Act 1-2: Roger the Negotiator

[Roger Smith]

As short as the drive from the fountain to the gate to Coruscant had been, the drive which lead him through that gate, and into a designated parking area was even shorter. Only a minute, maybe two, when time for waiting and directions was factored in. Beyond there, it had been a lot of waiting and following simple instructions and further directions to see him to a proper screening and welcome center.

To such an end, when he finally reached the front of the queue and met the bored-looking face of the man standing there, his own expression had glazed over into restless boredom.

"Hello, welcome to Coruscant," the man droned, visibly fighting down a sigh. "New arrival or returning visitor?"

Roger forced a smile as he spoke up. "You could say I'm a new arrival. I've been in this Omniverse only for a short while now."

"Right...so new arrival to Coruscant. Freshly arrived to the Omniverse." He made some notes on a device in his hand. Like a metal clipboard, but with no paper, only some kind of screen and...projected image. Made of light, if Roger's senses weren't failing him. Holograms? Bizarre. The bored man looked up again. "Just a few more questions to get you on file..." he monotoned. "Name?"

"Roger Smith."

More notes. "Former occupation?"

For a moment, Roger debated his answer to that one, before deciding to leave out any mention of Big O for now. He was pretty sure it hadn't followed him here anyway, and trying to summon something like that seemed...out of his league. "Negotiator," he finally answered.

The man just stared at him for a moment before shrugging and applying further notes. "I can take a guess...but what skills does that entail? And any other notable skills you might possess?"

Roger sighed at that. "I was a neutral party sent in to handle negotiations and delicate situations. Arranging safe return or trade for hostages, transporting the money or requested items and delivering them back to the ones they were taken from. Arranging and presiding over other matters and disputes. Occasionally detective work when the job at hand necessitated it." He shrugged. "Any task that could be solved with words, for anyone who paid the right price."

"Uh-huh..." The man just kept a neutral expression there, further noting down this information.

"As for other skills..." Roger paused again. "...a long time ago, I was a member of the Military Police. I left employment there over personal matters. My skills may be a little rusty, but...I did receive training in combat. Unarmed and basic knife skills, as well as firearms." He paused, looking away. "...and I'm also a skilled driver and pilot."

The man simply nodded again. "Right...fairly standard then." There was a tinge of relief in his voice, the first trace of genuine emotion he'd shown thus far. "Thank you for your cooperation, mister..." He fiddled with the strange clipboard-device in his hand. "...Smith." He looked back up and offered a forced, tired smile. "Just a few more questions. Then we can show you to someone who can answer any questions you have and direct you to a suitable location for getting you sorted into the city."

Roger just cracked the faintest hint of a smirk. "Of course, of course." Finally...getting somewhere. Just had to suffer through this stifling security and introduction. Paperwork was everywhere, even when paper itself wasn't, it seemed...

[Roger Smith]

Thankfully, the remainder of the questioning was fairly mundane and passed by much more quickly. Typical things, questioning and searching him for any weapons, concealed or otherwise. Of course, he had none at the moment, given his recent arrival. Even the usual tools he might employ for such things were either reduced to a mundane nature, or simply nonexistent. They would be acquisitions for a later date, when he was more well-settled in and had time to truly and properly experiment with the nature of this 'omnilium' stuff. So far it had been easy enough to figure out, but so far had also been mostly simple things. The Griffon had been the most complex thing, and even then, Roger knew its design intimately. Only Norman might possibly know it better.

When the dreary questions had run their course, he was cleared to pass and admitted into the city proper, and given directions to where he could get his own questions answered. It took a little doing to get everything properly translated and filed into a language and format he could properly read and follow, but when it was all said and done, he proceeded on his way. Returning to the Griffon, and pulling out and into the city itself.

This time, it was finally a drive of some distance, according to the directions. It gave Roger Smith plenty of time to mull over and think about things. And time to experimentally fiddle with the radio. As he expected, there was a handful of channels and stations that were picked up, given the size of the city. Some listening discovered most of them to be mostly nonsense, news and the sort of talk which didn't interest him in the slightest or which flew completely over his head. But...information was information. He settled onto one of the more easygoing news stations. If nothing else, it would provide background noise to compliment the sheer scale of wonder that he beheld now.

There was actually traffic here. Plenty of cars and vehicles of all sorts, prowling the roads and the skies above them. Everything was brightly lit, shining and gleaming in almost overwhelming splendor. Compared to the memories and experience of living in a place like Paradigm City...something like this was almost too much to believe. It was surreal, dreamlike. Like everyone always said the world had been...before. Before forty years ago. All that and more. Even in the fragments of memories people recovered, even in the old movies and pictures which had survived, there was nothing like this.

