The next few days passed in a blur for Miran.  The investigation about Hyeri didn’t really involve her much beyond the changes in Hyeri’s file – which she wasn’t sure whether it was more likely it was something to do with the mole or somebody else who was up to no good – but the extra work piled onto her due to the team splitting Hyeri’s work between them (that which could be done without needing to draft in somebody else for recon) and the rest of her cell relying on her to do the more simple stuff while they were hauled away for interview after interview about the Hyeri situation meant that she ended up putting in at least two hours of overtime work every evening to get everything done.

The first evening, she was joined by Soojung, who paced antsily up and down and fiddled with things on various desks until Miran snapped at her to stop because she was making her anxious too.

“Sorry,” mumbled Soojung, still looking distraught and a bit white in the face.  “It’s just…”  She bit her lip.

Miran arched an eyebrow at her.  “Just what?”

Soojung refused to say anything more until Miran got up to go to the bathroom a few minutes later.  Initially, Miran didn’t realise she was being followed, and she was just about to pull one of the karate moves she’d learnt that morning from Kyungsoo on the person behind her when Soojung piped up.

“I don’t know who to tell about this,” she blurted out before suddenly stopping.  Surprised, Miran turned.

“Tell about what?” she asked, relaxing from the fighting stance she’d adopted out of ingrained habit.

Soojung fidgeted for a long moment.  Eventually, she shook her head and mumbled something.  Miran frowned.

“Sorry, what?”

“Case files have been going missing,” Soojung told her, taking Miran aback, not just because she had no idea why Soojung felt it necessary to share the information, but also because she could have sworn Soojung’s initial mumblings had been more along the lines of I don’t want her to die, I can’t.

“This is confidential,” Soojung added abruptly.

“Why are you telling me, then?”

“Because you’re probably the only trustworthy person in the agency right now.”  Soojung took another deep breath.  “When I say case files, I don’t mean our ones.  I mean just random, various other ones.  I overheard the COO and Chaerin talking about it this morning – apparently a bunch of confidential cases that haven’t been handled brilliantly by the agency and which are supposed to remain classified for another sixty-two years have been leaked to the press and the government.  There’s currently talk in the Ministry of Defence about budget slashing for us and so forth to ensure we do our jobs competently.”

“Great,” said Miran, feeling like a fish out of water.  “Soojung, I know it’s concerning, but I don’t think there’s anything I can do, especially if the COO already knows that people are selling information.”

“But it might be relevant to our case,” Soojung mumbled.

“Soojung, you know it’s not.  For a start, the people we’re after are selling information to the enemy, and secondly, you wouldn’t have worried about it being confidential if you knew it was relevant.  This is obviously a problem, but the COO’s the one who needs to delegate authority on it.  I can’t take on more work than I’m already doing.”

“I know.”

As she turned and headed into the ladies’ bathroom, Miran completely missed the helpless, frantic and tear-filled look that Soojung shot her.  Miran still lost a lot of sleep that night over the phantom phrase Soojung may or may not have mumbled about somebody dying, wondering if she really had heard it or if she was going insane, and if she had, just who the she might be.

On Thursday morning, Miran was so shattered that Kyungsoo blatantly didn’t have the heart to attempt pushing her, and they played chess instead of physical training on the basis that it was good to train for strategy.  Miran lost all three games resoundingly, though Kyungsoo did crack a smile over conceding that the third one was because she nodded off onto the chess set and knocked over her king.  It wasn’t really until around lunchtime that Miran registered Kyungsoo himself was a bit out of it as she was crossing the hallway in reception, absently taking in the COO telling his wife that his red-and-black all-access card had gone missing and he needed a new one ASAP as he was locked out of his office.  People stood here and there in little clusters all over the foyer nattering about various different things, and as Miran passed through, yawning, she got a bit too much unnecessary information about a certain female agent’s bed skills, the tail end of an argument about the precious politics in the country, and an earful on why it was so scandalous that petrol and alcohol were being rationed even more strictly than before starting from next month.

