It's been a long, but productive meeting. I read the last item on the agenda. "New Uniforms."

"New uniforms, sir? What's wrong with the old ones?" Charpe asked.

"Well, it's a bit delicate, I'm afraid, Captain. I mean, they are the same ones your orcs were wearing when you came to town five years ago. To tell the truth, they're getting a bit, er, frayed around the edges, if you catch my drift. Also, there have been some suggestions that if some of your constables had a change of uniform, then perhaps they could launder the old ones occasionally. There's a rumor floating around that one of your orcs left his post in front of city hall for a quick pint, leaving his uniform standing empty in his place, thinking nobody would notice."

"No one did notice, sir."

"Well, except for the barman down at the Client & Server who certainly noticed a butt-naked orc ordering a Yogi draft. Corporal Knobsmasher was it?"

Charpe shrugged. "Point taken, sir. Oh, and it's Constable Knobsmasher now."

"Look, the other thing is that since the city converted the old militia into the Watch, there have been a few folks hinting that perhaps a less, er, militaristic uniform might be better suited to the new mission. You do have to admit that your present uniforms might be a bit out of place."

"With all due respect, sir, they're classics. The Orkish army has worn these uniforms for hundreds of years."

"My point exactly, Captain. It's time for a change. And you have to admit, those shakos do look a little silly these days."

"And lookin' like Smokey the bear is so much better, sir?" He grins. I hate it when he grins like that.

"Point taken, Captain. Still, you have to admit that if we're gonna add all these new recruits we've talked about, we're gonna need uniforms for them." I pull out a thickish catalog from my briefcase and hand it to him. "Here, there's a local supplier in Dalrymple does this sort of work. Take a look through the catalog and see if there's anything that might work."

Charpe takes the book, looking a bit puzzled as he reads the cover, "S. Brooks, Ltd." "I didn't know we had an armourer in the city, sir." He starts to thumb through it.

"Ms. Brooks is not so much an armorer as she's, er, a theatrical costumer. Don't worry, though. I hear she can do wonders with kevlar."

"...And so, Pit, we have to pick out a new uniform. DX gave me this to look at." Charpe handed Sergeant Chopper the catalog. See if there's anythin' in it that strikes your fancy."

Chopper flipped through the first few pages, the section in the table of contents marked "Ballet Outfits". "Oh yes, Captain, sir, the Watch will look especially sharp in some of these. Might get a bit chilly for the night shift, though. Likely hard to conceal a weapon, as well, sir."

"Very funny, sergeant. Now, if you will just flip to the section marked military and police costumes..."

"Ah yes, sir. These are much better. Some of them even have pockets, I see."

"Come now, sergeant, they're not that bad. In fact, there was one I liked quite a bit." Charpe took the catalog, and opened it to a dog-earred page near the end of the section. "Here, what do you think of that one?"

Chopper glanced at the page briefly, then looked up at his commander and shook his head. "No, sir, not that one."

"Why the devil not, sergeant? I think it's rather strikin', myself. Don't you like the colour?"

"Oh, 'tis a very pretty uniform, sir, and black is a fine colour, but I really think we should find somethin' else."

"But look at those boots, Pit. And it even comes with badges inscribed with the city's initials as little thunderbolts. Bloody posh, that is. We wouldn't even have to get them customized."

"Sir, 'tis a Nazi uniform."

"But..." Charpe stopped for a second, then asked, "What's a Nazi?"

"Sir, you know that fella over in Bresilica, old man Liebkind?"

"What, that bleedin' loony with the pigeons and the helmet?"

"Yes, sir. We get complaints about him all the time from his neighbour."

"So? I wouldn't want to live near those birds, either, but they're not illegal."

"No, sir, that's not the complaint. Mr. Godwin claims Liebkind's a Nazi, and that we should do something about it. He's not the only one complainin', either. I don't have a full understandin' of why, but apparently humans don't like Nazis very much. That uniform could be seen as inflammatory, if you know what I mean." Chopper shrugged. "It'd be better to go with something else."