Nothing concrete and real, at least. Only in the few surviving scraps of work clearly known and marked as fictional, just stories and fanciful myths and legends, did anything even remotely like this exist. Which meant this place was....in an entirely different league, after all. Some strange, far off corner of the world well away from Paradigm City, or...some other world entirely.

All the oddities so far seemed to point distinctly toward the latter. And that was something that unnerved Roger more than anything else.

[Roger Smith]

Eventually, the drive came to an end. Roger was glad enough that it did. All this introspection was starting to get to him.

He parked and exited the Griffon after shutting it off, taking a moment to adjust his tie before shutting the door and pocketing the keys. Hands in his pockets, he strode around the car toward the building, looking up at it. It seemed unassuming enough, but there was... There was something about it. Something which tugged at his memories from the time he had first joined the Military Police. If he'd had any money on his person to bed, he'd bet it all that this was going to end with them trying to recruit him for something. Might not have been an actual recruitment center, but... Even in Paradigm City he hadn't gone to a recruitment center to join up with the Military Police. Sometimes things really were as they appeared, sometimes they weren't.

With a sigh, Roger approached the doors of the building to make his way inside, raising an eyebrow curiously at the lack of any sort of handles he noticed.

Briefly he was startled by the scene of the doors sliding open at just his approach. Then he was surprised all over again as he stepped inside. Brightly lit, and as immaculately clean as the rest of the city had been so far. And it wasn't the weak, yellowed illumination from ancient, dusty glass bulbs flickering in their sockets. No fizzing, popping electrical hum of energy barely sufficient to keep things running, flowing through sometimes-exposed wires visible through cracked and peeling walls.

This wasn't a building like any Roger Smith had ever seen before. Even his own home, perhaps the most immaculately clean and pristine building he had ever had the pleasure of setting foot in — save perhaps for the headquarters of the Paradigm Corporation, though setting foot in that place had never been anything approaching a pleasure — hadn't been this clean or well-kept. Despite keen attention and care, the old bank-turned-mansion had shown signs of age, sporting scars of a battle with time and clear signs of wear and tear. Even Paradigm's headquarters had been marred by the occasional scuff and stain, rust on the tracks of its elevator cars and clouding in its windows.

But this place...seemed flawless. Even with the multitude of people in and out, and working here daily, it somehow managed to maintain an air of cleanliness and presentability that was baffling to the negotiator. For nearly a full minute, it left him struck nearly dumb, staring and slowly scanning the place as he could see it in wonder. Only here a few hours, and already so many things which stood out so strongly and strangely...

[Roger Smith]

True to form, Roger's predictions had been right on the nose. They'd been subtle about it, of course, but it all came through as one big recruitment attempt. Not into the military, per se, but it all lead to the same end result. 'Empire' this, 'the Empire's finest' that, working with the 'Empire Peace Division'... All part of the same group. And it gave Roger Smith a nauseous feeling in his gut that had nothing to do with the suffocating cleanliness -- the sheer lack of smell was almost as bad to him as he suspected the decrepit state of things he was used to might be for others. He was liking this less and less, the more he heard about it. Just like Paradigm City...and the Paradigm Corporation that ruled it.

Paradigm had been both the city and its government. They knew what was best, and no one else's say really mattered. Within the domes, or outside of them, it didn't really matter. The city's elected officials were all either working for them or literally in their back pocket. Even the Military Police were on their payroll -- they'd even been called Paradigm's Watchdogs. In a sense, it was meant for the city as a whole, but in reality...it was to the corporation. Paradigm's Lapdogs might have been more accurate.

Again and again, Roger turned down the various positions and job opportunities offered to him, taking opportunities to ask his own questions as he did. Harmless enough on the surface, just little probing queries to sate his curiosity. Fishing out little tidbits about how this city wasn't all as shiny and magnificent as it appeared on the surface. This was just the top level of a huge, sprawling cityscape layercake. Veritable striations of culture and design, getting steadily less and less advanced and resplendent the further down you went: A shining, glorious jewel that anyone would be awed and amazed by at the top, and little more than a decaying cesspit of forgotten waste and industry at the bottom.

If the bottom was that bad...then the lower few tiers must have been something like the worse parts of Paradigm.

