"You sure this isn't putting the cart before the horse, chief?"

Blair rolled his eyes. "Jim, think about this. How different is what we saw last night from what we saw when we were high on Golden? What if that's what's coming? Or a worse drug? We need to be ready."

Jim sighed, knowing that his guide had a point. "What do you want me to do, Merlin?"

"Close your eyes and center yourself," Blair replied. "Let your other senses fill in the void."

Jim drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly, and did his best to obey his guide's instructions. "Okay."

"What do you see?"

"It's not like the dream, I'll tell you that much," Jim replied. "But if you guys want to start I'll give it my best shot."

Blair stepped forward and pushed the button on the observation room's intercom. "Okay, you heard Arthur, guys. You can begin anytime."

Katya's black belt class began their attack as requested, going after Jim first individually, then in pairs. The first group of three students had just started to fight Jim when Beckett joined Blair in the observation room. "Good morning, Agent Sandburg," she greeted him.

"Morning," Blair returned the greeting, his eyes never leaving his Sentinel. "You guys wrapped up that ghost hunting case?"

"Paperwork went on Claire's desk this morning, although I suspect most of the cleanup's going to be handled by the FBI." Beckett tilted her head toward the testing area, bringing the conversation back to the present activity. "What're you guys working on?"

Blair's face fell into a grim, determined mask. "Jim and I had an SDE last night."

Beckett's eyes widened, knowing that a Sentinel-Guide "shared dream experience" was fairly high up on their list of signs that something potentially bad and nasty was coming down the pipe. "What'd you guys dream about?"

"Nothing apocalyptic," Blair replied. "But in the dream, Jim had lost his sight. And with the SDE..."

Beckett waved off the rest of the explanation as the context of the training session fell into place. "Want 'em to take a crack at me, next?"

Blair considered the idea, only to smile as the second quartet of black-belts fell at Jim's feet. "I have a feeling this bunch might need a day or so before round two," he told Beckett.

The guide's focus on the training session was only broken when Ryan burst into the room, his heartrate spiking with urgent concern. "Guys, we need you in the lab. Henry thinks he might have something for us."

#

With Jennifer fast asleep and LT standing watch at the door to her hospital room, Foggy and Matt were unable to do anything else to help their client...while they were still at the hospital. However, it was clear to Foggy that his partner had a 'mask-based' agenda for this case and hell was going to freeze over for good before he let the 'Daredevil' keep another secret from him. "Okay, Matt, talk," Foggy demanded as soon as they got into the office. "Karen's gone for the day. It's just us. What's really going on here?"

"Remember how Fisk had his fingers in the Chinese heroin trade when he was in power?" asked Matt. Foggy nodded. "That operation was run by a woman named Madame Gao. She blinded all of her workers, then forced them to work in silence so that they only knew the miniscule part of their operation that they were responsible for."

"Jesus," Foggy exclaimed. "Was Jennifer one of her workers?"

Matt shook his head. "Jennifer isn't Chinese...or didn't you notice?" he teased.

Foggy rolled his eyes. "So she's not this Madame Gao's target?"

"I suspect her husband is part of the operation," Matt explained.

"Is?" asked Foggy, hanging hope on the way that Matt had phrased his last statement. "Do you think her husband might still be alive?"

Matt shrugged. "He's either still alive and back in the fold or he's been murdered to send a warning to the others that they can never escape and have a life away from Madame Gao...or something like that. Either way, looking for Madame Gao isn't an investigation I have any business doing as Jennifer Wong's defense attorney."

Foggy caught on quickly. "But as Daredevil..."

"It's what I do," Matt declared quietly. "You know that."

"I do," Foggy agreed begrudgingly. "What can I do to help?"

"See what you can find out about Judge Li and ADA Lu. There's no way those charges could have been railroaded through this fast unless both of them are in Madame Gao's pocket."

Foggy seemed to be inspired by the idea of being able to help. "I'm on it."

#

The few people in the large lab were clustered at one end of the room, surrounding one of the two autopsy tables that defined the Network's small 'morgue' space. Beckett took charge of the meeting as soon as she entered the room. "You got something for us, Doc?"

The rest of the group stepped back to allow Ellison and Beckett unrestricted access to the doctor and his 'patient'. "Mistress, meet Daichi Wong. Tentative cause of death: electrocution."

Ellison and Beckett were both hung up on the first word in Henry's last sentence. "Tentative?" asked Ellison.

"His central nervous system is completely fried," Henry explained.

Beckett nodded. "I can smell it," she agreed. "Only faint traces, though."

"The body washed up in Riverside Park," added Henry, "roughly two hours ago. I estimate that he was in the water for less than twelve hours, which was long enough to destroy much of the trace evidence. But my biggest quandry is the fact that there are no entry scars."

"The amount of energy that would be needed to do that kind of damage would leave burn marks at the point where the current entered the body," Lanie chimed in.

