Well, That Was... A Debate.

Well, that was... a debate.

Man I hate it when people use the pronoun “you” as a singular pronoun in an informal setting. “You” is plural, unless thou dost speak to an unfamiliar person. The correct singular second person pronoun is “thou” in most cases. Grammar never changes. Pronouns must always stay one way until the end of time. Learn thy proper English. *sigh* Kids these days.

WIP Wednesday: Custos Custodium

One of the main reasons I tackled the series from DX:HR onwards, rather than just jumping in where I had plot innovations to make, is the series' take on law enforcement. In short, as good as the overall writing is, it seems the writers' room was allergic to actual real-world LE experience.

So you get my take. I've worked with detectives and investigative agents ranging from "dedicated civil servant aspiring always to do better" to "un-fireable and counting down to retirement." My experience is in the US, whose LE apparatus is minimally corrupt in the traditional sense (try bribing your way out of a ticket sometime and let me know how it goes) but has deep structural issues--but I've researched several other systems through the years, and I think I've got a pretty realistic take on the Augophobic PČR for an American. Let me know how your mileage varies at https://archiveofourown.org/works/55686901/chapters/141357007 !

There had to be more, some thread he could pull to track down the drug poisoning Prague’s Augmented. Maybe he could drag something out of a neighbor. He made to leave, giving the room a quick scan with smart vision, just in case.

Jackpot: a secret room lay behind a hidden door. His millimeter-wave radar revealed the mechanism as well. He pushed a button hidden in the molding, and there was all the Neon, bins of bright blue cylinders loaded into inhalers.

He found a safe, too, with a significant take in cash and credit chips. And a pocket secretary containing an email from someone named “Harmony,” warning “Cygnus” about the Dvali getting wise to their side operation and telling him how to find the lab. It was in the sewers, right underneath Jensen’s own building. He noted the directions and swept up the money to put in asset forfeiture. Then he walked outside again, closed the door behind him, and thought.

Interpol had originally been conceived as a means to coordinate law enforcement efforts across national boundaries, not as an enforcement agency of its own. Even as it had evolved and grown, culminating in Task Force 29, it still maintained an emphasis on fostering communication and cooperation with its local partners. And he had neither time nor inclination to deal with a small-time Dvali competitor. He sent an email to the whole office, except for Organized Crime, asking whether anyone trusted any of the PČR’s drug detectives far enough to throw them. Within five minutes, he had a name and number.

“Ahoj, Detektivní Blažek, Policie České Republiky, Divize Praha, Narkotický Úřad,” came the bored, monotone response to his infolink call. “Jak vám mohu pomoci?”

“Agent Jensen, Interpol, Task Force Twenty-Nine. How would you like to make a big bust with no effort?”

“Eh?” The voice perked right up. “No effort, you say?”

“Yeah. Well, you’ll need to fill out an affidavit. My investigation brought me into an apartment—I can spell out the necessity for protection of life for you in an email. Basically, a potential drug overdose. And I found a roomful.”

“A roomful?”

“Of drugs, not victims. Got video and everything for you.”

“Oho! No effort indeed. You make my day, Agent Jensen. How much product?”

“You know Neon? A couple of bins full. Maybe… three, four cubic meters total.”

“Do prdele! I make quota this month after all. May I ask, who gave you my name?”

No reason to play it cagey. “Agent Riley.”

“Sammy? Hah. Good to know. Send it—I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

he detective spelled his email address, and Jensen passed the whole thing over. He watched the door and nursed his eye-recording headache until a jittery-looking man, his own height but probably thirty pounds lighter, burst out of the stairwell in a trench coat over a rumpled suit and a tangle of gangling limbs. Two uniformed officers followed him. They stiffened noticeably when they saw Jensen, but the detective greeted him warmly enough for a Prague cop.

“Ah, Agent Clank! Sammy told me when you joined—said you had some interesting skills. I thought that footage was too tall for body camera. You took him with eyeball?”

One of the uniforms winced as Jensen nodded. “Filmed everything from entry to exit.”

“Good, good! Okay, we have it from here.” Blažek dug in his coat pockets, juggling two bottles of clear liquid and a tablet whose screen showed a half-filled warrant application in Czech. “You like slivovice, eh? Bottle for you, bottle for Sammy. Quota means I get a bonus, and you get a cut. Keep my number, Agent Clank.”

Jensen took the bottles. Slurs or no, this was downright convivial for a Prague cop. The detectives tended to be better than patrol, but still. “I’ll give him your regards. Let me know if you need anything else from me.”

Rather than waste time on the elevator, he ducked into Praha Dovoz and left Riley’s bottle with Sedlak. His augs had robbed him of his old, neat handwriting, but he just about managed a legible RILEY: FROM BLAŽEK in block caps on a sticky that he pressed to the curved glass. He took his own bottle home.

I was today years old when i found out that i was allowed time off to vote. Something no boss has ever told me.