Chapter 6

I got then sent to traffic for three months.

The only good thing about the three months I did in Traffic was that since I had a Hopper licence, I got to ride one. The bad thing was the occasional truck or Linger accident, but they certainly gave my paramedic training a workout.

We still have electric cars in the cities as some people can’t fly the Lingers or Hoppers for many reasons. We also had trucks and buses with dual electric and bio-diesel engines running around on the roads. Motorbikes and scooters were also still around.

Linger smashes were the worst, as survival rates were lower if someone had played with them to try to remove the speed and height limiters, or they bypassed the other safety features.

If one of the four main propulsion motors in a Linger cuts out, the driver was supposed to find a safe spot and set the machine down. It was why people were encouraged to stay over the streets and highways.

Lingers had double redundancy wiring and even a backup battery to supply enough power to safely take the vehicle to the ground. They also had to be inspected every six months to stay registered and in the air.

The Police Hoppers go a shit load faster than the domestic ones unless, of course, someone like Vinay has had a play with it. To be honest, my Hopper at home went faster, but I kept that little fact to myself. I did obey the road rules if I was not in the bush.

We didn’t do much chasing of vehicles, as we just had to ping them, and they were sent the ticket via their email. Many of the tickets were for failing to comply with the six-monthly inspections. Most of the rest were for speeding or dangerous flying.

I got into trouble here too. My partner, Jake, thought that he was God’s gift to women. He had about eight years on me, and he had been a traffic cop for most of them. One of my grievances with him was that he treated women like shit.

Even though I was a lot taller than he was, he constantly complained about my assets or, rather, my lack of them. However, he still tried to get into my pants and liked to tell me how good he was at pleasing a woman.

I was then disgusted to learn that when we did stop people, he had a habit of letting pretty women off for favours. He didn’t have a partner at the time. So, because I was an FYC, he had no choice about getting me. Unfortunately, I had no choice as to who I was assigned to be with either.

Jake had a habit of sending me to a roadhouse that he liked to hang around near to get us lunch. When I asked around, it was an accepted practice, so I didn’t buck. Zoey hadn’t done it to me, and Doug had brought his own lunch, so that was why I checked.

Jake, the prick, always short-changed me when he did finally pay me for his meals. It got so bad I started bringing my own lunch and told him it was because I was broke. So, if he wanted food, he had to give me credit.

He was always short of money, so why couldn’t I be?

A lot of officers didn’t turn their hat-cams on unless going to a scene.

Jake was one of these types of officers. I had the habit of not turning mine off. Dad told me you never knew what would be significant. He’d always kept his on when in the field, plus as an FYC, I was supposed to, so I did.

Zoey and I had always made sure ours were on before we entered any premises or interviewed anyone. She was like my dad in this respect. It surprised me to learn just how often our footage made a difference in court cases and sorting out many of Zoey’s types of cases.

Each cam imprinted the wearer’s Police badge number, the date and the time on the footage. It also moved this data on the image to a new position at random intervals to make it even harder to doctor the footage.

What I hadn’t thought much about at the time was the fact that every time Jake made comments about my lack of tits, my small arse or someone else’s assets, they were being recorded. For the most part, I just grimaced and put up with it. It was only for three months.

Near the end of my time in Traffic, I’d come back from getting lunch one day and recorded Jake getting a head job from a woman. The prick was just standing in her doorway, holding her head. At the time, I didn’t know who she was. It was only later that I was told that her husband was high up in UNSEC.

My argument with Jake after he pulled his cock from the woman’s mouth and his threats were also recorded. I reported to my liaison officer when we finished the shift. Anything we said was supposed to be confidential.

The problem escalated because my Super was doing our three months reviews and happened to log into my cam files for the day. That became my last day in Traffic, and I was assigned to Internet Monitoring two weeks early.

While I was filling out my report that I knew was going to get me in deep shit, my Super called my liaison officer to get her to find me. When the officer said that I was with her writing out a workplace incident report, he told her to keep me there.

He walked in and demanded to see the report. He read it and asked me, “Were you aware your hat-cam was on?”

“Yes, Sir, I’m supposed to keep it on all the time because I’m an FYC,” I replied.

“Why didn’t you report Constable Morley for sexual harassment?” he asked me sternly.