March 3, 3:41 PM (Two Years Earlier...)

Office of JLD Private Investigations

Astor Spade sat back comfortably in the seat provided by the man across from him, a single arm draped behind him. Behind the desk, facing him, Jack Daman silently watched him, sizing him up like a jeweler looking through a loupe at prospective piece. They were meeting in Jack's office, a fairly large room. Against a wall near the door, a bookshelf filled to the brim with various works of detective fiction as well as police procedural guides, a strange mix. On the other side, file cabinets that seemed to stretch on forever, no doubt records of every case that the private investigators had taken over the past few years. Directly behind Jack's desk was draped a small banner with the JLD logo on it with its motto scrawled beneath the crest, almost giving off a military-type vibe, as though Jack were a general, reclining in his headquarters.

"You picked a hell of a time to leave the force, boyo." Jack quipped, folding his hands on top of his desk, staring at Astor over the top of his glasses, "A police detective murdered, both the Chief of Police and Chief Prosecutor disgraced… people are starting to lose faith, and the establishment of law and order is in turmoil." He shook his head, "I knew Dyce Rollins when he was just the Deputy Chief. Now that he's the full-on Chief, he needs every good man he can get."

Astor shifted a bit in his seat and shrugged with his free arm, smiling slightly, "The higher-ups dug their own grave, as deep in this crap they were in. It ain't as though we had the best reputation in the world anyway."

"That aside," Jack leveled his gaze at Astor, "why did you leave? Word around the office was that you were one of the department's rising star patrolmen-"

The smile that had been on Astor's face fell to the floor, crashed, and died on impact. He sat forward in the chair; the arm that had been dangling from behind came up and smashed its index finger onto Jack's desk.

"I wasn't meant for the beat!" he exclaimed, eyes lighting up with intensity, almost challenging Jack, "I joined the police force to become a detective! That's what I was born to do, that's what I was meant to do!"

Jack remained unperturbed by Astor's outburst, still simply staring at him through half-lidded eyes. "Did you apply?"

"'We don't feel you meet the qualifications.'" Astor replied in a mocking tone, sitting back abruptly, "Every damn time I tried to take the required aptitude test, that's what I was told." He threw up his hands in frustration, "They're gonna tell me – ME – that, when they still have that inept oaf Dick Gumshoe on the payroll!"

The older man shook his head, "Dick Gumshoe is a valued veteran of the precinct-"

"Being Miles Edgeworth's pet detective doesn't make him valuable." Astor cut him off with a wave of his hand, "It makes him a puppet of the Prosecutor's Office, nothing more."

"If that were true," Jack interceded with a smile, "it would explain why he's still there, mm?"

Astor paused a moment, mulling it over, then sat back with a disgusted sigh.

Jack took the opportunity to rise from his seat and circle around slowly, "To be perfectly honest, boyo, I knew why you left. I knew what your true passion was."

Astor blinked up at him, "Then why did you ask?"

"I wanted to hear it for myself." Jack folded his arms and leaned against a wall, "Let's be honest. Both the police department and the Prosecutor's office have always had their fair shares of trouble, and these recent incidents aren't going to do much more than open up old wounds, if not create new ones outright."

He moved across the room, behind Astor's chair, to the rows of filing cabinets along the wall, "Sometimes, to find out the truth, we need to step back from the rules and regulations that hold the police back. Rules and regulations are only tools for the corrupt to hide behind. I know that first-hand."

Astor nodded at that, "Yeah… yeah, I remember reading about you in the newspaper. You and your team cracked that whole corruption ring wide open years ago."

Jack smiled, opening one of the cabinets and thumbing through the folders, "Ah, yes. The Officers' Cabal is exactly what I was talking about when I was talking about opening old wounds. It was a prime example of police corruption and the public was hardly going to let the department forget about it anytime soon."

"But then, you left, after you sent the Cabal's leader – what was his name? Owens? – to prison. …So, what was that about leaving when the Chief needed you most?" Astor couldn't help but crack a smile at Jack's back.

The older man paused and allowed a smile to come onto his face, "Maybe so, boyo, but we had the common sense to leave with a purpose, not because we weren't getting our way." Pulling a file folder from the cabinet, he closed the drawer and came back around to his desk, "Truth be told, even with Lieutenant Owens in prison, we knew the Cabal was far from finished. But without any way to know who was on the take, there was only one choice to make."

"So you left." Astor finished for him, "Started up this swanky place."

"Precisely," Jack chuckled and retook his seat, opening up the folder in front of him, "and our decision to leave is where our motto came from." He pointed behind him at the banner hanging above his chair, "What does it say?"

Astor squinted, staring up at the banner. "It says… 'Upholding Justice.'"

"'Upholding Justice,' that's right." Jack nodded, "You hear people talking about law and order, you hear them talking about the police, the courts, and they call it the 'justice system.'" With the words 'justice system', Astor heard a note of distaste in Jack's voice. "At best, it's a misnomer and, at worse, an outright lie. Rules, regulations, laws… these things only serve the men that create them, nothing more."

Astor grinned crookedly, not entirely sure where Daman was going with this, "So what do you propose, then? Anarchy?"

"Accountability." Jack replied, not making eye contact, focused more on the folder in front of him, "Justice and the law are two very different things, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

The younger man was silent as Jack continued to pore over the contents of the folder. He craned his neck slightly to see what exactly was being read.

"I have your file here, and it's the reason I wanted you to come in today." Jack answered the unspoken question, not missing a beat from where he left off in his reading, "Despite the circumstances of your departure from the police force, I think we might have a place for you here."

Astor sat straight up in his seat at that. He tried hard to conceal it with an air of casual disinterest, but Jack could see the light and excitement in his eyes as he spoke, "Oh really…?"

"Your passion for the opportunity is obvious, so I'm willing to give you a shot." Jack went on, "You'll be trained in investigative techniques and shown the ropes on some of the cases we're called to. Once we're sure you can do your job without doing something stupid like swallowing your fingerprinting kit, we'll see about getting you certified."

Astor nodded enthusiastically – but not TOO enthusiastically, as he was still trying to maintain his cool demeanor – and leaned forward, "Awesome, I can't wait to show you what I can do."

"Do you swear to perform your tasks to your utmost ability and to uphold justice in all its forms?"

"I do."

"Well, then," Jack removed a piece of paper from the folder and slid it toward Astor, "I'll need your signature on this contract. It basically states that..."

Jack wasn't even done with the first sentence before Astor had grabbed the nearest pen and signed it, the words of the older man not even reaching his ears as inward shouts of glee and jubilation filled his head.

"Mr. Spade?"

'Detective Astor Spade.' He thought, 'Hell of a ring to it.'

"Mr. Spade."

Strange. Lost in his thoughts, Astor could have sworn he heard a gavel hammering.