The alarm rang on John Sleiger's bedside, but he was too sleep deprived to wake up. His hand reached for his phone and he desperately tried to turn off the alarm, succeeding after a few attempts. The stress of college and work had caught up to him some time ago, but to make ends meet, he had to endure it.

'If only I had more hours in a day,' thought John.

"John, I'm going!" A familiar voice proclaimed. Suddenly awakened by the loud voice, John let out a groan and wiped the drool off his face with shaky hands.

"Did you hear me John!?", the same voice asked again, this time even louder than before.

"I heard you, Fred!" John yelled, begrudgingly.

Fred, John's roommate, left slamming the door shut behind him.

John flinched. Though still drowsy, he got off his bed while cursing his friend audibly. He grabbed his phone from the adjacent desk and checked the notifications.

"17 emails, huh?" he muttered, reading through his work email inbox. His face grew disappointed once he got to the end of the list of emails.

John works for BMC (Battle Management Corporation), under the Insurance handling department. His job was to show ways for the company to deny the insurance claim. Be it finding loopholes in the rules of the contract that the company can exploit or gathering evidence that the insurance does not need to cover the specific claim.

This would've been an easy job if it weren't for the constraints. The job itself is contract based. For example, if there is an insurance claim by someone, the details of the case are sent to a group of people like John. Only the first person to solve the case gets paid. To keep the details of confidential information from breaching, only candidates that continually solved cases were trusted. People who solved less than 15 cases per month would eventually be removed from the company's case-solvers list. As if these constraints weren't enough, there usually was also a time limit within which the case has to be solved.

Currently, John's disappointment was since all the cases he received through the 17 emails were already closed(solved). It was the last day of the month and he needed to solve one more case to ensure his name was on the list. He had exams in the next month and the last thing he wanted to worry about was not being able to pay for the expenses of living in the city because he is jobless.

John's phone pinged again and he saw that he received two more emails.

'Nice.'

He quickly glanced through both emails and picked the one he was going to solve. As it was a race against time, he immediately got to work.

***

A lot of details about the case were provided in the mail, however, John felt the need to visit the site for additional information. The very nature of this case required him to do so.

John again read through the details of the case. Yesterday, at midnight, a [level-3] [earth-type] [Crab] monster appeared on the outskirts of the city. Being a lower-level monster, the task force sent a [level-0] [lightning-type] rookie to solo it. Though the hero was 4 levels lower than the monster, not to mention, a rookie, his ability type earned him an advantage over his enemy. But after his win, he apparently threw a lightning bolt for no reason that killed an insured. Or so the insurance claimer (the insured's wife) says.

If the details were true, this would prove to be a huge problem for the company. Paying the insurance amount was one thing, but the negligence of the Taskforce (TF) branch in training the hero would be a bigger issue. If the company failed the case, the Taskforce would have to take the blame for what happened, as a result, the company's market value would plummet as a whole. The superhero who caused all this would have his license canceled as well,

and maybe even be prosecuted. The human rights activists especially looked out for cases like these, they loved reckless heroes.

Even though John had only a day to solve this case, he was confident that he would be able to solve it. The case sounded so far-fetched, he found it hard to believe that someone was stupid enough to use this as a cover story. But there was also fear in his mind.

'What if it did happen?'

Irresponsible heroes weren't unheard of, after all.

On the train to the venue where the incident happened, John read through the mail again, to make sure he got his details right about the type of insurance the policyholder had, family details, the hero's abilities, etc. Thanks to the half an hour of delay due to an ongoing hero vs monster battle in the train station and a solid hour of travel in the hyperloop, he had a good grasp of the current situation of the case. And only a few minutes after he got down at the station, he arrived at his destination.

He was only about 500 miles away from his home, but the outskirts were almost alien lands to John. Being only an hour away, John half expected to walk through a suburb. Instead, what he had before him was barren lands as far as he could see, only a building here and there, similar to trees back home. The humid air devoid of the familiar smell of pollution was a new experience too. The green fields across the land fascinated John. All in all, it felt like he was in a film about the 2000s.

Although it was a surreal experience, alas, the youth couldn't waste more time than he already did. He could soak in this dream-like environment once he finished.

