“And who by fire, who by water
Who in the sunshine, who in the night time
Who by high ordeal, who by common trial
Who by very slow decay
And who shall I say is calling?”
Leonard Cohen, Who by Fire
After doing some leg work, talking to the people at both the Iridum arena and the smaller venue where Malena acted recently, Doyle finds himself in need of help, he has now in his hands hours of surveillance recordings and no idea what do do with them. The stalker is still at large and he has no clues. Doyle arranges a meeting with Aziz Crowe in his office and puts him up to speed. Meanwhile, Isabella is having tea with her friend and is already aware of the troubles affecting the singer Malena, as well as her past story with Doyle. Isabella suggests ZoneSec should get involved and calls Aziz. She agrees to meet Doyle and Crowe at ZoneSec HQ.
The three friends meet at the office over coffee, absinthe and a strange canned soft drink that a weird ginger kid has just handed to Doyle in the corridor. Being a scientist Nakatomi tries the drink and, after a energy burst, wonders about its contents and commercial possibilities.
Aziz asks his customized Personal Assistant, Natasha, do examine the surveillance recordings, while Doyle recaps the story and Nakatomi walks up and down the office. Aziz believes the crowded Hilton Hotel is not a safe enough place for Malena to seek refuge. She should be somewhere quieter and easier to control, like the Blue Parrot. Strangely both ex-lovers agree to the idea. A cunning plan is born: Malena will perform at the Blue Parrot to attract the pyromaniac stalker. ZoneSec can control the access to the bar and apprehend the criminal.
Suddenly there is an unexpected visit: James C, the most famous Rollerclash player is insisting in talking to ZoneSec’s director right away. James, star player of the BurroughsTech sponsored team, Brutal Deluxe – is clearly disturbed: a teammate of his, Ironhead, died during a recent match. Though dying isn’t unusual for a Rollerclash game, James C is convinced it was a planned killing, the other player – bike driver Cletus Gunn of the Underworld Blasters – was clearly targeting Iron head during the whole match. James C claims he and the late Iron Head were being pressured by Pandemonium – the company that organizes the games – to retire. They had become big a starts, bigger then the game itself, and the corporate suits didn’t want that. Rollerclash shouldn’t generate idols for the masses. Aziz promises to investigate the case, while Nakatomi tries to set up a date with James C.
Back at the Blue Parrot, Isabella does a live RealSimcast with Malena to announce the concert for the next day to all her followers, making sure the news is widespread.
While they are doing the live, Natasha calls Aziz apart. She finally has news for him: a face was identified in the crowd at on of the concert, Lance Jones, a scientist that was jailed for stalking and trying to rape Ka’athryn years before. A worried Aziz calls a ZoneSec team to be on the scene immediately and Jones’ mugshot is distributed to both Blue Parrot and ZoneSec security.
It’s late, Borges is getting ready to go home when she gets a call from Clayton Reed. She and the rookies were just assigned to a security detail at the Blue Parrot to protect lead singer Malena. The team sets up a surveillance perimeter outside of the Blue Parrot, after a small territorial fight with the Blue Parrot bouncer about installing cameras inside the bar.
On concert night the Blue Parrot is at its maximum capacity, everybody wants to see Malena. In spite of all the security efforts everything goes wrong! Suddenly an explosion occurs inside the bar. Doyle quickly drags Malena out of the stage and into his room, while Aziz helps evacuate the place, and Nakatomi keeps her exciting live stream going.
Outside, the security team quickly jumps out of the surveillance van, dejected by the fact O’Malley’s face detector program proved useless. Borges quickly races to the Blue Parrot and puts out the fire in the kitchen. She is pissed of with how the amateurs handled the situation. O’Malley’s inspection of the fire zone shows nothing, there is no explanation for the explosion.
They decide to check Lance Jones background, but find nothing in official channels: classified information. Being the proactive young man he is, O’Malley goes straight to the director for information. Aziz tells the team that maybe Lance Jones can start fires from a distance using biotechnology. Borges gets even more pissed off.
O´Malley tries to find the suspect by hacking the street cameras around the area. But there’s a weird pattern of cameras getting shut dow and he ends up missing the trail. At least now they know what building he came of from, so it’s time to go knocking on doors. On the 4th floor there’s a flat where nobody is answering. O’Malley tries to kick the door down, but ends up hurting himself. Borges shows him how to do it: “We shoot the door!”.
Inside they find a recently carbonized body. Time to call the clean-up team. The apartment has a view over the Blue Parrot’s kitchen; Jones probably needed to see the place to do whatever he did… O’Malley dives into the darkweb and find out they may have found themselves a psycho scientist with a psionic power to start fires. Borges is furious and calls Clayton Reed to let him know of the night’s mess and the fact the director retained information. After another call from Reed Aziz finally shares the full information with the team.
Now they have the full picture maybe they can catch him next time.
