![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Snip snip snip
Nov. 21st, 2005 08:31 amThe opening of SIGNATURES...
<lj-cut text="Snippet"> Look, I'll tell you right up front. Part of this is lies. I've left important stuff out. I've played a shell game with locations and dates so you can't tie this story down. And, like the bit at the start of that TV show says, the names have been changed to protect the innocent. Or the guilty, as the case may be.
But I did things I'm not proud of, laws broken and promises broken and hopes broken, and the statute of limitations hasn't run out on any of them. More to the point, there's this trick I'd rather no bright boy or girl figured out how to do again. It's dead and gone now, and I'd like it to stay dead. And I don't have to obey that oath to protect and to serve anymore.
"John Patterson," the gold lettering says on the office door. Under it, "Member, ASFT." That's all. If you're looking for my office, you already know what I do. If you're not looking for me, there's no reason for you to find the place. I don't make my beer money on walk-in browsers. The initials stand for American Society of Forensic and Research Thaumaturgists.
They left out the "R" on purpose, hoping to avoid an obvious shortcut. Still gets called ass-farts in cop-shop slang, or mass-farts if you insist on the "Member" to your title. With the implication that you're about as welcome as a fart in church. Straight cops don't like us much, even when they need us. It's that magic thing. Spooks people. Makes the hair stand up on the back of their necks. And cops tend to be the kind of men and women who don't like being spooked. Messes with their self-image. </lj-cut>
<lj-cut text="Snippet"> Look, I'll tell you right up front. Part of this is lies. I've left important stuff out. I've played a shell game with locations and dates so you can't tie this story down. And, like the bit at the start of that TV show says, the names have been changed to protect the innocent. Or the guilty, as the case may be.
But I did things I'm not proud of, laws broken and promises broken and hopes broken, and the statute of limitations hasn't run out on any of them. More to the point, there's this trick I'd rather no bright boy or girl figured out how to do again. It's dead and gone now, and I'd like it to stay dead. And I don't have to obey that oath to protect and to serve anymore.
"John Patterson," the gold lettering says on the office door. Under it, "Member, ASFT." That's all. If you're looking for my office, you already know what I do. If you're not looking for me, there's no reason for you to find the place. I don't make my beer money on walk-in browsers. The initials stand for American Society of Forensic and Research Thaumaturgists.
They left out the "R" on purpose, hoping to avoid an obvious shortcut. Still gets called ass-farts in cop-shop slang, or mass-farts if you insist on the "Member" to your title. With the implication that you're about as welcome as a fart in church. Straight cops don't like us much, even when they need us. It's that magic thing. Spooks people. Makes the hair stand up on the back of their necks. And cops tend to be the kind of men and women who don't like being spooked. Messes with their self-image. </lj-cut>