Eventually, things began to start to drag on. Roger had gotten all of his burning questions answered and his curiosity was, for now, satisfied. Reluctantly, he began actually taking the job offers more seriously. Much as he might despise the work, he would need some kind of way to make a living. At least until he could amass enough working knowledge and resources to retreat to his zone of familiarity. Negotiation.

There weren't quite any jobs within that field available at the moment. Though there were a few positions similar to it, as he was informed. Detective work, mostly in the lower tiers. They had a high turnover rate down there, with the amount of work they were often required to do and the situations they got involved in. The recruiter made no bones about it: it would be dangerous work, and probably pretty nasty. But given that Roger was a Prime, they said, it probably wouldn't have any major risks.

An unnerving thought, to be sure, even if he could only assume it was meant to be comforting. Regardless, he took the job. It would be a good enough fit for him, for now.

And of course, to secure his position in the job...more paperwork.

[Roger Smith]

His watch, as he wearily looked it over, told him it had been nearly four hours. Four hours of back and forth, questions and answers and runaround. And paperwork. Bureaucracy at its finest. Nice and orderly, finely detailed and laid out, but so excessively complex. Forms for this, papers for that, electronic records for something else, multiple copies of everything, careful explanations of it all to make sure you understood that they understood your complete understanding...

As he eased himself into the driver's seat of the Griffon and shut the door, Roger Smith was nursing a headache. This was one reason he'd left the Military Police; all this procedure and organization.The fact that it had all been in the name of a corporation that was church and state, looming over the city like a child over its toybox, had only been a resounding nail driven into the coffin. Not the final one, but not the first one; just the biggest and most damning one.

Starting the engine, the negotiator rubbed at his temples with a gloved hand, gently massaging away the bitter ache that came with recalling his days in Paradigm City's Military Police. He had done good work, it was true, but certain orders had always left a bitter taste in his mouth and raised the bile in his stomach. Preserve the city, not the people, they had actually said at one time. While it was true that parts of the city couldn't be rebuilt again, not in the same state they were...being that dismissive of human life had never sat right with him.

Never would sit right with him.

Pulling out of the parking area outside the facility he'd been directed to, Roger idly pulled up the map he'd been given of where he should be headed next. The computer in the Griffon was able to accept the data, and after a moment of updating -- just enough time for him to get the car out onto the road, as it were, and underway -- it displayed the route. Flickering bands of static crawled over the screen, lit in hues of black and white. Old, monochrome, but it was sturdy and it worked.

Pausing at one corner, the negotiator looked up at the traffic overhead. Cars and vehicles of all sorts just went along their business in the air, hovering and flying as steadily and securely as anything on wheels would do on the ground. Reflected in the polished glass of his shades, it was a fantastic image which still baffled and left him confused and unsettled. Childish, ridiculous notions played in the back of his head of the flying vehicles stalling and crashing down. Dropping out of the air like overgrown flies, smashing into pavement and pedestrian alike. Some would explode, some would just sit there, littering the sidewalk and roads.

It was a foolish notion, he knew. There were no doubt security measures in place, in the cars and streets themselves, to prevent any such ridiculous accidents. It was foolish, but it still made his hands tighten on the steering wheel and his mouth dry out as he turned the corner.

And maybe he gave it a little more gas than was necessary, to hasten the trip and get him moving on, out of the shadow of mechanical conveyance hovering over his head.

[Roger Smith]

Streets gave way to another complex shortly enough. Centered around a series of elevators and stairs, descending down to the lower levels and tiers of the shining city. Many of them were smaller affairs, suited only for a few people at a time perhaps. Some of them were huge, sprawling things which looked large and sturdy enough to grind their way down supporting an entire building.

It was one of these larger elevators that Roger Smith was directed to, after a brief word with someone standing by in that distinctive white plastic-like armor that the soldiers of Coruscant's ever-present military force wore. A short discussion, several rapid-fire questions in a tone so filtered and full of crackling and muffling static it was impossible to tell if the speaker was man or woman -- or if they were flesh and blood or just some machine, spouting off recorded lines and responses.

After he had been cleared and directed to his desired lift, the negotiator eased the Griffon in and around, into a queue already waiting to roll into place.

Minutes passed by, with only the droning of news on the radio to keep it from relatively dead silence in the car's interior. Until, finally, he was directed forward. Carefully, he guided the car forward, and into the place in line on the elevator. Mundane, to be sure, but it was all so...unfamiliar to him.

