Free [Jessica]

Perhaps the greatest irony was that Jessica was not presently in the Royal Dragon at all. She was, however, rapidly closing in on it as she shot across space in the super-speed of her Redbird form. Over the course of the past week, she'd been busy making connections and building some presence in the underworld. Since there was obviously a mole in the SPD somewhere, using official sources was now off the table and they'd have to rely on stool pigeons or informants for info-- assuming that Thoma ever managed to get out of the slammer any time soon.

This past trip had also been informative, although its value would probably decline sharply in the near future. Still, at least it was something.

When she came within several blocks of the hostel, Jess decided that it was time to go the rest of the way on foot. She ducked through a back alleyway and slid to a stop; then checked to make sure that there was no one around. Since Redbird's heightened senses couldn't detect anything, she felt safe enough to deactivate her Gaia Memories and break the transformation.

She waited a moment for her senses to stabilize. Then she removed her Memories from the Driver and deposited them back in her purse. Once that was done, she left the alley and began to move across the streets to the hostel. She arrived and pushed the door open, only to be greeted by a shout.

"Hey, Croft." The proprietor's grabbed her attention. "There was somebody here just askin' about you. Average guy, dark hair, kinda disheveled lookin'. Sound familiar?"

That got her attention, all right. "Yeah... that fits several someones. Where'd he go?"

"Headed up towards your room. I figured I should warn you in case he was an ex or something. If you decide you want him tossed out, just let me know." The man replied.

"Sure... hopefully, that won't be necessary. But I'll holler if I need you." Jess gave him a small, awkward smile and then began setting off toward her shared room. What was it with people and... No. She wasn't going to think about that.

Jess rounded the corner and then stopped. Well... that was certainly unexpected. She hadn't quite expected all her wishful thinking to be fulfilled quite so quickly. But, hey, if it was a gift horse, then she was going to just shut up and accept it. Those rare bits of good luck didn't need to be turned ugly.

"Hey." She called out as she approached Thoma and her room. "Long time no see. And-- holy moley, what happened to you?"

That last bit hadn't been planned, but it had escaped upon her sighting Thoma's face. The guy looked like he was out to audition as 'the other guy' that everyone's always talking about. She couldn't help but wince at seeing all the damage done to his features.

"Uh, yeah... if they don't like a nice guy like you, then they must be wildly depraved or something." She tried to follow up on his joke, but wasn't so sure how well she succeeded. It was probably best to move on and forget about it, then. "At least it doesn't hurt as much... so... uh... I've got your laptop and stuff in the room. I can get it for you if you want."

In all honestly, she'd be glad to be rid of it sooner rather than later. It was an expensive thing to lug around, and that always made her nervous.

"No problem."

Jess moved past Thoma and then opened the doorway. She stepped past the threshold and then immediately turned to her right; a row of lockers stood against that wall. After taking a key from her pocket, she unlocked one of the containers and then pulled a ratted old backpack from its recess.

"Here ya go. It should be the same as when you left it, I haven't messed with it if it could be helped." She hefted the backpack as she spoke and extended it to Thoma. "I've been doing some work to... hopefully it'll help out on clearing your name."

"I've found a few snitches, people who are willing to trade information for favors. One guy hints that he knows something about your murders." Jess explained slowly. "And made some roads into the underworld. Nothing too deep, but a few people are willing to talk to me now. It's not much its a start."

"Eh, it wasn't too much hassle. I had to do something to fill in the time while you were MIA." Jess shrugged. "So what's the plan from here on out?"

The sooner she could get this mess resolved, the sooner she could go about straightening her own life out. Trying to deal with everyone else's fallout while trying to out her own issues was working about as well as could be expected. Not well.

She nodded. It made sense enough, although she wondered if Kaito was even in prison if Thoma could never find him. Maybe most didn't, but she preferred to work off of the assumption that the established wasn't really there until proven... it made life a little easier.

"Alright. We'll need to head across town, then. We'll probably have more luck catching Mako right now. He's usually hiding out in this little cyber cafe. I'll guide you to him."