The Videotape Appears

Notice that the Support Mech 'Little Duck movements are different now. In particular, the warning light on the upper part of the square body has changed from red to Green Lantern.

Jack Reacher greeted, "You're back? I was talking to this machine before, and all I got were simple, mechanical replies. That's how I learned you were temporarily away."

"I hope you don't mind if I borrow your first aid kit. Actually, I just mentioned it, and that little spherical robot brought it out."

Henry spoke through the Little Duck's electronic voice, "Don't worry, these things are for people to use. Are your injuries alright?"

"The power of those Vampires is indeed beyond imagination for their size. However, it's still within my tolerance."

Looking at this man, who could be categorized as a tough guy among humans, Henry knew he didn't need to worry too much about him.

Now that the client had returned, Jack Reacher treated the wound even faster. After packing up the first-aid kit, the remaining items, including the trash, were also recycled by BB-2. The little robot retreated to the second level of space.

The floating Little Duck was now facing the captain of the Military Police Special Investigations Unit, and said, "Then please tell me about the progress of your investigation."

"Since I'm in a communication state, I don't need to specify the people or things involved that are highly confidential. Just tell me roughly how far your investigation has progressed."

"Depending on the situation, I may not be the only one receiving the report. To save you time, I need to determine whether the person involved needs to be notified. You understand, right?"

Jack Reacher asked, puzzled, "Shouldn't I report to you first, and then you report to that other person?"

The Little Duck waddled from side to side in a very human-like way, just like a human shaking their head. "No, no, no, you don't think that person is so arrogant that they disdain to deal with you, do you?"

"That's not it. I was just helping out with the trivial matters, but I couldn't predict what details he would want to know. So when you've gathered enough information and feel it's time to report, of course you should go directly to him."

"Unless your reason for coming to me today is simply that you've encountered some difficulties and need someone to help you, then that's within my scope of work."

Of course, this only applies to what I can handle. What If...? it's beyond my ability, I will still notify that person.

Jack Reacher nodded in understanding.

After a moment's consideration, Henry added, "Furthermore, given my relationship with that person and with the target of our investigation, I'm not a very suitable narrator."

"Only a completely unrelated third party like you can restrain that person's irrational behavior. At least out of consideration for a stranger, he won't say anything too harsh."

Henry wasn't sure if that young master would really restrain himself. Anyway, he knew he didn't want to get criticized, so the best way was to fool others.

Because it was during a communication session, the two tacitly avoided mentioning certain names, instead speaking in vague and ambiguous terms.

Hearing Henry's explanation, Jack Reacher frowned. "Is it really that complicated?"

"What If...? you've investigated the relationship between those two, you should be able to understand."

"Indeed." Jack Reacher stopped dwelling on it and said, "Alright, then I'll say it. The investigation is indeed facing a bottleneck."

"What happened back then wasn't an accident as everyone thought. It was a premeditated crime. But whether it was a person or an object, I can't say for sure at this stage."

"However, I found the murderer. To be precise, I know who the murderer is. But I will face many problems in continuing the investigation. One of them is that I do not have enough authority and am not qualified to investigate this kind of information."

"Furthermore, I suspect that this kind of sensitive information usually comes with a trigger mechanism. That is, regardless of whether I find any results or not, as long as someone conducts an investigation, it will alert certain people. What If...? there is a cleanup mechanism behind it, then it will definitely be triggered."

"Although I was very careful and didn't directly touch these things so that no one could find me by following the clues, I'm not sure if the traces I left behind have been completely erased, or if it's really true that no one can find me."

"Actually, when I encountered the Vampires, I thought it was someone from over there who had found me. But now, thinking back on everything and the Vampires's behavior, it was probably just a coincidence."

Henry, listening, was speechless. "You knew you were in trouble, yet you still dared to act heroically and save someone?"

"In fact, I initially thought things would be easy to resolve, but who knew I would encounter such an opponent."

"Is that why you don't want to meet with the police?"

"That's right."

"You came here on a covert mission, too?"

"I created several points of failure along the way, making it difficult to track me. However, after the Vampires incident, I'm unsure whether the victims actually saw my face."

"Hmm." Having understood the situation, Henry stopped discussing whether Jack Reacher's whereabouts had been exposed. Instead, he turned to ask, "You said you found the murderer. Do you have any evidence?"

Jack Reacher took a videotape from his ever-present backpack and said, "This is the video footage of the car accident."

Henry, far away on the plane, stared in astonishment at the distant image transmitted through his glasses. Jack Reacher had actually gotten his hands on this videotape!

Henry asked, "The unit that investigated earlier said that the video footage of the accident at the time of the incident doesn't exist. How did you obtain it? Did you perhaps get it from within that unit?"

Jack Reacher explained, "This videotape doesn't exist in the official records because the road surveillance system at the scene was undergoing upgrades and replacements at that time."

"According to my investigation, the surveillance footage of this section of the road was upgraded from the original videotape system to a digital video system in December, and the acceptance test was completed."

"However, the new system was quite unstable in its early stages, causing the surveillance footage to fail to be transmitted or saved properly at times. This is why there is no footage of the accident at the time of the incident. It cannot be ruled out that it was deleted afterward."

"But," Henry added a transitional phrase.

Jack Reacher continued, "But there was corruption involved in the acceptance process for the system upgrade. The company that carried out the project hadn't actually upgraded the entire system for that section of the road; they had only completed part of it."

"Moreover, the old system has not been completely removed, and its monitoring and recording functions are still in operation. It's just that the engineering company had financial problems, and in order to receive the project payment on time, they bribed the acceptance personnel to falsify the data."

"Furthermore, according to regulations, road image data must be retained for one month. Within this month, the company that obtained funding completed the system upgrade. The image data from the old system was also fortunately retained because it had not yet exceeded the one-month coverage period."

"Only the construction workers at the time knew about these things, which is why no one knew about the existence of this videotape. Although Howard Stark's car accident was a major event, they kept it a secret to protect themselves."