There had rarely ever been traffic or congestion of this magnitude in Paradigm. Working cars were few and far between, and while not uncommon they were much more sporadic in both their usage and what area of the city there were in. Finding more than a handful of people willing to waste the energy and resources to fuel one to do anything less than crossing most of the city was a true rarity. Only those who were inordinately well off, or with more money than good sense or morals, would do any such thing.

People like Roger Smith, or like the upper echelons of the Paradigm Corporation.

A grimace twisted his face as that comparison settled into his mind. He wasn't like them. Nothing like them. His business was morally gray, of course; he would accept a job from almost anyone if they could pay his fees and provide a good enough reason. But he was perfectly upfront and plain about his costs and what he would and would not do. On the rare occasion he had failed a job, he had in good faith returned the advance portion of his fees to the client. Paradigm, however...

They did none of that. They would smile and treat you warmly, promising you this and that, tell you everything was going to be alright. Offer you a comforting hand to hold, and guide you to safety, not showing the knife tucked behind their backs in the other hand. As soon as they made you trust them, they would bleed you dry. When things inevitably turned out worse off, and all their promises were just so much dust in the wind, they would just laugh it off and say "Well, we tried!" and carry on, keeping everything they took from you to make it easier to gut the next poor soul who they set eyes on.

That he had ever worked for a group like that, in any capacity, still made him tremble with anger. At them, of course, but also at himself.

And yet...here he was again. Signing on for work in the name of a group that was both governing power, police and military all in one. And seemed to have its hands in many, many more fields all throughout the city. The city was its government, and the government was its city. A twisted utopia, maybe.

Treading ground he already had, once before. A group that sent revulsion crawling up and down his spine, and made that familiar uneasy feeling he'd had in his earliest days at Paradigm -- before he'd grown so certain of their irredeemable evil -- crawl and roil in his gut. He knew this was going to end badly, and yet he had still willingly signed up for this work.

Take a station, take their side, take their money...

Only as long as I have to, came the thought echoing in his mind.

Only if they let you decide how long you have to, came the stinging counter-thought.

A squeaking whine of leather as his hands tightened on the steering wheel silenced his bickering mind. The future would come at its own pace, and bring whatever revelations it saw fit. No point worrying and agonizing over it now.

[Roger Smith]

Down through the tiers of Coruscant. An elevator ride, a winding drive and then another elevator ride further down. A cycle that was at once strange and somehow familiar to Roger Smith. As if he'd done it before, or something like it before, but in a place less alien and foreign to him.

Or perhaps it was the increasing familiarity and similar state of things, as he descended further down and away from the gleaming, picturesque state of the city up top. Down he went, darker it got, more filthy and unkempt. Tier 2 had been less remarkable and overwhelmingly beautiful than the topmost layer of the city, but still a marvel of splendor. Tier 3 had been more modest still. Tier 4 had looked much like some of the more upscale or intact parts of the city that Roger Smith knew and was familiar with. Tier 5, as he slowly nudged the Griffon out of the elevator...reminded him all too much of home. Of the rundown streets and areas he was so familiar with and which he had so often frequented in his work, seeking out old friends and informants who knew the city and just getting lost in when he needed a break from the surprising stresses of his negotiation role.

He was in no real hurry, as he slowly rolled along the streets. The radio signal here had grown weak and spotty, all but lost in static, and eventually it grew irritating enough for him to adjust it. Slowly he turned and tuned it, adjusting the old dial until static started to give way to something more clear. Eventually, the dim sound of music began to filter through. Faint, and still with a tinge of static to be heard, but it was better than nothing and did much to ease the edge of growing uneasiness in his gut as he made his way through the dilapidated streets.

The further he got from the elevator which had brought him down here, the worse it seemed to get. Everywhere he looked, things were still mostly intact and standing, but the state of decay and neglect was more than evident. It wasn't quite just the bare minimum being done to keep this place going, but it was close enough.

There was of course every chance he was just in a bad neighborhood, or section of the city. Paradigm had been riddled with sections and strips of evident decay and degradation, nestled in among and right next to portions which were still well-kept and maintained. Though he somehow doubted his odds of finding any such place down here, given what he had begun to formulate in his mind as the idea of how this city ran and operated...it wouldn't be so bad to hold out hope, he thought. Hope he might be pleasantly surprised, and find something worthwhile down here aside from the job he was dreading.

As he reached another intersection in the streets, he sighed and again checked the directions and coordinates on the old monitor. Almost there...just another few blocks. He could hardly wait.

