it got out to the news, it would be the scandal of the decade. The current war had nothing on this. People’s money was truly being wasted here. Not that the people were going to be paying for it. That job was for the-

"The insurance!" Jared said, silently sitting up with his back completely straight. "Please tell me that the insurance company has agreed to do overall coverage instead of an indexed one."

"There is not a single one of the insurance companies that have agreed to do so," Cass answered with the kind of smile that only showed pain through the teeth. She hated it just as much as him. "I contacted them all an hour ago. Each of them wants a full report on the matter, along with every single item involved in the case, with each having a personalized description of their location, how they have been touched by the criminals, how they have been handled by us, what kind of damage done on them, and about ten other things we can’t automatically copy over from other pieces of data. There are over fifty thousand individual items, and each company wants a detailed explanation of each of them in their own personalized format."

Jared well and truly wished for death. His idea of being done with the hard work was a fever dream by now. There would never be an end to the current situation. The owners were likely breathing down their necks, demanding that the work would be completed by the end of the week. Or maybe they even wanted it by this afternoon. He didn't dare ask, not wanting his fears confirmed about it.

"I only remember hearing about ten thousand glass panes being destroyed," Jared decided to point out, even if he knew he would regret hearing the explanation. "What are the forty thousand other items?"

"General goods from every store there is. With the windows broken, snow and glass shards have been freely able to come inside. It turns out that a lot of valuable items cant handle snow melting on top of it, causing a complete inability to sell anything. Oh, and the actual count might be higher. We aren't sure if the one’s deeper inside the storage areas are counted as something damaged. If so, we will be looking at an item count nearing seventy thousand instead."

"I see you have done your work well," Jared said before laying his head on the table, stress getting the better of his back muscles. He didn't want to listen to more, yet he knew that ignorance would only stress him out more than he could ever imagine. "How long did this take you to figure out?"

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"About seven full hours of computing without rest," Cass answered nonchalantly. Maybe Jared’s display of reverence helped the mood slightly. "It was much shorter than expected, to be honest."

Seven hours of work wasn't seen as something truly long anymore. Just from that, Jared knew that his life would be shortened by a decade or two, his body never truly destined to ever recover from the physical and mental damage that would come from the soon-to-be fest of paperwork. And he had to write reports about it all as well.

How long would it take to do? If he could write out a report for one item each minute and file that report in the next minute, it would take two full minutes for each item. If Jared never stopped this process, instantly starting the next report each time he finished the last one, he would be able to have done it all within… three months. Three full months of not doing anything but filing in reports, never sleeping, eating, or even being distracted. He wouldn't be able to do that. His mind would implode before the first hour would be over. It was an impossible estimate.

The work alone would cause him to be promoted. That’s how Jared felt it would be, the man likely being deserving some commendations after doing it all. The sheer endurance of doing something of that size was something that few officers had ever had the need to do. Maybe Jared could get his name into the record books as well, known as the man with the record of going down with chronic stress the fastest. It was time to speed-run forced retirement, as one might call it. Well… with the pills he would need to take, there was certainly a chance of breaking that record.

"When are we supposed to start the process up?" Jared asked, the man having successfully defeated himself purely through a negative line of thoughts. His psyche had been broken, and he was ready to be the work slave that nature had always demanded him to be. Maybe he could get a bonus later in the year for the things he would need to do. Grunwald might even allow him to have the circus-sprinkled doughnuts next Tuesday. The jelly ones had always been out of his taste range.

"I would have preferred if we could wait until this whole ordeal was done with, but it is obvious that the higher-ups would not commend us for doing so," Officer Grunwald said, not sounding happy about that fact. "We have already been sent our notice about our names being used in future articles. They are planning on running a full story on this whole ordeal, no matter what the government does. Our actions will be watched with a close eye for the next many months. Be ready for orders that surround the capture of the thieves, by the way. They will likely not have appreciated our failure up until now."

Cassandra and Jared actually matched their timing on groaning at that moment, both of them disliking that fact so much. Messages from the outside would have to be turned off permanently now, else the whole team would be flooded with angry comments, death threats, and whatever else the current generation felt was okay to send to people just trying to do their best. It almost made the young man want to quit. Not that it would do any difference, his name being used no matter what he would do.

"I am guessing that they’re coming out here to do it live?" Cass inquired, making Jared pick up on a few possibilities.

"They indeed are. And… They have been asking us for an interview. They want some kind of statement from us, and they would apparently love it if we could do it live as well," Grunwald said, another sigh coming out on that note. "It is clear that whoever does it will have the most hate towards them. Since the two of you actually have a chance of getting promoted within the next ten years, I believe I should be the one to take the hit here. Any objections with that plan?"

Neither of the two younger ones spoke a word, both of them not wanting to be in the spotlight. However, it might just have been for very different reasons entirely. Jared didn't want to be shown off live, for fear that he might say the wrong thing and mess it up even worse. Cass… Jared wasn't actually sure why Cassandra would want to be in the spotlight. Maybe she was camera-shy? He thought about asking her later. Not now, though. There were still other things to get nailed down.

"Good to hear," Grunwald said. "Since they will be coming within a day, I think we should put out our priorities surrounding that. First, we need to do the last bit of clean-up related to the incident we had yesterday. Cass, I would put that task over to you, yet I believe that you would actually be more efficient in overseeing the cleaning of the street where the robberies occurred. We need to have removed the glass shards so that the ice can be melted by the road’s internal systems. The equipment for the task is over at another site, but I am sure you can handle that. Any comments on that?"

"I have none, sir," Cass answered. Grunwald nodded before turning over to Jared.

"Jared. You will be doing the task of cleaning up the last bits from the clearing. I also need you to check that no more traps were set up, while also checking out a few locations that I will note down for you in a few minutes. Do you both understand?"

The two nodded, nothing needing to be questioned. Jared was a bit confused by the fact that Grunwald simply couldn't inform him what locations he needed to visit instantly, yet he just carried on as if that was normal. Perhaps it was a sore spot for Cass still, making them need to keep it on the down-low.

Now that Jared thought about it, he hadn't actually asked how the woman was doing yet. They had been so preoccupied with other things that the two hadn't actually talked casually for a while. Jared was sure to fix that within the hour.

First, however, breakfast needed to be finished. This time, it was done in silence, everything that could have been said already said. Any more added would only bring further tasks, and nobody really wanted that.

Which was why Jared would do his damn best to enjoy his tea. It really was the greatest thing he could have ever asked for.