Disappointed, Charpe looked through a few more pages. "There's not much else in here, Pit. Mostly forest ranger outfits with bloody stupid lookin' hats." Charpe shook his head.

"Ya know, sir, I think we got another catalog today. Let me find it." Chopper went off and retrieved something from the stack of incoming mail on the front desk. "Here it is." Charpe looked at the cover. It had a picture showing a human wearing a colorful uniform with lots of gold braid. Except for the dazzling colors, it was very like Charpe's own green jacket. "That's better, but it's way too bright. May as well wear a bloody target on your back."

"I took a quick look, sir, and they do seem to have some in more appropriate colours."

A look of approval came over Charpe's face as thumbed through the book. "Yes, they do, and proper headgear as well. Well done, sergeant." He closed the book and looked again at the cover. It read, "H. Hill and Associates—Band Uniforms."

band uniforms! snerk! And wait till he sees the drum major's baton!

Newly minted Constable "Catsmeat" Dobler wasn't having his best week. Come to think of it, it hadn't been his best year, either. He'd arrived in Sang Sacre like so many others before him, full of hope and ideas, and with the determination to persevere until his talents could bring those ideas to fruition. Unlike most of those others, however, it turned out he'd had some really lousy ideas, ones that were even worse in practice than they'd been in theory, since talent wasn't his strongest suit, either. It didn't help that he'd chosen a career as a street vendor, with it's razor thin (figuratively) margins and cutthroat (literally) competition.

Catsmeat thought it'd be easy. He would sell hot food made from the freshest local ingredients (sometimes picked up off the side of the road minutes after it'd been killed) off a cart in the bustling streets of Sang Sacre. He'd watched the Food Network. Cooking wasn't hard, and people were always hungry. They'd be lining up in droves for his tasty treats. Funny thing, though, while he was occasionally able to entice someone new into trying one of his stick-mounted specialities, he didn't seem to get a lot of repeat business. That wasn't good. He knew how important repeat business and word of mouth were in the food service industry. He'd chalked it up to unlucky choices of location. He'd probably chosen spots that people didn't repeatedly pass by. Of course, he never noticed that upon noticing his cart many of his former customers would cross the street rather than walk anywhere near it.

But business had finally started to come around. He thought he'd found the answer—pies. He'd made a batch of steak and kidney pies, and suddenly people did line up to try them. Things were looking good. And then five minutes later it all went to hell.

Now, the former President, CFO, Executive Chef, and Sales and Marketing Director of C.O. Dobler Mobile Food Marketing Enterprises, LLC, was standing in front of a stove in the cafeteria kitchen at Greenwood Yard, whisking ingredients into a saucier, while Constable (ex-Corporal) "Knobby" Knobsmasher plucked off the feathers from several birds piled upon a counter. Given the state of the budget Charpe had given him, the birds were a bit of good fortune, freshly killed by Constable Ragman. There'd been complaints about the noise that they'd been raising, and Ragman was the best shot in the Watch. Two problems solved at once—the complaint, and what to have for dinner. Still, that didn't keep Catsmeat from complaining about the situation.

"How was I supposed to know those kidneys were stolen, Knobby? It's not like they come with serial numbers or anything. Some igor gives me a good deal on some fresh kidneys, and I'm supposed to say no?" He added a sprig of rosemary to the sauce.

"Yeah, but they wasn't no beef kidneys now was they? Your kind can be pretty touchy 'bout stuff like that." Knobby pulled the last feather from one bird, put it aside, and started in on the next one.

"What am I, a biologist?" asked Dobler. Knobby's face started to take on the look of an orc who hadn't realized that there would be a quiz, so Catsmeat quickly continued. "One kidney looks pretty much like another to me. So I made pies outta them. People like steak and kidney pie. Even the Captain liked 'em. He had two. I was actually having a profitable day for once. Next thing I know, Harrass is confiscating my inventory and hauling me down here for questioning. Freakin' scared me half to death."

"'e can be nasty when 'e's riled, that's sure. You know that 'bad cop - really bad cop' routine we use for interviewin' miscreants? 'arrass always plays the really, really bad cop."

