The door, slightly ajar in the half-assed, intermittent light, tells a short and unhappy story.  Installed in some bygone year as something you could lock and forget about forever, it proved unequal to the desperate, heedless ingenuity of Specials sometime 'round the Blackout.  Obviously forced from outside and never repaired, the steel is too bent and twisted to ever properly close again.  You see doors like this all over, and not just in spots like Retirement Row where the hopeless and fucked wash up when the floodwaters recede.  There are doors just like it in the cellars of fancy First Sector nightclubs and in Fifth Sector towers that house cops and UN bureaucrats.  Who knows - maybe by now there's one just like it under the dark, silent Tyrell building.

The hinges protest as Crowe, blaster drawn and ready, pulls it open.  Beyond is what he expected: a darkened, bare concrete stairwell smelling of ancient piss leading down to something that sounds like trickling water and things that Cro-Magnon man learned not to walk towards without the magic of fire in hand.  He doesn't realise how fast his heart is pounding already until Elly turns on a flashlight and turns the scene from impenetrably dark to impenetrably dark outside of a small circle of obnoxiously bright light.  A quiet click announces that she also has her blaster out and powered. 

Descending as quietly as they can, the pair come to what must be an old steam tunnel, possibly old enough to be pre-war.  Architecture has to take a back seat, though, to the growling that comes from up ahead like the world's most aggressive acapella quartet.  A flick of the flashlight shows the origin of the sound: a pack of canimoids blocking the way, equal parts pathetic and terrifying in the half-light. 

The damn things look beat to shit - biological components long given up and exposing mechanical limbs, uneven features and stances where they've been repaired with parts from the wrong breed, assuming they're even all dog parts.  They're growling.  Mouldy hackles raised.  Teeth bared. 

Crowe looked around and listened to LE1 update Wylde.

Concise and mechanical. Then he wondered how long Humans would still be in the Department before they were phased out.

"Now we got another guy on this case. No chance this is a snatch and grab. Now I wanna know who else knows what is going on and isnt telling us."

"Let's check this last trail and then see what game we've flushed out." 

No worries, Doug - we're all learning as we go!  I should point out for descriptive purposes that LA isn't all rain all the time - most of the city is actually in the grip of a thick (and mildly caustic) fog at the moment.  I assume that Wylde was a fair way out from the centre of town - the megalopolis is huge enough that different parts will have measurably different weather.

Narrative post to follow soon-ish.

God, he thought, Reps... they never miss a beat.

Wylde listened to Elly go on about the new case evidence and what they needed to do. He watched her through his KIA, shoved some ramen into his mouth, and then gave her a sarcastic, mouth-filled reply, "Anything else?"

She didn't blink. She didn't smile. She didn't reply.

"All right, I am on it. See you both back at HQ. Don't go gettin' shot on me." Wylde's last comment came with a smirk and then he ended the call.

Ret thought about his new assignment. What the fuck? Data evidence and paperwork? That wasn't his thing. He was a door kicker. He was the guy that these motherfuckers didn't want to meet.

He sighed as he shoved some more ramen into his mouth, and then stuck the chopsticks into the carton. Covering his lunch from the rain - who knows what toxins were in every drop - he made the short distance to his spinner. There were shadowed shapes in the doorways and alleyways that he passed, but he ignored them. They were all trying to keep dry, too.

Rain pattered inside his vehicle, even as the side door began to descend. Wylde activated the engine and the spinner elevated from the ground. He didn't turn on his lights, just let the spinner ascend until he came to a travel lane and directed it towards their headquarters.

While he drove, he brought up on the spinner's dashboard display the profiles of Crowe and LE1-1.3. He knew them by name, after all they worked within the same department, but he had never been assigned with them to anything big.

And you always know who your partner is...

That was a hard lesson learned in the CDP - the Colonization Defense Program. Out on the rim, you lived by knowing the person beside you would do whatever it took to see the job done. No hesitation. No questions. Get it done. Anything else and your filling a cold locker.

And it didn't matter to Wylde - reps or humans. He would work with anyone (or thing) that did their part to make sure he came home at night. He actually preferred a good replicant... they calculated every option and always had a good edge.

So Elly... or LE1... or El... whatever she called herself? Ret welcomed the opportunity. As for Crowe, he had no opinion... yet.

The journey across town was quick and the dark, foreboding appearance of the LAPD headquarters appeared. Wylde parked his spinner, proceeded inside with his cold ramens, and set about the task requested.

---

Not sure if you need any rolls from me, Paul, but he will spend his current shift working on the items that LE1 requested.

I will give you two, though. TECH and INSIGHT - the one to manipulate the computer, analyze the evidence data, and the other to see if he can put anything together:

Skill: TECH

Rolled 1d8 : 2, total 2
Rolled 1d6 : 4, total 4

Skill: INSIGHT
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Elly let Wylde's question sit for half a second while the rain hissed faintly through the open dock beyond them. The KIA screen showed his face in miniature, wet light and street glare behind him. "What's your location?"

   Assuming Wylde shares his location. I'm also assuming that Wylde is not in our sector, so it would take him some time to get on scene. If I am mistaken about this, that might change things...

As she listening to Wylde's reply, Elly stepped away from the blood trail near the loading dock and looked back toward the darker interior of the warehouse, where the other path waited... the one that looked too unwelcoming to ignore.

"Crowe and I still have one unsecured lead in the building. We're going to clear enough of it to know whether it connects to the robbery."

She lifted her KIA and sent Wylde the scene packet: freight access blood, marked bullet impact, loading dock photographs, bent security gate, tyre marks, camera location, and the preliminary note on the stolen Tyrell stock.

"You start the HQ side. See if you can come up with some contacts to follow up on. I suggest pulling the dock camera first. If it was online, I want the footage queued for ESPER. If it was down, get the time of failure, the last successful upload, and whether the outage matches the disruption upstairs."

Her eyes shifted briefly to Crowe. "Then get Varela's reports on the previous break-ins. Look for overlap: target type, entry method, missing inventory, vehicle size, witness descriptions, anything that smells like pre-blackout Tyrell stock."

She paused, giving her human partners a moment to process. "Also, run the truck. Medium commercial vehicle. Likely damaged from the security gate. Possible paint transfer pending lab confirmation. Check theft reports, insurance claims, trucking companies, repair shops, chop shops, impound logs... anything recent."

"That should give us a few leads." The warehouse lights buzzed overhead. Somewhere deeper in the building, metal ticked as it cooled.

"When we're done here, we'll meet up at HQ. I'll work with the crime lab and ESPER, you two can hit the street before things go cold."

Another small pause. "And Wylde—ask about the Tyrell parts carefully. Whoever hit this place knew what they were taking. I'd like to know who else did."

Elly lowered the KIA and turned toward the short stairs and the steel door waiting below. She looked at Crowe to ensure he was ready. "Let's see if the building has anything else to say."

  So, Elly's suggestion is that Crowe and her finish this last lead and then head to HQ. While they are doing that, she's suggesting that Wylde head to HQ and try to find them some leads/contacts that him and Crowe can follow up on while Elly works with the crime lab, ESPER, and HQ's resources to process evidence and review footage and reports to see if we can find some more leads.

Doug, thank you! Looks great!

Paul, yes, I made the changes. She's leaning more into the analyst now. And when combat breaks out, she's definitely going to want to close the gap and fight hand-to-hand. As far as attributes/skills go, I'd compare her to a younger Luv.

Scott, I haven't made the edits you requested to Elly's numbers.  Have you?