dizzy_land | Town Meeting

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Town Meeting

John awoke at his usual early hour on the morning of the town meeting. He dressed with slightly more than usual care in his suit of clothes from home, broke his fast with a light meal, and headed to the Golden Horseshoe to ensure that things were the way he wanted.

The chairs and small tables were already perfectly arranged, but John dragged a podium he found backstage out to the front of the curtain. Then he bustled about in the kitchen area setting out drinks and whatever small snacks he could find back there.

Before long, interested citizens began filing in and he went up to the podium. There was no microphone because he'd never heard of such a thing, but John Adams never had difficulty making himself heard.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome. If you would please pick up any refreshments you'd care for and take your seats, we'll begin in just a few minutes."

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Setsuna wasn't one to bother with turns much, but he made sure no one else was speaking so he could be heard, then, yet again, loudly spoke up. "In case you're unaware, Orcot, there's three people in this park that could turn you into a human torch. There's also a guy dangerous with water, and who knows what else.

"If they ain't running around causing trouble for everyone, then something about the way the park already runs works, and we don't need you. Like it or not, it's the truth. And I sure as hell don't think it wise you try to play cop here. It might end up being your ass that needs saving."

Rukia nodded, taking his comment very seriously. "That too," she said thoughtfully. "Most people here have been involved in some degree of physical altercation. What exactly approaches the level of requiring police intervention?"

Kon said softly to his best friend, "Nice argument. This's gonna go nowhere fast, though."

That, coming from his senpai, made Setsuna realize how much Kira had to be worried over him. He had no idea his severe depression would affect the other so much. Guiltily, the kid ran a hand through his hair and muttered, "Sorry...." not really sure how to go from there.

"No, it hasn't, and it's a very good question," Carrot said, looking grateful for Rukia's civil tone. "Our thoughts were that we would only arrest a person who presented a clear threat to the well-being of others, such as a man who attacks another man with a sword with the intent to harm him. This wouldn't include sparring, and we wouldn't arrest someone without judging the situation. We have a place we think could hold such people, and the idea would be to bring the question of punishment before the people who live here, in the same way the question of having a police force has been brought before the people here. Where I come from at least, a policeman never decides the punishment of a criminal."

"Since property isn't much of an issue here, our idea of law would be simple-- we'd stop people from doing things that would hurt other people. And since it was brought up before, sparring and that sort of thing wouldn't count."

"...We have no intention of preventing people from saying anything," Carrot said, surprised. "Just preventing people from getting hurt. And I would hope that people would step in and prevent an unfair fight, but that doesn't mean we should assume they would. Anyone can investigate, either on their own or by joining with us."

Rukia was silent for nearly a minute, considering Carrot's words. They did make some sort of sense, but she still had questions and some things still bothered her. "How would you judge a situation? What place would hold people?" she asked. "And don't you think that bringing the fate of an individual before a lot of people is different than bringing the fate of an organization before them? For one thing, I think it could humiliate both the perpetrator and victim of the crime to have their business aired in front of everyone, and for another, people are biased creatures who don't always act fair. Isn't it possible that, if someone well-liked demands an unreasonable punishment, others could back them up?"

Veronica helped herself to a snack and found a seat near the back.

The super hero thing was even a little over Leon's head, and he figured he'd leave the actual superhero (the guy dressed like a bloody superhero, at least), to talk to them. What the fuck, why were they talking about Batman like he was a real person and what the hell was up with the Superman kid?

"Yes?" he said, running his hand through his hair and nodding at John, deciding to let Carrot deal with the teenagers. He needed a drink, really, really badly. He really wished this town meeting hadn't happened so quickly after D's disappearance.

Dick chuckled and nodded, and happily outstretched his hand toward Carrot. "Hey, it's great to meet you, too!"

"Dr Jackson! I didn't see you down there. Good to see you. Mr Crichton, a pleasure." The drone dipped slightly in the air, but didn't descend any further.

The problem with a crabby Skaffen-Amtiskaw is that it tended to take its crabbiness out on everyone. Friends included. That was why most of Special Circumstances wondered at Diziet Sma's ability to tolerate it, and some had even placed bets on how long it would be before she'd request a new escort drone.

