Bramble (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bramblepatch) wrote2020-04-10 01:46 pm
bramblepatch) wrote2020-04-10 01:46 pm
Entry tags:
Original Fiction: The Summary Firing of Detective Jaq Grimes
(Crossposted from Patreon, SFW, 2035 words, gen. Content warnings: implied police misconduct, depersonalization, mild body horror.
A big thank you to all of my patrons for providing financial support to my art and writing in these trying times. If you enjoy my writing and would like to see these stories a week early, and also vote on which characters I focus on and see cool bonus art and behind the scenes stuff, consider supporting me on Patreon?
Stay safe and wash your hands, everyone!)
“Doesn’t it bother you?”
Her partner shrugs, sitting in the unmarked car with his foot propped against the dashboard in exactly the way that’d kill him embarrassingly dead if the airbag went off. Jaq does not point this out. She knows that he knows, or if he doesn’t, he should. Anyway, it’s not like the vehicle is moving.
Neither is the conversation, honestly. They’ve worked together for a couple of years now, and she gets the impression that he’d be just as happy to pretend he doesn’t have any kind of interiority. Even before the quote unquote upgrades, trying to get him to acknowledge he’s a person with person experiences had been like pulling teeth.
Before the quote unquote upgrades, she’d been dissuaded from trying by second-hand embarrassment.
“I mean, I think it should bother me. If I’d realized how much it would change it would have bothered me. Which means it’s a bad sign that it doesn’t bother me now – but if I can recognize that, does that mean it actually does bother me?”
He shrugs again.
---
“Doesn’t that bother you?”
The department shrink chuckles, though not unkindly. Jaq has never known the doctor to be unkind, which almost seems suspicious in and of itself. Surely even the most compassionate soul must have their limits, when most of their patients are angry, traumatized cops.
“Not particularly. You’re adjusting well,” the doctor says, idly tapping through Jaq’s file. “A little cognitive dissonance is perfectly normal. Your interviews and implant diagnostics are both well within expected tolerances.”
Tolerances of what, Jaq’s not sure. She doesn’t ask for clarification. She wonders whether the doctor also has a neurological implant or if treating her patients as machines that need troubleshooting comes naturally to the woman. Not that it really matters. Either way, Jaq realizes she’s in the wrong office.
---
“Does it bother you?”
The young man – not an attorney, but someone from the D.A.’s office, some kind of assistant – gives a gesture that’s almost a shrug, almost not a wince. Almost diplomatic. Jaq might be offended if she chose, but it doesn’t seem worth the effort. She did ask.
“I mean, your case doesn’t particularly, detective,” he deflects.
“But some of the others do,” she infers.
“If I see a problem, I know how to report it,” he reminds her. “And, well, the excessive force complaints are down a bit, I think? That smooths things for us a little.”
---
Jaq doesn’t ask her informant whether her request bothers them. Theirs isn’t a relationship built on respect for the kid’s better judgment.
---
“Gotta be level with you here, this bothers me.”
“I’m not asking if you’re comfortable with it, I’m asking if you can help,” Jaq replies levelly. Maybe she ought to be upset – angry, frustrated – that her best lead so far is balking, but honestly she’s not mustering much more than mildly annoyed. And that, mostly, at the fact that he insisted on meeting her at what she’s sure is a neutral location and given her a name that she’s certain won’t be connected to anything official. Her opportunities for retaliation, for threats of such, are limited.
But then, the caution is part of why this broker is such a promising prospect.
“I can pay,” she adds, and behind the identity-obscuring cloth mask, the broker cracks a smile that’s genuine enough that it reaches his eyes. Maybe it’s just the lighting in the cafe, but those eyes seem too bright a blue not to be colored contacts, and Jaq suspects that if this guy actually has any current official ID, his eyes aren’t listed as blue.
“Oh, I’m sure. You don’t strike me as a stupid person. And you’d have to be pretty damn stupid to ask me to find someone to screw with a police-issue implant without offering compensation” he says. “Or desperate. Can you even do desperate right now?”
Jaq considers briefly. “Not really. Conviction maybe? Kind of distant, but it’s there.”
“Yeah, that’s about what I thought.” He sighs, drums his fingers briefly against his folded arm. “I’ll ask around. Might have a wirehead who’s willing to take the risk for a chance to play with city property a bit. I’ll be in touch when I have more of an answer for you.”