Key and Woohyun joined her for lunch, yawning just as much as she was, but it wasn’t until her sixth mug of coffee round about the time most people were leaving that Miran really woke up.  Without constant distractions to help her procrastinate, she managed to draw up a list of things that really, definitively needed doing, and set about with that.

Right at the top was finding out which page in his file Kim Junmyeon had altered, and whether that might bear any relation to the changes in Hyeri’s.  For that, she needed the actual physical files and help from the forensics department.  A quick phone call was enough to confirm that Kim Jongdae was working late that evening (and not happy about it), which made life easier.  Chaerin, however, was very reluctant to give her Hyeri’s without proof that Miran had higher level clearance than her and therefore the authority to boss her about if needed, and Miran was in a pretty bad mood by the time she got up to the COO’s office to get Junmyeon’s file.

It had happened so many times while she was in there that it didn’t even surprise her the COO’s locked door opened while she was still in the room.  Whistling cheerfully to himself, a short man Miran knew she’d met before came in, pocketing a red-and-black all-access card.  He stopped and did a double-take when he saw Miran, and narrowed his eyes at the files in her hand.

“What are you doing with Kim Junmyeon’s file?” he asked her.  It was enough to make the connection: he was in Kim Junmyeon’s cell and had been surprisingly secretive about sorting her computer out over the virus, which Miran had found very odd.

“What are you doing in the COO’s office without clearance, Kim Minseok?” she demanded.

“I have clearance.”  He flashed the red-and-black card at her.  It was Miran’s turn to narrow her eyes.  She was pretty sure Shin Hyesung had told her she was practically the only person in the building besides her with an all-access card.

“Then what are you doing in here?”

“Confidential, I’m afraid.”  He sighed, plonking the briefcase he’d brought up with him down on the wooden desk.  “How’s the computer doing?”

“Great, thanks,” Miran began frostily when something struck her.

Minseok was apparently the best IT technician in the building.  She dropped her cold demeanour at once.  Whether or not he was trustworthy, it might just be worth asking for his help.

“Could you do me a favour?”

Kim Minseok tilted his head to one side.  “Sorry, but not even me asking is going to get Kim Junmyeon to leave you alone.  Nothing will ever stop him being a patch of grease.”

“Worth a try,” Miran said dryly.  “Well, if you can’t do that, are you capable of restoring corrupted video data?”

“Usually, yes.”

Miran managed a smile.  “Great.  Woohyun seemed to think it was doable, but he’s struggling with it, so I was wondering if I could hand it over to you.  I hear you’re the best of the best.”

Minseok seemed flattered enough to smile back.  “Can’t lose to Woohyun, can I?  How long ago was the data corrupted?”

“The night Oh Sehun was killed.”

Miran watched his face carefully for any signs of discomfort.  Minseok’s nose twitched, but that was it.  Clearing his throat, he said, “Well, considering the power outage was something considerable—”

“The data from four or five cameras located in strategic parts of the building from before the power outage was corrupted,” Miran said.  “That’s what I’m looking into.”

“Ah.”  He did seem a little awkward now.

One non-suspect would be so nice, Miran thought wistfully, but she was going to have to just lump it.  While she wasn’t great at data recovery, her computer skills were good enough for her to be able to tell if Minseok gave her faked results.  If Woohyun had mentioned it was possible and Minseok was supposedly better at it than Woohyun, then Minseok should be able to get her what she wanted.  If he didn’t, then that was a problem she’d probably need to address, and it was clear that Minseok knew that too.  He wasn’t unintelligent.

On Friday, it was Chanyeol who stayed late with Miran, propping his gangly frame up against the wall in the forensics department as a hyperactive Jongdae on too much caffeine took them through his findings.

“Kim Junmyeon’s file, until yesterday, hadn’t been touched for about two years,” he asserted confidently.  “Absolutely nada.  Rien.”

“You’re sure?”  Mira