It was dark outside as John Cornwell was looking outside of the window of his car, on his right he was being driven by a young detective that he was supposed to tutor, or as John liked to call it, making sure he didn't fuck up too bad. They passed a streetlight and the orange light shone into the car, making the fat raindrops that where stuck to the glass and slowly being blown back distort the light. It had been raining nonstop for the past two days now, global warming making the English spring rains a little less than the monsoon, normally only found in the tropical parts of the earth. The dark, the rain, and the cold that still hung in the air, made it all a depressing sight to behold. It would only get worse, John knew, as they were driving towards a murder. He had been in Scotland Yard for the past forty years, and he had only a bit of a stretch to go until retirement. About three years to be exact. He didn't mind though; he liked the work, the puzzles, locking up the bad guys. He wouldn't know what to do with himself if he didn't have the job anymore. He was even thinking of continuing as a senior detective, but that would need approval from the higher ups. He was not a big fan of the higher ups. He turned his head, aligned the rearview mirror with his hand and looked into his old dark face. Slightly wrinkled, his glasses a model that had been a trend ages ago, the rectangular glasses more for reading than anything else, with a black frame. He sported a small mustache and his nose stood firm on his face. His cheekbones slightly protruding and his jaw sticking out as he had not much fat to speak off. A pair of sad looking light brown eyes were looking back at him and his short trimmed hair that was black at the top and grey on his sides. He smiled, wrinkling his old face even more, and looked at his white teeth before rubbing his finger over them. He had forgotten to brush again, and to shave for that matter, as he brought his hand down while moving through the grey stubbles.

He looked for another short moment before turning the rearview mirror back into its rightful setting and looking back out of the side window. He was restless. He turned to his young companion "How long before we are there Steward?" he asked in a tone that sounded bored. The young men next to him set up a little straighter, moving his hand across his curly black hair before he turned toward John, his face as normal as can be, white skin normal mouth and brown eyes, a bit of an under bite and not much in the cavemen features. Just a normal British guy, not getting enough sunlight. "Another ten minutes, Sir" he said before turning his eyes back to the road, for which John was thankful. He didn't need the paper work of an accident. The resulting injuries might even force him to retire earlier. He nodded and opened up a window, the rain that was falling in buckets out of the sky now, partially landing inside of the car. As Steward was about to ask why the window was open, he grabbed a pack of cigarettes out of his breast pocket of his suit, grabbed a lighter that was stationed with it and lit the cigarette, taking a deep breath and inhaling the nicotine induced sickness. He held in the disgusting yet relieving smoke in his lungs before he proceeded to blow it out of the window. "The car will dry Steward. My chagrin for not being able to smoke on a crime scene for anything between one and six hours might not be so easily solvable". He kept looking out of the window, but saw Steward's mirror image in the window, refocusing on the road with a slight nod. These young guys were so easy to fool. He could just step out at any time if he needed it. It was just that it wasn't his car and he didn't much care for the opinion of Steward. He had been with him for the last two months but up till now he had been more of a driver and a handy way to skip paperwork, and not much in the way of a capable crime solver.

They drove further in silence, his suit getting slightly wet from the rain and after a couple more puffs of smoke he threw the cigarette out of the window and closed it. In the distance, he could already see the blue lights of police sirens. This one was still fresh it appears. Five minutes later they drove up to a brick house that by now was surrounded by police cars, the press and people looking for a fun night out. They got out of the car and made their way through the crowd, John holding up his badge, Steward calling to make way, until they arrived at the 'do not cross' yellow tape. Showing their badge to the police officer on duty to keep the fools out, he went underneath the tape without breaking stride, leaving steward behind to take care of the papers that needed signing. Walking up to the house he was intercepted by a bagger and tagger, or as society knew them, the local police. He hoisted himself into the white onesie, and put on his gloves all ready to go. He looked impatiently at the still fumbling Steward before deciding that he had more to do and walked towards the garden of the house.

The house was old and had no neighboring houses, the brick stones that it was built from were brown and looked like they have been there for at least a century and seemed to consist of at least three stories, not very wide stories though. He went inside as there was no personnel outside, walking through a hallway that was small and covered in photographs. He stood still for a moment, observing the photo's before he knew what had transpired. Most of the photos were taken of two little girls at varying stages of their lives. They were blond, with green eyes and the newest photo they were on, they could not have been older than a thirteen or fourteen. The rest of the photo's it was a combination of the parents and grandparents and maybe the whole family together. The father had brown hair and green eyes and he seemed to smile on every photo, a smile that reached his eyes and thus a genuine smile. John had seen enough smiles to know what was and wasn't faked. The women had blue eyes and black hair, which gave her a bit of a frosty outlook. He also noticed that the pictures where the mother was in, seemed to stop around four years ago. An interesting thing to ask about later. He walked further noticing that not much seemed to be amiss. The hallway went on until there was a door to the living room and stairs to the first floor. Peeking his head around the corner he didn't see a lot of people in this room, and it seemed that the room was not tossed or otherwise effect from whatever had transpired. He went back and dragged himself up the stairs where he was met with around ten people scurrying around. He waited a moment before grabbing a balding guy in his late thirties who was walking towards the stairs. "Where is the person in charge?" he asked, not looking at the guy but looking towards the mess that was this crime scene. "Second door to the left…. Sir" the sir was more of a question then a statement, but he ignored it. He started walking towards the second door on the left while looking into the first door, were two bodies lay on the two beds that decorated the room on both sides of the walls, the girls, he thought. He wanted to stop and look in the room some more but than thought of the chaos surrounding him and went toward the second door. Here he found another eight people that where crowding the room with their presence, some not even sure what they were doing as was made apparent by the empty stares. Getting a little more annoyed, he took out his badge again and with a loud voice and holding his badge up said "Who is in charge here?"