---
“Does it bother you, though?”
There’s a recording device shoved in Jaq’s face, in the hand of an impassioned young punk with what may or may not be legit press credentials on a lanyard around their neck. No visual recording device, so far as Jaq can tell, anyway. Probably they’re with one of those news outlets that’s half a step from just being a blogging platform. Maybe an independent blogger. Maybe a podcast.
“I’m concerned,” she hedges, and even if it’s evasive it’s also about the strongest claim she’s willing to make right now. “But any actual issues are well over my head.”
Little Mx possibly-a-blogger scowls. “Yeah, that’s bullshit. You think you get to be a cop and then be all ‘oh, that’s nothing to do with me’ when the other cops do cop things?”
---
“Ohhh, dang, I can see why this bothered you.”
Jaq still isn’t sure that bothered is the right word for the way she’s felt lately, not when the little concerns about things like morality and agency pale in comparison to the strange, horrible spine-deep feedback feeling of having her implant wired directly to an unfamiliar computer, but she’s focusing too hard on keeping her composure and not flinching away to argue semantics with the young woman who’s currently reprogramming the thing.
She supposes she ought to count herself lucky that the implant has an external transceiver and port, that this doesn’t require brain surgery in addition to manipulating the software. Mostly she’s glad that, with the access at the back of her neck, there’s no way she can be expected to meet the young woman’s eye, that she can ride this out with her head bowed over her folded arms.
The wetware-hacker hums tunelessly as she taps away at her laptop, prodding through the implant’s systems. She doesn’t seem discouraged by Jaq’s lack of a response. “Seriously, this thing’s programming is robust, I’m a little surprised you were able to muster enough discontent to track down Ash. It’d run circles around the thereputic shit on the market, y’know? And none a’ the failsafes are initialized, which damn, that’s all sorts of messed up. You want it all shut down, or should I enable some toggles for you?”
“Do what?” Jaq asks.
“You know. Give you an on-off switch for some of the core functions. It’d be easy, provided you’re any good at visualization,” the girl replies, doing something with code that makes it feel like the inside of Jaq’s skull is resonating with something otherworldly. “Be a shame to be walking around with this hunk of circuitry in your head and not do anything with it, really.”
Jaq is surprised – surprise, she realizes with additional surprise, that isn’t modulated through some artificial idea of composure. It’s all she can do not to whip her head up and stare incredulously at the hacker. “I thought you’d just want to brick the thing.”
“This thing? Hell no. I mean, not unless that’s what you want. If you just want it nonfunctional I could shut it down and then whack you upside the head with an electromagnet,” Aimee says, doing something to the implant that Jaq can sense but not quite interpret in the moment. “But like, look, I didn’t get into this shit because I think people shouldn’t have working circuits in their skulls, you know? If you want this to be useful, it can be. I mean, I’m so wiping this awful compliance reinforcement routine, that’s got no business in anyone’s head, but otherwise just let me know which features you actually like.”
It’s a question that maybe would have been better asked before she started; Jaq’s focus isn’t exactly the best right now. Still - “The part where I don’t panic’s pretty good? And the. Whatcha call it. Hyperfocus assist.”
Aimee laughs approvingly. “Oh yeah, that’s a sweet bit of neurocode,” she says. “Totally gonna be playing with the download of that for my own projects. Alright, I’mma get started on those, let me know if you think of anything else you want access to...”
---
“Something bothering you, Grimes?”
Jaq doesn’t look up from the file in front of her; she’d like to think she’s still a little off balance from the illicit adjustment, but if she’s honest with herself it’s not just her that’s off balance. Her recent efficiency is looking pretty cold and barebones now – she’s sure she’s missed things. Closed cases quickly rather than well.
She’s not at all in a mood to deal with that asshole Abbadelli right now. Has never been in a mood to deal with him, even when they’d worked together for a while, a few years back. Even when she’d had a fair chunk of her moods turned off and contented herself with dropping an anonymous complaint in the proper channels every time she noticed him erring on the side of creep. But especially not in a mood to deal with him now.
“Besides you?” she drawls. “Get outta my air, Drew.”
---
“You really want to know whether it bothers me?”
