Rule 34 - Charles Stross [21]
Keep taking the happy pills, Liz. It’s better than the alternative.
(Didn’t you have a meeting to be going to?)
Your meeting rolls round, and then a lengthy chat with Chief Inspector Dixon, your boss (who mostly seems to want to catch up with the latest scuttlebutt about Dickie’s dastardly deviant’s demise—prurient curiosity never goes out of fashion, even among those who ought to know better), then an hour-long mentoring session with Speedy (who is arsing around trying to make up his mind whether to go for his PIP entry exams with an eye to making inspector some year or other—not totally impossible, you will concede, but he’ll have to get his shit together and focus if he’s to have a hope).
You attempt to put in half an hour collating the paper-work on the DNA tests on those black-market feedstock canisters that have been turning up fly-tipped in residents’ recycling bins, but there’s nothing conclusive; it’s one of those hundred–per cent under-resourced investigations that’s going to go nowhere until you find something concrete to justify the resourcing without which—
Lunch is a speedy bowl of microwave seitan bulgogi noodles slurped down at your desk with the door shut: Then it’s on to the afternoon. First you have a dedicated off-the-hook hour for training courseware; then it’s over to room D31 to give Dickie’s DCs an off-the-cuff (and off-the-record) briefing on Michael Blair’s colourful pre-mortem history. After which it’s back to ICIU and a half-hour mentoring Constables Janie Jones and Baz MacIntyre on the banality of evil, the evil of banality, how to tell the difference between faked videos and the real thing, and the best way to keep a sense of perspective while watching vids of kittens being dropped into food processors in slomo (or whatever else the griefers are amusing themselves with today).
Sometime during the afternoon, your phone begins to shake, rattle, and roll for your attention, requesting a personality change. At least, you think it began during midafternoon—you tend to ignore it while you’re busy. When you finally get annoyed at the desperate armwaving, you swipe the screen: It does a Jekyll-and-Hyde swap from its officious duty VM to your home phone’s personality.
You have face-mail. “Liz?” It’s Dorothy. You startle and guiltily look over your shoulder, but the door’s shut. “Long time no see. Uh . . . I’m in town again? And I was wondering if, if you’d like to meet up? I’m free tonight, if that’s convenient, or we could talk?”
Well, that’s a turn-up. But it also up-ends all your carefully controlled tranquillity. You and Dorothy have history. (Or herstory.) Your heart beats faster for a moment, the phone clammy in your palm. “I—” You stop. Talking to voice mail: ungood. You text her back, quickly, suggesting meeting up in a friendly wine bar in the new town. Then you take a deep breath and swipe your phone back to its on-duty persona. You take another deep breath as you try to gather your scattered thoughts. You’re not sure how you feel about this; it’s been months, hasn’t it? But suddenly you feel almost hopeful. Which is bad, because you’re meant to be on duty. So you turn back to the waves and streams of ICIS chatter, and see—
KARL@Dresden, DE, 15:56 -1:00H: Hi guys we have a weird one here today! One of our local low-lifes tried to off himself in a really original way—we think. $PERP owns a fancy sun-tanning bed. (Don’t ask.) Apparently there is a common software hack to override the 10-minute maximum exposure and tanning intensity limits, and he drank half a bottle of schnapps spiked with oxazepam before getting in. Not sure