Captain Knowles, or Anthony, as absolutely no one calls him, is a gruff, stocky, mostly bald man in his mid-fifties, a no-nonsense career Collections man. He’s a by-the-book kind of captain, and if he ever had some passion for the work deeper than a compulsion to do things the “right” way, I wasn’t around to see it.
He powers up a small A/V recording rig on the conference table. One of the little pen-shaped cameras moves to track my face. Another snaps to aim at the Captain. “You got anything to say before we get into this?” he asks.
“You’ve read my statement.” I submitted it first thing this morning.
He frowns, reaching out an open hand as he stands. His fingers are gnarled and thick and bony, even though he hasn’t been in the field for decades. Sometimes I wonder if his hands were broken at some point, but I’m sure if I asked him, I wouldn’t get an answer.
We’ve been through this process before, and I know what he’s asking for, so I take my sidearm from its holster, pull the mechanism back, remove the bullet, and lock the chamber open, then release the clip into my open left palm. After placing the ammo onto the surface of the table, I hand the unloaded weapon over, and Knowles takes a tool from his pocket and slips it into a jack on the grip. The gun issues a soft click, releasing the small camera at the end of the barrel, which the Captain removes and slips into the specialized player attached to the monitor on the wall. It turns on.
As Knowles sits back down, the screen displays a quick gray blur of upward motion before crystallizing into a clear picture of the ramp leading down into the underground storehouse at the mine. I always tense up a little when I watch the guncam footage. You’re reliving a stressful scenario in which you had to pull your gun and eventually had to fire it, but I’m not sure that’s what unsettles me about it. I think it’s the lack of control. It’s having to re-experience things you’ve already done unable to change any of them.
The footage rolls through my encounter with the old man, slowing to a higher framerate just as I fire the shot into the ceiling. A couple of sparks scatter away from the impact of the bullet, contrasting the darkness of the corrugated metal ceiling before the view swings back to eye level. Captain Knowles doesn’t bother stopping the video, evidently satisfied that I was just popping off a warning shot to get the miner’s attention. I lean back, trying not to seem tense as the recording moves on, outside and into the miner’s home. After a blur in which I holster my weapon, a second of black passes before the image returns in another blur, the time code advanced by a little over a minute. It slows down again as it focuses on the chest of the old man, his face contorted in rage and maybe terror as he swings the axe wildly over his shoulder.
The Captain waves a hand pausing the playback. He picks up the tablet on the table, frowning. “Where did he get the axe?”
This is where the inquisition starts.
Around two hours later, the video plays through me unholstering my weapon this morning and handing it to the Captain and finally comes to a stop, the monitor displaying a still black frame reading “Camera Removed from Weapon at 1104 hrs.”
Knowles leans back in his chair, eyeing me. He’s already asked all the required questions, and it seems like he’s on my side on this, as usual, but something’s bothering him. “Dare,” he says, “what was going on there at the end with the doctor?”
“He made a clear move for his firearms, and I responded.”
“Before that.”
He can tell that I provoked the doctor into it. Shit. “I think it speaks for itself,” I answer, as coolly as I can.
“You baited him into attacking you,” Knowles says simply, rapping his gnarled knuckles dully on the false wood of the table. “The sound isn’t perfect, but I can hear you outright telling him to do it.”
“I didn’t break any rules. He clearly wanted to pick up his guns, I thought this the best way to get him to stand down. It was a judgment call.”
Knowles sighs, crossing his arms. “Agent Dare,” he says, going into a dry, official monotone as he refers to his report, reading his findings into the record, “your adherence to protocol is questionable in several respects. My opinion is that your refusal to report to headquarters after the first discharge of your sidearm was justified by investigatory urgency, but I would suggest a greater exercise of caution in the future. Likewise, your entry by force of the doctor’s office was justified, especially in light of the fact that your conclusions about the presence of illegal activity were correct. Again, though, you need to be more careful in these situations.” As I sit tensely, waiting for his decision on the most important stuff, he stands up, removes my guncam from the player, and places it on the table next to the gun itself and its ammo. “Lastly,” he says, “I find your use of force proportional and justified with respect to each of the nine times you discharged your sidearm, except for the first. My recommendation to internal affairs will be a nominal monetary penalty and a written reprimand.”
My relief is mixed with annoyance. I’m basically in the clear on all the bullets that matter, but Knowles is dinging me for shooting the ceiling of that shabby underground storage shack at the mine. The fine will be only a tiny portion of my calcium recovery from yesterday, but it’s obnoxious nonetheless. I can’t help but throw an annoyed glance at the little camera fixed on me. Reminding myself that I got off fairly easy and that I’ll be able to return to work, I nod slowly, trying not to show any emotion. I still have stakes in the case, and this is one of the many times I have to play politics to get what I want in this job.
“Any questions, Dare?”
“What about follow-up?”
“Follow-up?”
“I want to be involved in the ongoing investigation.”
“There is no ongoing investigation until forensics comes back.”
“That doctor got those weevils somewhere.” I don’t have to vocalize the fact that if I can track down that source it’ll likely be a gold mine. Black-market refiners generally use clumsy chemical methods for extracting calcium, and whoever got their hands on chalk weevil cultures must be in the game for serious money.
“If and when a case is opened on it, you know you’re not going to be eligible for that assignment. You already got your hands dirty in this, and there would be an appearance of bias.”
I stand up involuntarily, aggravated. “Oh, to hell with that—”
“Watch yourself, Dare. I am your commanding officer.”
I force myself to calm down, keeping my mouth shut and backing away a step. Knowles always paints by the damn numbers when it comes to running his unit, but I don’t know why he’s giving me such a hard time on this. “Thanks, Captain.”
He says nothing further as I walk out the door. The hallways up here are relatively quiet, and I can’t help but enjoy the peace before I get out into the bustling, dusty, violent world. I’m alone in the elevator ride to the bottom floor, the last few seconds of quiet passing too quickly before the doors open to Dispatch.
I step out. My boots grind slightly on the fine, thin layer of dust that Collections Agents drag in throughout the day. A squad of heavies in full armor is standing around one of the Dispatcher’s desks, some of them holding their helmets. There must be a big bust going out, which would sometimes get my interest, but right now I’ve got other things to focus on, and anyway I can’t hear what the Dispatcher—Murray Tanaka, I think is the guy’s name—is saying, as the noise of conversations and calls and alerts drones together and drowns out individual words. Taking a wide berth around them, I cross to Myra’s desk.