Day 1 Investigation: After Pearls shows Phoenix a news article of a Major Merger between Pomegranate, the maker of Pearls’ new phone, and Blue Screens Inc., The Prosecutor’s office is struck by a massive DDoS. Lisa Basil, the CEO of Blue Screens Inc. is arrested on the charge of cyber-terrorism. Adrian Andrews, Basil’s assistant wearing a fashionable black turtleneck with her round-brimmed glasses, rushes to Phoenix to get him to defend Basil. Pearl, not wanting to be left out now that Maya is off again, defiantly tags along. The three head to the detention center to meet with Basil. When the trio walks In Basil, in a panicked, starts shouting Error: 404 and orders Andrews back to HQ immediately. After she calms down, she explains her innocence and how she has access to all info of Blue Screens, yet she knows it wasn’t done by her company. When asked about the merger, she spouts out Error: 470, and explains that it’s classified info and then mentions a hand-waving explanation about how well it's going. Phoenix’s magatama reacts, but he can’t do anything to break her psyche-locks. Basil, noting how he solved the Glen Elg case, asks for Phoenix to defend her in court. Phoenix then heads to the Prosecutor’s office, where Edgeworth is furious. He explains how many classified files have been compromised, and large amounts of data have been wiped. Furthermore, he mentions the reason Basil has been arrested is because Detective Skye recognized the Blue Screen virtual fingerprints during the attack. Edgeworth points Phoenix towards the Blue screen HQ to talk with Ema. When he arrives, he realizes how different the HQ is compared to last time he was there. A multi-story complex covered in blue-pained glass that stands atop an underground parking lot, the HQ has benefited from the tech boom of late. He walks inside to see Ema and her grunts hauling out computers for inspection. Once she sees Phoenix she stops to talk with him about the case. She explains how the computers need to be checked for the same signature that she saw during the DDoS. When Pearl questions how she became so knowledgeable about technology, Ema explains that she’s been working on computer programming and cyber-detective work and how she was promoted to the head of cyber-crime. Pearl, as an aside to Nick, notes how only recently Ema asked her how to work her brand-new Pomegranate phone. Ema explains how she could figure out the attacker’s identity from her cyber-luminol, which located the IP address, a hacker’s fingerprints, to Blue Screens Inc. Phoenix then asks why Basil was charged specifically, so Ema replies how every known computer in the building is covered by a special firewall preventing this sort of action which only the CEO has the clearance to shut down. After finishing off the last of her snackoos on hand, Ema heads out to continue the investigation. Phoenix walks past the lobby to find Andrews sitting on a couch next to a large metallic fern. She explains the layout of the building with its large sapphire-blue elevator shaft that goes up 20 stories and down 4 to the parking lot. When asked, she clarifies how her job is very difficult due to Basil’s intensity. Nevertheless, she enjoys it because her boss is ultimately very kind and respectful, even if she isn’t empathetic. She explains how Basil has implanted a culture of Taylorism, trying to have employees be as productive as possible to maximize efficiency. Adam Mada, former programmer and researcher, is in charge keeping employees on their toes. When asked where they could speak with Mada, Andrews escorts the pair up to the 19th floor where his office resides. Inside is an all-white office with a single desk, chair, and massive desktop monitor combo. Mada, wearing an all blue suit, vest, and tie combo awkwardly greets the pair. His blue high-tech eyepiece turns red and orders Andrews back to her duties. Phoenix begins to ask about Mada’s job and methods, but Mada just rambles on about complex game theory. Pearl begins to question his style, noting the similarity in his aesthetic to a mental asylum. Mada quickly retorts how there is absolutely zero distraction in his office, enabling maximum efficiency. Phoenix promptly changes the subject to ask about the Firewall and how Basil was the only one with access. Mada whole-heartedly agrees with Phoenix’s logic, and concludes that Basil is the only possible culprit of the crime, prompting Phoenix’s Magatama to rattle. As Phoenix starts to break the last psyche-lock, Mada’s eyepiece turns red, objects to Phoenix’s presence, and shoes him out of the office. The pair head back to the detention center to ask Basil about Mada. Basil notes Mada’s excellence in efficiency, contributing much of Blue Screens’ success to him. She goes on to mention how Mada’s excellence doesn’t stop there, noting how he developed the fundamental system of the Firewall. Phoenix asks if Mada could be behind the attack, but Basil denies it, explaining how she would have known the second the firewall was disabled due to her eyepiece. Phoenix then again tries to ask about the merger, but Basil is called in for another session of questioning.
