I've been working as a private investigator for almost two years now. It wasn't what I had in mind when I came to Republic City. I was like all the other immigrants who came here with stars in their eyes and grand dreams of making a fortune. It only took a week for an ugly reality to set in. There's money in this city but not for people who just walked off a gangplank. Many of them left the city in search of farms they could work on. Others, like me, stayed as they tried to eke out a living. It so happened that an investigative agency in the red light district was hiring but a couple of more days would've seen me working in a different building in that very same district.

In those two years I've done pretty much everything a private investigator can legally do. Catching cheaters and/or con artists red-handed, background checks, and tracking people down just to name a few. I've also done some stuff that wasn't strictly legal to expedite the stuff that was. It's why people come to us instead of the police because we're not afraid to get a little dirt on our hands. It's also why the cops hate us.

But now I've gotten stuck dealing with a different kind of case than anything I've done before. Following a cheating husband with a camera is one thing. Getting dragged into industrial espionage is another. This is a game I don't know how to play.

I don't have a choice though. Hiroshi Sato's not someone accustomed to people failing him so I have to do what I can and hope it's enough. In any case, the most critical component is information and right now I have zilch. Time to change that. "Do you mind if I ask you some questions, Miss Sato?"

"Miss Sato!?" Asami exclaims. "No, no no, don't call me that. I'm not an old woman yet. Asami will do just fine. Ask me anything you want."

Anything huh? Probably just a figure of speech. I do have one question before we get started though. I reach into a pocket and pull out a cardboard pack. "Mind if I smoke?"

"Only if you don't hold out on me, but not in here. My father doesn't like smoke around his cars." Asami stands up and I hold the pack out to her so she can grab one of the white sticks in it.

The clouds are beginning to leave the estate behind them and I can see blue sky above after we step outside. In the distance, grassy hills rise up from the earth, a prelude to the towering mountains that separates us from the Earth Kingdom. I pull out my lighter, a contraption of gold plated steel that easily fits in my palm. I cheap out on a lot of things but this little gadget wasn't one of them. I light Asami's cigarette then my own. I inhale deeply, letting the smoke fill my lungs before exhaling slowly. That familiar tinge of euphoria begins working itself into my brain and I can feel myself starting to relax already. Beside me Asami forms her red lips in the shape of an 'o' and blows out a ring of smoke. "So you have questions, Korra?"

"Yeah I need to talk to the guard who saw the intruder. Your old man said he worked the night shift but is there a chance he's still awake? If he saw the intruder's face then we could take your guard to a guy I know and get a portrait drawn up."

Asami shakes her head and taps on her cigarette to shake some of the ash loose. "No, he's already gone. He told the other guards he was going fishing somewhere and that he'll be out of touch for two days."

What a great way to start an investigation. The only witness isn't around to describe who he saw and won't be for two days at that. Finding the perpetrator would be difficult even with a drawing of their likeness. Finding him or her without it in a city numbering in the millions is impossible. "Can you show me where they were trying to get in, Asami? There might be some prints at the crime scene. It's a stab in the dark, but better than nothing."

Asami takes another drag and blows another ring of smoke up into the air before looking sidelong at me. "Prints? Do you mean fingerprints? I think I read about those in the paper a few years ago."

"That's right. The police collect the prints of everyone who gets tossed in the slammer. I wouldn't be surprised if our perp has a record already."

"What makes you say that?"

"Look at where we are, Asami. Your family's estate isn't anywhere near the city. Most robberies are smash and grabs or crimes of opportunity. Breaking into a place like this takes planning and equipment. The person we're looking for had to drive all the way out here and get over a nasty looking security fence so they could try to break into your garage. If you're trying to steal a car then you'd boost something in the city. Whoever it was was probably a professional and they were after something specific."

I turn around and glance at the steel door we had entered the garage through. "Is this where they tried to break in?" I inquire with a glance at Asami. She nods and I lean in to peer at the hinges. No scratches there or anywhere around the door itself for that matter. Explosives could do the trick but those are noisy and it'd be hard to get away from this place without being followed if you made a ruckus. This door doesn't have a traditional lock that can be picked so that just leaves the keypad. "I'm gonna head back to my car and grab the fingerprinting kit out of it."

"You have a fingerprinting kit in your car?" She sounds more than a little surprised by that.

