Got woken up to a call at three in the morning. One of the Watchers from Fauxpool called in a red flag to the Lowland office. The Lead Watcher there, I don’t know the name yet only that he’s new, immediately escalated the call to me. I listen to the whole message but I could have stopped at “Lowlands” and known I had to get my boots on. When I get a call in the small hours it’s nearly always in the Lowlands and requires an In-Person trip. I’m barely awake, but like I said I only needed to hear where I’m going, I brace myself for it the same no matter which House it is this time. The call was for House Dion, which means it’s 50/50 odds that I’ll be seeing Paul or Rose this time. I do hope it’s Rose, I’d like an easy night.

There’s only one good thing about these late-night calls, and it’s a truly exquisite one. The under-rails are completely empty but for me and whoever is steering this iron worm. During the day I find the under rail more unbearable than the much-maligned standard rails. At least up there, though it may be coated in filth with mysterious puddles hardening in the seats, and even packed with its miserable cargo, everyone minds their own business. They almost avoid each other aggressively. But on the exclusive under rail we may as well be a moving meet-and-greet party for us drab cogs of the State. I shouldn’t say that though, I’m a pretty important cog, so I’m approved for after-hours access to the under-rail. Every time I wonder if there are others, or if this conductor drifts from post to post alone, maybe have some mischief within the privacy of his cabin, it’s all the same to him anyway whether there are passengers or not. I’ve wondered if he enjoys the emptiness as I do. Clearly, I’ve thought too much about it. The funny part is I don’t even know if there is a conductor, or if all the faith is placed in some sturdy computer.

I refresh myself on the details of the call once I’m in the railcar. A Closed-door Incident that became External after an estimated time-lapse of 10-15 minutes. How informative. I don’t even mean that sarcastically, some of these Houses really do follow a pattern of outbreak. The last time I had to In-Person House Dion was when Rose had slept through her scheduled interview with the Directory for the third time.

Once I step off in Fauxpool the Lowland Lead Watch, his name is Benny apparently, whisks me to the familiar wreck of House Dion in the standard-issue town car. He’s new though, so his car is a little newer and it’s a nice ride. We don’t talk much, he’s just reiterating the flag report and I wish he wouldn’t because it’s just muddying things. When we get to the estate I head to the call box.

Surprisingly Rose answered immediately. I’d already had my skeleton out assuming it would be ignored, or assuming they had disabled it again. Rose was obviously drunk or otherwise whacked out of her mind.

“What? What do you want, who the fuck are you, what the fuck yada yada yada” I summarized a bit here but trust me you didn’t miss the overall message.

“Hey Rose, it’s me. You want to come out and talk?”

“Just you.” She said threateningly.

She meets me on her porch. She stood there with her small fists clenched at the sides, her battle pose. It’s almost cute if you remove it from the fact that it’s Rose doing it. There’s one silver lining to the night calls with the lonely rides, and there’s one silver lining with dealing with House Dion. That is, Rose is an absolute faucet and will work herself up too much to be capable of withholding anything. She will air every single current grievance of her life on me once she gets going.

I only deal with red-level cases; all the flags, reports, files, and inspections. The red ones, to keep it simple for now, are the ones that have to be both handled as well as contained, as in kept relatively unknown to anyone outside of the Directory. I deal with all of them and all of their subjects lie, but not Rose. I don’t think she has it in her even when she’s in a good mood. It’s nearing five in the morning and Rose Dion is very loudly asking me why she can do about Paul, who abandoned their sons downtown and then came by the estate a day later to pick up a jacket. I could write a book on Paul alone, but I’d need a much quieter life and a lot more time. For what I can give, the House of Dion used to be one of the most, if not the most powerful of the Old Families before they got butchered in the reforms. This has injected the House with something I can only consider outraged entitlement.

Tonight Rose is screaming about how she wants to get Paul barred from the estate and not allow any visitations agreements with the children and she wants me to do it first thing in the morning. She catches her breath and looks at me for perhaps the first time. “For the boy’s sake,” she says in a much more softened tone. Her lip may have even trembled, but it could have been the wine stains. She has said and requested similar things before, always “for the children’s sake,”. Really this is all about getting attention from Paul, even if it’s negative attention.

Being the “red level guy”, I also have to receive every ridiculous tip and scrap of gossip that have to be organized into my case files. I’d recently received a tip, sourceless so take that as it is, that Paul had been staying over with a twenty-year-old from Roark, that according to Rose right in front of me may not be female.

“I followed him,” Rose said to whatever she was staring off at.

“Yourself?” I said. I would actually be surprised.

“I hired someone, took all the money I had too. But I heard him making a call to her myself. I picked up the emergency line in the cellar.”

“And Paul was speaking to another woman?”

“Maybe, maybe it was a man in drag. Bitch sounded weird.”

“Was the conversation inappropriate?”

“Are you going to help me if I tell you? How come anyone else could get out of a marriage for this, but because my parents were somewhat somebodies and you all decided to marry me to that…those bitches from Roark open their stupid store after they ditch their husbands and everyone throws their money at them and makes them famous.” Rose is getting worked up past the point of use now, but this is what I meant when I said she was a faucet. She tells you everything whether you ask or not. Sure she’s upset about Paul, but really she thinks all the rags are airing all these Old Family problems this week and maybe she will be able to get a mention or two and therefore still be relevant, unlike her last few dress seasons. This is why she’s on the cusp of being demerited, more so than her licentious husband.

