X-Men: Shark Bones

"Sir, that's not a question I'm entirely comfortable with answering."

The cop paused for a moment and tilted his head. "Do you have five thousand dollars?"

"...I can't afford to cut holes in a shirt, does it look like I have money?"

"Then you should give me your parents' or legal guadians' contact information. If you can't provide that, you should tell me why, and what led you to be in the circumstances you are to see if I can get some more slack cut out for you and maybe get you out on community service or something. Unless you want to be tried as an adult and end up spending up to years in prison." The cop said, in the friendliest possible tone anyone could say that.

edited 3rd Oct '12 6:31:38 PM by Faramir

John slowly drummed his fingers along the tabletop to pass the time, debating what he would say when his lawyer arrived, he began to amuse himself by concocting various ways to kill everyone in the room.

"Could I borrow a pencil?" He asked the dearest officer.

Before the officer could hand John a pencil, a Filipino man in an expensive suit arrived. "Hello, I am John Kozak's attorney. I'm here to settle some misunderstanding"

"Ah, good, we can talk." One of the cops said, and cops led both the lawyer and John into a different interrogation room.

"First of all, I'd like to see the paperwork that specifies the reasons for his arrest, please. And—uh, Mr. Kozak, I'm required to tell you not to say anything unless I let you. Company policy."

The cops handed John's lawyer some of the already filled out forms, and he began to read through them.

John took a post-it pad and furiously wrote something down, before sliding it to his lawyer. "Way to use my real name in public; fuckin fantastic."

John's lawyer scribbled something in the notepad with his left hand as he finished reading through the documents.

"That's the name the company gave me."

edited 3rd Oct '12 9:03:05 PM by Faramir

"Well then, if we're continuing down that route, let's see how badly you guys mess up this time. As I said, the last time I saw one of them was several years ago. As you probably figured out, I'm a mutant. But people weren't always quite so accepting of them. Of course, slurs and the occasional hate crime still happen these days, but we can't expect everyone to be up to date. My parents, they were the kind of people who really didn't like mutants. Scum, freaks of nature, devilspawn, you know how it is. So when they ended up raising one, it...didn't go well. I was constantly moved between Britain and Canaada, my parents insisting on doing so as neither of them wanted me. And when they had me..." At this point he stuttered a bit trying to continue then burst into tears and fell off his chair. This was not intentional.

John read the note, rolled his eyes, and wrote a response.

"Typical. "

The cop looked at him sympathetically and sighed. "Would you like me to get you some water?" He asked.

He'd become a cop because he wanted to help people, and in his eyes, Nico was a young man who really needed help. "We'll get this sorted out, don't worry."

"I know" Said the note. The lawyer finished reading through the forms and began talking to the cop. After some explanations, some clarifications, some acknowledgement of a few mistakes the cops had made, and a lot of legal jargon, John's lawyer had managed to turn a possible 10-year-plus sentence into a relatively large fine.

He handed John a note. "You have 570,000 dollars?"

edited 4th Oct '12 9:14:01 AM by Faramir

Nico didn't respond and continued being on the floor and crying.

The cop sighed again.

"I'll be right back" He told Nico, and left the room.

Nico continued crying on the floor as the man left the room.

A few minutes passed. The cop came back with a water bottle and some extra forms.

"So, I know this is a bad thing to talk about, but the form requires you to fill out some incident reports at least." He said. "So... would you like to write it in yourself or would you prefer to tell me and I can do it for you?"

After a short pause Nico shuffled across the floor and pulled himself back onto the chair, then took the pen and filled out the incident reports, with the same odd balance of understatement and bias as before.

edited 4th Oct '12 10:29:19 AM by Replica

John looked at the figure and shrugged, before grabbing the pen and jotting down some words. "Is that in Canadian dollars?"

"Irrelevant" The lawyer's response said. Most fines could be paid in either American or Canadian dollars. That either said something about the flexibility of the system, or the frequency with which they'd encountered someone trying to pay with American currency.

"Okay, now the next step would be contacting them and contacting the police where the live. Can you give us their phone numbers?"

John tapped the tip of his pen every so lightly against the tabletop before scratching down a response. The current situation intrigued him, but he didn't let it show.

"In that case, yes; I've got the money. "

"Good"

"So, I do believe that my client will be able to pay the fine with little issue. Thank you for your collaboration, officer Mulato."

"Thank you." The officer said. The money from fines went to the precinct. A fine so large would allow them to fix quite a few problems while not having to spend money on another prisoner simultaneously.

"Now, how would you like to pay, Mister?" The cop asked, and John's lawyer nodded to him, signalling that John should speak up now.

"You guys take Master Card?" He said as he held it between his thumb and forefinger. "Because I'm sure we all have important things to do.

"Sure" The cop nodded, and some 10 minutes later, John was a free man, walking out of the precinct with his lawyer.

"Please try not to get arrested again. They become exponentially less tolerant with every time they see your face." The lawyer told him once they were out of the building.

"That wont be an issue." John said as they exited the police station. "They won't see me again. "With that, he waved his lawyer off as he lit up a cigarette.

John's lawyer rolled his eyes and got onto his car.

John rubbed his wrists where the handcuffs had been secured, flexing his hands after a few moments. There were residual marks, or bruising, but he couldn't shake a familiar feeling.

Grinding out his cigarette, he walked to an idle police officer and spoke to her. "Ma'am, do you know where the nearest hospital is?'