Malcolm successfully drives through the traffic for another thirty minutes before he finds himself parked across the street from The Roundtable. He sees a pale man coming out of the bar and entering the alleyway where he picks up a few trash bags hidden at the side of the building, before finally entering and disappearing well deep into the backstreet. Malcolm waits for a few more minutes, trying to see if he could spot Howard Hsu as well, but when he doesn't, he immediately gets up and gets out of his car, carrying with him nothing but his phone and car keys. He decides to leave his jacket inside because it's too hot to be out wearing it anyway. He stands by his blue Subaru Forester and is about to cross the street when another man exits through the bar's glass door. He remembers his face vaguely, but he had to focus intently to recognize who it is.

"Ah, it's the other bartender," he thinks to himself when the man's features trigger a related memory from when he had been there that night all those weeks ago. The senior bartender seems to have followed the pale man into the alley. When neither of the two bar employees had come out after a certain amount of time, Malcolm takes it as his cue to enter. The place is mostly deserted, assuming they don't get customers until a little later. A tall and tan man sits on one of the stools by the bar counter, acknowledging him as he walks in with a look towards his direction. Howard is still nowhere in sight.

"Good afternoon, sir," the tan employee greets him as he approaches. 

"Good afternoon," he says back with a smile. He makes himself comfortable on one of the round tables near the entrance, genially accepting the menu the tan employee is handing over to him. "Thanks," he mutters, before realizing he isn't really hungry yet, but he might as well have a drink of something now that he's here. He isn't a lightweight drinker, and holds his alcohol pretty well, so he is not worried about not being able to drive later on. Besides, he's doing it as an act anyway, and doesn't have the intent to get wasted. "I'll just order a beer, please and thank you," he tells the tan employee.

"Right away, sir," the tan employee replies.

Malcolm mentally takes note of the nameplate the man has on the left chest of his black shirt, which reveals his name to be just a simple letter G. That immediately throws the deputy into confusion, getting so puzzled by the naming choice that he ponders over it a little too long, that he ultimately become suspicious, for no other reason that just gut feeling. He discreetly holds his phone up and opens the camera, making sure the shutter sound and flash options are turned off, before he angles it well enough to get the tan employee's face in proper view. He quickly snaps one photo, checks to see if the features are identifiable, and once he is satisfied, he urgently writes an email to the Investigation Service Department's designated forensic artist to run the face through their database and connect it with an ID.

Malcolm can only imagine his trusty subordinate grunting and huffing all throughout as he feeds the photo to their database while waiting for it to list down possible identification for the man in the photo. The beer has arrived not too long ago, and he had ordered nacho chips with salsa dip just in time for the employee to leave as his phone pings at another notification it receives.

The deputy accesses the link that is attached to the email that their department's forensic agent has sent. It redirects him to the NBI's public records, the page of the browser window displaying a person's death certificate. The man on the picture, who looks creepily identical to the bar employee, is listed to have died in 2015. [Are you sure this is the case, Sam?] the deputy writes back. In that moment, the other two bar employees have also returned, as the tan waiter concurrently emerges from the kitchen to bring him the nachos he has ordered. He smiles warily at all of them, especially the tan man named G. Now that he's reminded that the amnesiac pharmacist is there as well, he grows even more disturbed about the situation at hand. The condensation on sides of the beer bottle that remains untouched causes water droplets to trickle down from it, but the deputy is too preoccupied with his thoughts that he only reacts when he gets notified by another reply from Samuel.

[I am sure, sir. But that isn't even the most troubling. I've read through his file and found out that he's connected to CROWS Facility as well.]

[He's connected? How so?]

[He is the Neuroscientist, Dr. William Kim's son and successor. He inherited the facility after his father died in 2009.]

Malcolm Lee's jaw hits the floor as soon as he reads Sam's reply. He reiterates the facts of the case to himself as he thinks back to the files he had been reviewing over and over again for months on end. The first fact his mind emphasizes is that the facility is only one of the many companies under the conglomeration of businesses owned by JH Corporations. The second one is that although they had known that JH Corporations' proprietor, Jesse Hong, is the biggest investor and one of the main shareholders of the medical and pharmaceutical center, between Charles and himself, neither one of them had been able to track the facility back to Hong's main business ventures. It is implicitly indicated that whoever the current chief executive of CROWS had remained anonymous after Dr. William Kim had stepped down from the role. If it is true that the CEO after Dr. Kim had assumed the position from 2009, and if Malcolm is to consider that the neuroscientist's son died in 2015, then somewhere in those 6 years, there should have been records of said successor somewhere in the related official files and documents. But as far as he is concerned, there is no evidence that this inheritance had even taken place. That is the reason why, all this time, he had no reason to think it could be someone else entirely besides either Jesse Hong or Tiger Kwon. [What? So, he's supposed to be the CEO of CROWS?]

[It would seem so, yes.]

[And he died in 2015? Are you serious?!]

[I know, right? That's why I asked you if you got the right photo. How is that even possible? Do you think maybe it's a different person?]

[Run me another data, Sam.] he replies instead, heedless of the forensic agent's questions. He had already illicitly taken another photo of the other bar employee without the man's knowledge. There is a degree of ridiculousness evident when it comes to Malcolm's line of work. He is actively breaching a person's privacy to solve multiple but interrelated cases all at once—arduously doing something illegal to acquire enough countermeasures regarding legal matters. The end justifies the means, or so they say. He proceeds to send the picture to Sam once again, this time of the senior bartender that is now manning the bar, talking to the other bar employee that had served him his beer and nachos. The pharmacist, known by Santi now, is setting up the mini stage for tonight's performance.

[Who is this now, Deputy Lee? Are you taking these pictures?]

He responds impatiently with, [I need a name.]

