Update 12: Good Cop, Bad Cop
- Location
- Back in the 90s (In a very famous TV show)
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Ve/Ver
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"Author's" Notes: I've been sitting on the Deads for a bit, the informal de facto police autocracies to have formed in a few major cities and their surrounding areas. I went to watch the TV show Brooklyn Nine-Nine for the first time on an unrelated note. I've only seen the first episode, so it might well get better or less unsettling as the series goes on. However, I was astonished at the callousness and levity with which the police officers went about a very consequential job.
For example, in the first episode, wisecracking lead Jake Peralta and seeming love interest Gina Linetti have a competition to see who can get more arrests. Given the fact that an arrest in the US prison system often means lengthy jail time and coerced labor in inhumane conditions, and that not even Wholesome Supercop Jake Peralta can ensure every arrest is entirely justified, it struck me as sick to create a game out of ruining lives. I'm probably going to watch more of the show, so don't think of this as a dig at Brooklyn Nine-Nine, but that first episode's copagandistic qualities did inspire this piece in part.
CW: This one hints at some pretty dark stuff involving power, torture, and abuse of power. Be advised before reading. Unlike one of my other works, American Intoxicants, I try and keep this stuff from getting too graphic, so hopefully this CW will be enough. This isn't meant to be nearly as edgy a fic as that one.
Aiah Hirsch stretched their arms behind their head as they lay on the therapist's couch. "So, do you want to hear about all my trauma?" they asked. They were dressed like a Cthulhurotic, but they weren't interested in the kink. They just were in love with the archetype of the noir detective, even after it all.
Dr. Erica Bishop crossed one nylon-covered leg over the other. She wore heels, and Aiah approved. Nothing like the classic femme-fatale, they thought. "Well, let's start with what you're comfortable with." Her pen pressed against the corners of her black lips. She spoke with a Texan accent, but a curt and aristocratic form of one.
"Well, my mom was a big neo-grunge musician and druggie, my sister converted to Islam and was killed on a trip to visit her girlfriend in Miami territory, my dad was a lawyer who focused on work to avoid being in the same room as my bipolar mom, and I was a cop—NYPD. Detective Aiah Hirsch, I had a badge.
"I'm not mad at my mom anymore, though. She's in a psych ward, but the New York state government under the Reds is good about making sure those aren't too bad. I know she was just...off, that she had a problem. She had her demons, you know? We all do. I know she can't take back Khadija, Beck, and I seeing her in hospitals after overdoses and attempts. I know she can't take back the misery and fear she gave us, the growing sense that we might not get to grow old with our mom. She was an awful mother, but I don't think she had the capacity to be anything else." Aiah sighed. "Oh, and I'm nonbinary. They/them," they hastily appended.
Dr. Bishop gave a nod. "Well, first, I want to validate that you're thinking with a lot of wisdom right now. It's clear that you're seeing all sides of things, and that you're giving her compassion. Was taking care of your mother Kira the reason you stopped being a cop?" she asked.
"I could have joined the Citizen's Militia, but even with the vast reworking of that system to make it in any way palatable it's still police work. It isn't absolute power over life and death anymore, and it sure isn't a racist jackboot, but even with all the effort to make it as humane and subject to checks and balances as any other governmental office it's still police work. It's still enforcing laws, even if there's different and less laws than there used to be, enforced in different ways. They say eventually even the Citizen's Militia cops will wither away. I just didn't want to be a cop. Honestly, I don't think most people who want to be a cop enough to go through police academy should be a cop."
"Oh? Why do you say that?" Dr. Bishop asked.
"I did things in the NYPD I can't take back, and I was one of the good cops. The system's fucked, like the commies and progressives said before the civil war. I wasn't a Red then, but power is something you have to keep a close eye on, and the NYPD had almost absolute power and nobody watching us."
"Hey, I'm Benji, and this is Adalwolfa," ve heard the man in the room say. He was slender, a redhead with freckles, and toying with one of the loops of his belt. Pyrite Morreo felt ver body pushed into a hard plastic chair. The room was white, and the anarcho-punk rocker in ver disdain looked up at the two pigs. In contrast to the John Mulaney-esque man, the woman was hard-bitten and tall, either a stone butch or a German. By the name, ve assumed she was German.
