Lieutenant Ramus frowned, trying to keep his focus on the crime scene in front of him, pushing out the distracting chants from the crowd. There wasn't much left of the crime scene now; the small memorial that had appeared against the store's wall just outside the police tape had quickly expanded into the scene itself. Now, it was all the technicians could do to separate the toys and pictures and candles left here since the shooting from any evidence that might have been missed in the first four times that they had examined the scene. The shouting increased behind him – Arabic mixed in with the French. Hopefully, Ray and Gouger would be able to keep the crowd under control while Bardin and Baudet worked.

When had Paris lost its collective mind?

Only three days ago, everything had seemed normal. He had arrived at work at the normal time, taking over from the night shift, and gone to his regular weekly meeting with the Prefect. A normal patrol. A normal lunch – interrupted when that new super-criminal with the electric powers had overloaded an ATM. But before he and Roux could pursue the perpetrator, the report of an officer-involved shooting in the next arrondissement had come across the radio. By the time they had arrived on the scene, the kid had already been dead, and the protesters had already arrived. Two officers had been present when the shooting took place, and both of them had claimed that the other fired the fatal shot. But both their weapons had been fired, with at least three bullets missing from each of their magazines. And even before the story had run on the evening news, the protests had already started to turn violent.

"I think I've got something here!" announced Baudet, holding up a wrapper from the convenience store behind them. She sniffed it cautiously, her brows knitted together in concentration. "I'm not sure how recent it is," she admitted with a frown. She nodded to a couple of placards. "It was under some of this… debris."

"Whatever you can find," Ramus told her. Gaume had mentioned lunch, hadn't he? Could that be a connection? "Anything that can help untangle what happened."

Stepping back away from the police tape, Ray approached Ramus, sighing heavily. "You don't think we'll find any new evidence, do you, sir?" he asked under his breath, giving the memorial a skeptical look. "The regular crime scene techs already went over this place with a fine-toothed comb. And that's after it got trashed by that first protest." He raised an eyebrow pointedly. "What can we do here other than antagonize that crowd?"

"Considering the state of the scene when they arrived the first time, they could have missed something," Ramus pointed out. "Besides, there is much more to this investigation than simply the evidence at the scene."

Ray hummed. "Why would they shoot an unarmed kid?"

"That is the question."

"My hope was that one of these stores would have a surveillance camera to answer that very question," Vernant interjected as he ducked under the police tape and walked over to them, shadowed by Buteur. "Unfortunately, that hope appears to have been misplaced."

Ramus furrowed his brows. "No security cameras?"

"Oh, there were security cameras, all right," retorted Pierrat, chasing after Vernant and carrying a large case. "Pity none of them were actually working…"

Ray blinked. "Security cameras… and none of them were turned on."

Vernant shook his head. "That appears to be the case. We have requisitioned the devices from the closest buildings to run our own analysis, but…" He shrugged. "I will not know any more until I return to the lab and examine them."

Ramus pursed his lips. "Don't you find that suspicious?"

"Everything is suspicious until evidence replaces suspicion with fact."

At that moment a murmur went through the crowd, the chanting swelling to a fever pitch. Ramus glanced over to see Gouger standing stock-still just inside the police tape, one of the protesters right up in her face and shouting. Someone in the crowd bent down and picked up a broken bottle. Ramus steeled himself and drew in a breath.

"Stop!" A lighter, higher-pitched voice shouted from somewhere overhead, just as a dark figure rappelled down the side of the apartment building across from the crime scene. Moments later a girl in a suit of burnt-orange leaped down to land right next to Gouger and the protester, bracing herself with a harpoon. "Stop this!" Nabatala repeated, wrenching the bottle out of the protester's hand and tossing it aside, raising her voice over the murmuring of the crowd as she did so. "This isn't going to help anything! Why yell at these officers? They aren't the ones who shot Kharim! They're trying to investigate what happened!"

"We already know what happened!" someone shouted, further back in the crowd.

"Yeah!" called the protester in front of Gouger, glaring at her. "Some racist cops shot an innocent boy for no reason!"

Nabatala raised her harpoon to separate them, pushing the man back a step. "And that justifies turning our neighborhood into a warzone?"

The man scoffed, shoving the harpoon aside. "I never thought I'd see the day that you would turn your back on your own people," he growled, putting his hands on her shoulders.

"Leave her alone!" snarled the Owl. In the blink of an eye, he grabbed the man's hand, pulled it back until he released Nabatala, and threw the man off balance, tripping him and sending him tumbling to the ground.

A gasp rippled through the crowd. "He attacked him! The Owl!"

"What? No! I–" The Owl ducked as a glass bottle flew past his head, moments before a brick hit him square in the forehead.