"He's very good at it. I nearly wet my shorts. Then I get dragged in front of the magistrate, and he says he's giving me a choice of sentence, like he's being all reasonable and stuff. Says I can either do five hundred hours community service as an orderly at the old wizards' home, or I can join the Watch. I knew a guy who worked out at the home once. Hadn't been there (continued...)

( continues...) a week before some old geezer turned him into a toad in a fit of pique."

"That's unnatural, that is," said Knobby. "I don't like toads."

"Neither does he. A wizard on staff managed to change him back, but he's never been the same since."

"'ow's that?"

"Now he spends most of his time eating bugs." Dobler shivered, then surveyed his surroundings. "So here I am. Freakin' impressment is what it is."

"The captain calls it an affirmative 'iring policy, 'e does. Says the Watch needs to be more di-verse." Knobby shrugged. "Beats eatin' bugs," he added helpfully. Catsmeat him a nasty look, and as he was holding a large kitchen knife, Knobby thought it best to change the subject. "Right. So, what's all this we're makin'?"

Catsmeat hadn't come up with a name for the dish yet. One good thing about this gig was that the orcs were pretty easy to cook for, so it was pretty easy to wing it with whatever was handy. They liked meat and weren't particular about the species, as long as it was barely above body temperature. And if it was blackened and crispy on the outside, so much the better. He thought for a moment, trying to come up with an orc-themed, yet suitably exotic name. Then it came to him.

"I call it Loon à la Barad-Dûr. Fresh loon quarters lightly singed over an open flame, glazed with a pig's blood and rosemary reduction."

Knobby licked his lips. "Never tried loon before. Don't 'ave 'em in the old country. 'at's what I like about this town. Always a new culinary experience. You should write a cookbook, you should."

As he lit the flame on the propane torch, Catsmeat began to ponder what Knobby had said. He could write a cookbook. He could write about his experience with both orkish tastes and the use of, er, novel ingredients to satisfy those tastes. Maybe... Yeah, bet nobody's written a book like that before. Orkish Fusion Cuisine... Yeah, that's the ticket... And Constable Catsmeat Dobler began formulating another idea.

::claps hands in delight. waits patiently for developments::

A curious thing happened when the city converted the city militia into the city Watch, and reopened the old Greenwood Yard building for use as their headquarters. The militia's former headquarters had been a camp out amidst the forest in Greenwood Park, a neighborhood where public transportation consists of the handful of three-speed bicycles available as loaners from the park's visitors center. By comparison, Greenwood Yard stands across from Weiler Square in the heart of Blackwood Parish, the geographical and political center of Ville du Sang Sacré.

(Greenwood Yard was not named for Greenwood Park, but rather for the Greenwood Arms Hotel that once stood proudly on the site, at least before the unfortunate noodle incident destroyed the building. That building had been named by its owner, a Herr Grünwald, who'd made, and ultimately lost, his fortune investing in spaetzel futures, and who'd also thought that no one would notice that he'd named the building after his upper limbs.)

The current administration thought it made a modicum of sense to have the Watch near the center of the city, to not only lower response times, but also to enhance communication with other city departments. This was very much a change in direction for the city. A previous administration had disbanded the old police force years before, arguing that it was too expensive to maintain, and also that it was mostly unnecessary anyway. This last was partly because there traditionally had been very little crime in the city, and partly because the administration in question had decided to break with that particular tradition.

Weiler Square is also the place where most of the city's public transportation lines that aren't bicycle-based interconnect, making Greenwood Yard conveniently accessible for the majority of citizens in the city. Couple that with the well-known Unstopped Drain Theory of Sentient Behavior, and perhaps it shouldn't have taken anyone by surprise when those same citizens began arriving at the front desk in droves to register reports of crimes and suspicious activity, not to mention complaints about flightless waterfowl playing the tuba at all hours of the night. But it did...

So now the Watch found itself not only having to enforce the laws of the city, but also the Law of Unintended Consequences.

