Atreus is on the Sunday night road, being taken to the Asano family office. The surprisingly short and successful meeting with Song has left him with a lot of think about and anticipate, with a new source of potentially great information has entered the investigation: Blue Star member Marvin Choi, who is currently being contacted by Han, the man who sold the killer the ammunition that was used to murder Will Camlin. The gangster stews in his many thoughts about the what-ifs and maybes of his search for more answers, but soon snaps out of his stupor to remind himself to contact his boss, just to let him know the meeting didn't end in bloodshed as he feared.

[I finished the meeting. I got the information I needed, and I'm going to be at the office soon,] Atreus sends a short, succinct text.

[Thank Christ. I was beginning to get worried. Devin and I will both be here when you return,] Ryuji answers.

Atreus can imagine the sound of Ryuji's sigh of relief upon reading the reply. Before he put his phone back in his pocket, it sounds off with the arrival of another text message, but this time from someone else.

[Lee just told me the meeting concluded. He said it went well. Did you get what you needed?] Okada's message asks.

[I did, thankfully. Song wasn't as difficult to handle as I feared.]

[That's a relief. I was dreading bad news when I saw Lee's name appear on my phone,] Okada responds quickly, comforted by the positive news. [I'm afraid I'll still be accompanying the chairman for the rest of the night, so I can't meet up at the office. Tomorrow is looking similarly busy for me through the day, as well, but I'll be free later in the evening. How about coming by at about 11 PM tomorrow?]

[Yes, oyaji. I can make that,] Atreus answers, paying no mind to his shift at Crown tomorrow.

[Good. I'll see you then.]

With his two superiors notified of good news, Atreus continues his quiet, contemplative ride back into the familiar comfort of Kyoba's district limits in a driverless taxi that weaves through the mild Sunday night traffic.

As the clock strikes 11:32 PM, the gangster's Automa finally pulls up to the nondescript grey building housing the Asano family. He enters through the lobby, where several younger members have returned from their jobs for the night and greet him with the usual respectful bow. Atreus makes his way to the top floor and enters Ryuji's office, where the patriarch himself and Devin are lounging about, with the former sitting on the recliner, which was a somewhat rare sight.

“Hey, man, you're back in one piece!” Devin gives a heartfelt greeting from the sofa.

“I'm just as surprised as you are,” Atreus responds as he sits next to his friend.

“So, how'd it go?” Ryuji asks, cutting to the chase and leaning forward attentively. “Did Song did you any trouble or try to pry into Sanada-gumi affairs? Did he threaten you or anything?” he interrogates his subordinate somewhat aggressively out of sheer worry and curiosity.

Atreus shakes his head. “No, actually, he wasn't as bad as I was expecting. He was stand-offish and obnoxious, but he didn't make any overt threats or try to grill me about Sanada-gumi stuff. I was able to calm him down by just being honest, like you told me to.”

“Good,” Ryuji gives his approval under a sigh of relief; he leans back in his seat to relax. “So, what were you able to find out, then? Do you know who bought the cartridges?”

“I don't know their name, because the buyer didn't give any. However, I showed the seller, Man-sik Han, the photo that Bessho's men took of the guy going into Takiyama's apartment building, and he was able to confirm strong similarities despite the low quality of the picture.”

“He wasn't able to say if the guy was Japanese or Korean?” Devin asks.

Atreus shakes his head. “No. They only spoke English when they met. However, he did mention that they make new customers through a referral system, and the buyer was brought in by one of Han's own boys, a guy named Marvin Choi. We tried to contact him in the middle of the meeting, but he didn't answer his phone, so I'm waiting for Han to reach him, then a meeting can be set up.”

“This could be good,” the family head comments. “Choi might be the person who can finally identify the guy and tell us who he's associated with and what it is he's trying to accomplish. Hopefully you can talk to him sooner rather than later.”

“Man, I almost hope this Choi guy doesn't know that much, simply because I'd feel bad that Tetsu spent three days cracking that phone open and it might not have even been necessary,” Devin remarks with sympathy towards his friend.

“Well, if this unknown guy was as secretive with Choi as he was with Han, then we might still have some holes to fill anyway,” Atreus responds. “Speaking of the phone, has Tetsuya called you about it yet?”

“Not yet. He only mentioned earlier that it will almost certainly be done tonight, so I expect he might give us a ring any minute. We should just sit tight.”

“Something bugs me about this new information,” Ryuji chimes in with a pensive rub of chin. “If the killer can be traced back to activity in Jeonju, then what are the odds he isn't part of the Blue Star, or at least associated with them?”