The punk with the recorder and possibly the blog and-slash-or podcast doesn’t seem sure whether to be delighted or suspicious at the question.
“Uh, yeah, it’s kind of my thing. Wanting to know things. I demonstrate it by asking people questions and recording their answers,” they say, flatly, the kind of matter-of-fact response that’s technically a useful answer but mostly chiding the asker for a stupid question.
Jaq can’t help chuckling, which does not visibly put the kid at ease. “Ok. Fair,” she says. “And look, I’d really rather it not have my name attached to it, but… look, if you’re interested I think I can offer something a bit more interesting than you yelling questions at cops outside the precinct.”
The reporter blinks at her for a moment, indecisive, but curiosity wins out over caution and they pull a notebook from their jacket pocket. “Sounds like more than just a soundbite – here, meet me this evening. When you can,” they say, scribbling down the name of an all-night diner and the address and tearing out the page to hand to Jaq.
She glances at the page, and slips it into her own pocket. “You got a name?” she asks. “Something so as I can ask for you when I get there?”
“Oh, trust me, I’ll see you,” they say. “But it’s Rune.”
---
“Did you bother to think?”
Rune’s article – they do work with a niche but moderately successful news blogging site, as it turns out – flashes up on the captain’s screen. It’s quickly followed by the laundry list of minor irregularities that is the result of a recent diagnostic on Jaq’s implant. She’d turned it back on to the fullest extent that Aimee’s modifications had let her, and maybe if she’d kept her mouth shut the incongruities would have been overlooked, but, well. She hadn’t kept her head down.
Jaq’s already read the article, of course. There’s a lot in there that her dumb ass probably shouldn’t have said, except that she feels she shouldn’t be in a position where she shouldn’t say it. There isn’t much in there that’s likely to get her dumb ass arrested, at least. And despite what she’d told them at first, she’d ultimately let them put her name on the thing - if she’s saying it, she’s saying it, and at least if Rune’s readers know who’s saying it it makes it harder for the authorities to just make her quietly go away.
God, she’s already started thinking of the authorities as something she’s not a part of. Maybe that’s for the best. Maybe that’s healthy.
She conjures a pass-code in her mind’s eye, enabling the subroutine that will keep her stress responses under control, prevent a flight-or-flight response. No point losing her composure. That’s what the implant’s for, after all.
A big thank you to all of my patrons for providing financial support to my art and writing in these trying times. If you enjoy my writing and would like to see these stories a week early, and also vote on which characters I focus on and see cool bonus art and behind the scenes stuff, consider supporting me on Patreon?
Stay safe and wash your hands, everyone!)
“Doesn’t it bother you?”
Her partner shrugs, sitting in the unmarked car with his foot propped against the dashboard in exactly the way that’d kill him embarrassingly dead if the airbag went off. Jaq does not point this out. She knows that he knows, or if he doesn’t, he should. Anyway, it’s not like the vehicle is moving.
Neither is the conversation, honestly. They’ve worked together for a couple of years now, and she gets the impression that he’d be just as happy to pretend he doesn’t have any kind of interiority. Even before the quote unquote upgrades, trying to get him to acknowledge he’s a person with person experiences had been like pulling teeth.
Before the quote unquote upgrades, she’d been dissuaded from trying by second-hand embarrassment.
“I mean, I think it should bother me. If I’d realized how much it would change it would have bothered me. Which means it’s a bad sign that it doesn’t bother me now – but if I can recognize that, does that mean it actually does bother me?”
He shrugs again.
---
“Doesn’t that bother you?”
The department shrink chuckles, though not unkindly. Jaq has never known the doctor to be unkind, which almost seems suspicious in and of itself. Surely even the most compassionate soul must have their limits, when most of their patients are angry, traumatized cops.
“Not particularly. You’re adjusting well,” the doctor says, idly tapping through Jaq’s file. “A little cognitive dissonance is perfectly normal. Your interviews and implant diagnostics are both well within expected tolerances.”
Tolerances of what, Jaq’s not sure. She doesn’t ask for clarification. She wonders whether the doctor also has a neurological implant or if treating her patients as machines that need troubleshooting comes naturally to the woman. Not that it really matters. Either way, Jaq realizes she’s in the wrong office.
---
“Does it bother you?”