Veronica lifted her hand to ask a question.

Amid the mayhem into which the Q&A had descended, Susan looked anxiously up at John, hoping he wasn't taking it too hard.

Once this was over, she thought, there were going to be a lot of people with much poorer opinions of each other. She sighed and ducked her head.

"I apologize for that," said Leon. He chose then to light a smoke, because if he couldn't drink, he needed something to take the edge off. God he wished D was there. "At the time, someone had gone missing, and someone was harrassing us about it. I chose to find out who it was by contacting the people who knew about it, if for no other reason than to see if there was someone who seemed to know everything in this park.

"A police force is necessary because first of all, people could try to break up a fight and only get themselves injured in it because they're not properly trained to deal with that, and second of all, because we need a central body to pool together our findings, as I'm sure there's a ton of mini investigations going on right now that have no communication between them."

"Yes, you?" Leon asked, looking significantly more frazzled than he did at the beginning of his speech."

Why don't these damn teenagers know how to raise their hand?! Has school stopped teaching that? Leon wanted to scream, but refrained. He was not to lose his temper, he was not to lose his temper.

"I'm aware that there are some people," psychos, "here who've got odd powers. I've got them at home as well, and I've dealt with them just fine, thankyouverymuch."

"The police where I come from at least don't typically deal with emotional damage. We've got no authority to deal with things that aren't physical in nature. The child spanking question I'm going to consider rhetorical, as I haven't seen a plethora of children running around at this time, but unless you were beating the child, then no, I don't think it would count. Lightly backhanding also does not count as a beating. Other cases, we'd take case by case."

"I really doubt they set you on fire," Setsuna insisted, staring blandly at Leon. "I still don't trust you as a cop to protect any of better than we can protest ourselves. And you're still not needed. None of that changes just because you've dealt with a little super-natural power back home, where none of us could see you."

"I'm Veronica," Veronica said. "Look, I'm not entirely opposed to the idea of us establishing some kind of authority here. But it sounds like you want this police force to be the judge, jury, executioner and governor as well, and that's never going to end well. If we do anything here, there has to be some kind of oversight."

"I had just gotten here," Leon said. "It's hard to break old habits. You should see what the rest of the LAPD would've done in my situation, I can guarantee that I was tame.

"And yes, there are people qualified to break up a fight who don't have police training, and there are people who think they can handle it and end up getting killed. Obviously that won't be the same case here, but something close to it could happen. And I don't know why everyone's assuming that I haven't dealt with 'non-human entities'. Carrot and I both have experience in that."

While Setsuna didn't like the idea of a police force and saw it as a total waste of time, what was now getting the kid's attention was how quickly Kira was starting to sound annoyed. That wasn't like him. Confused, the kid tugged on Kira's shirt sleeve, and to himself, decided he'd leave. Kira could stay if he liked, but Setsuna would rather do other things with his time than debate something that was so obvious to him.

Screw it, if they made a police force and got in his way, he'd fuck them over, and anyone that complained about it. End of story.

"I think I'd rather be set on fire," Leon muttered, running his hand through his hair. "But I'm sure they could if they had tried." He really had no idea what D's family was capable of. "And some organized body for investigations is needed, at least in my book. I need to get out of here as quick as possible, and the only way that's possible is if there's an organized body that's communicating their ideas, theories and findings to one another."

"And exactly how injured can someone get here before the park steps in?" Leon asked. "If someone gets an arm or a leg lopped off, they're not going to heal. Assuming that we can't get brutally maimed, there are some injuries that people just can't completely heal from." It wasn't very obvious, but when he said that he shifted his weight onto his right leg.

"Because nothing ever happens without a fascist state in place," sneered Logan, no longer bothering with being called on. "Bureaucracy being noted for its breakthroughs."

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Page 5 of 11

Town Meeting

Re: Tl;dr, I apologize.

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Re: Reposted for spelling.

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Re: Tl;dr, I apologize.

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Reposted for typo...sorry

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