[Roger Smith]

The lazy spinning of a fan overhead, barely even serving to move the air in the musty little office, provided the only real sound. Elsewhere, the murmur of voices and babble of activity of a precinct running itself ragged occasionally drifted in through the grimy frosted windows. An old radio sat in one corner, flickering lights on it showing it was turned on but silenced, the volume knob firmly set to zero.

A paper cup sat on the corner of the desk, over which Roger Smith and his one-time friend Dan Dastun stared at each other in silence. Steam from the 'fresh' coffee lazily curled up from the cup, the faint draft of the struggling ceiling fan making it waft away to one side and curl lazily over the desk.

The conversation had been violent, loud and short when they had met. Roger finding out that Dastun was going to be his superior here, and Dastun finding out Roger would be working under him. It had been disgruntled and unpleasant on both sides, neither man being all that pleased. Roger would wager he was the more displeased of the two, given his own personal issues with the way things had worked in Paradigm -- and seeing Dastun here, knowing his work ethic and his adherence to the word of law, was already making his mood take a nosedive.

"Roger Smith..." Dan Dastun sighed heavily, lifting a gloved hand to run over his scarred, bald head. "Of all the people to run into, and here of all places." He rested both hands on the desk, covering the ream of paperwork and mess of scattered notes laying askew on it. "What did you do this time, to get sent down here?"

From where he sat, Roger Smith just shrugged. "I haven't done anything. Not yet, at least." He drummed the fingers of one hand lightly against his knee, shifting in his seat. "This is where they gave me directions to come to, when I took their offer of employment."

"You. Accepted employment from a place like this?" The surprise was evident in the man's tone and written all over his face. "I'm surprised at you, Roger. I would've thought your morals wouldn't let you."

The negotiator's hand clenched, squeezing at the knee it rested upon and a tight, thin-lipped frown plastered itself onto his face. "It didn't let me. I'm not exactly here by choice."

The officer sighed, shaking his head. "So you have already picked up on it. How similar this place is."

"Be useful or get out." Roger Smith forced a smile. "That was the impression I gathered. Just like Paradigm. 'Obey or find some other work'."

"Not quite like Paradigm..." Dastun looked aside. "Similar, but an entirely different kind of unpleasant. You'll learn soon enough just what you're dealing with. With that luck of yours, you might even survive when you do." He heaved a sigh, leaning back in his chair and reaching for a mug of stale, cold coffee sitting at his elbow. "But in the meantime, I'm not all that sure what I should even do with you."

Roger matched his old friend's posture, leaning back and draping one arm over the back of his chair, folding one leg over the other. "You've never been so indecisive, Dastun. What would you do if I was any other new recruit shoved into your lap to deal with?"

The disgruntled cop scowled at that, tilting his head back and downing the remains of the cold java in his mug, before slamming it back down on the desk. "That attitude is exactly why I don't know what to do with you!" he barked, eyes glaring pointedly as if he intended to knock the suited man down with the sheer force of his gaze. "That attitude and the rest of your insufferable demeanor! I know you, Roger Smith, and what you're like. How you operate. You won't fit in down here. It's too violent for the likes of you."

"Just because I'm a gentleman doesn't mean I can't handle violence." Roger's expression remained neutral, tightly controlled as he deflected the frustrated outburst without so much as flinching. "I have my ways, even if I don't respond to violence with more of the same. But you should know better than most that I'm no stranger when it comes to that sort of work. I don't enjoy it, and if there's another option I'll use it." He slowly shifted to plant both feet on the floor with a soft thunk that almost echoed in the otherwise quiet office. "But don't undermine my skills like that. Words can do more damage than all the bullets in the world, if the right ones are used."

Dastun held his stare for several seconds. Then half a minute. Then a full minute. A lazy squeak from the fan overhead, a fizzling pop of electricity from the radio in the corner, and an excited babble of activity from outside came and went, and still they both remained silent, having a heated, aggravated conversation without words.

Finally, after several minutes, it was Dastun who broke the stalemate with a heavy, tired sigh, slumping in his chair. "Do you still have that...damn robot?" He blinked tired eyes, mouth twisting as he forced the next words out. "That...Megadeus?"

Roger Smith brought up his left arm, pulling back the sleeve to show his watch. "I can still pilot it. But I don't have it just yet." He threw his left arm out in a shrug, sleeve falling back down over the watch. "Still a recent arrival. Something of that complexity would be a bit beyond me at the moment, don't you think?"

