"Domestic disturbance reported in Parkwood," Connor's radio crackled. "Delta-314 please respond."
He blinked past his burrito as Freya snagged the receiver off its loop in their patrol car. "Delta-314 responding, go ahead dispatch."
"Got a milk run here for you two," the dispatcher teased. Like most in the department, she was perfectly aware of who Connor was, and who his family was. Freya's connections to the department were less solid, but she was no less noteworthy. They were widely considered the babies of the APD, something Connor doubted would be going away any time soon.
He'd been partnered with Freya in an incredibly overt show of nepotism that he was having trouble complaining about. They were both rookies, despite their prestigious backgrounds, and without a senior officer around to babysit them, it was unlikely that they would be allowed to do anything more dangerous than a car stop.
In other words, every run was a milk run, and the dispatcher was not nearly as clever as they thought they were. But that was nothing new.
He wolfed down the rest of his lunch as Freya noted down the details from the dispatcher. A domestic disturbance in a middle-class neighborhood. The caller had reported loud shouting and sounds of things breaking. It was more a noise complaint than an actual emergency. A rowdy couple having a standard dispute, Connor presumed, but still worth checking on.
Bite, chew, swallow. Connor crumpled up the wax paper his lunch had been wrapped in and stuffed it into a brown paper bag. The trash made pleasant crinkling sounds as he squashed the whole thing flat, then he briskly brushed his hands against the soft linen of his pants. Small grains of rice rained down on his seat and the car's rubber floor mat. Freya shot him a withering look as she finished scribbling down the last details of their assignment, and Connor couldn't quite hide an affectionate smile.
He started up their cruiser while Freya punched in the address to the built in GPS. Connor drove down the familiar streets of his city. He'd lived in Austin his entire life, and with law enforcement being the 'family business', so to speak, he'd made an effort to explore as much as was safe. Parkwood wasn't a particularly affluent area of town, but it was considered to be unusually safe. Limited gang activity, few crimes to speak of, and populated almost entirely by middle-class white collar workers, Parkwood was the perfect location to park a pair of rookies to keep them out of trouble.
It felt like busy work. But it wasn't! Connor would never downplay the importance of the job he'd spent his entire life preparing for. What he and Freya were doing was important, he knew that, it just wasn't quite as overt at the moment. He wasn't bitter; truly, he wasn't. This was what he'd wanted. To be a defender, a watchman, a pillar of a community. He'd leave the glory to people like his uncle. He was perfectly happy here, being the courteous face of the APD, and helping civilians with whatever small problems they faced.
Damn, though, was Connor shit at it. Community policing, Connor quickly realized, was a hell of a lot easier if you were part of the community. He'd spent his entire life in fairly outrageous affluence, living in the gated community of Grey Rock. His home was a mansion built on the side of what was, more or less, a mountain. Connor couldn't have been more separated from the community if he'd tried.
It wasn't that he was incapable of sympathizing, or communicating, with his fellow citizens. He was a human being, he had empathy, and training, and wasn't a complete moron. The real problem was that he was apart from those who he was supposed to police. He was other, and somehow every person he encountered in the inner city instantly knew it. Some odd affectation of diction or mannerism tended to immediately give away Connor for what he was: a wealthy scion of law enforcement.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Asked but a few months ago, and he would have dismissed this as an issue. He might have even claimed it as a benefit of his upbringing! Connor had liked that he was identifiable as a source of authority and assistance. He had thought it useful, that the average civilian could pick a cop out of a crowd, even if they weren't wearing a uniform. It made it easier to know who to look to in a crisis. This was a good thing, Connor had thought.
That was before the reality of the situation had really sunk in. Before Connor had understood what, exactly, was going through people's minds when he approached them. Most civilians, Connor had realized in a sort of horrified epiphany, became stressed by his mere presence. Not in a defensive manner, necessarily, but only a blind moron could have missed the tensing of muscles, the tightening of jaws, the accelerated breathing and flushed skin that spoke of a reaction, good or bad. Some were awed by him, some were wary of him, some were genuinely afraid of him.
Connor had yet to encounter a single person who was comforted by his presence, and that, more than anything else he'd experienced, seemed to suggest a problem. Whether that problem was with him, or with the system itself, he wasn't yet sure. Freya had encountered the problem less, but she was an extraordinarily beautiful woman, and her upgrade enhanced her empathy enough to sort of... bypass the issue. She wasn't nearly as perturbed by it, he knew. As far as Freya was concerned, it was perfectly normal that people should be more alert around law enforcement. They were the arm of the law. The literal manifestation of the government's monopoly of force. The 'big stick' that enforced the social contract that all citizens lived by. Some amount of deference was intrinsically required.
Connor was still working out whether or not he agreed with that. Her upgrade made the issue less common in her civilian dealings. She put them at ease without even trying. It wasn't the slap in the face that it had been for Connor, to realize with sudden clarity that the person with whom you were having a polite conversation, was utterly terrified by your mere existence. It was an issue he'd have to solve himself. His power couldn't help him, here.
Not that he was complaining. He'd come to love his power. It wasn't something Connor had ever considered, becoming a Natural. Some part of him thought he should feel violated. The power had been forced upon him by a mad villain, and could have had any number of horrific outcomes. Connor had been lucky, plain and simple. He should be resentful, maybe even hateful.
He felt inertia bubbling beneath his skin. He felt gravity pulling downwards, the car driving him forwards. He felt the force of his own muscles as he turned the wheel and tightened his grip. He felt how he could take that force and twist it, turn it, redirect it however he pleased. Turn it up or down, or spread it across himself. He felt these things as if they were just another sense, no more strange than his eyes or ears. He felt these things, and he knew the truth: his power was a part of him now. He couldn't hate it any more than he could hate himself, and Connor was never one for self-flagellation.
Well, not for a statistically significant length of time, at least.
That first car ride home had been terrifying. Even with his uncle sitting there beside him, he'd been afraid. Afraid he'd lose control, lash out, kill them both. Afraid that his power would take over, ignore his tentative commands and splatter him across the window screen. Every nightmarish scenario he'd ever been warned about in training had blossomed across his mind.
Yet he made it home, safe and sound. He'd gained control, not just tentative but ironclad, and his power was his to command. He was a fully capable Natural. Some part of Connor thought it should feel different. Wrong or forbidden or dangerous. Mostly, it just felt... natural.
Eugh. Newman's sense of humor was rubbing off on him.
He eyed the GPS, and turned the wheel. Better get to work.