"Okay Merrill," Dan said, leaning back in his chair and cracking his knuckles. "Let's summarize."

His mouse buddy looked down at his laptop screen from her place on top of his head. He could hear her adorable, and somehow inquisitive, squeaks reverberate through his skull. Dan was at home, inside his study. Plainclothes officers were parked down the street from him, keeping watch over Dan and his home. Abby remained in Florida, a beneficiary of her grandmother's dubious hospitality. He was, with the exception of Merrill, alone with his thoughts.

The events of the previous day were still fresh in his memory. The already stretched homicide unit was working the bodies he'd found, and Dan could offer them almost nothing to help. He hadn't felt this useless in what felt like a long, long time. His skin itched at the feeling, and he had a constant, irritating, overabundance of energy, without anywhere to direct it. Dan needed desperately to reflect on the chaos that had been this entire month, and devise a plan to do something about it.

"Let's start with the facts," Dan narrated as he typed. "What do we know for sure?"

What could be verified? What wasn't an assumption, but a cold, hard fact. For starters, Coldeyes' Crew had initiated a massive gang war, indiscriminately slaughtering roughly a hundred Scales and unaffiliated civilians alike. In the middle of this chaos, a group of elites had hit the FBI Field Office, raiding both its weapons cache and its holding cells. Andros Bartholomew, a terrorist and mad scientist known to work with the People, who also had a definite grudge against Dan, was freed.

Dan paused in his recollections. This all sounded pretty grim. He stared at his laptop screen, where he'd typed everything down. He'd... probably need to delete all this, just to be safe. He had no idea how much of it was sensitive information, and knew even less about cyber-security. Probably better to just use this document as a sounding board, and delete it when he was done.

He sighed, rubbing his eyes. "What conclusions can we infer from this?" he asked Merrill.

Coldeyes' Crew were obviously working with someone, presumably the People. Dan didn't know anyone else who would want the scientist free, but that didn't mean that they didn't exist. But the Crew did have backers, that much was certain. They had no motive to attack the FBI, otherwise. Their massive assault on the Scales had been reckless enough, they wouldn't have poked the feds unless they'd been given a good reason.

Money, probably, and a lot of it. Coldeyes might have sacked his entire operation in Austin. As far as Dan had been told, the Crew's gang activities had completely ground to a halt. There was no money flowing in, and their upgraded members were in hiding. It was an odd state of affairs, given how tense the city was. There was actually less crime happening, now, though the cost had been extreme.

The brief peace couldn't last.

Dan groaned to himself. He was getting nowhere with this, except making himself feel worse. He shouldn't overthink this. He'd go with what Cornelius had told him, and what the APD were assuming. Dan ran down a quick list of the assumptions.

1) Coldeyes' Crew had been hired by the People to spring Andros Bartholomew. They'd succeeded, with a group consisting of what seemed to be hired mercenaries and Coldeyes lieutenants. Few had made it out of the fight alive. Zim, the highest ranking of them, remained in a coma after Dan had ballistically amputated his shoulder and everything attached to it. He wasn't going to make it.

2) The alliance was one of profit, not ideology. They shouldn't be working together in the future, now that the job is done. The People were the feds problem, the Crew was the city's.

3) The payment had been enough for Coldeyes to consider ending his operations in Austin. The gang war had been bloody and overt, and it was pure luck that the feds hadn't come crashing down on the gang immediately after.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Dan paused, and reread his last sentence. Something disturbing occurred to him.

What if it wasn't luck? What if Coldeyes knew the feds would be distracted by... whatever was distracting them? That was a worrying thought. It meant the Crew might not be running as scared as they appeared to be. There was no way for Dan to know for sure. He'd have to wait for Abby to get back to him, before he could think about that any further.

He went back to typing.

4) Someone (probably Bartholomew) was trying to fuck with him. They'd killed several people, and perhaps tried to implicate him in the murder investigation. His own caution had kept him fairly safe from scrutiny, but he was certainly involved now.

