Jennifer looked down at the bloody form of the young woman and frowned, she sheathed her baton back in to the belt of her uniform and considered her options.
Looking around, there wasn't anyone else on the street, it was late and she could probably just leave and no one would know any better. After all she'd hit the woman's head pretty hard, she wasn't likely to remember much of the encounter.
But then she'd have to do something about the computer in the cruiser and with her record, they'd put the pieces together in the end.
She brushed back a strand of blonde hair from her face and grabbed her mic. "Control, this is officer FW657, I need a bus at my location."
"FW657, this is control, confirm a bus to your location. ETA 7 minutes."
"Confirmed control. FW657 out."
* * *
Jennifer pulled up in front of the university and shook her head in resignation. The review board was sure to come down hard on her, assaulting an unarmed civilian was frowned on even in the old days, but now it was all over the news in hours. They'd kept it quiet so far, but that wasn't going to last.
In the mean time her Captain had assigned her to the community outreach program for the university. Really she was a glorified recruitment ad for the police force for the next few weeks, then, well, then she might not even be that.
She drove to the farthest part of the parking lot, like she always did and parked her cruiser away from anyone that might want to vandalize it. She got out of her cruiser and walked in to the main building, the students giving her a wide birth as she headed to the dean's office.
It came as no surprise to her when she entered it, the wood paneling, the stuffy smell, the well dressed secretary. It all screamed old school in the most literal way.
The secretary guided her in to the see the dean and after a short meeting in which he expressed his high regard for the police and his gratitude for her coming to the school, she was headed back through the brightly lit hallways of the school on her way to the computer lab.
The force had sent her to the school to try and get more science and technology graduates to consider joining, the force was desperate to attract them. The crime taking place today was so much different than in the past but the force really didn't attract the nerds the way it did the jocks.
She walked in and saw several jaws drop simultaneously. It wasn't the first time she'd experienced it, she was after all a tall woman, with a thin, if muscular frame and the face of a model. Which was no coincidence as she had done some modeling as a teenager.
After they'd managed to pick up their jaws from the floor, several rushed over to introduce themselves.
* * *
Those first few days had been agony. She tried to resist punching anyone in the face with their incessant questions about why she had joined the police force. Fortunately even the most persistent of them had given up after a couple of days of receiving the same cookie cutter answer from the force PR handbook.
Well, everyone except Jason. He hadn't asked any of the questions she'd expected and seemed genuinely interested. She'd spent the last couple of hours in the empty lab with just the two of them talking.
"Can I ask you for a favour Officer Jones?" he asked.
Jennifer cocked a sculpted eye brow, "I guess so."
"I've been working on this new program for a few days, could you take a look and tell me what you think?"
"Sure, what does it do?"
"It's a game, for your phone."
She frowned, she didn't really play games, "Well, ok, but I'm not a gamer so I might not be the best person to give an opinion."
"That's no problem, it's not targeted at gamers so your perfect to try it out." He said and extended his hand.
She pulled her personal phone from the pouch on her belt and handed it to him after unlocking it. A few seconds later he handed it back, the new game up and on the screen.
It looked like some kind of jewel matching game, the graphics were a little primitive but she started playing through the tutorial as Jason watched on. It wasn't a complex game and she got the hang of it pretty quickly, the one things she really did like about it was the music that played in the background. It was somehow both soothing and invigorating at the same time.
When the tutorial finished, the game returned to the main screen and she looked up to see Jason watching her, a smile on his face.
"Give it a try for a few days and let me know what you think." He said.
She smiled back, "Sure, sounds good."
* * *
Jennifer tapped the screen on her phone, she'd gotten board at the computer lab when Jason hadn't been there and so she'd started to play the game he'd installed yesterday. The music flowed up the cable and in to the earphone's she put on after the first 20 minutes of playing when she noticed the dirty looks for the others trying to work in the lab. It made the music sound even better and soon she was riding the waves of music up and down as she played the game.