"Detective Cross and Captain Botsch," Adalwolfa said. Her hair was white streaks on onyx.
"I dunno, that seems a little formal, doesn't it?" Benji said, in a voice that reminded Pyrite of a less funny John Mulaney. "Nice to meet ya." He gave a little wave.
"Shut up, pig," Pyrite snarled. "Long live the Commune."
"Oh, you think you're a jokester, huh?" Benji said, sounding exactly like John Mulaney.
"I'm a musician," Pyrite said.
"Well, we have an office betting pool," Benji said. "We all bet on which detective is going to get the most convictions by the end of the year. Everyone's putting their money on Madeline Albright, the cowboy drug buster who doesn't play by the rules, but I put all my money on myself!"
"Are you an idiot?" Pyrite asked. Adalwolfa glared at ver.
"I'm not an idiot, I'm just extremely drunk!" he said, as ve realized he was slurring his words. Ve thought about a line ve could think of involving John Mulaney, but ve came to the conclusion that it was a bit tasteless.
Ve turned to Adalwolfa. "Is he always like this?" ve asked.
"Unfortunately, yes. With the swell in the ranks of the NYPD under the Police Protection Zone, we've had to recruit more than a few eccentric geniuses and other weirdos," she said.
"Wonder what Callie thinks of this," Pyrite mused aloud.
"She can't stop us. We hold territory." Adalwolfa turned to Benji. "I tire of the anarchist's lip. Knife."
Benji gave an apologetic chuckle. "Whoops, I guess you're about to meet your maker!" he said.
"Are you John Mulaney's evil clone?" Pyrite blurted out.
"I can make you into horse feed," he said, punching ver twice in the nose. It snapped. "Sounds like you've got a few things to learn about the law!" he laughed. Nobody else in the room did.
Two women sat in an interrogation room. One wore her makeup perfect, her blonde hair curled, and her FBI jacket proudly. The other wore a red sweatshirt. "Look, I don't want to do this," Special Agent Lottie Cross said.
"I know the coke was placed on me, you pig bitch," Emily Mendez hissed.
"You don't get it. Do you know how this system works? Everything's based on arrests and looking out for each other. The system's meant so there's more arrests and incarcerations than there needs to be."
"Yes, I know how the carceral state works," Emily mumbled. "So, what, I'm going to prison for drug possession?" she asked.
"You're going to prison for being a communist, we just needed an excuse." Lottie sighed. "The point of justice is to keep people from doing things against society. That's what cops, the FBI, what we all do."
Emily drummed her fingers against the table. "Look, can I get out of your obviously bullshit system?" she asked.
Lottie nodded. "Yeah. I'd be pretty cruel if we just did this to you without giving you an out." Lottie was another one of the good cops. When she framed someone, she gave them the chance to recant their "free" speech. "Just go on TV, tell the Gen Xers that you were found innocent, that you've changed your mind on this whole communism thing, and that you want to get back to making a difference the right way. We'll film it ahead of time. That's all you need to do, and I'll let you go."
Emily sighed. "Hey, I'll do it, but only if you answer one question for me. I...I appreciate that you're giving me this out. It's bullshit, but the NYPD would just shoot me for being socialist."
"Well, President Anderson has a slightly higher amount of morals than the NYPD—slightly—and we answer to her. Do you think I like this job? Making people's lives miserable sucks. I drink myself half to death after work daily. It's just this or anarchy. There's no other options. So, yeah, what's your question?"
"How did you become...this?" Emily asked. "Morally, I mean. What brought you to this point?"
"My dad was a cop, neglectful, shitty, transphobic, and I wanted to be the kind of cop that Sam Cross never could have been. I studied, I joined the FBI, and I found my place in the world. I'm a survivor, I've had to survive. There isn't much room for utopias when it comes to that."
Emily's face softened. "Don't you dream of a better world?"
"Sure, then I wake..." She stopped herself.
Emily gave it some thought. "Where are you from?"
"I'm from California, but I moved to New York to be with a boyfriend. We're not together anymore."
"Do you have anyone here?" Emily asked.