"Bloody Hell!" Charpe muttered under his breath as he tried to make his way through the main entrance hall of Greenwood Yard to the front desk, beyond which lay the corridor marked "authorized personnel only" and escape. The curse was inaccurate. He'd met beings from Hell, and from their descriptions of the place, Hell was nothing at all like the scene currently surrounded him. Hell was apparently much quieter, for one thing. Also, there wasn't any obvious blood lying about, although the outlook on that point was promising.

The problem here was that the main entrance hall was packed to the gills with a mass of increasingly belligerent citizens all trying to make their particular reports of crime and suspicious behavior to an increasingly belligerent Corporal Harrass. The beleaguered Harrass was exactly the wrong orc for this duty. He was an orc of the Old School, a school whose curriculum taught that the best way to drive across one's point in a debate was by shouting at those arguing the contrary position, hacking them up into tiny bits, and then shouting at them some more.

So far the only thing that had prevented any actual bloody mayhem was that Harrass wasn't at all used to humans shouting back at him. In his experience, most humans upon seeing him would cross the street, walk briskly back to the last corner, and then go 'round the block the other way just to avoid his gaze. He didn't resent this. In fact, he preferred things that way. He was a firm believer in using fear as an enforcement technique. But these people here either didn't understand, or else just didn't care about the potential danger that an angry, old school orc represented. This confused Harrass, and that confusion was a fortunate thing for the folks yelling back at him.

The fortunate thing for Charpe in all this was that the mob was so intent on Harrass that they didn't even notice Charpe was in the room until he'd made it safely behind the desk. Escaping down the corridor, he spied Sergeant Chopper and hailed him. "It's a bloody circus out there, Pit. Why is Harrass on the front desk? I thought Dobler had the duty today."

"He did, sir, but I had to do a wee bit of retrainin' with him, so I asked Harrass to cover."

"Retrainin'?"

"Yes, sir. I had to remind Dobler that the first question he asks the victim of a robbery should not be 'And would gettin' your payroll back be worth somethin' to ya?'"

"He didn't?"

"He did, sir." Chopper shrugged. "Just a misunderstandin', I'm sure, so we had a bit of a talk, I went over proper Watch procedures with him, and things got straightened out. Well, exceptin' his finger. He'll be over at Kingston-Kean gettin' it set, but he should be back soon enough."

Charpe shook his head, trying his best to stifle a chuckle. "That's all well and good, sergeant, but in case you hadn't noticed, there's a bloody great mob of people out there all screamin' at Corporal Harrass, and you know how he gets. Give 'im a hand before he kills one of 'em, will you?"

"I was on my way, sir, but first there's a man settin' in interrogation I think you should talk to." Chopper looked towards Interrogation A. "This fella was takin' a walk through Greenwood when he heard a strange noise, saw a bright light, and then the next thing anybody knows he's settin' in the dandelion patch in Van Dyke Park. Phred happened across him while joggin', noticed he seemed a bit dazed, and brought him down."

"Does this mystery man have a name, Pit?"

"Yes, sir. It's Reeves."

"What, Gudanov's butler?"

"No, sir, this Reeves isn't a robot."

I've returned from timecon, lots of new time machines there. I really liked the ones that haven't been invented yet. I even got some tips on how to get my time machine finally working. The next one is schedules for October 12th, 1580 which means I'll have to get mine working if I want to make it to another one.

Hans is in the lab tinkering with reality distortion machine that still isn't working right.

"How is it going Hans?" I ask

"Not good, what to take a look?" He shows me the plasma regulator he's been working on.

"Looks great." I tell him.

"Except it's vorthless vithout a plasma phase converter."

"Yeah, I remember now. Weren't the Orcs supposed to get one for us?" I ask.

"They took it." Says Hans simply.

"Took it where?"

"Greenwood Yard, they said they'd give it back if you'd contain your experiments to the watch training area." He explains.

"My experiments are already contained to the castle. I mean sometimes they affect a larger area, but it's never anything dangerous. Well, okay the reality distortion means that the world will actually end at the end of the Mayan calender, but that's 2012. Loads of time to work out the bugs and turn it off."

