Charles Stross' Diary (RSS Feed)
10-04-2007, 08:52 PM
Prologue (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/halting_state_extract/prologue.html)
It's a grade four, damn it. Maybe it should have been a three, but the dispatcher bumped it way down the greasy pole because it was phoned in as a one and the MOP who'd reported the offence had sounded either demented, or on drugs, or something — but definitely not one hundred percent in touch with reality. So they'd dropped it from a three ("officers will be on scene of crime as soon as possible") to a four ("someone will drop by to take a statement within four hours, if we've got nothing better to do"), with a cryptic annotation ("MOP raving about orcs and dragons. Off his meds? But MOP 2 agreed. Both off their meds?").
But then some bright spark in the control room looked at the SOC location in CopSpace and twigged that they'd been phoning from a former nuclear bunker in Corstorphine that was flagged as a Place of Interest by someone or other in national security.
Which jangled Inspector McGregor's bell, and completely ruined your slow Thursday afternoon.
Continue reading ... (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/halting_state_extract/sue-gta.html)
(Original Post) (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/10/chapter_1_grand_theft_automati.html)
It's a grade four, damn it. Maybe it should have been a three, but the dispatcher bumped it way down the greasy pole because it was phoned in as a one and the MOP who'd reported the offence had sounded either demented, or on drugs, or something — but definitely not one hundred percent in touch with reality. So they'd dropped it from a three ("officers will be on scene of crime as soon as possible") to a four ("someone will drop by to take a statement within four hours, if we've got nothing better to do"), with a cryptic annotation ("MOP raving about orcs and dragons. Off his meds? But MOP 2 agreed. Both off their meds?").
But then some bright spark in the control room looked at the SOC location in CopSpace and twigged that they'd been phoning from a former nuclear bunker in Corstorphine that was flagged as a Place of Interest by someone or other in national security.
Which jangled Inspector McGregor's bell, and completely ruined your slow Thursday afternoon.
Continue reading ... (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/halting_state_extract/sue-gta.html)
(Original Post) (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/10/chapter_1_grand_theft_automati.html)