"No, I'm not really the kind of person who makes close friends," Lottie said.
"The New York Commune's gone, but there are Red-controlled areas across the country. There's a big Red blob in Seattle." An idea entered Emily's desperate brain, in hopes that she wouldn't have to humiliate herself on camera.
Lottie Cross was obviously less than heroic, but Emily found her in that moment to be worthy of pity. "Let's go upstate, find a plane, go to Seattle. Come on, don't you want to be a good person, to fight for something worth fighting for?" Emily asked.
The only way for me to be a good person is to stop, Lottie thought. Framing a kid? What the fuck is wrong with me? Lottie gave it some more moments of thought. It'll get me away from Benji, at least. "Is there booze with the Reds?"
"Yeah, lots," Emily said.
"Long live the revolution," she forced herself to whisper.
When Lottie got of the private plane from Buffalo, Emily walking next to her, she heard her phone ring. "Hey, Maxine," she said. It was a nice phone, a Nokia Blackberry with a touch screen. "I put in my two-weeks notice. I'm in Seattle."
She heard the aging woman cough in her wheelchair. "Where are we going to get another FBI Liasion?" she asked.
"Ask Boston," Lottie said, hanging up and deleting the number. What the fuck am I doing? she asked herself. I followed a stranger across the country to Red territory. What am I, an idiot? she thought.
Then, Emily held her hand, and Lottie saw that everyone was armed and getting along.
Well, if they have the Second Amendment, they can't be that bad, she thought.
Emily held her hand, and wondered why she was so comfortable with this. Her mom was NYPD. Emily had figurative scars: bad wife, bad mother, bad job, bad person.
"Thank you so much for leaving," Emily said, fighting the urge to tear up.
A very confused Lottie gave a nod. "...I guess."
Emily hugged her. Unlike Officer Mendez, this cop wouldn't hurt anyone else.
If she ever does relapse, I'll kill her, Emily thought.
As Pyrite Morreo drove in ver hotwired car as far as ve could get from New York, ve wore nothing. Benji had stripped ver. Benji had hurt ver. Benji was about to kill ver. Ve had his scars across ver belly and sides.
Benji.
Ve drove like a maniac, and ve already felt as though ve was half-crazy. Anyone would be.
Anyone who got to know Benji Cross, at least. He was a creature of the absurd.
For example, in the first episode, wisecracking lead Jake Peralta and seeming love interest Gina Linetti have a competition to see who can get more arrests. Given the fact that an arrest in the US prison system often means lengthy jail time and coerced labor in inhumane conditions, and that not even Wholesome Supercop Jake Peralta can ensure every arrest is entirely justified, it struck me as sick to create a game out of ruining lives. I'm probably going to watch more of the show, so don't think of this as a dig at Brooklyn Nine-Nine, but that first episode's copagandistic qualities did inspire this piece in part.
CW: This one hints at some pretty dark stuff involving power, torture, and abuse of power. Be advised before reading. Unlike one of my other works, American Intoxicants, I try and keep this stuff from getting too graphic, so hopefully this CW will be enough. This isn't meant to be nearly as edgy a fic as that one.
Aiah Hirsch stretched their arms behind their head as they lay on the therapist's couch. "So, do you want to hear about all my trauma?" they asked. They were dressed like a Cthulhurotic, but they weren't interested in the kink. They just were in love with the archetype of the noir detective, even after it all.
Dr. Erica Bishop crossed one nylon-covered leg over the other. She wore heels, and Aiah approved. Nothing like the classic femme-fatale, they thought. "Well, let's start with what you're comfortable with." Her pen pressed against the corners of her black lips. She spoke with a Texan accent, but a curt and aristocratic form of one.
"Well, my mom was a big neo-grunge musician and druggie, my sister converted to Islam and was killed on a trip to visit her girlfriend in Miami territory, my dad was a lawyer who focused on work to avoid being in the same room as my bipolar mom, and I was a cop—NYPD. Detective Aiah Hirsch, I had a badge.
