The coffee shop was a local indie joint, pleasantly disorganized and nonstandard. All of the tables were full. Teenagers packed in seven people to a four-top; obligatory writers with their laptops; neighborhood folks meeting up for a drink; and probably homeless people taking refuge from the storm in the corner, keeping out of everyone’s way.
King veered left and homed in on a table just as its occupants stood to leave, cutting off a trio coming from the counter, steaming drinks in hand.
“Claim the table; I’ll get drinks,” he said.
“Well played. Can I get a mocha?”
King returned with her drink and a black-as-the-void coffee.
“So, what have you observed so far?” Leah felt like she was back in college, meeting with a professor for an independent study. Which, considering King’s academic background, was only fitting.
She took a sip of her mocha and let the heat seep all the way out to her fingers and toes, stamping her feet to force them to remember how to feel sensation.
“Mostly, I’ve observed the cold. Also, everyone seems like they’ve got an angle; significant glances, muttering to themselves, looking over their shoulders. Everyone’s a suspect or a target or both. So, how often do story-worthy crimes happen here? Or is this region spread out over the whole world?”
“Each sub-genre has a region of the Earth. Police Procedural stretches from Chicago all the way across Pennsylvania, then down to DC and up to Boston. Cozies rule in the suburbs and in the Caribbean, Thrillers dominate Europe, and so on. In some genre worlds, the regions are more distinct from one another.”
“Will I ever get caught up with all this inside-baseball research and skill-acquisition crap?”
“Eventually. There are a lot of moving targets in this business; things come at you and you have to learn to move with them.” King sipped his coffee, cultivating the look of the reserved, unflappable team lead. The kind of leader who knew all and directed through expertise. King was a story-heist conductor who could dive into the pit and wail on sax if he needed to. That’s what you got when you worked a job for what, twenty years?
“On recon, we walk the streets, take the pulse of the area, get readings with the sensors we brought, and make the rounds with on-world sources to stay abreast of major events, stories that have come and gone unbroken.”
“Recon. And how do you, do we approach these people? Hi, I’m a concerned citizen; solved any interesting murders lately?”
“Every operative has their own specialties; they cultivate contacts.”
“Shirin and Commander Bugayev, Mallery and her bartenders.”
“Indeed. This is my beat, so we’ll be checking in with my contacts in the precincts and PI firms. I’ve know some of these people for decades. Your cover…”
“I’m the newbie. Junior PI, learning the ropes. Same as every world. I assume at some point, I get to be a grown-up and decide my own covers?”
That got her a sliver of a grin. “Won’t be too long now. Your review comes up in a couple of months. And so far, you’re doing great. Keep your mind and ears open, and don’t be afraid to take initiative. And don’t forget your other responsibilities for this mission.”
Because writing material was so easy while actively doing something else. Leah had learned to take notes in the in-between moments, but it was hard to have any in-between while keeping your eyes peeled. She watched for the little differences in how people behaved in his world versus others. More people looked over their shoulder here, spoke in hushed voices. But it also seemed like there were more arguments. Something it had in common with Romance-land. All of these different axes of narrative, the bones of story that went into the soup of story.
Her story-senses were getting better, but slowly. The others could ID people with broken stories by sight, seeing them as just a shade out of sync, or discolored when compared to the world around them. But so far, Leah mostly relied on the experience granted by a lifetime of consuming and studying stories to put her on the right track. The team assured her that her story-vision would get better with time.
“How do you decide when to do patrols? How often? Is it a High Council thing or your discretion?”
“A little bit of both. Every team has a beat. We keep informed about the active and recurring stories in our genres. Teams also give input on when breaches are likely to hit, and schedule recon missions.”
King gestured to the room. “It’d been a while since I visited, and there have been some strange readings beyond the minor breach. This way, I get to introduce you around and give you something to balance while you work on the material for Mallery.”
“And you’re sure you don’t just want me to join the troupe? That’d be a way to be hands-on, to take initiative.”
King was unimpressed. Still getting nowhere with that. And thinking about writing for Mallery led to thinking about Mallery. The end of the mission would come soon enough.
Office romances: an unending source of drama, even when the romance was barely more than hypothetical, a momentary slippage as she’d been caught by the genre’s undertow.
Was that really it, though? Leah’s cheeks grew a welcome warm thinking about her teammate.
She shook the question off and focused on the moment. “So, what’s next? Check with one of your snitches?”
“Yes, but don’t call them snitches. I don’t use CIs the way cops do.”
“But you do have snitches.”
King’s shrug said “of course.” “This is Crime World, after all.”
Leah still found it weird to talk shop this openly on a story world, but she’d learned that people on these worlds tended to shrug off conversations that didn’t pertain to their active storylines, especially when some cover was available—the din of a coffee shop, car horns on a street, and so on.
“Next, we head to the local police precinct. The captain is an old friend of mine. She’ll catch us up on what’s gone down in the last few months. And any weird cases show up while we’re there…”
“We con our way onto the cases and check for breaches. This the same precinct that bounced the troupe’s case?”
