Bose looked down the highway into the simmering night. “Well, you’re right. What you said. This isn’t standard police work.”

*   *   *

The Spin had been a difficult time for police and security forces the world over—especially the frightening finale of it, when the stars had reappeared in the night sky and the sun, four billion years older than it had been five years ago, crossed the meridian like a bloody banner of the apocalypse. It had seemed like the end of the world. A great many police personnel had abandoned their duties and joined their families for the final hours. And when it became obvious that the world would not end—that the Hypotheticals would filter the radiation reaching the Earth to a tolerable level, giving the planet at least a probationary future—many of those deserters had stayed home despite a general amnesty. Lives had changed beyond recognition or restoration.

New bodies were recruited, some with only marginal qualifications. Bose had joined the force two decades later, at a time when many of those marginal recruits had become senior staff. He had found himself in an HPD rife with internal conflicts and generational rivalries. His own career, such as it was, had advanced at a glacial pace.

The problem, he told Sandra, was an endemic corruption, born out of the years when vice had spent freely and virtue went begging. The incoming tide of Equatorian oil had only compounded the problem. On the surface Houston was a clean enough city: the HPD was good at keeping a lid on property crimes and petty violence. And if, under the city’s polished exterior, a river of illicit goods and undocumented cash flowed freely … well, it was the job of the HPD to make sure nobody paid too much attention.

Bose had been careful not to skirt too close to the shady side. He had volunteered for drudge work rather than accept dubious assignments, had even turned down offers of promotion. As a result he was considered unimaginative and even, in a certain sense, stupid. But because he never passed judgment on his peers he was also considered useful, an officer whose dogged attention to small matters freed up more ambitious men for more lucrative work.

“So you kept your hands clean,” Sandra said, offering it as an observation but withholding her approval.

“Up to a point. I’m not a saint.”

“You could have gone to some, uh, higher authority, exposed the corruption—”

He smiled. “Respectfully, no, I couldn’t. In this town the money and the power hold hands. The higher authorities are the people taking the biggest dip. Turn right at the intersection. My building’s the second left at the light. If you want to hear the rest of this you can come up to my place. I don’t entertain much but I can probably crack a bottle of wine.” This time his look was almost sheepish. “If you’re interested.”