alternative futures: the responders - part 3 (DRAFT)

06 Feb 2017

note: this is another draft story for my alternative future work stories. here’s part 1 and part 2 of this story.

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job journal

year 1, day 2 (continued).

“he won’t let me see our kids when i want to!”

i yelled across the room and asked the other guy if that was true.

“that’s right i won’t! he shows up tweaked and high and wants to take them off my hands… except the last time he ‘ported they landed in a tree because he couldn’t focus properly. it took me an hour to get that pod out of the tree that day! no way i’m gonna let him screw up again and ‘port our kids into some dangerous situation.”

hmm. that sounds like a good reason to withhold kids from a parent. i asked the guy i was standing near how things got to be like this in his life. why was he taking drugs and putting his kids in danger.

for the first time, he looked me in the eyes. he was shaking; i hadn’t noticed before. shit. i don’t have training for this i thought…

thankfully, i heard the quiet pop of the support pod arrival. the two mental supports hopped out of their pod and split up, one to each man in the standoff. i started walking away to let them do their jobs. things apparently go better when the conversations happen one on one.

i relaxed a bit and then remembered that second bullet. ugh. i headed over to the newly arrived pod and stepped in. i told the negotiator that we wouldn’t need negotiation skills because i’d talked the situation down. i sat in front of the healer and as their eyes closed and my shoulder started to feel warm. i love this part.

anyway, other than that first incident, it was a pretty calm night. we only got one other fairly innocuous call on shift, but i did get to destroy another gun! if i can get up to 100 in my first year i get a giant bonus. fingers crossed for that for sure. i could really use the money…

writing	spell-check, link-finding, & formatting
16:07	7:30