"I'm not mad at my mom anymore, though. She's in a psych ward, but the New York state government under the Reds is good about making sure those aren't too bad. I know she was just...off, that she had a problem. She had her demons, you know? We all do. I know she can't take back Khadija, Beck, and I seeing her in hospitals after overdoses and attempts. I know she can't take back the misery and fear she gave us, the growing sense that we might not get to grow old with our mom. She was an awful mother, but I don't think she had the capacity to be anything else." Aiah sighed. "Oh, and I'm nonbinary. They/them," they hastily appended.
Dr. Bishop gave a nod. "Well, first, I want to validate that you're thinking with a lot of wisdom right now. It's clear that you're seeing all sides of things, and that you're giving her compassion. Was taking care of your mother Kira the reason you stopped being a cop?" she asked.
"I could have joined the Citizen's Militia, but even with the vast reworking of that system to make it in any way palatable it's still police work. It isn't absolute power over life and death anymore, and it sure isn't a racist jackboot, but even with all the effort to make it as humane and subject to checks and balances as any other governmental office it's still police work. It's still enforcing laws, even if there's different and less laws than there used to be, enforced in different ways. They say eventually even the Citizen's Militia cops will wither away. I just didn't want to be a cop. Honestly, I don't think most people who want to be a cop enough to go through police academy should be a cop."
"Oh? Why do you say that?" Dr. Bishop asked.
"I did things in the NYPD I can't take back, and I was one of the good cops. The system's fucked, like the commies and progressives said before the civil war. I wasn't a Red then, but power is something you have to keep a close eye on, and the NYPD had almost absolute power and nobody watching us."
"Hey, I'm Benji, and this is Adalwolfa," ve heard the man in the room say. He was slender, a redhead with freckles, and toying with one of the loops of his belt. Pyrite Morreo felt ver body pushed into a hard plastic chair. The room was white, and the anarcho-punk rocker in ver disdain looked up at the two pigs. In contrast to the John Mulaney-esque man, the woman was hard-bitten and tall, either a stone butch or a German. By the name, ve assumed she was German.
"Detective Cross and Captain Botsch," Adalwolfa said. Her hair was white streaks on onyx.
"I dunno, that seems a little formal, doesn't it?" Benji said, in a voice that reminded Pyrite of a less funny John Mulaney. "Nice to meet ya." He gave a little wave.
"Shut up, pig," Pyrite snarled. "Long live the Commune."
"Oh, you think you're a jokester, huh?" Benji said, sounding exactly like John Mulaney.
"I'm a musician," Pyrite said.
"Well, we have an office betting pool," Benji said. "We all bet on which detective is going to get the most convictions by the end of the year. Everyone's putting their money on Madeline Albright, the cowboy drug buster who doesn't play by the rules, but I put all my money on myself!"
"Are you an idiot?" Pyrite asked. Adalwolfa glared at ver.
"I'm not an idiot, I'm just extremely drunk!" he said, as ve realized he was slurring his words. Ve thought about a line ve could think of involving John Mulaney, but ve came to the conclusion that it was a bit tasteless.
Ve turned to Adalwolfa. "Is he always like this?" ve asked.
"Unfortunately, yes. With the swell in the ranks of the NYPD under the Police Protection Zone, we've had to recruit more than a few eccentric geniuses and other weirdos," she said.
"Wonder what Callie thinks of this," Pyrite mused aloud.
"She can't stop us. We hold territory." Adalwolfa turned to Benji. "I tire of the anarchist's lip. Knife."
Benji gave an apologetic chuckle. "Whoops, I guess you're about to meet your maker!" he said.
"Are you John Mulaney's evil clone?" Pyrite blurted out.
"I can make you into horse feed," he said, punching ver twice in the nose. It snapped. "Sounds like you've got a few things to learn about the law!" he laughed. Nobody else in the room did.
Two women sat in an interrogation room. One wore her makeup perfect, her blonde hair curled, and her FBI jacket proudly. The other wore a red sweatshirt. "Look, I don't want to do this," Special Agent Lottie Cross said.
"I know the coke was placed on me, you pig bitch," Emily Mendez hissed.
"You don't get it. Do you know how this system works? Everything's based on arrests and looking out for each other. The system's meant so there's more arrests and incarcerations than there needs to be."