"The vorld vill end?" Asks Hans disconcertingly.

"Um, yeah. There was a collision of asteroids that sent a big one on a collision course with the Earth one the reality distortion machine came on-line. It'll hit at the end of the Mayan calendar. But like I said there's loads of time to fix things up. If we just get that plasma phase converter, where's the 800 series? Computer, locate the 800 series butler robot. I need it to retrieve the phase converter." I speak to the computer console.

I turn to Hans, "I'm sure they'll be glad to give it back once Reeves explains the situation."

Hans looks nervous. "Did you just use the castle's AI to do that?"

"Um, yeah what's the problem?"

"It's evil."

Crap, I totally forgot. I type a few commands and a video screen comes to life showing an animated paper clip with a goatee, the AI's avatar. "Clippy, how did you respond to my request?"

"I executed your command." Says the AI with an evil paper clip grin. "I told it to go to get the converter and eliminate anything that gets in the way."

"I didn't specify that last part." I point out.

"I interpolated." Explains Clippy the evil AI.

I turn off the computer. "Well, maybe it will still work out."

"Didn't the AI just send an unstoppable killing machine to the city watch. Shouldn't we do something?" Asks Hans.

I wave it off. "You're forgetting that my 800 series isn't programmed like the movie. It's really more of an unstoppable cleaning machine. He'll eliminate all the dirt and grime if they don't give him the converter, he's not going to hurt anybody. While we're waiting maybe we should put reality distortion project aside and work on the time machine. 2012 is a long ways off and if the time machine works, I just have to travel back and tell myself that the reality distortion machine isn't ready to be turned on yet."

Hans looks troubled, "But wouldn't we already know if..."

I gesture for him to stop. "Don't think too much about temporal logic, it just gives you a headache. Hand me that wrench."

The man in Interrogation A was definitely not a robot. He was tall for a human, or perhaps the way he sat up straighter than most humans made him look taller than most humans Charpe had met. He was well dressed, and looked remarkably unrumpled for a man who'd been found lying in a patch of dandelions. "So, Mr. Reeves is it? I'm Captain Charpe. The sergeant says you told him quite a story."

"If you say so, sir. I did not embellish it, if that is what you are wondering about." It wasn't so much a denial as a statement of fact. The man seemed very self-possessed.

"No. Mr. Reeves, I don't wonder if you embellished it. I do wonder what you were you doin' wanderin' about in Greenwood after dark? There's not a lot out there, and strange things have been known to happen."

"I was on my way to an appointment with a prospective employer. The address I was given is in the park."

"Let me guess. Castle Gudanov?"

"Indeed, sir. Might I inquire how you determined that?"

"It's the only private residence in the park." Not to mention the fact that Charpe had met a robot called Reeves at the Castle, a robot that spoke in the same manner and voice as this Mr. Reeves. "What was the job?"

"I was given to understand by the agency that Mr. Gudanov required a butler."

"But you say you never got there?"

"I don't know, sir." It was the first time in the interview that Reeves actually looked somewhat discomfitted. "As I told the sergeant, the last thing I remember was walking along Dunsany Road. There was a noise and a bright light from above, and then the next thing I knew, Mr. Phlint was looking down at me." He paused for a moment. "I shall need to call the agency to let them know I missed the appointment."

"I'll have Sergeant Chopper let them know. He'll need to check some details with them anyway. Now, is there anything else you can remember."

As Reeves thought, odd sounds started to come from the direction of the front desk. It sounded like someone was running a vacuum cleaner. Charpe vaguely remembered something about the city hiring a cleaning service, but he'd assumed that it would come during the night shift. Anyway, nothing Chopper couldn't handle. Reeves seemed to think of something, but just a quickly dismissed it.

"You had a thought, Mr. Reeves?"

"I almost hesitate to say, sir, but there was one thing."

"What?"

"The squirrels, sir." He hesitated. "It almost seemed as though they were watching me."