Continues from here.
Eric:
"I see." He pauses. "My cousin, a preacher, told me I should talk to you. I'm the chief of police here. My duty is to maintain order. Now granted, I am not fond of the Hunt. And ordinarily I would not have become police chief except I expect the Status Board is becoming worried about people like you, and is therefore giving a higher priority to competence over Status, but still, my job is maintain order. In other words, one could say, I should arrest you. Since I'm confident you have backup if you're half as elite as you claim to be, and its probably armed with military weapons while my backup has a ten millimeter pistol, I won't try and embarrass myself."
He breathes in and out gustily.
"Do you see what I'm saying?"
Me:
"I see your point, so let me answer with a question. You serve the law, but what and who does the law serve? My answer would be justice. And I came here hoping yours would be the same answer...
I know that your intelligent and an experienced officer with instincts to read a situation, so I 'm guessing that you've already guessed yourself that there will come a day when the regime orders to do something that does not simply entail keeping order. On that day you will either choose to do what they say and have to live with it the rest of your life, or you will disobey that order and become a 'criminal' yourself.
What type of regime makes decent men into criminals?" I open the fanny pack and pull out a sheaf of papers. "Here's a list of people who have been arrested with in this city for crimes they didn't commit, some of them under the previous chief, and a number of whom have been executed without trials. Here's a list of people who have been victims of the Hunt with in the previous five years. If you'll notice, the suicide rate is markedly higher than the average. And here is part of the dossier the regime keeps on you." I hand him the last three pages. "The faithfulness with which you've executed your office and your accomplishments, such as stopping those terrorists in Kansas, has kept you out of the 'politically unreliable' category and a prison cell, but just barely. That is the reality of the system and that's the system we're trying to change. We aren't terrorists, the regime is."