North America Gunman Detective

Chapter 1458 785: Transmission Code 2

Jimmy was no longer alone. Initially, James helped him secure a Church believer identity to better assimilate into society. After all, being of Chinese descent often led to targeted discrimination. If he were to leave now, not only him but also his family, including Nia and Kevin, might be affected.

Jimmy had decided long ago that whether the child would join the Church could be decided in the future, according to his/her own thoughts, allowing nature to take its course.

As time passed day by day, Roland had been gone for two or three months. Nia's physical condition was good, and with adequate care, there had been no issues during this period. Of course, some personality changes were normal phenomena, such as irritability, coexistence of drowsiness and insomnia, and occasionally incidents like searching for keys while holding them. All these were within Jimmy's understanding, and with his mother-in-law coming to care for her every few days, it was generally stable.

The two of them had quite relaxed at work. Nia took a long leave from the police department, and Jimmy, after others learned about Nia's pregnancy, wasn't monitored either. He could care less about the job since no one would visit his office unless they knew he was in to have tea and chat.

In fact, the FBI wasn't truly idle. Whether it was Ruiz or others, there was a lot to be done, especially with the abrupt eruption of the subprime mortgage crisis wreaking havoc on Wall Street. Wall Street was connected to the stock market, which was linked to a large middle class, resulting in numerous bankruptcies or unemployment due to failed investments or related issues. Suicides and retaliatory shootings were also frequently occurring.

Ray Hope, who took over Jimmy's Homicide Team, had been insanely busy lately. The Homicide Team wasn't large, so as soon as the cases increased, they were completely bogged down.

The NYPD was already struggling with daily operations, and they felt the security issues sparked by the current societal downturn the most. It wasn't just a surge in various emergency calls, gun-related cases were also frequently occurring, leading to a situation where murder cases, which had previously been cooperatively handled with the FBI, were now completely handed over for federal-level processing whenever possible.

Ray Hope was someone Jimmy had worked with in the Dallas office. His transfer to New York to take over Jimmy's position was thanks to Lambert's substantial effort. A small local office of the same level couldn't compare to one of the three major branches, so Ray was certainly happy about it. However, his happiness was short-lived as he encountered these troubles. He could have waited out his tenure comfortably, but was now turning into a workhorse.

However, during tea time, he had a good impression of Mark and Julia, two of Jimmy's former subordinates. Typically, new agents in their first or second year couldn't handle cases independently, but these two, who had been nurtured by Jimmy, were definitely different from the others.

They were outstanding in capability and deeply familiar with Manhattan. Whether sent out to investigate clues alone or to arrest suspects with Ray, they had been devoted and exceeded Ray's expectations of junior agents. If they continued for another year or two, there was no doubt both had the capability to be promoted to Senior Agent.

Of course, it couldn't be ruled out that Ray was too embarrassed to criticize them in front of Jimmy, so he only praised their strengths. After all, they were raised by Jimmy, and speaking too poorly of them would be humiliating both publicly and privately.

In any case, the relationship between Ray and Jimmy had been good recently, and these two unlucky ones were also able to climb up under Ray's guidance, which gave Jimmy some peace of mind. After all, he hadn't brought up many people himself.

Apart from these messy issues, Jimmy also took advantage of his free time to smoothly complete his undergraduate studies and move towards a master's degree. It took him a lot of effort to continue studying back then, and both Dave and Kevin provided tremendous help. It would have been a waste if he hadn't persisted until the end.

The bureau had simple requirements for him: stay out of trouble, keep stable for a year or two, and only then consider the next step when the time comes. On this basis, whether Jimmy slacked off at work or didn't show up at all was up to him. The higher-ups like Dave and Ruiz didn't really care, and even if someone made remarks, they were free to do so. Hence, Jimmy invested most of his energy at home.

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In the Dark Tower World, when Roland emerged with supplies from the portal, he landed on a hillside. He climbed to the top to survey the surroundings but didn't find any settlements nearby, so he had to pick a random direction to walk away.

This was the issue with the portal. The input number represented this world, and if precise targeting wasn't possible, it would take a long time just to find the next portal starting from the landing point. It wasn't a fixed-point round-trip solution.

In fact, he'd seen fixed-position portals before. When he defeated the man in black, there were portals between the man in black's base and a stronghold in New York that clearly could be fixed-position round-trips. When Jack was captured by the man in black and taken to his lair, he saw Jack tied up on the other side through the portal. Obviously, the man in black had the capability to link two worlds.

This meant that as long as Roland found someone familiar with the portal rules, theoretically, the Dark Tower portal and the one in Jimmy's basement could be directly linked.

The man in black was a Mage, and he wasn't the only one in this world. Since he could do it, other Mages should be able to, although it might require these Mages to figure out how to handle it.

Once the two sides were completely connected, Roland and Jimmy could travel back and forth between the two worlds at any time, without worrying about getting lost or the embarrassment of being unable to find a portal.

As long as both sides were connected and it was safe to enter and exit at will, Roland believed he could persuade Jimmy to try coming to the Dark Tower World. At the very least, they could let those Mages confirm whether Jimmy was truly related to the energy imbalance here.

In fact, Roland repeatedly thought about the words of the Mages. Mages weren't omnipotent, and they, too, had many things they didn't understand. According to their understanding, the energy imbalance in this world required finding the cause to remedy it. However, they weren't aware that the Black Rainbow had been given to Jimmy by Roland.

From Roland's perspective, the energy imbalance might not be because the Black Rainbow was taken out of the Dark Tower, but simply due to this world edging towards extinction, thus causing the imbalance. The cause and effect weren't clear. Bringing Jimmy over was merely to verify one possible reason.

Roland was very familiar with the Dark Tower World. Even if his current location was unknown and he had to travel on foot, he was confident of finding a settlement before his supplies ran out.

This world wasn't safe. Roland remained alert as he walked and also cleared some monsters, making the world a little bit safer. This time, he brought enough bullets to allow him to use them freely without the concern of running short for a while.

The Dark Tower World had a medieval appearance, and things like bullets weren't plentiful in supply or production. He'd previously experienced days of tirelessly searching for suitable bullets.

Just three days later, he found a village with dozens of people. After using the money he had previously left behind to buy a horse and some supplies, he set off to find the familiar portal he remembered.