It's actually an easy job. Find the bad guy. Shoot the bad guy. Lock the bad guy up. Rinse and repeat.
So how did it get so screwed up? For that, we've gotta go back a few years. To The Accident.
The short version is - I never saw her coming. Getting t-boned at 75 miles an hour by a drunk soccer mom in a Ford Excessive is no picnic, even when you're driving a Crown Vic (or as we like to call them "Land Yachts").
The long story is this - Gina and I had been fighting again, and I wasn't paying attention. Sure, the soccer mom was the one who ran the light, but any other day, I'd have seen her coming. But I wasn't paying attention. I was too pissed off. Pissed at Gina, pissed at myself, pissed at the world. So I ate 2 tons of steel at 75 miles an hour. AI (accident investigation) says there weren't even any skidmarks. Soccer moms, what're ya gonna do?
Rehab was a [censored]. I've been busting perps for 15 years, and I swear to the Almighty not one of them ever hurt me more than that physical therapist, and she musta weighed all of 102 pounds. She was one of those "up with life!" people. God I hated her. "Just one more set Mr. Valentine! Let's just stretch a little bit more Mr. Valentine! Just one more lap Mr. Valentine!" blah blah blah!
That's when it all started, really. At first the pills were just to "modulate the pain" said the doc. What he didn't tell me was that they were as addictive as heroin. Couple that with my previous tendency to hit the sauce and you've got a bad combination. I never felt empathy for any of the junkies I busted, and I don't make any excuses for my own problems, but anyone who tells you it's easy to kick an addiction has never had one, plain and simple. And the next jackass who tells me it's easy is gonna get kicked in the chiclets, guaranteed.
I managed to hide it though. You been on the force as long as I have and the muckety mucks down at district tend to overlook the occasional "false positive" on the piss test. I slid by for a while, but even though they didn't catch me, it was only a matter of time before my problems caught up with me.
In reality, the kid had it comin'. He was a career criminal who had done some truly bad things in his time, and D.C. is a safe place without him. The truth is, it never shoulda happened. I wasn't even on duty, fer Chrissakes! It had been a long day and the Rollins case was drivin me nuts, so I headed over to the Broken Rainbow to blow off a little steam.
Typical Cop Bar, the BR. Good Irish bartender, stiff drinks, nice and dark. I think I had two, maybe three Balvenie Double Barrels along with a few pills, just to take the edge off. I was feelin' pretty good when I walked outta there, the Rollins case just a distant, fuzzy memory.
I decided I'd stop off at the liquor store to pick up a sixer of Perettis to put me down for the night. Won's Liquor usually had it in stock, so I ambled in. Took one look at the dude behind the counter and knew the [censored] was about to hit the fan.
The first guy tried to take me out with a sap. He broke my collarbone because I was already on the move, but that just made me angry. I tossed him into a display case full of Agave Tequilas, the real good stuff. The second guy pulled a gun...
At least, that's what I thought he was pulling. The IAD later said it was a billy club, but the thing had a handle and was black. I emptied my clip into his chest, and I'm telling you right now, if that situation comes up again I'd do the same thing, I was that sure.
Needless to say, IAD didn't overlook my false positives. I served 6 months "probationary suspension" which basically means they cut me down to clerical pay and leave me to rot, with barely enough money to pay my bills.
I got by, though. And I got clean. Haven't touched a bottle of booze or a bottle of pills since that night. Not even aspirin. I spent 2 weeks sweating, pissing, and [censored] myself before I got all that crap out of my system, and I'll be damned if I'm going to put any back in.
Once they reinstated me, I knew I was gonna pull crap detail for at least another year. And here I am. Paragon City. The Rikti screwed this place up but good. All these years later and parts of this place are still a dump. I'll take it though. They gave me my badge back, and I intend to keep it.
Yeah, there's a lot of HWOL's around here. That's Heros Without a License in case you're wondering. I don't give em any trouble though, most of em seem to at least be fighting on the right side. They may look ridiculous running around in their jammies, but I guess bein' able to shoot lasers out of your *** and whatnot can make you a little...unbalanced. As long as they're not pointing them at me, we're cool.
Besides, I'm only here as long as it takes me to get back to D.C., where the real fun is. And maybe, just maybe, Paragon City won't turn out to be so bad after all.
So anyways, if you're wondering who the law is around here, you come talk to me. Name's Taylor Valentine, but you can just call me U S Marshall until we know eachother better. I'll see you around...
