They fell silent for some moments. Finally Carter commented.
“Well, I think maybe we need to drop back to that ‘level 1, level 2’ concept after all. I kind of like it, to tell the truth. It’s like grades in school or something.” He paused. “Okay, so let’s get to work on the flattened hierarchy. How–”
“I thought the Emperor pretty much did that already, Lee,” Ames quipped, and they all laughed.
“Very funny, Cally,” Carter said, grinning despite himself. “I’d just as soon not have him do it again, so let’s get serious for a minute. How can we subdivide the org chart in the simplest fashion…?”
“Okay, serious. I think maybe a better thing to do,” Ames offered, as she plated dinner, which would be served in a casual, homestyle fashion, “is to scrap the old org chart completely and just start over from scratch. What groups or teams do you actually need…?”
Carter raised an eyebrow.
When Carter finally pulled out a notepad in VR, shared it with them, and began to scribble, they knew they were onto something. It took several hours, which meant most of the evening – even straight through dinner – but by the time they were finished with after-dinner drinks, Lee felt they had it pretty much nailed down. And everyone was enjoying the brainstorming, given they were all in the same business.
The foursome had finally settled in the den with mugs of after-dinner coffee – some were alcoholically-fortified – with Cally and Nick lounged on the sofa, and Lee and Maia in the two-person recliner facing them. There, they finalized their work.
“…And so we only have five levels,” Carter said. “The Director is at the top, and reports straight to the Emperor. Then there are the five section directors, and the Imperial City section director can be my deputy director. And then he has two deputies, one over Administration, the other over Field work. Hell, in a personnel pinch – which we sure as hell got right now – the deputy director could be one of those operational leads, depending on his or her personal expertise and work load – which reduces the management load even further. Beneath those two operations assistants are three divisions each. Admin has Maintenance, Bookkeeping, and Dispatch, with all the keeping-up-with-shit stuff, like payroll, procurement, evidence cataloguing, and all that kinda stuff lumped into Bookkeeping…”
“Yeah,” Ashton jumped in. “And then the Field assistant has the actual Field Officer division, plus Investigations, and then there’s Special Teams, like forensics.”
“Right. And there’s a Division Lead over each of those six divisions, though early on, some folks may wear multiple hats,” Carter confirmed. “And then the rank and file personnel – which comprises most of the whole damn department, empire-wide – are under those. I can see some people maybe being under two or more different divisions, like maybe somebody is both an investigator and a forensics expert, so we can matrix them if we need to.” He paused, then added ruefully, “I know, before I retired, there were something like a billion people in the Imperial Police, and there’s probably more now. That’s gonna get interesting to run. I hope I’m not biting off more than I can chew.”
“Wow,” Peterson said, mostly ignoring her husband’s sudden uncertainty, though she did give him an affectionate nudge by way of encouragement. “That looks really good, guys. You got the entire structure down to only needing around fourteen managers, total max. At least here on Sintar. I guess there’s a lot more through all the various sections and sectors. But that’s a helluva lot flatter than the old Headquarters was.”
“Not bad,” Ames agreed.
“Yeah, and three of those really aren’t managers, quite, they’re just my assistants,” Carter noted. “And I can squish some positions together if I need to, to accommodate staffing.”
“And you’ll do fine, Lee,” Ames added. “You know what you’re doing, you’re honest, and you know enough to delegate.”
“Listen to the lady,” Peterson remarked. “She may be younger than us, but she knows what she’s talkin’ about.”
“Okay,” Carter said, only mildly grudging.
“Yeah. I think we got something here,” Ashton concluded, studying the VR notes. “And we got a good team, and a great leader, to put it all together. But Lee? I thought of something else.”
“What, son?”
“Like it or not, we do have some ‘old guard’ coming back. And we have no idea if they’re gonna deal well with this or not… or even wanna try…”
“Yeah. So?”
“I’m thinking we need to do some stuff to make damn sure that everybody under you is actually loyal to the Throne.”
“Such as?”
“I dunno. Really in-depth background checks, for starters. Hell, I’m not averse to the notion that they all have to sit in that lie-detector chair like the Imperial Guard used on the perps who assassinated Vash Medved, when they swear oath to the Throne…”
“The IPD Headquarters didn’t even have one… for obvious reasons, I guess,” Carter noted.
“We did and do, and we use it when needed,” Maia Peterson said. “Meaning us in ICPD. But I think that maybe our usual aftermath isn’t quite what Stefan Gorski told me about, from that case.”
“Uh, no, ma’am,” Ashton affirmed, vehement. “Not hardly.”
“Should I ask?” Ames wondered, concerned.
Ashton paused, staring at the floor. Finally he nodded and drew a deep breath.
“Since one of the perps they had dead to rights with DNA evidence,” he said, “when she balked at answering the interrogation questions, the Empress – who was sitting with us, watching – ordered the answers drugged out of her.” He sighed. “The perp fought it the whole way. They had to keep using stronger and stronger stuff on her until it broke her. And about the time they got
