Investigating War

I’ve written and lost this piece before, you’d think I would remember to save often just in case there are technical difficulties but, it happens. So, we’re going to have to try and run this again….
Forgive the anthropomorphisms, but I felt the device too perfect to not exploit.
Here’s the follow up to the previous post “Premeditated.” It’s not quite everything I wanted it to be but I think it serves its purpose.
So, here we go.

About War

Investigator: Excuse me, officer, but could I have a moment of your time?

Peacekeeper: What is it?

Investigator: You’re a keeper of the peace, along the eastern wastes, right?

Peacekeeper: …

Investigator: I see you wear the blue boar emblem. And you carry the gold banner. That denotes the eastern wastes, right?

Peacekeeper: What do you want?

Investigator: I have a few questions about another keeper of the peace who also wears the boar.

Peacekeeper: Who are you?

Investigator: Of course, excuse my manners. Let me present to you the magistrate’s seal, and my mark of office as one of her investigators.

Peacekeeper: …

Investigator: Everything appear in order or do you need further documentation?

Peacekeeper: What do you want with me?

Investigator: The magistrate has taken a special interest in one of your fellow peacekeepers. I believe they call him War.

Peacekeeper: Oh, yeah? War’s been sayin’ they should give him a commendation. Been kickin’ [expletive] as of late. Well uh… sure, sure thing, I can put in a good word.

Investigator: Thank You. You’d say that War is a good peacekeeper?

Peacekeeper: Oh yeah. I mean, he knows the job, gets it done, enjoys it as much as somebody can, probably more than anybody else in our force, makes sure every one of us makes it back from the wastes in one piece.

Investigator: Any criticisms about his conduct in office?

Peacekeeper: Criticism?

Investigator: There have been some… complaints.

Peacekeeper: What does that have to do with me?

Investigator: You work with War. Know how he conducts himself. Have you ever seen him do anything unfitting a keeper of the peace?

Peacekeeper: Of course not. He’s one of the best of us.

Investigator: And your response to complaints about misconduct?

Peacekeeper: Who’s complaining?

Investigator: A number of civilians have voiced concerns that War is overly aggressive.

Peacekeeper: Overly aggressive? You hear this from civies? Listen, you can’t, for one moment trust the word of some no good tin teeth. I mean, they’re the reason we have to go out there in the first place! You let them alone together, out in the heat on the wastes, and they start to cursing and biting and killing each other! We go to the wastes and we put our lives on the line to break that [expletive] up. But it’s like, all they want to do fight each other, and anybody else that goes over there. Things get very dangerous because they make it dangerous, for us. And War makes sure we all get back home. War’s been here a lot longer than I have, but they told me that before he came back from the front, they were losing men to the tin teeth and the wastes a lot. But since he took a post here, not a one lost. You can trust that. You can’t trust anything that comes from tin teeth though.

Investigator: So the civilians of the eastern wastes are not reliable critics?

Peacekeeper: Of course not! You can’t trust the tin teeth. They are the problem!

Investigator: Speaking of the campaign, and the front, there have been complaints of War going to the wastes in full martial plate, bearing arms he received while fighting as a soldier of the 2nd Brigade of Lord Heston. Any thoughts on that?

Peacekeeper: You can’t trust anything tin teeth say.

Investigator: I’ve seen some of the their wounds. The damage seems like it has to be caused by war weapons, not the root of the office of a peacekeeper.

Peacekeeper: You can’t trust tin teeth. Anything you saw they probably caused themselves. We go in, we just break up what they already stirred up.

Investigator: And you can’t speak to War using military gear on the job? Armor or weapons?

Peacekeeper: I cannot.

Investigator: The magistrate says that she has addressed this with War directly. She says she has reprimanded War for it. Or is the word of the magistrate not trustworthy either?

Peacekeeper: I… don’t have anything to say about what the magistrate did or didn’t say or does or doesn’t do. You’re gonna have to talk to her about that.

Investigator: So no further comment on War’s conduct in the field either?

Peacekeeper: Yeah, no comment.

Civilian: I got nothing to say about War.

Investigator: So you do know who the peacekeeper, War, is then?

Civilian: …

Investigator: We are conducting an investigation about some of his conduct. The magistrate has some concerns. We are trying to get more information, to see what kind of officer he is, to decide what to do with him.

Civilian: What do you think you’ll do with him, after your investigations?

Investigator: That depends on what we find. That depends on what the people say about him.

Civilian: What are people saying?

Investigator: Some of his fellow peacekeepers praise him. They think he’s doing a great job. If we don’t hear anything challenging it then we may have to make that conclusion.

Civilian: And what would that mean?

Investigator: Probably more work for him. An adoption of his way of peacekeeping to the others. Would you like to have a greater presence of War, have other peacekeepers working the way he does here, more often?

Civilian: …

Investigator: What are your thoughts? Is War a good peacekeeper?

Civilian: …

Investigator: Would it be a good thing to have more peacekeepers like War patrolling where you live?

Civilian: …

Investigator: You’re shaking your head. Why is that?

Civilian: …

Investigator: When you see War coming, what does that mean to you, to the people here?

Civilian: … means something bad is happening. Trouble.

Investigator: So War comes when there’s trouble?

Civilian: …

Investigator: The peacekeepers have said that they come to try and put an end to the trouble. That they are only responding to the trouble that exists in the wastes. That’s the trouble you’re talking about?

Civilian: Not that kind of trouble. War brings a whole different type of trouble. When he shows up, he comes looking for a fight.

Investigator: What makes you think that?

Civilian: He comes here like he’s going into war. Going to the edge. He comes like a soldier from the campaign. And he looks at us like we’re part of the other side’s army. And he just comes to fight.

Investigator: So he comes in military armor?

Civilian: Just about every time now. He just comes in, and if you look at him wrong, or you don’t look at him, he just gets you, smashes you.

Investigator: Smashes you?

Civilian: With that morningstar. He breaks you with it, for any reason, for no reason.

Investigator: Why would he do that?

Civilian: … I think something wrong’s with him. I think he still think he’s at the edge, in the war. He dresses like it, he talks like it, acts like it.

Investigator: Do you think that that is what he’s supposed to do?

Civilian: Of course not! I mean, I know that we… sometimes we get… life in the wastes can be… sometimes somebody has to come in and break it up but… not to break us. I thought they were supposed to help us.

Investigator: Do you think that the magistrate would remove him, if she hears your thoughts, the thoughts of others like you?

Civilian: I don’t know.

Investigator: Do you think that they think he does a good job as a peacekeeper?

Civilian: I don’t know… but I guess they have to.

Investigator: Why is that?

Civilian: Well, if they didn’t think that, they wouldn’t let him keep coming here like that, doing that kind of stuff. I didn’t think that was supposed to be his job. I thought they were supposed to help us.

Investigator: So you no longer think that their job is to help you?

Civilian: …

Investigator: So what do you think their job is then?

Civilian: Well, it sure looks like their job is kickin’ the [expletive] out of black people. And in that case it looks like War is probably the best peacekeeper of them all. Peacekeeper of the ages.

Investigator: Why do you think that?

Civilian: They keep letting him out here, like he is. Again, again, and again. If the magistrate cared, she would have done something about him a long time ago.

Investigator: Do you think there’s any chance of things changing?

Civilian: Not if, like you’ve said, the rest of the peacekeepers think he’s doing a good job. They feed off of it, all of them. War might be the one doing the breaking, but it does something to all of them. They won’t stop him. They want to be like him. And we can’t stop him. So, chances of change? I can’t see it. But thanks for asking.

More in this vein may follow one day…