The nights seemed to grow longer and longer with each shift I worked. I was an LAPD officer straight out of the academy. The name’s Regen Macintosh. I graduated with honors in all categories, aced my tests, and I was buddies with all my instructors … yet there I was, sitting in a parked Vista bored out of my mind. My training officer, Philly wasn’t much help – the guy popped sleeping pills every night before we even left the station garage. I was tired of it already. I hadn’t been out of the academy two weeks, and I already started questioning whether or not I was right in the mind joining the LAPD.

The filth of the city gets to you fast. There’re things that happen in the middle of the night that no one should see – or even know about for that matter. Last night I spent twenty minutes in the pouring rain with a guy who had been stabbed in the gut. I could hear the medivista’s siren just a few blocks away when the guys gut split open from the pressure, spilling all thirty feet of his small intestines into the gutter, which the rain then swept into a storm drain. Luckily for him, the intestines were still attached to his body, so I was able to retrieve them from the drain. I remember feeling extremely numb while carefully fishing out the never-ending entrails. Then, a jolt of energy that could power a vista for a month shot through my chest – there was a dark figure climbing up toward me from the bottom of the drain. I tore away as fast as I could and returned to the injured man. I felt bad for him. It’s not every day that a stranger piles your own intestines on your chest, and tells you it’s going to be okay.

The rain was hypnotizing as it trickled down the glass of my squad vista, blurring the lights of the neon city. It blanketed the interior from the outside with its smoky, blue tint – the dirty rain was just one of the remnants from Decimation Day. I kept the smoke-shield wipers going so I, too, didn’t doze off; I heard stories in the academy about officers who fell asleep on duty and never woke up … the people in this city are animals. It truly is every man for himself in today’s world.

The computer suddenly came alive with bright LCD light and the radio blarred a long, loud BEEEEEP. I started the vista and prepared to slam it into gear if we were called. Philly was sound asleep. I waited as the radio fell silent for a moment – it was this moment that everyone held their breath … unlike a regular 507 or 415, the long beep was the dispatcher’s way of calling everyone’s attention … it was this moment that decided your fate for the night. The system was a bit out of date … definitely an oldie but goodie. The new police vistas did away with the old CAD system, replacing it with what was called the AID One, or Artificial Intelligence Dispatch. And then it began.

“Alameda to 23, 24, 25, bravo 20 and K9-2, signal 10-71 and 0 in progress at the WorldTime Tower,” Eloise, the dispatcher, called. One nice thing about getting called was Eloise’s voice; it wasn’t like the homeless bag lady’s hoarse voice or the high-pitched hooker’s voices on Sunset Boulevard, it was normal. It wasn’t like the AID One or A.I. around the city, there was emotion, a sense of humor, honesty, and empathy.

I didn’t bother waking Philly … figured the ride there would toss him around a bit.
“10-4 Alameda, 23I slammed the stick into first, hit the siren, and the vista lifted off the slippery street – emergency vehicles were capable of hovering seven feet above surface streets, allowing us to navigate safely through traffic. I spun the wheel, slammed the throttle, and sped over the street toward the WorldTime Tower looming over the horizon of buildings.

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