Day 2 Trial:
The Judge calls court into session, Edgeworth explains the basics of the case, and Ema is brought in as the first witness. After her X-examination, the fact of the case stand: the location must have been the HQ due to the IP address, no unauthorized breaks of the firewall were documented, and so Basil is the only one who could have carried out the attack. Edgeworth then calls Andrews to testify to Basil’s whereabouts. Andrews has documented that Basil had ordered her to keep watch of her office to ensure no one entered due to Basil attempting a self-training exercise. Phoenix, knowing a major turn is about to occur, calls Mada to the Stand. Phoenix first asks Mada about his role and the company to which Mada explains that he is essentially in charge of all day-to-day business at the company. Phoenix Presses Mada about the firewall. Mada denies any possibility of anyone else committing the crime, so Phoenix asks about the creation of the system. Mada explains how Basil commissioned him to prepare the encryption, but made sure that only she has the key, which basil confirms. Phoenix asks if Mada owns a laptop that he brings into work, but Mada explains how he sleeps in his car in the Parking lot, and thus only needs his office desktop. backed into a corner, bluffs that Mada had created backdoor into the system when he created it. Edgeworth calls out phoenix, but the Judge buys the argument and has him explain his theory. Phoenix guesses that Mada had a backdoor into the system, but because the IP address was the same, he must have still been at the HQ. The Judge accepts this possibility to the chagrin of Edgeworth, and demands that Skye investigate the Firewall for any backdoor.
Day 2 investigation:
Phoenix gets a call from Edgeworth to hurry to his office immediately. When he arrives, Edgeworth asks Pearl to wait outside. He loads a video on his computer for Phoenix to see. In the video, Mada stands behind his desk, which is covered by a few papers, as a woman in a black turtleneck walks in. Her back is towards the camera as her long brown hair trails behind her. Mada begins to speak, but the woman brandishes a pistol and shoots made in the chest. His eyepiece turns red, and he collapses. Phoenix is appalled He recognizes the turtleneck and hair; the woman is Ms. Andrews. Edgeworth explains how he received the video 20 minutes prior and sent Skye to Mada’s office, but no body, blood, or bullets were found. Furthermore, detective Skye is in the process of arresting Andrews at the HQ. He’ll see if it was possible Mada did this from an authorized computer. With that taken care of, Edgeworth notes that he has some business to take care of regarding the woman in the video, and lets Phoenix head back to the detention center. As he walks into the room, Ms. Andrews is extremely distraught. Phoenix asks her what happened, but Andrews has no clue. He explains what he saw in the video, and Andrews is flabbergasted. She explains that she was at home. No psyche-locks show up, but Phoenix is bewildered as to how a murder could be caught on camera and yet not take place. Phoenix heads back to the HQ and heads up to Mada’s office. Scanning around, he sees almost no difference from the last time he was here. Phoenix is completely lost, and with nothing else left to inspect, Phoenix heads back to the lobby. When he walks out of the elevator, he notices a camera that watches the door. He asks the receptionist if he can look at the surveillance data for that camera and for the one in Mada’s office. When the receptionist returns, she brings a disk of the elevator feed, but explains that there is no camera in Mada’s office. Phoenix reviews the elevator feed and sees Ms. Andrews enter the elevator, then ten minutes later, Mada enter, and another ten minutes’ pass before Andrews enters again. With no other leads to go on, Phoenix heads to the detention center to talk with Basil. He presses her on the merger, the topic that brought up multiple psyche-locks last time. Ultimately, she explains that the merger was not going to end well for her. Her counterpart for Pomegranate, Stephanie Workz, was winning the negotiations, but could not win the price war. Furthermore, Basil could tell that Workz was going to try and get rid of her as soon as possible. Phoenix pounces on this new information and heads to Pomegranate Inc. After being escorted through a long and winding adobe-styled corridor, Phoenix arrives at Workz’s office. After stepping into the stucco room, Workz is balancing herself atop a yoga ball, mediating to the sound of a tiny waterfall in the corner of the room. Phoenix introduces himself, but Workz cuts him off. She stands up, with her shiny head, black turtleneck, and round brim glasses just like in the article. She cuts to the chase, she won’t answer any questions, she looks forward to seeing him tomorrow, she asks him to leave. Phoenix knows tomorrow will be a battle.
