“I do, truly. I suppose I’ve been looking at his methods as an outsider. To look at him as an insider — such as yourself — might lead me to understand why he operates the way he does, and why you and Robins continually trust him with such delicate cases. Regardless, however, I still cannot condone the liberal use of lethal force.”
“I agree with ya there, but that’s a conversation for another day. The last thing we need to do is set him over the edge when he’s this close to finishin’ the case. First, we end this fiasco, and then we get ya a cozy little cubicle where you can spend your slow days at the station. After that, you and Roche can have a long talk about his ‘ methods.’ You can even talk to him at your little desk. Now, let’s get the hell off of this bird before any G-men wander up and see us. They might think we’re planning on stealing it.”
Allen snickered at the comment before disembarking. Just then, the precinct’s own Rotorbird appeared in the sky, beginning its descent to the large helipad. Sinclair turned back to Allen with an anxious look, checking his watch to see it was nearly seven o’clock.
“Actually, you head downstairs. Tell the agent in Robins’s office that Belik was booked … I have somewhere to be.”
Allen knew better than to question him. He nodded and headed for the stairs.
Agent Ewalt seemed relieved to hear that an arrest had been made without the need for guns — at least, that was what Allen told him. Ewalt phoned the Plate, trying to find out where Masters had gone, but eventually gave up and decided to reschedule the inspection for a less tumultuous time. The agent contacted his Rotorbird pilot and flew back to the Plate, and soon enough, everything started to go back to normal. The stress of the past few days had earned most of the officers a night off, told that the 7th would pick up their slack. When ten struck, the station was deserted save for Allen and Robins.
According to Robins, if there were any issues tonight, the 7th would deal with it. Allen, however, couldn’t relax like everyone else until he’d settled a few things. When he knocked on the door, Robins yelled gruffly, “Yeah? Get in here.”
At the sight of Allen, the commissioner’s hassled demeanour shifted to a welcoming one. “Forty-One! Good evening, come in. Sorry about that.”
“It is quite all right, Commissioner Robins. And if you don’t mind, I believe it’d be easier for you to call me Allen.”
“Right, right, of course. Take a seat, Allen.”
Robins waved a hand toward a chair. As Allen sat down, Robins walked over to a small table that held a few confiscated alcohols and picked up a bottle of brandy. His desk was still covered in loose pieces of paper, files, and other sorts of information, but whatever forms or figures the FBI agents had pinned to the walls had since been torn off and scattered on the floor at the edges of the room.
Robins filled a snifter and looked at Allen. “Care for one? I only break it out for special occasions. And it’s legal … well, mostly.”
“I … I believe I would like some, Commissioner.”
Robins chuckled as he poured a second glass and brought both over. He sat down and met Allen’s gaze. The robot wrapped his metal fingers around the glass. The feel of the cool material was somewhat alien to him. He thought for a moment that drinking might be irresponsible, but his qualms went away after several drops passed his lips.
“What brings you to see me?”
“It’s … it’s about an incident that occurred three hours ago, at about five thirty in the evening, at the western docks, during Belik’s apprehension.” The robot looked at his glass for a few silent seconds before electing to pour more brandy down his metal throat. The liquid passed though him and hit his stomach. The sudden influx of alcohol into his synthetic circulatory system sent jolts through him and produced a ringing sensation in his head. “I don’t believe I’m fit for active duty, sir.”
“Fit for duty? What makes you say that? Sure, it was a rough patch taking care of that raid, but from Paddy’s description, you did phenomenal for a rookie.”
“Yes, I understand that. The problem is …” Allen realized that the alcohol in his system was making this both harder and easier. His silicon organs worked harder than their human equivalents, giving him a buzz faster than any lightweight. Robins got up, retrieved the bottle, and poured another inch into the robot’s glass. “Under the circumstances, I had to take a life in order to rescue Detectives Roche and Sinclair from the augmented human who was assaulting them. If the job calls for me to have other people’s lives in my hands, I don’t believe I can continue.”
Robins nodded, an expression of empathy on his face. “Allen, it’s not always like this. Your investigative skills are magnificent, and I wish I had twenty of you. But I hate to break it to you — you can’t always play the nice guy. You gotta switch between good and bad cop. Good cop gets the perps to talk and tries to understand why criminals do what they do. Bad cop keeps those people from hurting others — including officers, if they become unreasonable. What you’re experiencing is something every cop in every city in every country has gone through. It’s just something that sometimes happens. You have someone’s life in your hands, and you need to decide whether that life can be redeemed, or will only continue to cause destruction and pain. And
