The First Age

In Drayson's line of work, there was no shortage of paperwork. Requests for his personal seal of approval on an emergency acquisition or expense request. Warrants for arrests, searches, surveillance. Updates on cases of interest he was tracking; internal investigations, politicians or the social elite, serial killers, domestic terrorists. And of course the investigations of task force Domovoi. The serial rapist, and the more recent case, which had involved the task force's own ace-in-the-hole, Officer Sarkozy in the Izmailovsky Market. That had caused quite the uproar.

Among all the things that required his attention, there were two Voluntary Release memos that had somehow made it all the way to his desk. Two officers, both with years of experience and few, if any, black marks on their records, had put in the memos within days of each other. They were a few months old already, and had likely been purposefully bogged down in the system in an attempt by their leadership to keep the officers on the force. It was a detestable passive-aggressive way of making such requests disappear, hoping the member would either have a change of heart, or just loose hope and accept that they weren't getting out.

The curious thing of the two memos was the reasons for the members wanting to release from the CDPS. They were from different precincts, and by all indications did not directly know each other. Their requests were days apart, but both sited the same reason. Both members sought to move to Africa. Morocco, to be exact. To join that security company that had been so boldly emblazoned on the headlines in the opening days of that violent rebellion in DV months ago.

He was aware of their ongoing involvement in Sierra Leone, and of their CEO's public address that had followed the start of the civil war there. In the end, he could find no reason to deny the two officers' requests, and gave them his approval before forwarding them back to their respective chains of command.

As for the attack at the market...a talk with Officer Sarkozy was in order. Domovoi was slow to gain traction on the investigation, despite how public a scene it had been. Even that old market had security cameras, and there had been plenty of witnesses. Domovoi had no shortage of resources at their disposal, and should have been able to at least identify the culprit by now.

He sipped at a mug of terrible office coffee, then set it carefully aside to keep it clear of his terminal, and sat back. He had been forced to leave Victoria on rather short notice in light of that incident, rushing to the scene to oversee the deployment of Domovoi and how well it worked. He hadn't been disappointed at the time, but thus far there had seemed to be a lack of progress in the case.

There was also the matter of the recent release of Artair Nevin, the head bodyguard of Privilege Alkaev's son, Rurik. Drayson had personally arrested the man when the fellow had been foolish enough to draw a weapon on him on Rurik's orders. The man's trial hadn't even begun yet, but he had been released on some drummed up technicality. Perhaps it was time he gave the Alkaev's another reminder of why they were supposed to be more careful about their rampant corruption. It was to be expected, and generally ignored, by law enforcement, and even he was willing to turn a blind eye. But they kept being sloppy about it.

Paperwork. There was never any shortage of it, it seemed. Although to be fair, there wasn't really much paper involved these days. Consciously, he was aware how much more efficient the various holographic screens that crowded the air around his desk where a more traditional monitor would have sat, but at the same time he preferred the tactile sense of doing things in a more physical manner. And of course, being able to physically see how much work was left, and how much had been completed already was its own source of motivation.

He paused briefly, sitting back in his chair to sip a cup of cold coffee, and waved his hands in the air somewhat more robotic then a person more comfortable with the screens might have. New screens popped up; reports out of other Dominances that had key words flagged as of interest to him. Most were mundane; the origin place of a new designer drug that had been popping up in DI was being tracked down in DIV. Alkaev's son had popped up again finally, home in DIII; the boy had been laying low, likely waiting on his head of security to get out of jail. Flagged for dangerous driving, but of course there had been no charges laid.

An American, who was banned travel to the CCD, was believed to be back in DV. Facial recognition and audio identification software had flagged Derrick Schwartz, formerly Ahmad al-Hamoud, in the region formerly known as Kuwait, his old stomping grounds. If it proved true, it would cause no shortage of issues, but the presence of foreign fighters was nothing new. The uprising had lost some of it's initial religious overtures, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but the fighting was still bloody, and their social media campaigns were gaining some ground painting the violent extremists as 'freedom fighters.' It was often disheartening to think of how circular time seemed to be. Forty years later, and nothing had really changed.

Those reports were moved aside. He would peruse them later, perhaps assign some resources to try and track any others, Minutemen or otherwise, that had entered the area in recent weeks. His focus shifted back to Dominance I, his legal jurisdiction. Further reports on ongoing investigations, internal investigations on the CDPDS, secret investigations into the internal affairs office tasked to route out corruption in the police force.

The attack on the cafe he had been at with Torri, scant minutes after his departure kept coming back to mind. The attacker had been in the restaurant, even then, and he had missed it. He had been distracted. Understandably so, perhaps, but it was no excuse. His man there had taken control of the scene quickly, however. Over all, things had been managed about as well as could have been expected, and further justified the Domovoi task force.

He stared at the reports, then sighed quietly and picked up his Wallet, thumbing through the various screens before sending Victoria a simple text message. A cowardly move on his part, perhaps. Rather then phoning her directly, he was relying on a text message of all things. Foolish. But of course, she, like him, was likely at work. A modest request for another lunch meet some time, when she was available of course.