Chris: "Great, we're coming up."

Jimmy pulled up a chair and sat in front of the classroom, watching the police enter and inspect the room. Soon, Chris and the commanding sergeant came up with a few paramedics. After they checked the gunman and the student, they declared them dead on the scene. It was a hopeless situation; the student had been shot in the chest before the police's delayed response, making survival impossible.

Chris asked Jimmy for the details of what had happened, then greeted the NYPD before the two of them left the scene to return to the Federation office. As they came down from the upstairs, a group of students was gathering on the lower floors, some shouting and screaming, others silently crying. The scene was chaotic, with some people who looked like teachers comforting them, trying to calm things down. But this was no longer Jimmy's concern.

With such a major incident, it wasn't possible to just leave when the workday ended. Jimmy's first order of business upon returning was to write a report, while Chris went straight to Hughes's office.

Jimmy turned on the television in the office—lo and behold, the news was covering the Dwight School shooting. He didn't change the channel but watched as they collated data, details that even Jimmy, as a participant at the scene, wasn't clear on.

Two dead and nine injured. The NYPD had not yet released the identity of the shooter. The casualty reports the journalists had were obtained from hospitals and the school. The situation was resolved, so the NYPD was probably not in a hurry to hold a press conference; an in-depth investigation was surely underway.

Jimmy's report was only a part, primarily about his reconnaissance upstairs and the authorization to shoot the assassin. It wasn't the final report. Following Chris's instructions, Jimmy took the report to Hughes's office and then just waited obediently in his own office for the outcome.

Hughes hadn't left work either. Authorizing Jimmy to kill the assassin was a risky move, potentially an act of overreach, requiring him to communicate with the NYPD and possibly negotiate in private. Of course, these issues were none of Jimmy's concern—he was just the gun, and now the one commanding the gun was the busiest.

Finally, the deal between Hughes and the NYPD bore fruit. Chris came to tell Jimmy to leave work and come in the next day for routine questioning.

By the time Jimmy got home and turned on the TV, the NYPD's press conference had finished. As per usual, he watched the news channel, waiting for the summary of the news from the host.

School shootings always made headlines, and this time the NYPD only released the situation on the scene, not the detailed information about the shooter or the motive. That would require time to investigate. The identity of the officer who shot the gunman wasn't disclosed, with the reason given as related to the follow-up handling of the case and thus temporarily confidential, likely part of the deal struck by Hughes with the NYPD.

Of course, Jimmy knew the journalists would eventually get the information. After all, the Federation was a public federal institution, and many police officers had seen Chris and Jimmy at the scene; it was just a matter of when they'd dig up the specifics.

The next day, Jimmy was called into the conference room as soon as he returned to the office. The inquisition not only included OPR but also seemed to involve a high-ranking NYPD official that Jimmy didn't recognize.

Jimmy had been through many inquiries before and took his seat consciously across the conference table, waiting for their questions.

The initial questioning was routine—his reason for early intervention was that the gunman had taken hostages with a rifle, and Jimmy had found a student lying on the ground. The longer the delay, the higher the danger to the other hostages, which was one of the reasons Hughes agreed to let Jimmy handle the situation.

Another main reason was Jimmy's own qualifications, which made him the best candidate on the scene to bear the pressure of killing the gunman in an emergency. Hughes and OPR acknowledged that to quickly resolve the threat, Jimmy was the best choice. The NYPD representative listening in dropped any further objections.

Fortunately, all ended well. The students were safe and the gunman was killed without even getting a chance to shoot. Jimmy's loud shout of "Hey" was also justifiable. As law enforcement, not assassins, even ESU needed to negotiate before engaging; if negotiations failed, they'd forcefully attack, with no place for a direct surprise attack. Authorized to snipe the gunman from the outside was also an acceptable action.

Having smoothly gone through the inquiry, Hughes arranged for Jimmy to receive a psychological assessment and granted him two days of administrative leave. Jimmy didn't mind; he had no cases on hand anyway, so some rest was welcome.

The procedure was the same as always, only this time the psychological assessment took place in another psychologist's office, a very kind old man with high amiability, though the meeting was truly uninteresting. They asked routine questions, chatted casually, and then it was over. Speaking of which, it had been a while since he'd seen Mary and Jenna. He missed them, despite knowing they were a couple. Ah, such is the folly of desire.

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