"I don't want to. But you discovered a new species. And solved the murder..." He shrugs.

"I don't want to. But you discovered a new species. And solved the murder..." He shrugs.

"So I have to. Jude?"

"Anything that ends the trial is okay with me." A quick nod.

You haven't been drinking, she thinks. So maybe this time...

"Agreed. The public relations potential of this is too valuable to let go."

"Okay." He sighs. "We have vehicles in the square. And the perpetrator needs to be taken into custody. Let's go."

Now! Now you will finally get to know who you are!

"Wait. I have a few questions before we go. About who I am."

The man looks westward, impatiently.

Jingling his car keys in his pocket.

"Precinct 41... what kind of station is it?"

"Us? We're the Bloody Murder Station, haven't you heard? We're the bad guys. No one likes us."

"That's not true. Jamrock is too big for one precinct. You're just understaffed. And everyone respects the 41st -- you have Captain Pryce."

"Thank you, lieutenant. You're being kind. It is an understaffed station and the district is too big -- which is why we need to..." He tilts his head northward...

"... get back to it. We left Torson and McLaine to run the C-Wing. It's not good."

"Did we recently shoot up a church by any chance?" (Point to the church.)

"So he remembers that... Yes, there may have been a raid on some churches. It wasn't good press."

"Shooting up churches never is. I was out of town, to be clear...."

"What happened? Why did we need to go there?"

"Our enemies were hiding in a church -- to the best of our information. That's it. I'm not talking about this anymore. Your security clearance is shit-tier right now. You have to wait for it to go up."

He means it. The RCM and its enemies will not be discussed on this coast.

Your clearance will not go up while you're within earshot of the Union headquarters.

"So I work in the Bloody Murder Station?" (Conclude.)

"Okay -- it's not the Bloody Murder Station. It's an old converted silk mill with green desk lamps and a coffee corner. A lot of good people work there. Hard. Every day."

"Jamrock is the largest ghetto in Revachol. Faubourg, technically... but it's divided into eleven districts. Jamrock only has us."

"The press will blow over," he says in a reassuring tone. "Jamrock is lucky to have you. And it's often considered to be the greatest of the districts -- you're lucky to have it."

"Thank you again, lieutenant."

"Cuno's likin' this shit. Jamrock is the real shit -- Martinaise is fucking white as balls. Sea-shit. This ain't a real ghetto."

"Thank you, Cuno. You bring light to my day."

"And the C-Wing is..."

"God..." He sighs. "There are four wings, Harry: A, B, C, and D. We're in C. It's made of losers and clock-punchers. You and I re-conceptualized it as a task force. It was a mistake."

"There's also a lot of outside help involved. Not only me." He smiles. "Other losers too."

He's anything but a loser. Although he would like to be seen as one. It's cooler that way.

"And Pryce is..."

"Ptolemy Pryce? He's the son of the old Pryce -- one of the founders of the RCM."

"He's one of the most highly regarded men in the force. You're lucky."

Somewhere under the curved roof of a former silk factory, shaped like a ladybird with two chimneys, Police Captain Ptolemy Pryce sits behind a heavy wooden desk. Resident medic Nix Gottlieb pours him coffee. It's silent in the captain's office...

They speak of change. The city. The tension on the streets. They speak of the events of April and the blood on the streets in May.

"Yeah, that shit is fucking famous on Channel 8. Cuno hears this shit."

"Torson and McLaine?"

"Mack 'The Torso' Torson and Chester McLaine --" She arches an eyebrow. "They're not fit to run a wing. Believe me. Things are shaky as it is."

They are damn iconic though -- Torson and McLaine!

"An iconic duo I take it?"

"Yeah -- not like us. Two clinically depressed old men. Where's the contrast here? We're garbage."

Not now.

Of course.

"What?! Bitches dream of the 41st. Why you think Cuno's in this shit? Word is it's fucking violent. Your Captain Pryce dusted like... a thousand people."

"Thank you, Cuno," he says with an amused half-smile. "You're being kind. It's an understaffed station and the district is too big -- which is why we need to..." He tilts his head northward and clicks his tongue.

"... get back to it. We left Torson and McLaine to run the C-Wing. It's not good."

"That's not true..."

"Okay. It's an understaffed station where there's too much work, so we need to get back to it. It's not your problem anymore."

A lowset house, windswept -- and without you. Traffic whooshes by...

"I'm ready." (End.)

"Good." She looks at you, then Vicquemare...

"Fuck it, let's go." The man points down the street. "Trant brought his motor carriage. It's a 20 minute drive to Jamrock."

Under the night sky the great district sleeps: A dark chessboard of wooden houses in the rain, 80,000 living souls inside. Firetraps as far as the eye can see -- from Main Street to Precinct 41 atop the motorway, to Boogie Street glowing on the rainswept horizon...

You close your eyes and hear the dogs bark. A lone woman sits by a factory window, dreaming of meteorite strikes. On Rue Saint-Gérôme a square bullet slides into a square-shaped chamber. In Old South a man without eyelids smiles. Spring has come. It's time.

"Torson?" "Yes." "McLaine?" "Yes." "Heidelstam?" "No." "Vicquemare?" "Yes." "Du Bois?" "Of course."

"Really?" Nix Gottlieb looks up from the list. "I hear he's quite unstable." "You say that like it's a bad thing," Captain Ptolemy Pryce points his pen at the doctor. It's dim in his office and the curtains are drawn. "Harry's our man, he'll pull through -- and when he does, he'll side with Revachol." "Understood." Gottlieb returns to the list. "Minot?" "Of course."

"Wonderful," the woman looks north. "Then can we please just go back to Jamrock now?"