It was 0630 hours, the sun had begun to rise. Nikolai however had been up for hours. The free waffles he was munching on in the Dive Bar/Wafflehouse Der Panzerwaffle always tasted like the best he ever had. It'd been a full year since he last hat to pay to eat here. With a raised beer or coffee mug, depending on the person, he'd always gotten his breakfast or dinner given to him. A reward as thanks for another job well done. This week's target, some punk who killed a little girl in a drive-by shooting. He begged for mercy, but refused to admit he did anything wrong. Not even the liveleak video of the event was enough to convince him of his guilt. Another easy $500, another piece of filth out of the picture, and another plate of the best chicken and waffles on the west coast. The drizzling rain outside of the tinted windows fell like almost weightless crystals. The lightning danced among the clouds, there were definitely advantages to being trapped in slo-mo. The vigilante could see the refractions in each rain drop as the gently fell to the ground, it was a familiar sight in this part of Washington state, but with his gift (and curse), he could experience it in all of its glory.

Then, a familiar, portly officer stopping in for his morning joe took a seat across from him. Nick hated talking to people, but it was something that just couldn't be avoided. Every syllable sounded like a distorted parody of an imbecile, but it really was just him. "Hey buddy, I got a lead on something incredibly fishy you might want to take a look at." At a mile a minute, like a chipmunk hopped up on Adderal, the mercenary replied. "Hey Deckard, been a while, you should really lay off the powdered donuts if you ever want to make your physical. You only ever talk to me when you're a weeping mess, or have some justice for me to dispense." The officer had to take a second to process what he just said, but failed to. "...anyway," he pulled out a manila folder from a laptop case. "...we've seen quite a few suspicious purchases from hardware supply stores in the area. Miles of acrylic tubing and Plexiglas, water pumps of all shapes and sizes, all sorts of suspicious chemicals, all either paid in cash, or with crypto. We'd like you to look into it, just in case we got a wannabe mad scientist or a chemist cooking all kinds of poison." Nick ripped the folder from the officer's hand, and thumbed through the pages at a blistering pace. Before the last page even settled, he slammed the folder onto the table and passed it back. "Tell the boys to scrounge up a rack and a half, I'll need equipment, plus hazard pay in case I have the whole fucking triad jump down my throat.Keep me update if you fellas find out anything." With a tip of his hat, the officer picked up his folder, coffee, and assorted box of donuts, and then left. 

Nikolai then shoveled the rest of his food down his gullet, slammed the last of his ale (booze slowed his mind down somewhat) and headed off through the door. Since the regular patrons overheard the whole thing, they raised their drinks and their weapons and shouted "GUTE JAGD!"