text: He stood outside the liquor store, seemingly unaware of the rain pouring down upon him. His silhouette melding with the neon glow behind him, the man was almost perfectly still, save for the small orange glimmer of a cigarette moving periodically from his hip to his mouth. He dressed somewhat formally for the occasion, slacks, a coat, a shirt and tie, even a trilby to top off the ensemble. People like it when a man in his line of work dresses well, a lone sophisticated figure amidst a world of blood and grime. Slightly angered that his "uniform" for these jobs now hung heavy and damp upon his shoulders, the man still managed to take some solace in the pleasure of a job well done, and the silky warmth of the cigarette flowing through his chest. Lifting both hands to his face, he took a drag of the ever-shortening cigarette with his left, and with the right held a small leather square to the light of the store behind him. Unfolding the object, the man saw a familiar face stare back at him, one he had seen so many times before. "Detective James Warren." A mess of details danced about the paper hidden within the leather, but only the name stood out for him. This paper and leather construct somehow held within it and incredible power. Close down a bar for the night? Access the back rooms of your favourite sleazy establishment? Run a red light?... Kill a man? All these powers and more were granted to the individual that held this tiny mundane square, and why? "To protect and serve." The man closed over the object and took one final drag from the softly glowing cigarette, before letting it fall and extinguish on the inundated ground beneath him. Protect who? Serve Who? The people? The government? The scumbag in a bar that slips a few hundreds into your pocket? The man tossed the badge carelessly onto the sprawled form on the sidewalk beside him, a dark pool of liquid now exhuding from it and mixing with the rain before racing downward into the grate below. The man wasn't sure who James Warren had felt he served or protected, but he did know for a fact that the scumbag in a bar paid better, and that that scumbag was fond of a well-dressed man that can make a problem simply flow away, and down the drain.