SCENE 01 – While waiting for their gear to be brought down, Piper flops onto the cot, exhausted, and has a dream about her first session with the LAPD Psychiatrist, Doctor de Maat. Piper’s father was a protein farmer from the ranges outside of Los Angeles and was psychologically abusive to his daughters, especially Piper, instilling in her a deep-seated belief that she can never do anything right. This inner voice tends to drown out all others when Piper is under stress and led to her being dazed during the hostage crisis 6 months ago.

SCENE 02 – DAY 1: SHIFT 3 – Moneaux heads to the room Captain Argossy set aside for interviews, located on Deck 3. His first interview is with Petty Engineer, Zula Langford. Langford is a young woman and Moneaux notices right away that she is extremely nervous and biting her nails, hovering outside of the cabin before getting up enough nerve to enter.

Langford’s record is unremarkable, which in itself is a red flag to Moneaux as Nexus 9s are created to excel at whatever task they have set before them. Langford explains how the radios stopped working at the same time as the ship stopping and her discovery of Chief Engineer, Scott du Champs‘ body. Langford speaks highly of du Champs and when questioned about her technical abilities, she states that if it wasn’t for Cpt Argossy, she would not be aboard the Zen Aero at all — it was Argossy that approved her hire and Langford describes her as having a ‘heart of gold’. Moneaux files this tidbit away for future reference.

SCENE 03 – Basher heads to the crime scene and documents it. He intuits that whoever killed du Champs had to have been known to him to get close enough to smash him on the back of the head and strangle him. He also notes that du Champs’ body was found next to the sonar/depth finding equipment, not the engine controls.

SCENE 04 – Paul Rodriguez, the Zen Aero‘s Chief of Security, is expecting Piper and Kenji. Rodriguez’ account of events corroborates with Langford’s. Escorted by the wall-of-a-man security agent, Berek Buamama, Piper and Kenji review the camera footage just prior to the murder. Kenji notices that just before the cameras cut out in the Engine Room, that a small battery icon flashes on the screen.

Rodriguez says he is unaware of any battery backups to the cameras and to ask the Captain.

Piper is exhausted and stressed out and heads to her cabin to rest. Moneaux takes a moment to comfort Piper and get some rest himself while Kenji heads up to the Conning Tower.

SCENE 05 – DAY 1: SHIFT 4 – Kenji exits the ship and steps onto the storm-tossed main deck of the Zen Aero. Ascending the metal stairs to the conning tower, he sees Captain Argossy and her first mate, Saira Serphane, consulting charts.

When questioned about the battery backup, Argossy becomes excited and says that she was told that in the event of a power failure, the cameras have internal batteries as well as memory chips and will continue to record locally; she had completely forgotten about this feature in the three years she has been aboard the Zen Aero.

Kenji and Argossy excitedly race down to the Engine Room to meet Rodriguez and Buamama and check the cameras.

As they are headed down to the Engine Room, Kenji confronts Argossy about Langford. Argossy confesses that Langford is human, which violates Packard Testing policy, and that they have been faking her Baseline Test results, but she refuses to tell Kenji why, stating only that it’s a personal matter and has no bearing on the murder case.

SCENE 06 – Arriving at the Engine Room, Kenji is disappointed to find that the memory chips have been removed from all cameras that are pointing in a direction that may incriminate anyone.