Dreams of the Quill

I hope I can make a smooth transition to a five updates per week schedule for Night Switch. Here’s to hope.

“Alright, Jason—you’re fine if I just call you Jason, right?” Frog asked cautiously.

“It’s better than ‘Meow,’” mumbled Jason. Frog chuckled, and a few of their colleagues burst into riotous laughter.

“Alright, Jason, so. You interned here for what, two months, more or less?” After a nod from Jason, Frog continued. “You know what we do. We watch people. The Inspector will yell at me for putting it this way, but we spy on people. That’s our job.”

As if on cue, the speaker in the corner buzzed to life and Inspector Kris yelled,

“P.T.H.! It’s survei—”

“Surveillance for the sake of security, yeah, yeah,” Frog finished, cutting off their boss. “Inspector, I’ll be the one to tutorial Jason, according to your instructions.” Silence from the speaker. “Alright, Jason, so we spy on people. We man cameras, like so.” Frog pivoted his laptop so that Jason could see the multitude of open windows, each showing a live feed on a different street corner. “And that’s just about all we do, watch these cameras. Unless suspicious people turn up. Then we do other things. Those procedures will be covered when necessary. Now, ask any questions you might have, and then we can get your software set up.”

“How often do suspicious people turn up?”

“Oakland? Often. El Cerrito? Occasionally. Richmond? Rarely. Last incident was before you started interning here.”

“Why was I assigned to Richmond, then? You don’t seem to need—”

“That’s confidential, Jason,” said Frog. “Suffice it to say that we need you.”

“We need you, meow~” called one of the Oakland five from the back of the van.

Resolutely ignoring the prod, Jason pressed his mentor.

“Confidential? How so, and why from me? Isn’t this my job?”

“Hold it, Jason. You’re working in the government now. Everyone keeps secrets from everyone. That’s how it is—there is no honesty. It’s like a basketball game with a corrupt referee. If you want that to change, you’ll need to use the tools available to you—that Macbook Air—to pierce the obfuscation caused by our dear President’s Establishment.” Jason instinctively shivered at the mention of his work machine’s name. “Do you have any more questions, Jason?”

“Yeah. This software the Inspector gave me to install, it’s…” Jason looked around the room. He had always thought that the abundance of iridescent fruit logos in the van was nothing more than an absurd fashion statement. “… Mac-only?”

Frog nodded solemnly.

“Yup.”