“If he was, then someone, somewhere probably would've given a name by now, I'd imagine,” Atreus hypothesizes. “I don't think it'd be this easy to hide your identity from your own gang in order to do some rogue murder in your neighbor's territory, especially since that was already attempted once before and it made national news. Plus, if Camlin was killed to weaken Atmos's network security, then what would Blue Star be able to do with that health data? In fact, I brought that up to Lee, and even he said Blue Star wouldn't know what to do with it.”

“So, I guess the killer's a part of some third party we don't yet know about,” the patriarch thinks aloud. “This is starting to get complicated.”

“Man, I don't envy you,” Devin comments while leaning back in the sofa and looking overwhelmed by the increasing complexity of the investigation. “This started as you just looking for the killer, and now you might need to identify some mysterious shadow organization too. Like, what if their intent wasn't even to interfere with Sanada-gumi's income, and just get the data? Maybe we were just collateral damage, and they don't have a dog in the race between us and the Blue Star.”

“I don't know why, but I think that'd really piss me off more than a deliberate attack against us,” Atreus responds with a sour expression.

“Unfortunately, it might be in the cards now,” Ryuji laments, looking equally displeased at the idea. “But don't let it stop you from continuing the investigation. The consequences remain the same: if the Sanada-gumi is blamed for the murder, then it may lose its largest source of income and become financially crippled. Regardless of who did it or why, it's still necessary for us to solve the crime, especially before the police do.”

“Yeah,” Atreus gives a halfhearted response, staring listlessly at the coffee table in front of him.

The late night continues on with the three men sitting around in the office with little to do, aside from Ryuji, who eventually returns to his desk to manage calls, contacts, and his own men. Atreus and Devin wait patiently for Tetsuya to send word that he's finished hacking Takiyama's phone, passing time by watching television and occasionally throwing out theories as to who or what is behind the murder, ranging from straightforward guesses to far-fetched conspiracies.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Maybe it's just a competitor who wants their data to get a head start on their own products?” Devin throws out one of the more grounded ideas passed around in the last hour or so.

“Starting a business by murdering someone to get information that's available for legal purchase wouldn't be very smart if they intended on being around long enough to compete with Atmos,” Atreus speaks in harsh criticism not of the idea, but more of the imaginary company used in Devin's theory. “I guess it's possible, but if it ends up being the case, I'd feel pretty stupid for taking so long to figure it out.”

“Maybe they'd be a start-up who couldn't afford all that data, and that's why they resorted to a hit?” Devin persists with confidence despite speaking purely hypothetically.

“I suppose,” Atreus shrugs. “But I don't know if a small start-up company doing this would make them easier or harder to implicate. I guess if none of the employees had any direct ties to anyone who worked at Atmos, it'd be hard.”

“Exactly. Murders that are seemingly random are always the hardest to solve, right?”

“Well, that kind of goes out the window, because Camlin's murder was far too clean and organized to be considered random. Dodging the eyes of drones at the right place and right time it too miraculous of a coincidence. In fact, if it was less clean and organized, I probably wouldn't have gotten this far into the investigation.”

“Man, that's pretty bitter fuckin' irony,” Devin laments under his breath. “Committing a murder so clean that it makes a straight line back to you, but you could've avoided that if you were purposely just a little more sloppy by design.”

“Well, let's not go showing any sympathy for the guy. He murdered a civilian, and on Sanada-gumi territory.”

“Yeah, I know. But still, if I ever, under any circumstance, get hired for a hit and can't refuse, remind me to just shoot the person in the head with a normal cartridge and just dump their body in the bad part of town.”

“I think stabbing them or bashing them in the head with a blunt object would be harder to track back to you,” Atreus humors his friend's point by adding to the morbidity of the conversation. “Bullets leave behind too much ballistic evidence, as we now know.”

“Don't pollute your brains with such a dreary topic. Nobody's going to kill anyone,” Ryuji interrupts the conversation with a firm tone.

“But what if we're told to for some reason from someone at the top of the ladder?” Devin responds with more hypotheticals.

“I brought you into this family to keep you two away from such dangerous work in the first place. No one's going to do a hit or sell hard drugs or weapons while they're working under me,” the patriarch concretely sets his stance on the purpose of his family.

“Is 'good, honest freelancing' among the gang really so sustainable on the long term?”

“We might not see as much cash as Oyamada, but there's always menial tasks somewhere that need to be done, and not everyone is willing or able to do it. We've been coasting along just fine and operating at a small profit consistently over the last three years. It helps that we have a good relationship with a lot of other, bigger families who are more than inclined to bump jobs to us.”

“I don't think we're totally innocent here, considering we still take jobs that require us to beat people up on the regular,” Devin responds with a matter-of-fact reminder.

“Can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. Unfortunately, those jobs are usually the best paying for us, so we're stuck between a rock and a hard place there.”