5) A SPEAR Team leader had been abducted shortly after Dan had called the cops. Dan was assuming, for the moment, that the surveillance camera they'd discovered at the storage facility had been placed by the culprit. They'd noticed Dan failing to take the bait, and moved instead on the officer.

That was it. Dan stared down at his own words.

What could he do about any of this? He knew what he couldn't do: He couldn't sit by and wait. He couldn't be passive.

He couldn't.

Dan needed a problem that he could attack. An angle of approach, where he could be useful. He needed a way to help the investigation move forward. The problem was, he knew next to nothing about murder investigations, or investigating in general. Those particulars hadn't been covered by any of his teachers. Not even the basics.

Which meant he needed to learn. Who could—

Tawny.

Dan appeared down the street from his house not twenty minutes later. The officer on duty flinched and cursed at Dan's sudden appearance, then quickly rolled down the window of his Crown Vic.

"Newman!" he hissed, "What are you doing here?"

"I'm heading out to meet my old Academy teacher for lunch," Dan said. He held up a six pack of beer cans, and another of Dr. Pepper. "Brought something to keep you company. Want anything from IHOP?"

The officer scowled at him. Dan knew this one; they'd met in the aftermath of James Webb's death. Mike Perez, if Dan recalled correctly. He was a gruff fellow, but affable enough once he settled down. Food and booze would ease whatever annoyance he might feel towards his charge.

Perez hesitated at Dan's question, then quickly snatched up the proffered items. "Get me some pancakes," he replied simply, cracking open one of the soda cans. "Maybe some sausage."

Dan winked. "Sure thing, Mike."

He knocked on the car's roof, then vanished.

The International House of Pancakes fit in perfectly with Dimension A. The menu was virtually identical from what Dan could remember, and even the blue and white color scheme remained the same. The building construction, however, leaned hard into the country's strange obsession with themes.

It was a pile of pancakes.

Well, not really, but it was clearly meant to look like one. The outer shape was a series of five large, thin plates, draped on top of each other at imperfect angles. Water fountains hidden within the building's layers simulated syrup running down the sides. It was crowned with a yellowish-white ball, upon which the logo was fixed.

Dan shook his head in bemusement. It was certainly a... design. At least they stuck with their aesthetic, though he wasn't sure how much credit he should actually give them for it. The building looked ridiculous from his perspective, but no more so than anything else. He just hoped the food held up.

Dan was greeted by a young waitress upon entry, and quickly seated. He ordered himself a water, and watched the passersby as he waited for his lunch guest. Dan had grown accustomed to being the first person to arrive anywhere. He'd found being able to instantly appear at a destination had only made him more paranoid about being late. He often found himself arriving a half hour early to scheduled meet-ups, despite how easy his power could make punctuality.

Dan didn't have to wait long; Tawny was an early bird as well. The dog-eared officer rolled up to the restaurant in a t-shirt and jeans, the most casual Dan had ever seen him. He entered through the front doors, nodded to the waitress, and bee-lined towards Dan. They shook hands, and Tawny slipped into the seat opposite him.

"Been a while," Tawny offered as a greeting, picking up the menu. "How you faring?"

Dan sipped at his water. "Well enough. City's been a mess."

Tawny grunted. "I heard you got shot at."

"Multiple times," Dan acknowledged with forced cheer. "It wasn't fun."

"I'm sorry," Tawny said, and it was obvious that he meant it.

Dan waved off the apology. "Had nothin' to do with you. Just bad luck."

"Yeah," Tawny agreed. "Still."

"Yeah."

They paused for a few minutes as the waitress dropped by and took their orders.

"So..." Tawny said slowly, "what was it you wanted to talk about?"

Dan squirmed in his chair, and drummed his fingers against the wooden table. He warned himself to be as subtle as possible.Then he leaned in conspiratorially.

"I was hoping you could give me some tips on being a P.I."