"Except in this case," Henry declared. "Which means that the energy that did this was either self-administered by the victim feeding a tube down his own throat without leaving a mark..."

Ellison understood where Henry's diagnosis was headed. "Or the energy in question was supernatural in origin."

Henry nodded again. "However, I didn't want to officially hand off the case without getting a second opinion."

Ellison and Beckett took positions at opposite ends of the table, opening their sight and touch in a dance that was becoming increasingly familiar. Blair kept a watchful eye over Hunter and Sentinel as they worked, making sure that his Sentinel, in particular, didn't zone out. "Talk to us, guys," he instructed them. "What are you seeing?"

Ellison and Beckett pulled their senses back with shared expressions of defeat. "You were right, Doc," said Beckett. "I can't find any evidence of electrical burns on his skin."

"Neither can I," Ellison agreed.

"I'll call Grumpy, see what else we can find out from Mr. Wong," announced Lanie. "You'll send us all the notes from your initial examination?"

Henry sighed and nodded, accepting the inevitable. "Thank you. I'll also let Jo know that you're taking over the case...oh, and you might want to call Captain Gates, as well."

The offhand reference to their old captain stuck out to the Guardians. "Gates?" asked Ryan. "Why?"

"Evidently, the District Attorney's office has already filed charges against the wife," Henry explained.

The eyes of the Guardians widened almost in unison. "That's quick," exclaimed Castle. "What do they have?"

Henry shrugged. "The captain didn't say. Although, she did ask me to run an urgent tox screen that she believes will allow the wife to...I believe the term is 'alibi out'?"

"I'll call Gates," Beckett volunteered. "Get more of the details from her."

#

Captain Gates slammed down her phone's receiver, then rested her head in her hands, massaging her temples to stave off the approaching headache. She shuffled around the papers on her desk that made up the file on the Daichi Wong murder. The witness statements were the worst pieces of fiction that she had read...well, since the last time she had tried to read one of Castle's novels. There was absolutely no other evidence tying Jennifer Wong to the crime. She had no motive. And now, the results of Doctor Morgan's tox screen and Doctor Driver's physical examination provided an all-but-perfect alibi. It seemed next to impossible that Jennifer Wong was anything but unconscious at the time of her husband's murder. There's no way she could possibly be the one that killed him.

So why, in God's name, was the DA's office refusing to budge?

Gates stared out of the window, letting her thoughts wander to Jennifer Wong's defense attorney...and her suspicions about how the man spent his 'off-hours'. In her younger days, the idea of a vigilante working in her city would have driven her absolutely mad. She would have moved heaven and earth to bring the man to 'justice', determined to show the world that cops - and only cops - were the ones that needed to be going after the bad guys.

But that was in the days before the Guardians. Before a ragtag team of superheroes showed her that there was far, far more to the world around her than what she had, to that point, assumed to be the 'real world'. And when the world around you included wizards and witches, demons and monsters...those were threats that a cop, *any* cop, was never going to be trained to handle...is that it? thought Gates. Is Murdock, if he's this 'Daredevil', some new addition to the Guardians? And if he is another 'adopted' Guardian...why wasn't I informed?

Gates picked up the phone the next time it rang, relieved, for once, to see a very familiar number. "Good evening, Agent Beckett. Or...I suppose it is Agent Castle, now?"

Beckett smiled on the other end of the line. "It's still Beckett, Captain. At least for the time being."

"So how can I help you this evening, Agent?" Gates replied, hoping that her suspicions were soon to be confirmed.

"Just a courtesy call, sir. I wanted to let you know we'll be taking the Wong case off your hands."

Gates almost groaned with relief as the twenty-ton weight lifted from her shoulders. "Beckett, you have no idea how happy I am to hear you say that."

"Why is that?" asked Beckett, accepting the invitation to poke around for the remaining information that she was looking for.

"The DA pushed through charges against Mrs. Wong based on the testimony of four witness who all say that they heard her confess to the murder. However, after reading the confessions for myself, I couldn't think of a prosecutor in the world who would accept these losers as the star witnesses for their murder case."

"That bad, huh?"

Gates nodded even though the Guardian on the other end of the line couldn't see it. "Awful. I was just about to call IAB and request their assistance."

Beckett was starting to wish that she already had a copy of the file in front of her. "You suspect corruption in the DA's office?"

"Trust me, once you see this file, so will you," agreed Gates. "I'll have it messengered to you first thing in the morning."

"Thank you, Captain."

"Agent Beckett, it is probably I who should be thanking you," Gates replied. "But can I make one request...for future reference?"

Beckett frowned, confused by the question. "Of course...sir?"

"The next time you find a new Guardian, can you let me know about him before you let him loose inside my precinct? Or at least let me know that he exists?"

Beckett's confusion grew exponentially. "Who are you talking about? What new Guardian?"

Gates realized that she was now just as confused as Beckett. "You mean Mrs. Wong's lawyer isn't a member of the Network?"

Beckett had to resist the urge to stare at the phone. "Whose lawyer?!"