"How the hell should I know?" The man turned his face down, reaching to start gathering and organizing the mess of chaos littering his desk. "I've been here longer than you have, but I'm just a Secondary, Roger." He pulled the paperwork he'd been tending to before this unexpected meeting together, tilting and turning the pages to line them up. "I can't manipulate Omnilium freely like you can. The limits of what it can and can't do aren't exactly something I have any real idea about." He tapped the ream of papers on his desk to straighten then out, looking up at the other man. "For all I know, you could have that Megadeus waiting outside in the parking lot right now, fully armed and ready to destroy half the city."

The negotiator lifted both hands in a helpless shrug, eyes closed to hide the amused twinkle in his eyes. "It's just as much of a mystery to me, old friend. I haven't experimented much with it beyond working up to summoning my car."

"That thing?" Dastun slapped the mess of papers into a folder, shutting it with more force than was necessary. "Fancy as that damn car of yours is, you're painting a target on your back if you drive that thing around down here. Just begging to have someone break in or steal it for parts."

Roger just shrugged again. "It can be replaced." Though such a thing did remind Roger that he would need to do plenty of work to the Griffon. Restore its armor functions, along with its weapon systems and remote control, maybe install some sort of tracking beacon or camera, in case it did get stolen...ah, so much work to do. But security and peace of mind couldn't be given enough effort, as Dastun was obviously trying to point out in his own gruff way. "Besides, are you saying that someone would really try to break in to the lot of a police precinct, in a place like this?"

"The Empire isn't exactly well-liked down here, Roger," Dastun grumbled. "We barely keep it together, and don't have much in the way of support. There are rebels, criminal groups both organized and not, and gangs...they control as much of the city down here, if not even more, than we do. Sometimes you can't even tell which parts of the law are on their side and which aren't anymore."

Roger just gave a low whistle to that, lifting a hand to rub at his chin thoughtfully. "That bad down here, is it? And I thought we'd only have to worry about the corruption from the government and criminals in higher office, not from actual criminals on the streets and in the shadows."

"Crime is everywhere, Roger. You should know that. It goes hand in hand with Corruption, but they aren't always so intimately related. Sometimes people are just left with no other choice, sometimes they have all the choice and still turn to such underhanded actions." He slammed a hand down on the desk. "Everyone is equal before the law in the end. It's all a matter of finding the proof to make them remember that equality."

"Still the same as ever, Dastun..." Roger shook his head, the smile on his face only growing more broad. Still the same old rabid, justice-obsessed bulldog he had always been. Never content or agreeing with the state of affairs that Paradigm had foisted upon the city, but he never made his distaste openly known. He would always do his best, interpret orders loosely from time to time to make sure things went as smoothly as possible and save as many lives as he could, but he could never actually disobey an order. He was too much of a good soldier to avert the law or chain of command directly like that. So for him to be so adamant and open about there being corruption and crime even among his own ranks, let along his superiors...it must have been very, very bad indeed.

"So, then...back to the matter of what to do with you, Roger Smith." Dastun's chair creaked as he leaned back, eyeing the negotiator with a steely, gleaming eye. "Until you figure out how this city works, we can't have you running off on your own. Prime or not, you'd end up dead and leave a bad reputation not only for yourself, but for this precinct. And we can't have much more bad press thrown our way." His hand curled into a fist, knuckles pressing against the desk as he scowled deeply. "So that means placing you with a partner."

Now it was Roger's turn to scowl, as he stood up and leaned forward, hands resting on the edge of his superior's desk. "A partner? You know I work best alone, Dastun!" His eyebrows knitted together, eyes narrowing darkly. "You should know very well."

The battered old policeman met the stare with his own unflinching response. "I do know very well, Roger. But I also know things you don't know. About this city, and about how you'll fit in. You'll get a partner, only temporarily if you can prove to be as quick a learner as you usually are. You'll get your act together or you'll get taken apart."

Roger glowered in silence for almost a full minute before the tension bled away from his posture. He hated working with a partner, but he had to admit that Dastun was right in this instance. This wasn't Paradigm, where he knew how everything worked and how he could go about things. "Fine...just tell me who it is."

"Don't worry. I'm sure you'll get along fine." Dastun shoved a folder across the desk toward Roger. "Go get your gear and uniform. I'll get them briefed on their new assignment and have them come track you down when you're ready to get started."

"First day on the job...both hiring and jumping right into the field." Roger shook his head, tentatively picking up the folder. "Expedient."

"We don't have the luxury of lazing around, Roger." Dastun waved a hand dismissively. "Now go on, get out of here. We've both got work to do now."