“Same precinct, different team. Homicide is always its own team.” King gestured to the coffee bar. “Best top off your drink. It’s a twenty-minute walk to the station.”
Leah narrowed her eyes at King. “We’re right on an El line. Why walk?”
“You end up waiting for ten minutes just to spend three minutes on the train. Walking’s better. Plus, more chances to overhear people.”
King stood and took Leah’s cup, headed for the counter. Fair. If he was going to make her walk, the least he could do is top off the drinks.
“If you weren’t my boss,” Leah said. “I’d have some very unflattering things to say about that world view.”
“I’m a big boy; I can take it.”
“Unflattering things!” she said, raising her voice above the din.
* * *
Leah’s feet were numb again by the time they stepped into the precinct, but the cold was forgotten as Police Precinct Archetypes bounced back and forth in front of her like superballs. First was the tired and disinterested desk sergeant who waved King past without looking up from his crossword puzzle. Then the tattooed and leather-clad suspects resisting every step of the way toward lockup, the Polish and Irish cops yelling back at the outraged suspects, and the white boards covered in pictures and documents.
This was a Modern Cop Show precinct, more open office with team clusters, less the bullpens of the old 70s cop shows.
A woman walked up to King. She wore a gray suit with an emerald shirt. She had warm brown skin and curly hair—Leah pegged her as probably Filipina. The woman offered her hand. “Mr. King. Good to see you.”
King met her hand with a healthy shake. “Detective De La Cruz, good to be back. This is Ms. Leah Tang, a junior PI I’m taking under my wing. Thought I’d make introductions while I called on Captain Franklin. She around?”
&
nbsp; “In her office, as always,” the detective said. The woman offered her hand, and Leah shook it.
“Pleased to meet you, detective.” Leah nodded her head at the general chaos. “Looks like you stay busy here.”
“Sometimes, it seems like I’m here for weeks at a time.” She didn’t look it, though. Like in the Romance world, most anyone who was anyone in a story world was default beautiful. Hollywood “average” was the law of the land.
King made his way to a closed-door office in the back of the room.
“Well, I hope you get some time to relax soon,” Leah told De La Cruz, leaving to follow King.
“Not likely. Just waiting for my sleepyhead partner to arrive so we can get back to a case.”
They waved farewell and walked deeper into the precinct, stopping outside an office.
King knocked twice on the door, then opened it without waiting for an answer.
The room was meticulously maintained, books and files and folders all neatly arrayed on shelves flanking both sides of the office. The room smelled faintly of cedar and sported a pair of aloe plants atop file folders.
Behind the desk stood a striking black woman. She had light brown skin, relaxed hair, wore bifocal glasses and a pantsuit.
“It’s been too long, King.” She stepped out from behind the desk and hugged the senior Genrenaut in a way that lingered a shade longer than you’d expect from friends. Unless Crime World was also Touchy-Feely World. If this was the standard-cable Crime World, then maybe so.
“Good to see you, Nancy.” The woman returned to her chair, which looked like it had come straight out of the Staples discount aisle—same as the rest of the chairs in the precinct.
King took a seat, introducing Leah as his new apprentice.
Leah shook Captain Franklin’s hand and sat. “It looks like you’ve got a busy precinct, Captain.”
The captain gave Leah a proud nod. “And the best officers in the state to work it. Thanks for coming by. Your good luck paid off again, King. I’ve actually got a few minutes before my next meeting.”
All seated, King pulled out an old-school yellow legal pad and a fountain pen. Leah took that as a cue to pull out her own notepad. She’d prefer to use her phone, but King was a stickler. Said that studies showed memory creation was more effective when cued by handwriting.
One of the many things Leah had learned over the last couple of months was that her handwriting was terrible. She’d been typing since she was four—why bother getting good at handwriting? But King was right–her recall on the hand-written mission notes was better than she expected.
“So, what has been going on here since I was last in town?”
Captain Franklin shrugged. “A few high-profile cases, some entanglements with the governor, and some trips through sub-cultures to root out jilted lovers and inheritance-seeking relatives. The usual. Detective De La Cruz has been picking up most of the weird cases, her and that PI boyfriend of hers.”
“She’s still seeing DeeZee?” King asked. “I gave that six months, to be honest.”
“I took the under on that pool, myself. De La Cruz works harder and longer hours than any of my detectives, but DeeZee helps her keep perspective. He’s a pain in my ass more often than not, but they deliver results.”
King turned and explained for Leah’s benefit. “DeeZee is a professional gamer-turned-PI. Unconventional, but as she said, he delivers results.”
“Got it.” So this was another “He’s a Quirky Specialist. She’s a Serious LEO. They Fight Crime!” pairing. Not surprising, given the TV zeitgeist.
Networks and cable were full of quirky brilliant heroes from odd backgrounds paired up with tough, beautiful and/or handsome, complicated LEOs, whether they be cops or Feds. And the two inevitably fell in love, even if it took seven seasons for them to admit it and the show fell apart afterword because the writers couldn’t translate will-they-won’t-they tension into a dramatic healthy relationship.
“Any unsolved cases giving you problems? Departmental shake-ups coming down the pike?” Leah asked, figuring they should probe for potential breaches while they were there.