It's actually an easy job. Find the bad guy. Shoot the bad guy. Lock the bad guy up. Rinse and repeat.
So how did it get so screwed up? For that, we've gotta go back a few years. To The Accident.
The short version is - I never saw her coming. Getting t-boned at 75 miles an hour by a drunk soccer mom in a Ford Excessive is no picnic, even when you're driving a Crown Vic (or as we like to call them "Land Yachts").
The long story is this - Gina and I had been fighting again, and I wasn't paying attention. Sure, the soccer mom was the one who ran the light, but any other day, I'd have seen her coming. But I wasn't paying attention. I was too pissed off. Pissed at Gina, pissed at myself, pissed at the world. So I ate 2 tons of steel at 75 miles an hour. AI (accident investigation) says there weren't even any skidmarks. Soccer moms, what're ya gonna do?
Rehab was a [censored]. I've been busting perps for 15 years, and I swear to the Almighty not one of them ever hurt me more than that physical therapist, and she musta weighed all of 102 pounds. She was one of those "up with life!" people. God I hated her. "Just one more set Mr. Valentine! Let's just stretch a little bit more Mr. Valentine! Just one more lap Mr. Valentine!" blah blah blah!
That's when it all started, really. At first the pills were just to "modulate the pain" said the doc. What he didn't tell me was that they were as addictive as heroin. Couple that with my previous tendency to hit the sauce and you've got a bad combination. I never felt empathy for any of the junkies I busted, and I don't make any excuses for my own problems, but anyone who tells you it's easy to kick an addiction has never had one, plain and simple. And the next jackass who tells me it's easy is gonna get kicked in the chiclets, guaranteed.
I managed to hide it though. You been on the force as long as I have and the muckety mucks down at district tend to overlook the occasional "false positive" on the piss test. I slid by for a while, but even though they didn't catch me, it was only a matter of time before my problems caught up with me.
In reality, the kid had it comin'. He was a career criminal who had done some truly bad things in his time, and D.C. is a safe place without him. The truth is, it never shoulda happened. I wasn't even on duty, fer Chrissakes! It had been a long day and the Rollins case was drivin me nuts, so I headed over to the Broken Rainbow to blow off a little steam.
Typical Cop Bar, the BR. Good Irish bartender, stiff drinks, nice and dark. I think I had two, maybe three Balvenie Double Barrels along with a few pills, just to take the edge off. I was feelin' pretty good when I walked outta there, the Rollins case just a distant, fuzzy memory.
I decided I'd stop off at the liquor store to pick up a sixer of Perettis to put me down for the night. Won's Liquor usually had it in stock, so I ambled in. Took one look at the dude behind the counter and knew the [censored] was about to hit the fan.
The first guy tried to take me out with a sap. He broke my collarbone because I was already on the move, but that just made me angry. I tossed him into a display case full of Agave Tequilas, the real good stuff. The second guy pulled a gun...
At least, that's what I thought he was pulling. The IAD later said it was a billy club, but the thing had a handle and was black. I emptied my clip into his chest, and I'm telling you right now, if that situation comes up again I'd do the same thing, I was that sure.
Needless to say, IAD didn't overlook my false positives. I served 6 months "probationary suspension" which basically means they cut me down to clerical pay and leave me to rot, with barely enough money to pay my bills.
I got by, though. And I got clean. Haven't touched a bottle of booze or a bottle of pills since that night. Not even aspirin. I spent 2 weeks sweating, pissing, and [censored] myself before I got all that crap out of my system, and I'll be damned if I'm going to put any back in.
Once they reinstated me, I knew I was gonna pull crap detail for at least another year. And here I am. Paragon City. The Rikti screwed this place up but good. All these years later and parts of this place are still a dump. I'll take it though. They gave me my badge back, and I intend to keep it.
Yeah, there's a lot of HWOL's around here. That's Heros Without a License in case you're wondering. I don't give em any trouble though, most of em seem to at least be fighting on the right side. They may look ridiculous running around in their jammies, but I guess bein' able to shoot lasers out of your *** and whatnot can make you a little...unbalanced. As long as they're not pointing them at me, we're cool.
Besides, I'm only here as long as it takes me to get back to D.C., where the real fun is. And maybe, just maybe, Paragon City won't turn out to be so bad after all.
So anyways, if you're wondering who the law is around here, you come talk to me. Name's Taylor Valentine, but you can just call me U S Marshall until we know eachother better. I'll see you around...