Katie Pratt became a Brooklyn cop right after it really stopped meaning anything, and she hated that. Her dad had been a Brooklyn cop before Hathor's perfect surveillance turned everything upside down. He'd been tough as nails and smart and persistent.
She missed him, days like this. She missed the way it used to be. Though she had barely really known it. It was stories more than memories, but she liked the way the stories sounded. Everything seemed clearer back then. Easier.
Which was weird, considering how blind they'd been.
Hathor had changed everything. One company, almost a marketplace, but they branded it as infrastructure. But it was more than that.
Critics called it an invasion of privacy, but it was so much more than that.
It was reality digitized. It was a live feed of the great live feed.
Hathor provided recording hardware and specs. Hathor provided a free curated feed and a pricey API license. Hathor provided intrusions as insights and advertisements as advice.
And the public bought it up. They gave Hathor everything, and Hathor gave it back, but better.
And mostly, Katie loved it all. There were always cars waiting at the curb and hot meals ready whatever hour you came home and the entirety of human accomplishment connected to her senses 24/7.
But in the old days, there'd been surprises. Her dad had chased bad guys down alleys.
Her dad's work had mattered. She was a glorified proofreader, when she really thought about it, double-checking the computers' work for any really obvious errors. Mostly, Hathor did the detective work today. Hathor tracked the suspect and sent the summons and scheduled a docket.
Hell, Hathor passed the judgment nine times out of ten. Katie's job felt more like community outreach. She knew her beat. She knew the heart of Brooklyn that Hathor's robot eye would never truly understand.
She was a good cop. As good as there was anywhere in Brooklyn. For sure.
But she could be better.
She could be something special. She knew it. She'd gotten that from her dad. She could've been something special, if....
She sighed and took a bite from a Prêt sandwich that was mostly lettuce crunch and soggy bread, and she thought about being a hero.
And then her headset buzzed. The connection was automatic, and Marshall skipped the pleasantries like always.
"You heard the news?"
It annoyed her how his voice made her heart hammer like that. She took a little calming breath.
"I'm halfway through my lunch, so no. What news?"
"Check your notifications, Katie. You've got a job offer."
She dropped her sandwich on the table and grabbed her handheld. "Placement?"
Marshall answered, "Yeah." Her hands started shaking, just from the intensity in his voice. She always listened very closely to his voice.
Hathor listened closely to her, too. The Placement interface opened on her handheld, the relevant notification already shown.
One link would give her a lot of details about the job. She would learn all about the driven Director with a passion for catching the criminals clever or rich or powerful enough to escape Hathor's eye. She would learn about the world's premiere digital detectives. Her dream job.
She didn't need to click that link. She already knew everything about the FBI Ghost Targets task force. She had dreamed about it for years.
And this was impossible. Here it was on her handheld, in the Placement interface. It had to be a prank. It had to be some cruel joke.
Marshall spoke softly in her ear. "It's real, Katie. This is your chance."
Hathor had already placed her as a match, or it wouldn't even be on her screen. She was a good cop, but she wasn't a Special Agent. She wasn't a hero.
Marshall whispered, "You're gonna be a hero, Katie."
The second link was easy to dismiss. It said, "Dismiss," and no one could dismiss a chance like this.
The third was like a lightning bolt, though. Like dropping a bomb.
She said it out loud, just in case, but it tasted how she knew it would.
"Special Agent Katie Pratt."
That made her heart pound even harder than Marshall's baritone. A little breathless, a little lightheaded, she tapped the third link, "Accept," and it was done.
She had a new job. She needed to move. She would have to learn everything from scratch. But it was real. It happened.
She gasped. Her own voice startled her. "I did it. I'm doing it. Ohmygosh. Marshall! I did it!"
"You're amazing, Katie." His voice was muted, his tone controlled. "You're going to change the world." He caught his breath. "I'm glad for you. I'm gonna miss you, though."
And she almost wished she'd waited.
THE END.
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