"It's not my car. It belongs to my agency. We keep things that we might need for our assignments like cameras and other stuff in it."

"Does that include guns?" Asami asks.

I hesitate for a moment while looking at her. Not a question I was expecting. "No... we don't store our guns in the car. We keep them on us when we're working, Why do you ask?"

Asami peers up at the clouds for a few seconds before answering the question. "Well, you said private investigators needed a permit to carry a gun so I was curious about it. I didn't think people needed permits to own a gun."

"For most people that's true. But P.I's need a permit so we can carry a concealed weapon. It's also us legally covering our asses if we ever have to actually use our guns. Mostly the gun's just for show since people stop doing whatever it is they were doing when you pull a gun out."

"Are you carrying now?" Asami asks, almost mischievously, as she looks me up and down.

So that's why she's asking. She's a bored rich girl looking for something to spice up her day. If I was a cop she wouldn't be asking because enforcing the law is what cops are supposed to do. I'm just a private eye, the gray line between officers sworn to defend the law and crooks bent on eking out a living no matter what it takes. Showing her my piece won't hurt anything and I've always been a sucker for a pretty girl.

"Yeah, I'm carrying." I say before setting my cigarette in the corner of my lips. I pull my gun out of my right pocket. It only weighs a kilogram but it always feels heavier than that when held. The gun's got a rectangular barrel and it's entirely made of a dark dull gray steel save for the grips. Those are made of wood and have a pattern of tiny diamonds engraved into their surface.

I turn so that the barrel is pointed away from Asami and I drop the magazine out of the handle into my other hand. I thumb the safety, rack and lock the slide, then check to make sure the chamber is empty. Once I'm satisfied the gun isn't loaded I hand it to Asami.

Asami turns the gun over in her hands as she looks at it. Her fingers run over the gun's surfaces, both rough and smooth before she wraps her fingers around the grip. She holds her arm out and points the gun towards the trees and her finger squeezes the trigger. Nothing happens and she hands the pistol back to me. "Have you ever had to fire your gun, Korra?"

A sly smile creeps onto my face as I put the magazine back into the pistol and set the safety before returning it to my right pocket. "I'll be back in a couple of minutes." My cigarette falls onto the concrete and gets crushed beneath a boot before I take off to go get that fingerprinting kit. As soon as I return I set the kit down and begin pulling the things I need out of it. "Who all uses this keypad besides your father? I need to know so I can eliminate their prints from the ones I find."

Asami shakes her head. "Only my father and I know the code to the garage so you should only find our prints on there. Let me know when you're ready to take my prints." She pulls one of her gloves off.

A couple of minutes later and the prints from the keypad have been taken. I reach up to take Asami's hand and press the tip of one finger into an ink pad then onto a piece of paper. It's identical to one of the prints previously collected. "Well, shit."

"What is it, Korra?"

"I only got two prints from the pad. One of them is you and I just saw your old man touching this pad so the other one has to be him." I start putting my things back in the kit and shake my head. "Is there anything that you haven't told me yet? I have some sources I can contact but right now I've got nothing to go on."

A frown tugs at the corners of Asami's lips and she glances over her shoulder at the garage. "We... I forgot to mention it but we found a camera by the door after our guard alerted us. The intruder must have dropped it when he was spotted."

I bite back a caustic remark. Alienating Sato's daughter won't do me any favors, but it sure would've been nice if she had mentioned that earlier. "Can I see it?"

A minute later and we're back inside the garage as Asami leads me to a workbench next to the wall. On it is a blocky camera, light bulb and all. I pick it up and rotate it around as I examine the outside. Nothing on the outside to indicate who owned it. There is a spot where the manufacturer's name had been but it looks like it was sanded off. I glance sidelong at Asami. "Do you know how to take one of those apart?"

Asami bites her lip then shakes her head. Worth a shot but I guess her father's genius hasn't rubbed off on her. I grab a hammer off the wall and swing its head towards the glass lens. Asami throws a hand up to protect her face as pieces of camera fly all over the workbench and I toss the hammer down onto the wooden surface. It takes me a minute to sort through the debris until I find what I'm looking for. A scrap of metal with letters on it. 'Cabb.'

It's not the whole name but it's enough for me to know what my next step is.