Ace Attorney Investigations: Agent Files

Chapter 2

Joe Ashworth's POV
California
May 2nd 10:12AM

"So let me get this straight." I started, turning to Drew. We had just finished a meeting with the local police, so we were being driven back to HQ by an escort. "They're planning to fire me if I don't get that list back?"

"Well, Sir, they put it more as a 'letting you go' than a 'fire', but yes." Drew frowned at me. "That's a bit harsh, don't you think?"

I didn't respond, instead I looked out of the window in distraught. The fact that we had lost the list, and an agent at the same time, was an embarrassment to Interpol overall.

Drew sighed. "They also said that you should go down with dignity..."

"To hell with dignity." I replied. "If I'm leaving, I'll leave when the job's done."

Just then, Drew's phone started to ring. Frowning, he reached into his pockets to answer it. "Yes?"

I looked at him, to possibly work out who could be calling him. Usually he would mouth who it was to me, but instead, his face fell into despair.

"...what-?" He quickly opened up his laptop, clearly in distress. "Um, Sir! It's an alert from Q-Branch. They say someone's trying to decrypt the list-!"

He started to load up a file, and from what I could tell, Q-Branch was sending us the tracking now. I leaned a little closer to take a better look.

"The signal's coming through now." He said, before looking at the screen and frowning. "Somewhere in America."

Sure enough, the tracking had led to America. It zoomed in further to reveal California.

"California?" Drew looked confused. "It must be close, then."

"Get us back to base. As soon as possible." I told our escort. The car started to drive faster.

"Interpol...?!" Drew yanked my arm to get me to have a look. The signal was coming from Interpol HQ, according to the screen.

"What...?" I muttered, only loud enough for Drew to hear.

"The data-packet is linking to our network." He murmured. "This is behind our firewall. W-We should shut it down..."

"No, track it." I told him. "We have to know where the source is coming from."

Hesitantly, Drew held up his phone to his ear again. "Go further in on the source...please."

"How the hell did they get into our system...?!" I muttered. It was supposed to be un-hackable (well, I could think of one exception-).

"We're getting the info now." Drew told me. Sure enough, the laptop showed us the source. "It...it appears that it's coming from your computer, Sir." He looked at me with an ounce of confusion.

"Shut it down." I told him. He nodded, but before he could do so, the screen went blank.

A mocking tune played, and a picture of me appeared on the screen. It flickered in and out of a skull, before finally turning into a skull and burning away. I was already confused, but then a message appeared on the screen.