A man of around John's age got himself out of the crowd and scuffled towards him, shaking his head a little mumbling something that was probably best unheard by John. "How can I help you sir?" He asked a little fake smile on his crooked face, this man obviously had never won a beauty pageant but the least he could do was buy some new teeth, right? Taking a little step back John said with more annoyance in his words then he meant to let on "First of all, please remove all none essential personnel from the crime scene, it's not Disney land. Second, I'm John Cornwell Scotland Yard, Special investigations unit and I would like to be briefed on what has transpired here." The man looked at him for a second and then at his badge, not really wanting to believe he was outranked, he managed to look even more sour and called out about five names before telling the rest to fuck off. A minute later and finally some room to breathe, John was walking alongside the man apparently named Steve something, who was telling him what had happened "So we believe that his two daughters had their brains cooked due to a power spike while they were wearing their VR equipment, and when Mister Southwell found out, the dad, he killed himself with a revolver that was normally stored in the top drawer of his desk." They had made their round, and John had to agree, it did look like that. But was there any evidence "So there was a power spike? Have you checked?" the man looked to the ground a little before answering "Not yet sir, the power station is not manned at this hour" alright reasonable "How about a suicide note?" The man kept looking at the floor ''Not yet found sir," hmm, less acceptable. He turned around and went back to the room the dad was found in.

The room was spacious, a lot like the living room, but filled with books, which in this day and age, was something special on his own. John looked at the books a little, some were fiction and other were not so much. Like an introduction into the brain and how to control the brain, or a massive tome about the technical improvements of the 21st century and how they changed society. There were also a couple of books on his desk, he walked towards them and looked through them VR development & AI influences, the conscious effort and a book called The Leap. Strange. He turned to Steve who was fidgeting in the corner, clearly not knowing if he was allowed to leave "What was Mr. Southwell's occupation?" Steve looked up and thought before saying "A journalist, Sir" they still existed? Wasn't anything in the papers these days written by a marketing specialist? Strange. "What was he working on?" he said to the man who responded a little quicker this time, almost smiling but stopping himself just in time "It appears there is a bit of irony here Sir, the man was writing about the dangers of VR" Interesting, he walked over to the body and looked at the gun wound, or rather the part of his head that was not blown off and onto the opposite wall. Definitely looks self-inflicted, but why write about the dangers of VR if you let your children play in it. "How new were the VR helmets they were wearing?" he asked without looking up. Still looking at the wound. "They appear to be quite new, Sir" the man said, more bored then anything, John really didn't know how he had reached this height in the police department, definitely not by his skill of observation or persistence. He looked up, slowly making his way towards the other side while asking "has his work been found? Or a laptop that was supposed to be on his desk? You did see the wear marks of a laptop on the desk, right?" the man called Steve, or rather the imbecile called Steve looked down at his feet again before saying "No sir, on all three accounts". John shook his head, he was used to incompetence but most of the time it was because they didn't look further then their pay grade. Not outright stupidity. He bent a knee to look underneath the desk, only to find nothing. As he was about to get up, he saw that the man who used to be Mr. Southwell was holding a little paper in his fist. Sighing that the incompetent fools might actually be right he wiggled the piece of paper free and read its contents. A name and a phone number... Strange.

As he bagged the note, there was a little commotion in the hall way, and in a few minutes a man dressed in black, with sunglasses on at night entered the office room. "Goodnight John Cornwell" he said not looking at John, with a nod before he continued saying "MI6 will be taking over the investigation as we believe that Mr. Southwell was involved in affairs regarding state security. Do I have your cooperation?" It was not really a question, John knew, he would take over if he liked it or not, just as he had taken over from Steve. But this smelled like fish, and he really didn't trust this fellow, or MI6, to do some justice to Mr. Southwell. He turned around the room, taking in everything and filing away the note in the evidence bag into his pocket, when it was out of sight of the yet to be identified man. Finishing his turn and locking eyes with whoever it was MI6 had sent he said "Be my guest, it is not terribly interesting anyway" he smiled and left the room, before he could reach the stairs he heard the man addressing him again "John", he turned around put on his nicest fake smile and said "What? Want to ask me on a date?" the guy smiled back, and said "No, just want to remind you not to forget your pet downstairs, I think he is lost in the living room" John nodded, internally cursing the idiot for being an idiot but he kept smiling. Only as he was sitting in the car and driving away in the rain and darkness did he get the note out of his pocket. "Who are you Sophie Hosk and what has any of this to do with you". He whispered to himself.