I’m not a big music fan most of the time I ignore the scene but sometimes you hear sometime and it tunes you in. I remember seeing an interview with Excrement a few months ago.

“Your first disk in 2067”, the interviewer said, “was a 100 year old cover of the Beatle’s Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Farts Club Band. Then your second disk Fecal Incontinence, was 100% original matter. What was the inspiration behind this change?”

“To be honest, most of our earlier music was utter crap. We were being directed by our label IMP and we’d signed a 3 disk contract.”, said Brodi Brackenski (the lead singer).

“Is there anything you’d like to tell your fans about your third disk Hits the Fan?”

“We wanted to finish out our 3 disk contract quickly so all the band members recorded our bowel movements for a week and we gathered the feces in a big container. At the end of the week, we recorded dropping the contents of that container onto a big fan. We merged all the recordings into a 60 min track and our drummer got the idea of adding a hip hop beat. We passed it off to IMP telling them it was our third disk and they refused.”

“So how do you explain its popularity?”

“Well some hacker managed to download part of it and it became a hit. IMP came back to us at that point and accepted it as our third disk. Its still our best selling disk which pisses us off because IMP is making a killing selling it.”

I watch the news. It can tip me off to things about to go down, things that went down that might affect me and let me know what is known about things I’ve done or been involved in.

I heard 2 stories on the June 20th, one about Caribana and the other about tickets for Excrement. Sometimes I miss the one that will affect me. I thought Caribana was the one that was going to get me working overtime. Well unless I couldn’t get tickets to the concert then I might get stuck working security. The news didn’t mention the tickets were only available for sale in person and even though I wanted tickets my first reaction was to ask someone else to get them rather than figure out the details. Sometimes details save lives.

So now I got called in to a riot situation with a personal significance for me because I feel responsible for K-Bunny who I’d asked to get the tickets (even though she was going for herself anyways).

22 June 2072

“So how have you been?”, asked the police psychiatrist.

“What you really mean is how many deaths was Mazula responsible for during the riot?” I looked at the name plate on his desk, “Isn’t that right, Jerry?”

“Do you feel responsible?”, Jerry’s eyes moved back and forth between his name plate and me a few times.

“I’m not armed right now Jerry. Not that I couldn’t kill you without a weapon.”

“Do you feel responsible?”, he repeated.

“Mazula isn’t responsible for the lack of tactical training of the officer in charge of the squad he was assigned to nor the men in that squad. Mazula suggested a tactical option and before he could implement the tactic, the men started launching smoke grenades and opening fire with the shotguns.”

“And you felt like you needed to take charge?”, Jerry smirked. He seemed happy that I put a few sentences together in a row.

“Hesitation kills Jerry, if things would have gotten further out of hand more than just the rioters would have died.”

“Is it your job to decide who should die?”

“Mazula didn’t ask for the Stick-n-Shock™ rounds. He would have used gel rounds if given the option. He would have taken care of the rioters on the balcony himself.”

“Twelve people died. How does that make you feel?”, Jerry asked

“It pisses Mazula right bloody off. There are too many people selling hope. Hope to receive tickets, hope to life happily, hope to die in peace. They make people want things they can’t have, to believe if they try they will be rewarded. The reward for standing in line for tickets for those 12 people? Death.”

Jerry looked at me with a kind of blank look in his eyes. I guess I’d stunned him.

“Mazula’s gotta get back to work Jerry, its been fun. Say hello to your wife Alice for me.” Jerry’s eyes quickly looked to his picture frame and back.

Thanks Dwayne, that got him thinking…

The next day I needed Dwayne to run a plate for me to find out who Xa’s mystery woman is, damn I hate calling him at home. I should have thought of it sooner.

“Hello”, fragging luck. Monica.

“Umm, hi Monica. Is Dwayne in?”, I know I should have just hung up, she won’t pass the message or pass Dwayne the commlink.

“Oh, Mazula. He’s busy. He’s with the kids.”

“Oh, ok, maybe you could let him know Mazula called.”

“Ah, yeah, umm sure. I’ll let him know.”

Yeah, and I’ll win the Seattle death toll lottery.

15 March 2069
“Mazula, get your gear together we’re heading out.”, Chavez was the veteran officer, I’d been paired with a few weeks ago as a rookie to the force.

We headed toward the elevator and passed by this young man with a blond crew cut.

“Have you met Dwayne?”, asked Chavez.

“Hello Dwayne, Mazula is pleased to meet you.”, I said.

Dwayne laughed and looked at Chavez, “Does he always talk like this?”

“Far as I know.”

“Well Mazula, Dwayne likes a good laugh, see you round.”

We headed out got in the car and headed out on the streets. We’d been out for a while when Chavez seemed to catch sight of something out of the corner of his eye and he started following a Eurocar Westwind.

Chavez parked down an alley and I saw two mafia goons get out of the Eurocar.

“Stay in the car, Mazula. I’ll be back in 5 minutes.”, Chavez called back as he started away from the car.

I’m never very good at sitting and waiting, so few seconds later I was out of the car and heading into the back of the warehouse where Chavez had entered.

I had just opened the door when I heard the blonde mafia goon yell, “You stupid pig you put Tony’s nephew in jail. Don’t we pay you enough to look the other way?”

“But Louie, I didn’t know… if you can get me a ten thousand Nuyen or so, I can make the evidence disappear for you.”, Chavez had backed up a few steps.

“So it is about the money, what do you think Paulie?”, Louie asked the other goon. As Chavez took a quick glance towards Paulie, Louie drew his revolver, fired and hit Chavez right in the throat. Chavez fell to his knees, holding his throat with both hands.

Louie’s attention seemed to be drawn to me as Paulie approached Chavez, drew a gun and put it to his temple.

“This is business, just business”, said Louie as he lowered his revolver. He stared at me and I noticed his cross-eyes. “If you could use some extra money, you can contact Gianelli’s Pizzeria and ask for Louie. It would be wise to keep your mouth shut about this.”

“You’d better leave.”, I said as I lowered my Ruger. In a normal situation I would have acted, but Chavez had got himself into this and he was an arrogant ass. “Officer down. Officier down.”, I said into the commlink.

My superiors wouldn’t want to believe my story and I couldn’t show them the video I’d recorded. It would show me watching it happen and doing nothing. So I filed the report as a mistake in failing to call for backup in a surveillance of a drug deal.

I was partnered up with Dwayne a few weeks later.

Outpatient Progress Note – 22 June 2072 (09:30-09:44)

Current Medications:
– None listed.

Neuropsychiatric Evaluations:
– WAIS-XI (VCI 104 / PRI 110 / WMI 90 / PSI 92 / GAI 107 / fsIQ 98)
– MMPI-5R (HS 44 / D 51 / Hy 61 / Pd 66 / MF 75 / Pa 87 / Pt 34 / Sc 41 / Ma 67 / Si 42)
– FAVT-3 (Level 2 / IPV 4 / HRV 3)

Continues to express high levels of hostility and interpersonal sensitivity when challenged with meaningful questions about internal emotional states. This anger is paradoxically balanced by an intense sense of justice and anger at perceived violation of that standard, by the self or others.

Emergence of a new defense mechanism: implied threats clearly intended to deflect emotional content and place the interviewer on the defensive. This appears to have been pre-planned with intent as evidenced by the use of personal background information not generally available to patrol officers.

Treatment Plan:
– continue follow-up as tolerated / required by Internal Affairs.
– explore defense mechanisms indirectly by stimulating controlled emotional responses.
– review information security procedures with Internal Affairs
– test panic-button and suppression systems
– review medical profile for future use of anti-psychotic medications.