Day 3: Trial
After the judge’s initial proceedings, Edgeworth calls Ema to the stand. She explains that after her investigation of the firewall, there was indeed a backdoor, but none of the authorized computers could have taken advantage of the weakness. Furthermore, the computer that did hack it would need to have been hardwired into the system to meet the IP address specifications. After some X-examination, these statements prove to be true. Edgeworth then calls Andrews to the stand. Andrews, ready to prove her innocence leaves nothing unturned. When she mentions the timing of her movements, phoenix realizes that the there is a contradiction in the surveillance video. He objects, and explains that the second Andrews in the feed is not actually Ms. Andrews, but an imposter. The crowd roars in confusion, as the Judge agrees the possibility, noting the truth of Phoenix’s past wild claims. The Judge still questions where the murder took place, but Phoenix replies that it must be somewhere in the HQ. Phoenix, looking back over the court record, knows exactly who to call next: he motions to have Stephanie Works brought into court. As she approaches the stand, the judge marvels at her work, and asks if she could autograph his new phone. She explains that that would void the warranty and refuses. Phoenix starts pressing her on her whereabouts, but she claims that she was at Pomegranate HQ doing work and that could be corroborated. Nothing is working; Works has a perfect alibi, and with no body or crime scene, Phoenix has little ground to stand. The judge asks Phoenix to put up his final argument before he hands down a verdict, and Phoenix takes a leap using the facts he knows. The murder must have taken place in the HQ, but where. Workz and Mada definitely enter the elevator to head to the murder scene, but nothing was found in Mada’s office. This leads to Phoenix concluding that there must be a second office, and that is the murder scene. The judge asks phoenix how this could be true, and Phoenix takes one last look at the murder video. After a while he asks ema to magnify the images. Once done, he notices the small piece of paper looks like a parking ticket with the bottom circled. Inside the writing is the following “KEY-1-6-8-3-4B”. The Judge, asks Phoenix what this means and to wrap up his tangent so they can proceed with the ruling. Phoenix, backed into the corner, re-evalutates the case. He knows that the hack and the murder took place at the HQ. He knows that both Mada and the impersonator entered the elevator, but they weren’t seen afterwards. He knows that the striking difference between Mada’s office and the video was the parking ticket with the circled key. He knows that Mada had been central in the scale-up of Blue Screens and that he made a back-door through the firewall. It clicks. Mada had a secret office only accessible via the elevator. This is the only way that Andrews is innocent. He shouts objection and explains the theory, proposing a timeline. The only hole is how to get to the secret office. Workz claims that it is ridiculous, but Phoenix proposes that Workz knew the way in. The parking ticket is the key, otherwise why would the numbers be circled. Thinking about the elevator, he realizes that the numbers correspond to floors in the HQ, and the “KEY” could be for the key slot. He Objects loudly and demands that the elevator be inspected. Workz is furiously eating snackoos. Ema departs to check the elevator. When she returns, she confirms Phoenix’s theory, and explains that they found the body, murder weapon, and computer used for the hack. Workz is silent. She munches through a new bag snackoos, says Hello World, and collapses. After coming to, she explains her story.
TLDR
Workz had been working on a new AI that would be able to replace lawyers and prosecutors, but she needed an increase in capital as well as big data to work through. She realized she could hit two birds with one stone. She approached Adam Mada, and offered him large amounts of cash and a position at Pomegranate if he used the Blue Screens tech to hack the prosecutor’s office and collect large amounts of case data, but also leave the Blue Screens fingerprint on the hack. She would start talks of a merger with Blue Screens, but once the hack took place, the company would crash and she could absorb it for free, including the stolen data held on their servers. Once phoenix had figured out the firewall breach, Mada was going to rat out Works for a lighter sentence. Mada had her meet up in his secret office that he had had built during the scale up, and sent her the parking ticket key. Works, to be able to head to the location, used a wig and her natural looks to appear as Andrews walking into the building. She shot, killed, and left Mada’s body in a place only he knew about to make sure she wasn’t implicated. Mada anticipated some violence, so had set up a camera feed that he could send to Edgeworth with his eyepiece. If Mada had never taken the video with the parking ticket visible, Works would have gotten off scot free.