Stickdom
Salamancer, first class
Just Another Day...
You sit behind your desk, cluttered with uncountable piles of paperwork, evidence reports, potential suspects, and posters for missing cats. You thought that becoming an investigator would be the pinnacle of your career, a position that would leave you engaged and content with your work for the rest of your days. Instead, you find yourself doing much of the same routine tasks you had when you were "just an officer", though now with more responsibility and the pressure of having to procure much more noticeable results. You've been officially promoted to an investigator for several months now; Six? Seven? You lost track, you don't feel like much has changed except they moved you to a more secluded office, piled on a truckload of mundane cases, and probably worst of all, cut most of your contact with the rest of the patrol group. Not that you're isolated or forbidden from getting in touch, but your lines of duty are on such a different course that there's not much time for socializing with the rest of the guys and bumming around town looking for speed racers or stopping grandmas for running red lights. Your circle of associates are now much more high-brow, important chiefs of city security, Officer So-And-So with contacts in Washington, Agent What's-Her-Name who insists on shouting like it's a national emergency every time there's a new problem. You get the feeling that some of these others in the upper crust are like kids playing at being cops, there's the same sense of drama and nonsense you'd expect from a 6-year-old pointing his finger at his friends and calling out "bang!"
You just hope to get your big break soon, there have been a few cases that have potential, you just have to be the one to get the jump on the gun and you'll be in big business. Some are routine for a big city, persons gone missing or evidence of drug rings operating, but one slew of cases has caught your eye several times. A couple of gangs that have been showing their heads recently, picking on the other when they get the chance, robbing their turf or burning down a hideout you hadn't got the chance to get a search warrant for yet. You've had one instance of a full out gun fight in the streets, last month, a couple of casualties, but no civilians or officers were hurt in breaking it up. You tried to bring them back in for questioning, you personally nabbed one of the wounded combatants as they tried to limp away. A squad of police escorted the ambulances to the hospital, where you watched them as they tried to save as many as they could. Unfortunately, your man didn't make it, and the ones that did survive their injuries were tried immediately and released on a hefty bail, paid up front by anonymous benefactors to the perpetrators. Your jurisdiction should have had full rights to interrogation and incarceration, but the court let them go way too easily for it to have been a simple bail. If you play your cards right, you think you are beginning to find the traces of a corrupt court being paid off by the gangs, but you don't have enough solid evidence yet to point any fingers, and you know the media and their own corruption will eat you alive if you start poking your nose where it doesn't belong. You have to set it up, dig out some more evidence, and then when you've got them right where you want them....
Your big plans are cut short by a sharp ring from your pocket, the theme song you and your old partner Vincent shared a laugh over a few times. Of course you'll take a call from him. His gruff voice cracks a little over the phone, you aren't getting very good reception here, he must be on the outskirts of town. "Hey Leo. I'm at Elle's Drive-In," Vince was at the old diner you two used to frequent, it's around lunchtime so that wasn't unusual, but you caught the stressed tones in his voice, something was wrong. "You're going to want to come down here. I... I haven't seen anything like this." Before you can respond, he has already hung up. You check your watch, it'll take you ten minutes to get there from your personal office, no one is going to miss you in that time. As you look around to locate your things, you notice the card you got at the fortune teller's shop last night. You don't know why it suddenly comes to mind, but you feel compelled to slip it into your pocket. Maybe it'll give you some good luck after all.
You sit behind your desk, cluttered with uncountable piles of paperwork, evidence reports, potential suspects, and posters for missing cats. You thought that becoming an investigator would be the pinnacle of your career, a position that would leave you engaged and content with your work for the rest of your days. Instead, you find yourself doing much of the same routine tasks you had when you were "just an officer", though now with more responsibility and the pressure of having to procure much more noticeable results. You've been officially promoted to an investigator for several months now; Six? Seven? You lost track, you don't feel like much has changed except they moved you to a more secluded office, piled on a truckload of mundane cases, and probably worst of all, cut most of your contact with the rest of the patrol group. Not that you're isolated or forbidden from getting in touch, but your lines of duty are on such a different course that there's not much time for socializing with the rest of the guys and bumming around town looking for speed racers or stopping grandmas for running red lights. Your circle of associates are now much more high-brow, important chiefs of city security, Officer So-And-So with contacts in Washington, Agent What's-Her-Name who insists on shouting like it's a national emergency every time there's a new problem. You get the feeling that some of these others in the upper crust are like kids playing at being cops, there's the same sense of drama and nonsense you'd expect from a 6-year-old pointing his finger at his friends and calling out "bang!"
You just hope to get your big break soon, there have been a few cases that have potential, you just have to be the one to get the jump on the gun and you'll be in big business. Some are routine for a big city, persons gone missing or evidence of drug rings operating, but one slew of cases has caught your eye several times. A couple of gangs that have been showing their heads recently, picking on the other when they get the chance, robbing their turf or burning down a hideout you hadn't got the chance to get a search warrant for yet. You've had one instance of a full out gun fight in the streets, last month, a couple of casualties, but no civilians or officers were hurt in breaking it up. You tried to bring them back in for questioning, you personally nabbed one of the wounded combatants as they tried to limp away. A squad of police escorted the ambulances to the hospital, where you watched them as they tried to save as many as they could. Unfortunately, your man didn't make it, and the ones that did survive their injuries were tried immediately and released on a hefty bail, paid up front by anonymous benefactors to the perpetrators. Your jurisdiction should have had full rights to interrogation and incarceration, but the court let them go way too easily for it to have been a simple bail. If you play your cards right, you think you are beginning to find the traces of a corrupt court being paid off by the gangs, but you don't have enough solid evidence yet to point any fingers, and you know the media and their own corruption will eat you alive if you start poking your nose where it doesn't belong. You have to set it up, dig out some more evidence, and then when you've got them right where you want them....
Your big plans are cut short by a sharp ring from your pocket, the theme song you and your old partner Vincent shared a laugh over a few times. Of course you'll take a call from him. His gruff voice cracks a little over the phone, you aren't getting very good reception here, he must be on the outskirts of town. "Hey Leo. I'm at Elle's Drive-In," Vince was at the old diner you two used to frequent, it's around lunchtime so that wasn't unusual, but you caught the stressed tones in his voice, something was wrong. "You're going to want to come down here. I... I haven't seen anything like this." Before you can respond, he has already hung up. You check your watch, it'll take you ten minutes to get there from your personal office, no one is going to miss you in that time. As you look around to locate your things, you notice the card you got at the fortune teller's shop last night. You don't know why it suddenly comes to mind, but you feel compelled to slip it into your pocket. Maybe it'll give you some good luck after all.