The captain’s body language told Leah the question was a dud. “Our closure rate is top in the city. And the commissioner loves us. Other precincts are more glamorous, but before I took this post, the place was a wreck.”
“But not as bad as the seventeenth back in the day, right?” King grinned, and the captain returned the warm expression. More shared history.
“Captain Kowalski spent more time in his cups than at his desk. And the sergeants were no better.”
And so the pair turned off onto memory lane, trading stories for fifteen minutes, tidbits about recent cases laced through their reminisces like veins of gold in a mine. Leah took notes about the cases and tried not to write down too much of the gossip being passed between the pair. Instead, she took the chance to observe King with a peer.
Probably an old flame first and a peer second, from the way their body language was vibing back and forth. Leah bet it had been a while, especially with the ring she wore, but there had been something between them. And this after King’s ten-page memo about not fraternizing with the locals unless it was mission-critical.
All of King’s memos were around ten pages. Dude could make anything into a lecture.
As the clock in the captain’s office ticked past noon, Leah turned and looked out to the bullpen.
Detective De La Cruz hung up her cell phone and set it on her desk, her eyes wet. She curled up in her chair and buried her head in arms and knees.
Uhoh.
Chapter Three: Man Down
Leah pointed to De La Cruz’s cube and said, “I think that’s probably worth your attention, Captain.”
Captain Franklin looked over Leah’s shoulders, and sad recognition played across her face.
She went to her detective.
“DeeZee has been shot,” the captain said on her return. “He’s in critical condition.”
Detective De La Cruz joined them. “I want this case, Captain.”
Of course she did. Whenever a case was personal in a police procedural, there was always some convoluted reason why the detective could stay on the case despite a clear conflict of interest.
Leah watched for the story to deform illogically to allow De La Cruz to work the case.
Except, the captain’s response was, “Absolutely not. You’re on indefinite administrative leave, starting now.”
Leah looked to King, wracking her brain for a Crime story when a personal case had gone this way without the appeal working. Something to bring up with him.
“Captain, I…”
The captain hardened. “It can be a suspension if you’d rather, Detective.”
“No, sir.”
“Go look after your guy.”
“Yes, sir.” De La Cruz did that thing that cops and military and other folks with tons of emergency training did, where they locked it down and got their calm back. Wasn’t universal, though. Roman rode his emotions like a surfboard.
“Thank you, sir,” De La Cruz said. “I’ll call in when I have updates.”
“See that you do. Chen and McWilliams will want to hear as soon as there’s news. Dismissed.” Leah took them to be the friend cops, the other team that would work another part of a case—the cases that would all too often end up being related, thanks to the laws of narrative conservation.
The detective nodded to the group on the way out, picked her coat off of her chair, and hoofed it for the stairs.
King turned back to the captain. “So, who’s going to catch this hot-potato case?”
“DeeZee isn’t a cop, but he’s family.” She considered for a moment. “Feel like getting your hands dirty, gum shoe?”
“We’re at your disposal.”
“Good. Meet me in the briefing room in ten minutes.”
King stood and the two shook hands.
“Come on, Probie. I’ll fill you in on how these
folks work.”
* * *
King claimed the briefing room immediately, closing the door for something resembling privacy to talk things over with Leah.
“So, who is this captain to you,” the rookie asked. “Old flame? What happened to ‘the Regs forbid nonessential fraternization?’ And why didn’t she let De La Cruz work the case? The detective always gets to work the personal case.”
King took a long breath. “I’ll answer all of those at once. Captain Franklin wasn’t born on this world. She was born on ours.”
Understanding played across Leah’s expression. “So, she what, got trapped here?”
King faced back out toward the bullpen, keeping his memories in check. “Twenty years ago. We were here together on a mission working a case—the rest of our team was off working another breach in the region. We worked and worked, and just could not close the case. We ran down three red herrings, and by the time we had the killer in our sights, we’d reached the end of our one week on-world. Nancy was so deep in the story that she wouldn’t leave.”
He paused for a moment, remembering that cold, rainy day, the last conversation they’d had as he ran the preflight check. She wore red and the ruby earrings he’d gotten her the Christmas before.
She’d folded her arms that way she always did when she’d decided and there was no changing her mind. “I have to see this through. And if I don’t, the breach will be out of control by the time you can come back. I stay here, and hundreds, maybe thousands of people are spared the ripple. This is what we’re here to do.”
“Then I’ll stay too,” he’d said. “We’ll start over here, make our own stories.”
“The case only needs one. Go live your life. But don’t forget about me.”
They’d shared one last kiss, interrupted by his alarm. He’d cut it as close as possible, and had the book thrown at him when he got back.
King let the memory fade and turned to face his newest recruit.
“I came back with the rest of the team as soon as they’d let me—a week later. By the time we got there, the case was solved and Nancy had been enrolled in the police academy with a letter of recommendation from the commissioner. The story had her. She’d forgotten her home, where she came from. Our cover was as PIs, so that’s what she thought she was. And now she’s as much a part of this world as anyone.”
Genrenauts: Season One Page 30