"Yes, I know how the carceral state works," Emily mumbled. "So, what, I'm going to prison for drug possession?" she asked.
"You're going to prison for being a communist, we just needed an excuse." Lottie sighed. "The point of justice is to keep people from doing things against society. That's what cops, the FBI, what we all do."
Emily drummed her fingers against the table. "Look, can I get out of your obviously bullshit system?" she asked.
Lottie nodded. "Yeah. I'd be pretty cruel if we just did this to you without giving you an out." Lottie was another one of the good cops. When she framed someone, she gave them the chance to recant their "free" speech. "Just go on TV, tell the Gen Xers that you were found innocent, that you've changed your mind on this whole communism thing, and that you want to get back to making a difference the right way. We'll film it ahead of time. That's all you need to do, and I'll let you go."
Emily sighed. "Hey, I'll do it, but only if you answer one question for me. I...I appreciate that you're giving me this out. It's bullshit, but the NYPD would just shoot me for being socialist."
"Well, President Anderson has a slightly higher amount of morals than the NYPD—slightly—and we answer to her. Do you think I like this job? Making people's lives miserable sucks. I drink myself half to death after work daily. It's just this or anarchy. There's no other options. So, yeah, what's your question?"
"How did you become...this?" Emily asked. "Morally, I mean. What brought you to this point?"
"My dad was a cop, neglectful, shitty, transphobic, and I wanted to be the kind of cop that Sam Cross never could have been. I studied, I joined the FBI, and I found my place in the world. I'm a survivor, I've had to survive. There isn't much room for utopias when it comes to that."
Emily's face softened. "Don't you dream of a better world?"
"Sure, then I wake..." She stopped herself.
Emily gave it some thought. "Where are you from?"
"I'm from California, but I moved to New York to be with a boyfriend. We're not together anymore."
"Do you have anyone here?" Emily asked.
"No, I'm not really the kind of person who makes close friends," Lottie said.
"The New York Commune's gone, but there are Red-controlled areas across the country. There's a big Red blob in Seattle." An idea entered Emily's desperate brain, in hopes that she wouldn't have to humiliate herself on camera.
Lottie Cross was obviously less than heroic, but Emily found her in that moment to be worthy of pity. "Let's go upstate, find a plane, go to Seattle. Come on, don't you want to be a good person, to fight for something worth fighting for?" Emily asked.
The only way for me to be a good person is to stop, Lottie thought. Framing a kid? What the fuck is wrong with me? Lottie gave it some more moments of thought. It'll get me away from Benji, at least. "Is there booze with the Reds?"
"Yeah, lots," Emily said.
"Long live the revolution," she forced herself to whisper.
When Lottie got of the private plane from Buffalo, Emily walking next to her, she heard her phone ring. "Hey, Maxine," she said. It was a nice phone, a Nokia Blackberry with a touch screen. "I put in my two-weeks notice. I'm in Seattle."
She heard the aging woman cough in her wheelchair. "Where are we going to get another FBI Liasion?" she asked.
"Ask Boston," Lottie said, hanging up and deleting the number. What the fuck am I doing? she asked herself. I followed a stranger across the country to Red territory. What am I, an idiot? she thought.
Then, Emily held her hand, and Lottie saw that everyone was armed and getting along.
Well, if they have the Second Amendment, they can't be that bad, she thought.
Emily held her hand, and wondered why she was so comfortable with this. Her mom was NYPD. Emily had figurative scars: bad wife, bad mother, bad job, bad person.
"Thank you so much for leaving," Emily said, fighting the urge to tear up.
A very confused Lottie gave a nod. "...I guess."
Emily hugged her. Unlike Officer Mendez, this cop wouldn't hurt anyone else.
If she ever does relapse, I'll kill her, Emily thought.
As Pyrite Morreo drove in ver hotwired car as far as ve could get from New York, ve wore nothing. Benji had stripped ver. Benji had hurt ver. Benji was about to kill ver. Ve had his scars across ver belly and sides.
Benji.
Ve drove like a maniac, and ve already felt as though ve was half-crazy. Anyone would be.
Anyone who got to know Benji Cross, at least. He was a creature of the absurd.
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