It's not exactly a roll Tatsuo would expect to see Mariko in. She's always been so fiercely independent as long as he's known her. And yet in both lives she's chosen (or ended up) in a profession involving investigating.

"For one, you didn't know you were going to run into killer robots this time, and I doubt past-you knew the DEA was going to shoot up that office. So how could Mariko, in either life, have known to be there? For another, you can't be everywhere at once, and you know it. Mariko knows that too."