Persuasion

“I really can’t have more than one beer, I need to write a story later” Neil said.

“You’ve written like 50 stories and had only 1 professionally published.Unless you do something different, you’ll be using your talents to write toasts for my retirement party in a few years.” Marcus slurred

“I got a few good ones ready. What’s so wrong with that?”

“What if the reason your stories don’t sell is because you don’t have the emotional honesty people want? What if you could fix that?” Marcus asked smiling

“How would I ever do that?”

“Easy bro. Just have a few more beers. In Vino Veritas, with a few more drinks you’ll be able to tell your truth”

***

Inspector Gravel looked over the corpses of Mr and Mrs Windsor.

“Pretty f*ckin clear cut murder suicide?” He asked

“Yeah.. He bought the gun on the way home. He paid with his credit card. He was caught on the store's security camera. Obviously the lab techs will verify if the bullets all came from his gun, but I’d bet a days pay they do”  replied Jenkins

“You’d waste a days pay on ugly strippers.. You betting a days pay is a low bar.” Gravel replied.

“I spent my money on what makes me happy… Which is why I’m not willing to bet more than a days pay on anything related this case. These didn’t look like the sort of wretches who do murder suicide stuff. Everything about this apartment says loving duel income no kids lifestyle.They seem to be bohemians who gave up some potential income to be ‘arty’ but I’d wager if they were having real money problems at least one of them has a rich relative who can bail them out.”

“Yeah… but everyone has their f*cked up tragedies, and we don’t have time to figure them all out. we’ll give it a quick look over to see if we can find a smoking gun… other than that one ” Gravel ordered gesturing at the gun on the floor.

Jenkins and Gavel looked through the apartment.

“No bills or letters giving a clear motive. Also no condoms or birth control pills in the bedroom or bathroom, so either one is sterile or they’re trying for a kid.” Jenkins said

“Any psychotropic medicine?” Gravel asked as he used the deceased's face to unlock his phone.

“I may be black but I ain’t stupid. I’d have mentioned it if there was… unless it was real fun stuff in which case I’d have pocketed it to sell in da’hood later”

“My f*cking apologies… He worked for Appletree publishing as a junior editor… here’s the manuscript he was reviewing…what do you think of it? does it make you want to go home and kill your girlfriend?” Gravel said, passing the phone to Jenkins. Jenkins read it as Gravel hacked the wifes smartphone.

“It seems to be saying that western civilization is doomed because white people aren’t having enough babies, but with all kinds of poetic language and clever literary allegories. Lot’s of white supremacists are saying that; I’m a cop. I talked to a white supremacist or two in my time, so I’ve heard it before”

“And what do you think of it?” Gravel asked curiously

“They might be right about that being a problem. Pretty sure it’s not the fault of some Jewish conspiracy though, seeing as Jews are having even fewer kids than normal white folk” Jenkins said with a shrug.

“The wife seems to have made most of her money teaching paint nites and children's art camps. She exchanged flirty e-mails with several (female) colleagues. If the politicians demand a full scale investigation, that’s probably where we’ll start.

***

“WHOOSE TRIP TRAMPING OVER MY BRIDGE! “ was what Darlene heard as she followed the bike path home. The bike path wasn’t super safe, it was isolated and far from help… but it shouldn’t have been that dangerous either. She was like the only woman who walked home on the bike path after dark. What sane rapist or mugger would hunt where there was no prey?

“It’s I, the little billy goat gruff!” she replied, playing along. If this was someone trying to be playful no need to make them an enemy by treating them as one.

“I SERVE THE GOD EMPEROR! HAIL TRUMP god help me HAIL victory? HAIL OUR PEOPLE!!” something screamed scrambling unto the bridge.

Oh god. Darlene wished she had a gun, or even car keys she could use to hit harder. What she did have was a childhood of gymnastics training and a boyfriend who made her watch action movies with him. As he approached she front flipped, curled her body tights and suddenly stretched out throwing her weight, core strength and leg strength into kicking her opponent in the head. 

If he responded perfectly he could catch her legs, kick her in the head and knock the fight out of her. Men who respond to challenges perfectly either have multiple women in love with them or enough money to hire prostitutes. Either way they have no need to commit rape.

His head swung back and he fell on the bike path. Darlene dialed 911 “ I think I just performed a citizen's arrest. He needs medical help! Please send an ambulance!!!!” she shrieked into the phone.

***

“Look I personally think you’re f*cking insane and need to be in an institution, not prision. My buddy Jenkins thinks your a criminal-” Gavel explained

“But I don’t know what kind of crime. If this was a just a silly prank… it would still be Assault because you gave a nice taxpaying woman legitimate reason to think you’d hurt her illegally… but assault has no mandatory minimum penalty, so a judge that likes you could set you free next week” Jenkins interjected

“ So if you’d just tell us what was going through your mind I could start processing you and get the help you need” Gavel said.

“Or I could process you and you could use your phone call to book a week's sick leave with your boss and make sure you still have a job when this is done.” Jenkins concluded.

