Succession

“I’m talking about succession planning, officers,” Blankenship said, tapping his finger on the list of names written on the current page of his ledger, and when we continued to stare uncomprehendingly at him, he explained further. “The current composition of SCD is a bit skewed,” he said, “with four Inspectors and a single Sergeant. We’ll be adding a new sergeant in the next few weeks, but all four Inspectors are over fifty right now, and two are over sixty. In some respects staffing a division like Serious Crimes is more art than science—more than any of the other units it’s imperative for its members to work well together. It’s tough, stressful work, and it’s one the smallest investigative units we have. That team can’t afford not to be reasonably close-knit.”

Curry and I glanced at each other. This was starting to sound a bit promising, somehow, but I still wasn’t sure exactly where it was going.

“None of this is to be shared outside this room,” Blankenship said. “Inspector Delp wants to retire next year. Inspectors Nilssen-Lambert and Ladd—partners—have such a strong preference to retire on the same day that they gave us over five years’ notice so we can plan for losing two at once. I expect another two or three years after that we’ll lose Inspector Chakrabarti. This demographic spread and our general pickiness concerning SCD candidates means that if we don’t want the most visible unit in the city manned entirely by young detectives who never got the opportunity to spend a few years learning from their more experienced colleagues—or by Inspector-ranked transplants who came up in other units—then we need to consider some younger detective candidates than we ordinarily would.”

“Oh,” I said, surprised. “Er, are you sure, sir?” I asked him dubiously. “I don’t think we’re ready for anything like—”

I left off when Blankenship laughed. It was a surprisingly warm laugh. “—you’re not. I don’t mean, you, now. Hui and I have been hoping to replace Nilssen-Lambert and Ladd with two already-partnered sergeants, but that’s a harder thing to find than you might think. We want a more even spread this time between our veterans and our newer detectives—so we need to start recruiting from your class, or the one right before or after—since anyone we spot now will still need time to simply build their watch guard experience. Twenty-five is already pushing it a bit young for a sergeant promotion, even if the officers have completed all their detective training, so if we didn’t find any graduates we wanted from your class or the next, that likely means giving up on our preference to recruit partners. There’s another pair in the Seventh that we have eyes on, but neither of them have expressed the specific ambition to work with SCD. They also live all the way across the city.”

My heart was starting to pound again, but for the first time in days it wasn’t for a bad reason.

“You two are already here at the Fourth, having requested this house yourselves, as well as that unit. You live in the Fourth. You’re the age we want. You have without exception impressed favorably on every instructor and commander you’ve worked with, both individually and as a pair. I’m sharing these plans with you in the hope that being aware of the bright future we envision for you two will encourage Bersk to remain with the watch in spite of this ugly incident. This isn’t written anywhere, and if it were it would only be in pencil. But if you don’t change your minds or fuck up royally in the next five years then I give it good odds that Hui and I stick with the officers we picked ourselves and appoint you two as our chosen replacements in five years. Again, obviously, I never told you a word of this. To anyone outside this room you’re simply a promising subsection of the hopeful throng wanting a crack at SCD.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, because it seemed important to acknowledge that.

“I thought a council committee decided the detective assignments,” Curry said, sounding a bit dazed.

“And you’ll continue to let everyone else think that’s materially true. Hui and I don’t need the grief of anybody figuring out that the committee will never pick anybody we didn’t specifically endorse. Nobody wants to see the resulting flurry of egregious ass-kissery.”

I blinked at him, still halfway disbelieving this conversation had even taken place.

“I’m going to enroll the both of you in the next pre-investigative shadowing program. There’s one starting in something like two seasons. Then, unless you decide you don’t want this anymore, this is how the next few years will go—you’ll shadow with SCD as well as some of the other investigative divisions. I will make sure you’re assigned together, and that none of those units are with the Sixth. That will get things started. In about a year we’ll have a meeting with Captain Hui to broach the subject of your interest in training for investigative work generally, and nobody is going to talk about SCD then either, so don’t expect anything like that. You’ll continue to build your investigative experience, while meeting regularly with me and the Captain for mentorship, and proceed from there. In about four years we’ll begin preparing you for your sergeant’s candidacy and then you’ll have two seasons or so as detective trainees shadowing an investigative unit.”