The young man – not an attorney, but someone from the D.A.’s office, some kind of assistant – gives a gesture that’s almost a shrug, almost not a wince. Almost diplomatic. Jaq might be offended if she chose, but it doesn’t seem worth the effort. She did ask.
“I mean, your case doesn’t particularly, detective,” he deflects.
“But some of the others do,” she infers.
“If I see a problem, I know how to report it,” he reminds her. “And, well, the excessive force complaints are down a bit, I think? That smooths things for us a little.”
---
Jaq doesn’t ask her informant whether her request bothers them. Theirs isn’t a relationship built on respect for the kid’s better judgment.
---
“Gotta be level with you here, this bothers me.”
“I’m not asking if you’re comfortable with it, I’m asking if you can help,” Jaq replies levelly. Maybe she ought to be upset – angry, frustrated – that her best lead so far is balking, but honestly she’s not mustering much more than mildly annoyed. And that, mostly, at the fact that he insisted on meeting her at what she’s sure is a neutral location and given her a name that she’s certain won’t be connected to anything official. Her opportunities for retaliation, for threats of such, are limited.
But then, the caution is part of why this broker is such a promising prospect.
“I can pay,” she adds, and behind the identity-obscuring cloth mask, the broker cracks a smile that’s genuine enough that it reaches his eyes. Maybe it’s just the lighting in the cafe, but those eyes seem too bright a blue not to be colored contacts, and Jaq suspects that if this guy actually has any current official ID, his eyes aren’t listed as blue.
“Oh, I’m sure. You don’t strike me as a stupid person. And you’d have to be pretty damn stupid to ask me to find someone to screw with a police-issue implant without offering compensation” he says. “Or desperate. Can you even do desperate right now?”
Jaq considers briefly. “Not really. Conviction maybe? Kind of distant, but it’s there.”
“Yeah, that’s about what I thought.” He sighs, drums his fingers briefly against his folded arm. “I’ll ask around. Might have a wirehead who’s willing to take the risk for a chance to play with city property a bit. I’ll be in touch when I have more of an answer for you.”
---
“Does it bother you, though?”
There’s a recording device shoved in Jaq’s face, in the hand of an impassioned young punk with what may or may not be legit press credentials on a lanyard around their neck. No visual recording device, so far as Jaq can tell, anyway. Probably they’re with one of those news outlets that’s half a step from just being a blogging platform. Maybe an independent blogger. Maybe a podcast.
“I’m concerned,” she hedges, and even if it’s evasive it’s also about the strongest claim she’s willing to make right now. “But any actual issues are well over my head.”
Little Mx possibly-a-blogger scowls. “Yeah, that’s bullshit. You think you get to be a cop and then be all ‘oh, that’s nothing to do with me’ when the other cops do cop things?”
---
“Ohhh, dang, I can see why this bothered you.”
Jaq still isn’t sure that bothered is the right word for the way she’s felt lately, not when the little concerns about things like morality and agency pale in comparison to the strange, horrible spine-deep feedback feeling of having her implant wired directly to an unfamiliar computer, but she’s focusing too hard on keeping her composure and not flinching away to argue semantics with the young woman who’s currently reprogramming the thing.
She supposes she ought to count herself lucky that the implant has an external transceiver and port, that this doesn’t require brain surgery in addition to manipulating the software. Mostly she’s glad that, with the access at the back of her neck, there’s no way she can be expected to meet the young woman’s eye, that she can ride this out with her head bowed over her folded arms.
The wetware-hacker hums tunelessly as she taps away at her laptop, prodding through the implant’s systems. She doesn’t seem discouraged by Jaq’s lack of a response. “Seriously, this thing’s programming is robust, I’m a little surprised you were able to muster enough discontent to track down Ash. It’d run circles around the thereputic shit on the market, y’know? And none a’ the failsafes are initialized, which damn, that’s all sorts of messed up. You want it all shut down, or should I enable some toggles for you?”
“Do what?” Jaq asks.
“You know. Give you an on-off switch for some of the core functions. It’d be easy, provided you’re any good at visualization,” the girl replies, doing something with code that makes it feel like the inside of Jaq’s skull is resonating with something otherworldly. “Be a shame to be walking around with this hunk of circuitry in your head and not do anything with it, really.”