“ I am but a figment of the Troll Army, conjured by the green dragon energy of the god emperor. To live under bridges and eat billy goats is what trolls do? You can’t arrest me for following my nature, any more than you arrest black men for lusting after pure white women. That would be racist. Can I Have my call now? I want to tell Appletree publishing I might miss a few days awaiting bail.” the ‘troll’ said. Jenkins and Gavel exchanged a glance at the mention of Appletree publishing.

***

“F*ck. Ok this is weird but it seems as though we’re being asked to inspect your work place because 2 employees went violently insane in the last week” Gavel said.

“I trust you have a warrant?” the security guard demanded

“We don’t actually need one because this is an office space where no one has any reasonable expectation of privacy… don’t you learn that in guard training?” Jenkins asked.

“I wish. I swear guard training was the worst 700$ I every spent they made me watch the same 10 stupid youtube videos 10 times each… If I just showed up to my math test sober I could have gone to the police academy and learned real law!”

“If I patented the machine I saw in a f*cked dream I had when I was your age, I’d be getting royalties for every modern tractor sold. All of us miss opportunities son” Gavel replied as the guard summoned the Editor.

The chief editor led them inside past the welcome sign “Hate has no place here; please leave your racism, transphobia, and Homophobia outside to die”

“We’re a unionized shop. If anything was amiss in our safety protocols it would be the Union representatives job to investigate the problem, so I’m very surprised to see a police detective here investigating  potential workplace injuries?” the Editor said.

“You’re f*cking right it would be the union reps job to investigate this… it may save time if I could talk to him or her and compare notes…” Gavel said.

“Oooohhh uh She’s off. Uhhhh. She’s dealing with an uhhhmm personal emergency” Editor replied

“Hehe from your awkwardness this emergency is embarrassing. Is she getting an abortion or marrying the father?” Jenkins asked

“Well uhhhmmm. Would you like to see her vacation request form?”

Gavel and Jenkins both nodded assent and followed him into an office. Form said “pay me or don’t for the next 2 weeks I don’t care. I just really need to go on a bender” and it was signed with a kiss.

“Well that is f*cking… informative” Gavel replied.

“I think we have a pretty solid pattern” Jenkins said

“Gas leaks can cause psychological effects… Do I need to worry about a gas leak?” the Editor asked

“I don’t think so” Gavel replied, looking around the cubical farm through the door. “They’d cause a lot of other health problems before insanity, your workers seem as healthy as you can expect for people who don’t exercise enough.”

“Military contractors claimed to have PTSD from things they saw on computer screens, could one of the books you're working on be traumatizing your workers?”Jenkins asked

“Not likely. All my staff have literary degrees. I don’t know how familiar you are with classical literature, but anyone who can’t handle descriptions or rape, torture or death would have a hard time getting through Shakespeare .”

“F*ck. What about workplace bullying or harassment?” Gavel asked

“We have an absolute ban on racist or sexist speech. We purchased a top quality AI to flag and censor and sort of racist or sexist speech from corporate email. The closest thing we had to a racism complaint was someone asking Human resources to referee an argument about whether it was ok for them to wish Jews a merry christmas. “ Editor said in a near panic.

“Merry f*cking christmas?”

“Nah man. I’m spending christmas with Lucy. I broke up with Mary”

“F*ck me. There’s no obvious problem. I hope you don’t mind if we wander around a few minutes to see if we see leads” Gavel asked. The Editor nodded nervously.

***

“So what should we say in the report?” Jenkins asked.

“You can say whatever the f*ck you want. I will say that I have verified that the outbreak is not caused by any illegal activity”

“How did you verify that? We’ve no idea what caused the issue””

“f*ck you. I totally do.”

“ What then?”

“The story Mr Windsor was reviewing.”

“We both read it and neither of us is crazy”

“You might be mentally healthy. I’m f*cked by an unhealthy compulsion to swear every g*dd*mned minute or two. Do you know why?”

“You're angry with God that he didn’t make you as handsome as me?”

“You f*cking wish. I was raised by religious parent’s who wouldn’t let me be me. They wanted me to be this f*cking saint/angel. When I finally learnt I could just swear and get away with it it was so f*cking liberating I got addicted. If something kept from you, sometimes it hit’s extra hard when you get hit with it.”

“That doesn’t make sense. All of them were exposed to stories with rape, violence, etc. “

“But were they exposed to racism?”

“I think so… there’s racist element in Othello, and they all supposedly know shakespeare”

“f*ck. Ok. but that’s still not the same as Modern racism. If they are living in a bubble with computer firewalls keeping most racist ideas away from them and mental firewalls stopping them from taking racist ideas that do reach them seriously, then all the racist ideas would be completely new to them; and if they were forced to consider one seriously it could capture their mind like swear words captured mine”

“So should we stop the story from being published?”

“H*ll no! Lets say we do. Then all the people who are walled off from racist ideas stay walled off and grow more mentally brittle. If the ideas in the story reach them in 10 years they will have even less hope of fighting them off.”

“So they best thing we can do is nothing at all?”

“We’re the G*dd*mned government. Nothing is normally the best thing we can do.