I was excruciatingly conscious of Curry, sitting there being likewise excruciatingly conscious of me, and desperately curious to hear what he would have to say about this incredibly unexpected conversation.

“We think you’d benefit from training with Nilssen-Lambert and Ladd specifically,” Blankenship went on, “so likely we’ll arrange your trainee work to take place with SCD. Probably nobody who isn’t me will even acknowledge the possibility of SCD to you until you’re ‘arbitrarily’ assigned there. If you’re not despised by your peers or terrible at the work, and I can’t imagine either of those will be the case, one of the detectives will suggest that you apply to be properly promoted to the unit, if you’re interested. The application will be recommended to the committee and you’ll step onto SCD as official department members about two seasons before they retire, which will give you about a year with them, all in. Sound all right?”

At the conclusion of this very long speech we both sat staring wide-eyed at the lieutenant before it occurred to either of us that he’d asked us something, and then we both collided with each other in our haste to tell him that yes, sir, we were fine with being told that unless we did something very very wrong then all our hopes and dreams would come true exactly as we had spent the last year fondly wishing they would.

Once dismissed, Curry and I proceeded, straight-faced and quiet, until we were outside again, and then we remained silent for another half block after that, until Curry said finally, disbelievingly, “Holy fuck.”

“Holy fuck,” I agreed, still dazed myself.

“Holy fuck,” he said, with growing emphasis.

“Holy fuck,” I reiterated.

We were over a city block from Vox Castle now, but not quite out of sight. Curry grabbed my hand suddenly and turned us into an alley. “Holy fuck!” we exclaimed loudly and simultaneously to each other, bouncing up and down a bit in our excitement, and Curry impulsively picked me up and twirled us both in a happy circle with me in his arms.

Ordinarily this would have been at least a bit fun, except, “Ow-ow-ow!” I yelped, and he quickly set me down.

“Sorry-sorry-sorry-fuck! I forgot!” he apologized, feeling gently along my side, apparently worried that he had somehow broken me. “Are you all right?” he asked, as if I might keel over right now.

“Oh, am I! Let’s take inventory!” I crowed. “Not to be indelicate about it—but you know what kinda soothes the stinging memory of getting fingered against my will and beaten on by a vicious, filthy monster? Oh, let me see… how about, the culmination of all our fucking hopes and dreams!”

Curry’s mouth tugged up at the side. “Uh, so I’m not comfortable weighing in on that trade myself,” he hedged, “and I reserve the right for you to feel different about it later… but yeah. I mean. Holy fuck?” he offered.

“Holy fuck,” I agreed, and threw my arms around him. “Mag! I wasn’t going to say this, in words! I was going to be cool about it and just show you daily, with my every deed, for the long duration of our legendary partnership!” I said, too loud and too fast and too excited, “but I love you! Not in a sexy way! But I truly truly love you! We’re such good partners—we’re such good partners—we’re such good partners!” I sang to him, still squashed against his chest. “Blanks and Hui literally picked us out straight from the academy for our dream job, because they could tell even on paper what good partners we are!”

I could hear the smile in Curry’s voice. “We really are. I love you too. Obviously. Also not in a sexy way.” He slipped his arms around me, more carefully this time, then kissed the top of my head.

A man burst out of a door from one of the buildings, startling us. “You! Kids!” he shouted furiously, in heavily accented Tetran. “I tell you before, no sex in the alley! You going to get somebody pregnant!”

Curry and I looked at the man, then at each other, then dissolved into helpless giggles. “No sex in the alley,” he managed, presenting me his arm with a flourish.

“No sex in the alley,” I choked out, linking my arm with his and starting us in a saunter back toward the street.

When we were only a block from home, maybe ten minutes later, we finally managed to stop shaking with laughter. “Do you think it counts as fucking up in Blankenship's book, if we get somebody pregnant?” I asked him, even though this was a risky move when we were both still trembling with the sheer **** of our own hilarity.

I took a certain professional satisfaction in it, when Curry laughed so hard at this that he choked on his own spit.