Jaq is surprised – surprise, she realizes with additional surprise, that isn’t modulated through some artificial idea of composure. It’s all she can do not to whip her head up and stare incredulously at the hacker. “I thought you’d just want to brick the thing.”
“This thing? Hell no. I mean, not unless that’s what you want. If you just want it nonfunctional I could shut it down and then whack you upside the head with an electromagnet,” Aimee says, doing something to the implant that Jaq can sense but not quite interpret in the moment. “But like, look, I didn’t get into this shit because I think people shouldn’t have working circuits in their skulls, you know? If you want this to be useful, it can be. I mean, I’m so wiping this awful compliance reinforcement routine, that’s got no business in anyone’s head, but otherwise just let me know which features you actually like.”
It’s a question that maybe would have been better asked before she started; Jaq’s focus isn’t exactly the best right now. Still - “The part where I don’t panic’s pretty good? And the. Whatcha call it. Hyperfocus assist.”
Aimee laughs approvingly. “Oh yeah, that’s a sweet bit of neurocode,” she says. “Totally gonna be playing with the download of that for my own projects. Alright, I’mma get started on those, let me know if you think of anything else you want access to...”
---
“Something bothering you, Grimes?”
Jaq doesn’t look up from the file in front of her; she’d like to think she’s still a little off balance from the illicit adjustment, but if she’s honest with herself it’s not just her that’s off balance. Her recent efficiency is looking pretty cold and barebones now – she’s sure she’s missed things. Closed cases quickly rather than well.
She’s not at all in a mood to deal with that asshole Abbadelli right now. Has never been in a mood to deal with him, even when they’d worked together for a while, a few years back. Even when she’d had a fair chunk of her moods turned off and contented herself with dropping an anonymous complaint in the proper channels every time she noticed him erring on the side of creep. But especially not in a mood to deal with him now.
“Besides you?” she drawls. “Get outta my air, Drew.”
---
“You really want to know whether it bothers me?”
The punk with the recorder and possibly the blog and-slash-or podcast doesn’t seem sure whether to be delighted or suspicious at the question.
“Uh, yeah, it’s kind of my thing. Wanting to know things. I demonstrate it by asking people questions and recording their answers,” they say, flatly, the kind of matter-of-fact response that’s technically a useful answer but mostly chiding the asker for a stupid question.
Jaq can’t help chuckling, which does not visibly put the kid at ease. “Ok. Fair,” she says. “And look, I’d really rather it not have my name attached to it, but… look, if you’re interested I think I can offer something a bit more interesting than you yelling questions at cops outside the precinct.”
The reporter blinks at her for a moment, indecisive, but curiosity wins out over caution and they pull a notebook from their jacket pocket. “Sounds like more than just a soundbite – here, meet me this evening. When you can,” they say, scribbling down the name of an all-night diner and the address and tearing out the page to hand to Jaq.
She glances at the page, and slips it into her own pocket. “You got a name?” she asks. “Something so as I can ask for you when I get there?”
“Oh, trust me, I’ll see you,” they say. “But it’s Rune.”
---
“Did you bother to think?”
Rune’s article – they do work with a niche but moderately successful news blogging site, as it turns out – flashes up on the captain’s screen. It’s quickly followed by the laundry list of minor irregularities that is the result of a recent diagnostic on Jaq’s implant. She’d turned it back on to the fullest extent that Aimee’s modifications had let her, and maybe if she’d kept her mouth shut the incongruities would have been overlooked, but, well. She hadn’t kept her head down.
Jaq’s already read the article, of course. There’s a lot in there that her dumb ass probably shouldn’t have said, except that she feels she shouldn’t be in a position where she shouldn’t say it. There isn’t much in there that’s likely to get her dumb ass arrested, at least. And despite what she’d told them at first, she’d ultimately let them put her name on the thing - if she’s saying it, she’s saying it, and at least if Rune’s readers know who’s saying it it makes it harder for the authorities to just make her quietly go away.
God, she’s already started thinking of the authorities as something she’s not a part of. Maybe that’s for the best. Maybe that’s healthy.
She conjures a pass-code in her mind’s eye, enabling the subroutine that will keep her stress responses under control, prevent a flight-or-flight response. No point losing her composure. That’s what the implant’s for, after all.