[Santino Wen, died in 2015 as well. It says here that he was the CEO of the life science company called CEREBRI around that time before he died. You can see it in the attached file. But also, get this, he was involved in a homicide case earlier that same year. Technically he was the main person of interest, but they couldn't confirm if he was a suspect. His name was brought up in relation to the murder and was awaiting case progress, but he died before they could even properly investigate him about anything.]

[He killed someone?]

[Allegedly. It was never proven.]

[Who?]

[You wouldn't believe it, sir. It's Augustus Kim, Dr. William Kim's son.]

"Motherer," mutters Malcolm to himself.

The shell-shocked deputy takes a deep and laborious breath in. He exhales heavily as he sets his phone down on the table, trying his hardest to mentally process everything. Two death cases of the same people that he is clearly seeing right now, alive and well. It's Howard Hsu all over again. He writes another email to the forensic agent back at the department. [People are coming back from the dead. Is that what you're saying, Sam?]

[I will think otherwise if you'll say that these photos are taken years ago, sir.]

[No, Sam. They're here right now, right in front of me.]

Malcolm stares mirthlessly at the empty tables before him. Several seats away stands Santi in the middle of the small, elevated stage. At the other side of the floor is the bar counter where the senior bartender immerses himself with taking the orders of the customers that had started coming in moments ago. The tan waiter continues to hand out the menus to the newcomers. The deputy's beer has turned room temperature now, and his nacho chips have become stale. Bit by bit, the realization sets in when Malcolm decides he isn't going to be able to keep away from the case for much longer after all. He gets up and prepares to leave, barely touching the food he had ordered, leaving a few bills to pay for it, just like he had done the last time he had visited. With hurried and uninterrupted steps, he exits The Roundtable and crosses the street back to his parked Subaru Forester. As he walks closer to his car, he can see that someone was standing right beside it. When he reaches his vehicle, he finds out that there had actually been two of them. One of them had an extremely long hair and a funny-looking right arm—Malcolm squints to see if it is actually made of metal or if he's only seeing things due to mental fatigue and discombobulation—and the other wears a baggy pullover and sports his overgrown hair in a half-ponytail.

"Charles?" he says to the second man when he could finally discern that it is indeed his supposedly missing friend. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing, Malcolm," his friend smiles. "Nice to see you again."

The deputy could hardly give Charles a nod of acknowledgment. He keeps his curious gaze upon the other man that Charles is with. When his friend had noticed his questioning looks, he gestures towards the man and says to Malcolm, "This is President Andreas Yoon," and afterwards he turns to his companion before he speaks again. "President Yoon, this is Deputy Malcolm Lee."

Despite his uncertainty, Malcolm extends his hand to greet President Yoon. He has no idea why Charles is introducing them to each other, but nonetheless, he doesn't see anything wrong with it. At least, not for now. When the man reaches out his steel right arm, the deputy's eyeballs nearly pop out of their sockets. The handshake is as firm as he could have expected from the metal thing. "Holy ," blurts out the deputy mindlessly, "is that titanium? I've never actually seen anything like it before. I heard they were making bionic tech advancements like these, but I thought they were just hoax."

President Yoon simply nods at the deputy's sentiments. "It is," he says, a moment later. "It's connected to my nervous system via nanobots, so I can still operate it just like I would a real arm."

"Wow," Malcolm comments. "Science, huh?" he thoughtlessly utters. By the time he realizes what he has said, his mind is already flaring up with all the discoveries he has made just a few minutes ago inside the bar from across the street. He doesn't even notice he has stayed still only a second after seemingly enthusiastically asking President Yoon about his titanium arm.

The two men look at each before Charles addresses his dumbstruck friend once more. "Malcolm, we're here to tell you about something important."

"What is it?" asks the deputy after finally regaining his composure.

"We cannot talk here," answers Charles.

"Come with us, Malcolm," President Yoon adds.

"Where?"

Charles has this look in his eyes that makes it seem like he is hesitating, even glancing over at President Yoon with desperation apparent in his face. When the man with the metal arm disregards him by turning his gaze back to the deputy, Charles knows he has lost his cause. He sighs heavily before telling Malcolm, "Do you still want to know the reason why I did what I did?"

Reason. Malcolm's ears begin to ring. His head almost throws itself in a loop when he instantaneously gets reminded of his hesitation towards Charles' arrangements, and how his friend couldn't even give him a straightforward reason as to why he needs to do things that way in the first place. "You're telling me now?"

"We'll tell you," reveals Charles. "But we can't talk about it here. You'll have to come with us."

His mind immediately exclaims: this is it, Carmen. He is finally finding the workaround regarding the case he had been buried in for the last couple of months. He will be able to see it now, from Charles' perspective, from the point of view of someone who has been working in complete darkness, and at last, he will finally understand. "One second," he informs his friend and his metal-armed companion. He dials up Carmen's phone number, waits a few seconds for the call to connect, and when his wife greets him, he says, "Hi, babe. Sorry. I think I'm going to be home late tonight. I know, I'm sorry. I'll be careful. You too. Bye. I love you." After that, he proceeds to dial another number, and says to the person on the other line, "Sam? Yes. Can you send all related files to me as well? Yes. Thank you. I have to go somewhere. No. Yeah. Great. Thanks." When all is done, he diverts his attention back to Charles and President Yoon, who had been waiting patiently for him to finish the calls he has made, and tells them, "Okay. Where to?"

"We're gonna go fishing," the crestfallen Charles responds.

He had no idea whether the method would work, but he had no other choice. He waits for the Z drug to take effect, figuring he had only seen it administered in one way, hoping that it would also be effective to be taken orally as well. He doesn't know what the drug is made of, what its chemical properties are, but he had no s