"Shield!" shouted Ramus, lunging forward and activating his prosthetic, deploying the circular shield and expanding its radius as much as he could. At the same moment, Gouger grabbed both the Owl and Nabatala and dragged them backward, inside the police tape, to shove them behind Ramus' shield. Slowly, steadily, Ramus backed away from the crowd, watching them through a small window in the shield as the crowd surged forward. Buteur and three other officers rushed to plug the gap in the line, holding the crowd back as more and more garbage was thrown at them. With a groan, Ramus adjusted the angle of his shield and pulled off a small microphone. "Enough!" he bellowed, his voice ringing off the buildings around them. The crowd froze and stared at him in shock. "I want to find out what happened just as much as you do!" he continued. "Now let me do my job!"

"What is going on in my neighborhood?" whispered Nabatala, looking down at her hands.

Ramus sighed heavily. "People are angry; I get that. But this isn't helping…"

"Sorry for causing you more trouble, Lieutenant," the Owl responded sheepishly. "And thanks." He chuckled humorlessly. "Robbers and thugs I can handle. Angry mobs?"

"But what are you two doing here?" Ramus demanded.

"I… wanted an update," Nabatala answered hesitantly. "On the, um, investigation."

Ramus frowned. "It's an ongoing investigation. We're collecting evidence and trying to piece together a timeline of events."

"Seriously?" Nabatala folded her arms. "That's all you're going to tell me? After everything we've been through? Do you see what's happening to my neighborhood, to my people? People are scared! They're angry! They're worried! And all you can give me is, 'the investigation is ongoing'!? I need – I need something. Please." The Owl put a hand on her shoulder, and she started to jerk away before slumping. "You'd better figure out why this happened, Lieutenant," growled Nabatala.

Ramus let out a breath. "I promise, mademoiselle, I'm doing everything I can."

"I hope so," the Owl responded.

As the two heroes slipped away down the alley between the convenience store and the apartment building next door, Ramus rubbed his forehead. Now, on top of the Prefect, the Prefecture, and City Hall breathing down everyone's necks for updates on this investigation, he also had two of the Heroes of Paris demanding information! How was he supposed to do his job when no one would leave him alone long enough for him to do it!?

By now the crowd was slowly starting to pull back away from the police line once more, but Ramus was still uneasy. Glancing behind him, he found Vernant and the three technicians, now examining the new debris that the protesters had thrown. "Better get moving," Ramus warned them. "We don't want to stay out here any longer than we have to…"

"You cannot rush an investigation like this, Luc," Vernant reminded him calmly, studying something on the sidewalk for a long moment before finally picking it up with a pair of tweezers and placing it in an evidence bag. "You never know when you might find something interesting."

"Is that…?"

Vernant nodded. "It appears so. However, I will need to conduct further tests in my lab to be sure."

"Are you ready to leave?" asked Ramus.

"Yes, I–" Vernant paused, his brows furrowed, as a police vehicle stopped right in front of the police tape.

"Lieutenant… Randall, is it?" asked one of the two officers as they exited the car. "Inspector Aubert; this is my partner, Durand." The man flicked out a badge and gave Ramus a penetrating stare. "What the hell are you doing at my crime scene?"

Ramus' eyes narrowed. "Better question. What is the Inspectorate doing at my crime scene?"

"Inspecting the site of an officer-involved shooting where a civilian was killed by an officer?" retorted Durand, letting out a sardonic laugh and scanning the scene, her arms folded. "Why would the Inspectorate take an interest in something like that?"

"Face it, Randall," continued Aubert, folding his arms. "This is our crime scene, not yours. We're responsible for potential criminal acts of officers of the Prefecture. So get lost."

"It's Ramus, and you're doing an excellent job of rooting out corruption," he shot back. "I'm sure there aren't any officers in the Prefecture who are taking bribes or embezzling or abusing their office. Why don't you start with all of them?"

Aubert's eyes narrowed, examining Ramus from top to bottom. "Don't worry. We are."

"What's your interest here, anyways?" demanded Durand.

"Investigating super-criminals is my department's responsibility," Ramus informed her evenly, his mouth set in a thin line. "And until I can rule out the possibility of super-criminal activity, this is my case."

Aubert snorted. "What, do you think it was aliens or shapeshifters who did this?"

Ramus' eyes narrowed. "I'm not discounting anything. Not until I finish my investigation." He folded his arms. "And that includes the possibility of collaboration with someone within the Prefecture."

Aubert's mouth set in a thin line. "And if that were the case, then it would be my responsibility to root them out," he growled.

Ramus scoffed. "Then in that case, take it up with the Prefect. But until then," he added, "let me and my team do our job."