The incident happened near a farm. The policyholder was apparently activating the Farmcage (literally a cage that once activated would encapsulate the entire farmland in a metal cage with spikes, that is stored underground when deactivated) to avoid the monster from running over his farm.

Most times the aid of surveillance cameras makes the case a lot easier to solve, but in this case, the data on the storage was corrupted. The mail mentioned that this was because of the rookie hero's lightning, which possibly produced enough magnetism to corrupt the footage. But in John's mind laid a doubt- maybe it was the hero's doing. No one would want such powerful evidence against them. But sadly, there wasn't enough evidence to prove his doubt.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

With no camera footage or proper satellite screening of the area John was left with the traditional way of investigation, and he dreaded it. He would have to talk to the insurance claimer- the widow of the dead man.

One of the toughest parts of his job was dealing with the insurance claimers. They most often than not, were emotionally unstable. Since the insurance has to be claimed within a week of the person's passing, it's almost guaranteed that their family would burst into tears the moment they are questioned. But John knew better than that. He couldn't let others' emotions get to him.

He ironed his resolve and moved through the farmland towards the house. Before he entered the house, he noticed a shed adjoint to the house, barricaded with signs saying [DO NOT CROSS].

The insides of the house were far more humble than he had expected. Rarely any daily life gadgets that he deemed essential for survival were present. It made him feel strangely nostalgic, although he had never lived in such an environment before.

At the center of the living, stood a table, by which sat a middle-aged woman, with her head down. Beside her stood a female officer with a file in her hand. The officer noticed John approaching and took a look at the ID that John pulled out. Once she confirmed that he was authorized by the company and was there to talk to the widow, she left them alone.

"Ma'am, can you please tell me what you saw?" John sat by

the woman, mentally preparing himself for the predicted and oncoming emotional outburst from the woman.

The woman lifted her head off the table, revealing her blood-red eyes and the smeared mascara all over her cheeks. Gripping her disheveled hair as if trying to think through the unwavering sadness, she began to narrate about the night.

"At about 1.30 last night a siren went off. Usually, the cage would've activated on its own, but something went wrong last night. The cage wouldn’t activate even after waiting for fifteen minutes. So my husband went out to manually activate it. While he did that I was looking out the window for the monster. After he had activated-". The woman held

back her tears and after a moment of silence continued her story, "He activated the cage and suddenly a spark of light came out of nowhere and- and-"

John patiently waited as the woman bawled her eyes out and considered her narrative. Quite a few questions popped up now that he had heard from the witness herself. Once the woman stopped, he shot the next question.

"When was the last time that the cage was activated?"

"A few months ago. During monsoon."

"And I suppose you were looking out the window to alert your husband if the monster go too close, yes?"

She nodded in affirmation.

"Were the hero and the monster already fighting by the time your husband went outside?"

"Yes, the mon-" The woman suddenly paused. She looked John dead in the eye and spoke with quickly growing agitation evident in her tone. "You scum. You want to deny the insurance by saying it was my husband's fault, won't you? Just to cover your skin you are going to blame it on my husband, won't you? You piece of shit!"

"Ma'am please calm down! I do not intend to do anything of that sort. I am here solely to learn about your account of the incident. If anything, I would be of help to you." That was a lie. A blatant lie.

John's job had made him insensitive to emotions. Lying to people and showing them hope were trivial things he resorted to when he needed to. He no longer felt anything from it. No repent, none at all. He had succumbed to the ethics of his professions so much that he had lost something that made him human. Alas, if that's what it took for him to earn his college tuition and afford his food, then so be it.

"Will you really help?" The woman asked desperately. For a split second, John's willpower almost wavered, as his pitiful heart made him see his long-gone mother in the widow, but he was back to his senses in the next.

"I will. I promise." He said reassuringly, just like he had practiced.

"Thank you. Thank you-*hic*-very much. Will-*hic*-will we get the insurance by next month?"

"I can't say for sure, but you might," John stated.

"Could you speed the process, please?" The woman sighed again, fighting the urge to give up and sob until she forgot everything.

"I'll see what I can do, ma'am." With that, John left the house.