I remain in my listening posture as she burns off the last of her tirade. I tell her I’ll start working on it and smile. She smiles back, like a calm child. If she wasn’t towering over me from her porch I may have even dared a reassuring graze of the shoulder. I ask her if there was anything more but she’d already been pacified.

On the drive back to the under-rail station, I tell the Lead to put in a report of her request to restrict Paul from the estate.

“They won’t approve it,” he almost laughs.

“I know, but they’ll have to come out here to deliver the denial and I want them to come sort this shit once in a while so they can see it’s not our fault that they decide to control ridiculous people and the ridiculous people act out this way. Keeps their demands in check, and it’ll make them treat you better.

“I wouldn’t have thought they gave you shit too.”

“Why? That’s what they do. Have you ever wanted to do a job like that, or does it repel you? It’s certain personalities that enjoy their kind of work, and they’re all the kind that are never happy with anything until it’s covered in legislation and has a page in the troubleshooting guide.”

Updates…

I wanted to add something to this…file. Something I want to have note of in case it’s handy in the future. It’s a particular incident of House Dion’s. The Lowland Lead Watch, Benny, (a quite casual name for a very serious man, I’ve come to learn,) wrote the report for the case we went to together. The proper clerks were sent to House Dion, then they surprised me at my office. I’m always appropriately detailed in my reports, but I guess I need to be more anal about the behavioral state that I can assume of all my cases because that seemed to be their only concern.

“I did state that she could have been inebriated, but she was also very emotional so it’s difficult to tell the extent. I saw no evidence of substance on or around her.”

“Did you search?”

“In what way? She responded at the call box. She met me at the porch. There were no contents on the porch to search and I didn’t see cause to frisk her.”

“Why didn’t you suggest speaking inside?”

“Because most of the time as soon as I could make such a suggestion they not only are rejecting the request but are now taking a defensive position that makes resolving these problems a lot more difficult.”

The two bureaucrats did not seem interested in actually listening to what I said. How could they blame people for hating them?

“We need clarification on her behavior. She does not have an adverse psychological medical profile and much of this report points to the actions known to belong to narcotics abusers.”

“Narcotics abuse specifically? I noted she seemed intoxicated, as in drunk, from alcohol.”

“It is her behavior that argues it.”

“Over energetic, that one, too high of energy for her circumstances.” I almost jumped with this one spoke. A small man with a face plain as the moon, some greasy hair wiped on top of it. I’d forgotten he was even here with that brick of a woman who was his colleague. I ask them for specific detail, a back-bite but they wouldn’t notice something as subtle. The little man pulls out a ream and nearly falls off his chair to hand it to me over the distance of my desk. Of course, he's a Witness, no wonder I forgot about him. Human fly on the wall.

RD: Rejects official denial of Restriction order for PAUL DION; HEAD - HOUSE DION; SPOUSE. Demands Petition of Severance for the Court of Estates.

DIR REP SHOSA: Informs RD of conditions for denial in the case by the C of E.

RD: Rejects DIR REP statement, repeats requests for Petition of Severance. Adds that she intends to visit the C of E every morning to inquire of the Petition and will re-file if needed, indefinitely.

DIR REP SHOSA: Informs RD of the cost of a single Petition of Severance and the success rates of the Petition.

RD: Non-verbal response---[Shoulder shrugging].

I hate the way the Directory does transcription. They think this is somehow objective, but that’s because it’s in their courts. They make these and then have someone like Shosa the Brick here testify to their elaboration. They mean what the Directory wants them to when they need them. “Anything more on the severance requests?” I ask politely.

“It is similar to the contents of the Restriction request. She seeks possession of the children and the estate.” Miss Directory Representative Shosa informs me.

“Did you see the children when you were there?”

“We did not. Madame Dion reported that they were visiting a neighbor so as not to disrupt our meeting.”

“I did not see them on my visit either. I doubt they are missing, but I also doubt that she truly views Paul as a threat to their safety. I personally know of no evidence of that. The estate is a wreck and there are no other properties held by House Dion. I can’t speak to Rose’s relationship with her children, but if her severance is approved it will in-debt Paul to her financially even after the children are adults. Her odds of rejection are not a guarantee if she makes the initial request and with her being the mother, juries under the old way and our new one are sympathetic to these two factors—“

“We will make note of your theory. What of the narcotics abuse?”

Every time. I gave everything to them and they still look for which form to fill out. I know that Rose was wasted when I saw her, from a mixture of somethings no doubt. But I can’t prove it, and I don’t really want to. The Directory approaches these cases like a machine that needs a part changed out. I sleep little in my life because of my cases, but at least I view them as human. I empathize with the fact that the Directory made their life shittier than it was before, after all my life was shitty before the Directory.

I give them their stupid answer. “I can only officially say that I suspect, but I’ve yet seen physical evidence of it.”

They made some notes and took their little roll with them when they left. I need to sleep this meeting off. Because when I wake up I have to go on my surveillance assignment at the infamous Cremorne.