Jimmy, holding the badge, walked out of the Church, and James was still standing outside.
James, "Got it?"
Jimmy, "Yeah, he gave me this."
Jimmy showed the badge to James. The badge had a bronze base with a cross in the middle, stark and unadorned. After a glance, James said, "This is the Monk Chapter, keep it safe, it will be useful." (In reality, such a thing doesn't exist; it's purely made up for convenient identification of identity)
Having said that, James turned his head and walked toward his car. Jimmy put the badge away and walked to his own car, driving back to his apartment.
Jimmy had finally unraveled a mystery that had troubled him for a long time, only he never expected that James's special treatment toward him was because someone in his family had participated in that war, which changed his impression of Chinese people.
Although it was two different worlds, the other side of this world still existed, and clearly history was similar. Although James didn't mention it, perhaps that Olympic Games also existed.
This also clarified the reason Tom had said that Jimmy should be grateful to James; there wasn't any particular conspiracy here, it was just a chance coincidence that Jimmy encountered the rare compassion of James, influenced by multiple factors, leading Jimmy to his current situation.
Jimmy turned on his computer and began to search online for information related to the Catholic Church. Most importantly, he needed to familiarize himself with the Bible and the Church. Although this time it was an even more abbreviated version of a Holy Baptism, it was still a baptism, and from now on, he would be a nominal Catholic believer.
If he knew nothing about Church knowledge and Bible content, then even the nominal title might be taken away from him.
After searching a bit online, Jimmy still decided to go out and buy a Bible from a bookstore to read at home. Mainly because there were just too many things related to religion, and if he only looked at online resources, he was almost certainly going to fall into a pit, so it would be better to read a book.
By the time Jimmy arrived at the bookstore, his eyes were opened. The bookstore wasn't very large, but its shelves were neatly organized with a plethora of books on display.
In his previous life, although he hadn't been to many bookstores, he generally knew that bookstores sold a variety of books, but the bookstore he visited was almost half-filled with various Bibles and religious books (under the "Christian Life" tag).
Just looking at these various versions of the Bible gave Jimmy a headache. Ultimately, he could only buy an English version of the Catholic Bible and a palm-sized portable version, both recommended by the clerk.
In the subsequent period of Jimmy's life, a new task was added: he needed to familiarize himself with the Bible's content quickly. He didn't need to memorize it, but at least he had to know what was inside.
After some uneventful time passed, the police department granted Jimmy a privilege that he didn't want: his patrol car and its equipment could be taken home after work. The rationale was to enable Jimmy to respond to emergencies without having to return to the station first.
Jimmy truly hoped to have enough personal time after work, and now that had suddenly collapsed. To go to and from work in uniform, driving a police car, and carrying full gear was the norm. The only potential benefit might have been the increased salary, as his nearly round-the-clock availability meant a significant boost in pay.
Jimmy had only one parking spot, and his Mercury Tracker was still parked there. What to do with his own car when the police car arrived? Jimmy went straight to Amy to request that the department reimburse him for the cost of renting another parking spot, and then, unsurprisingly, he was turned away.
Jimmy gritted his teeth and simply parked his car in the police station parking lot, deciding to leave it there. From then on, he would use the patrol car as his personal vehicle, conveniently saving on fuel costs.
After work, Jimmy drove the police car straight back to his apartment and had a bit of a hassle with the parking lot attendant to get the vehicle registration changed.
Dressed in a police uniform, Amy entered the apartment, causing some disturbance. Such an apartment building housed all sorts of people—there was even a police officer living next door. Nobody had noticed before, but now that Amy came back in uniform, complete with full gear and two guns, she could already guess that some of the residents might consider moving out soon.
Amy knew there were violations happening next door, but such things were far too common in the United States to manage. She was off duty when she came home and had no desire to deal with it. Let them be.
Now there was a problem—if she came and went in her police uniform and happened to encounter an ongoing violation, it would be a no-win situation whether she intervened or not.
Amy increasingly wanted to move. As soon as she had enough funds, she would hurry up and buy a house.
At 10:30 p.m., Amy's phone rang. On her first day driving the police car home, she was called out for overtime.
The dispatch center called Amy's cell phone directly. A random shooting had occurred in the southern part of Stonetown, and LRPD officers from the South District were already blocking a 3-kilometer perimeter around the scene. LRPD requested nearby officers to come to the scene for support. By the way, the apartment Amy rented was located in the southern part of the city, while county police headquarters were in the city center.
Amy truly disliked such cases because the county police and LRPD used the same dispatch center, resulting in frequent cross-departmental support. If the support was for a specified location, it was simpler—mostly requiring a show of force, and only occasionally acting as backup. Unless there was an incident, it was essentially like driving there to rest.
However, today's random street shooting was basically about searching for suspects within the area, which not only took a lot of time but also posed a high risk of accidents.
Since the dispatch center had already notified her, Amy had no choice but to change into her police uniform at home, grab her equipment, and head to the parking lot. She drove towards the South District.
Random shootings in American streets were very common. Some happened because people were drunk or drugged, some were accidental discharges while showing off firearms, some were acts of vengeance against society, and others were done by people truly out of their minds, seeking thrills.
Usually, only cases reported in the media where victims died or were severely disabled had serious consequences. But actually, many more random shooting incidents involved perpetrators firing aimlessly from their vehicles at people on streets and then fleeing, with victims suffering regular gunshot wounds and no life-threatening injuries. Furthermore, many shooting incidents didn't involve victims at all, being just close calls due to poor shooter accuracy, hitting the ground or walls, and as a result, they were only reported to the police and not widely publicized.
This time, the South District case was one such random street shooting. According to the informant's description, the vehicle was confirmed to be either a black or gray Ford Mustang muscle car. Due to inadequate lighting, the car's color couldn't be confirmed, but the model could be. This was the only lead; this time, there were no victims. The passenger of the Mustang fired shots but missed everyone.
LRPD officers had already started sealing off the streets 3 kilometers out, hoping to find the car within the blockade zone. However, due to the insufficient number of traffic cameras in this suburban area of the South District, a large part of the area could not confirm the direction in which the car traveled.
Amy drove the police car into the blockade zone, began circling around the district roads in search of the target Ford Mustang. After searching several blocks to no avail, Amy contacted the dispatch center via radio, requesting an expansion of the area investigation using traffic surveillance. If the driver was fast enough after the informant notified the police and officers began blocking the area, they indeed could have escaped, as 3 kilometers is not a particularly long distance.
Other police cars were also searching the area. Just Amy alone spent over 20 minutes searching; officers who arrived earlier had already searched every street within the 3-kilometer range multiple times, but all without any findings.
In the end, LRPD had no choice but to give up, and all officers returned to their respective duties.
This was really frustrating. Road traffic surveillance had been around for many years, yet the United States hadn't managed to cover every intersection, partly due to cost issues, but the main problem was so-called political correctness. To protect the so-called privacy, there was always resistance in various forms whenever installation was proposed.
Technological development issues still existed: there weren't enough private or mobile phone cameras. These road incidents happened in a flash, and often even if there were eyewitnesses, they couldn't clearly describe the perpetrator's features. A significant part of the difficulty in solving random shooting cases was due to these reasons.
Amy stopped searching and drove the police car back to her apartment. Along the way, she kept an eye out for other cars, hoping for the off chance to spot the target. Although Amy had no enforcement authority, solving a case and catching a suspect would still be a good outcome.
But Amy's luck was not as good as it used to be. She didn't see a black or gray Mustang all the way home.