“All things considered, I guess roughing up dudes on behalf of shady loan sharks isn't as bad as killing a civilian whose only crime was being at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Working on the side of usury isn't great, either,” Atreus interjects with his own thoughts on the matter, referring to the loan collections. “But at least I've gotten better at not thinking about it.”

“Maybe one day we'll get an invitation to star in one of the Ichida family's pornos, huh?” Devin comments half-jokingly.

He refers to the pornography production business owned in part by Masako Ichida, matriarch of the Ichida family. The company was established by her mother back in the early 2000s to take advantage of the increasing popularity of the internet at the time. They cover a wide range of kinks and fetishes, popular and obscure, and have also expanded to publish erotic art and literature, and even sell sex toys. It's common for young, handsome, virile Sanada-gumi members to be approached to star in their films, but most are too shy for it. The company makes a shocking amount of money compared to other clan businesses, and they do it legally, too.

“I, uh... was actually invited by Ichida to do one,” Atreus hesitantly confesses, much to the surprise of his friend.

“Seriously?!” Devin exclaims in utter shock. “Ichida herself spoke to you? When was this?”

“Soon after I got out of the hospital after the incident.”

“And you didn't accept?! What a fucking waste, man,” the self-professed hostess enthusiast throws himself back in his seat in disappointment.

“I just... didn't want to be a porn star! I still wasn't totally comfortable with my arms, either,” the augmented man argues, not bringing up the fact he had begun his relationship with Reiko at that point.

“She has so many hot girls signed to her company though, dude! You could've been with any number of them! You wasted a golden opportunity! Ugh!” Devin comically throws his hands up into the air in frustration and limply lets them back down again. “You've squandered an opportunity that millions of men would kill for.”

Cutting into what began as a morose discussion of the morality of their jobs before turning into a talk of the prospects of starring in porn, a happy-go-lucky tune of an incoming call begins sounding off from Devin's pant pocket, which sends him into a fast retrieval.

“Hopefully it's Tetsu,” he pleads under his breath before looking at the screen. “It is!” he announces happily as answers, placing the call on speaker for everyone to hear. “Hello?” he speaks into the device with enthusiasm.

“Hey, Dev, it's me,” Tetsuya's voice is heard, sounding somewhat groggy.

“Hey, Tetsu, I'm here with Atreus right now. Are you calling about the phone?”

“Yeah, I am. Put me on speaker so he can hear, too.”

“Way ahead of you,” Devin proudly announces while sweeping his hand from side to side even though Tetsuya can't see it. “So, did you crack that bastard open?”

“I did, finally,” the hacker declares his task complete, but with a distinct lack of eagerness. “It threw some shit at me that I had never seen before, but I did it. I didn't fiddle around with it much after I got through the security measures, but I think there's something you should know about it before you come over to pick it up.”

“Why, what's wrong? Is it broken or something?” Devin's expression goes from hopeful to worried in a flash. Atreus becomes similarly reluctant, but also curious.

“No, it's not broken, it's just... empty.”

“Empty? You mean, like, there's nothing on there?”

“There's one unsaved contact and a short call history between that number and this one, but that's all. There's no pictures, videos, documents, downloads, or even any apps that weren't already pre-installed with the OS.”

Devin and Atreus pause to look at each other, completely dumbstruck by Tetsuya's comments. They quietly toy with the idea that maybe he's mistaken or possibly even joking before eventually processing the fact that it's simply true; the highly-secured phone that took three days to crack open has nothing in it.

“I... What the fuck?” Devin utters, still overcome with confusion. Despite hearing the news from the most reliable source that isn't Takiyama himself, he still can't believe it.

“I made absolutely sure that nothing was accidentally deleted while I got into the phone. I promise you that this is everything that was stored on here since before you brought it to me,” Tetsuya continues to insist that nothing went wrong on his end. “I noticed earlier that there was a lot of empty space on the internal storage, but I just assumed there was just a few important documents or something. I didn't expect it to be completely barren.”

“What the fuck do we do?” Devin asks Atreus. “Do we just give up on the phone?”

“No,” the augmented man answers quickly. “He mentioned a single contact. That might be something.”

“Tetsu, what exactly is that unsaved number you mentioned?”

“It's just a number that apparently made a few calls to this phone on the nights leading up to the murder. I don't know anything other than that,” the hacker gives a short explanation. “I didn't try to call it back or anything; I'd rather leave that to you guys.”

“Okay, uh, we'll head over there right now to pick it up, is that cool?”

“Yeah, that's fine. I'm here, chilling.”

“Alright, we're coming over right now. We'll be there in about fifteen.”

“Alright. Later.”