Before he left the site though, he needed to check the shed. The police officer from earlier stood by the shed, lost in her thoughts while smoking a cigarette.

"Can I enter the shed?" John asked, pulling back the officer to reality.

"It's quite open, isn't it? You can see from here, can't you?." She said rudely.

"Okay." Although annoyed by the officer's rude behavior, he got close to the barricades and examined the inside. There was a sketch of the outline of the dead man. It was only natural that the body might've been kept in a coffin by now before people showed up for the funeral. The ground around the outline was noticeably sooty.

Besides the outline, on one of the walls of the shed stood a box of machinery that probably was once the manual hydraulic activator for the farm cage, but what remained now was just a charred cube of metal. Thought it was named 'Manual', the name was quite misleading. It was just a lever that would switch on a high-power motor which would in turn activate the cage. In simpler terms, it was a high-voltage switch.

"They're not going to get the insurance, are they?" The officer asked, rather melancholically.

John ignored her question and continued examining the shed.

"I despise the lots like you. Doing such things just for money." Throwing her cigarette butt onto the ground and stomping on it, she emphasized how she felt.

"Every month there are at least two or three incidents and none of them get the insurance that is promised. Mrs. Smith won't either. The poor woman thinks there's still hope for her." She pulled out another cigarette from a pack and lit it. After a deep puff, she continued, " Mrs. Smith's son has a tumor in his brain. They only got to know about it a month ago. At first, we thought that their health insurance would cover it. But apparently not. Health insurance is a joke."

The officer took another deep puff, "Since then, Mr. Smith had tried his damn best at getting the money. In the end, he took a loan saying it was for business expansion, cause no one would lend money for medical reasons. And now, this happened. If they could get that insurance money, they would be able to pay the debt. A part of it at least, if not all of it."

John was done examining for long by then, but he pretended to be doing it while listening to her. He had the policy of not learning about the insured's family, or else he would be extra guilty. But now that he had heard it all, but didn't know how to reply or what he should be doing now.

It was the last day of the month. If he solved this case, he would get the pay and also would remain in the company circle for these slightly high-paying cases. He wouldn't have to worry about money during his exams. But on the other hand, the family would be able to pay off the debt. The son would get his surgery done and would eventually work for a living. They would live a slightly better life than if John denied their insurance claim. But that would make a lot of difference for them. If he lost this job, he could try his hand at something else as well. He didn't know what he had to be doing…

John stepped back from the shed and started walking away from the site, towards the rail station.

"Will they be getting the insurance?" The officer asked.

After ignoring her for so long now, he decided to answer her. "What do you think?"

"They probably wouldn't. Even a dimwit like me can deduce something that feels like a more probable reason than a random lightning strike by a hero. You are going to say that the hydraulic activator malfunctioned, won't you? A short circuit, maybe?"

Although that had a few shortcomings, a few overlooked facts, and in the worst-case scenario a few bribes to some officials could close the case.

John stayed silent. He stood there for a moment, unable to decide which decision of his was rational. Should he submit the deduction he arrived at, incidentally the same as the one that the officer arrived at, to the company? Or should he think of the family? It felt like déjà vu. One of his very first cases felt the same way. He didn't want to feel like a monster for ruining a family's life. But he also didn't want to risk his career for it.

"At least you aren't framing the poor woman for murdering her husband." The officer dropped the cigarette butt and let out a deep sigh. "You know, you can change their lives with this?"

"You are quite optimistic about this. Do you think, this would be settled if I drop the case? If it's not me, it would be someone else."

"True. But if I can convince you, I could try my hand at convincing the others as well."

"You are quite optimistic about this, aren't you? And what if that doesn't do it? You will take it to the court?" John asked, still turned away from the officer.

"No. They can't afford a lawyer. Nor can they afford the time for the court hearings with how things would be in that case."

John knew that. He knew it damn well. It was one of the reasons why he jumped into the case as soon as he read about it. These people generally would not go to court. Even if they did, the company would compensate them if they withdrew. When it came to this particular family, they wouldn't be able to do even that.

John walked away without saying a word.

Once he got on the rail back home, he started typing an email. "Subject… Short circuit".

The case was closed. There still were questions that were left unanswered, but it didn't matter to John.