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The first problem with Sonar’s stapler was that it existed.
The second problem was that Sonar had feelings about it.
The third problem was that Robert had to learn this during an active field call while Punch Up was threatening to crawl through a drive-through window and Flambae was asking whether “controlled burn” meant “emotionally controlled” or “legally controlled.”
Robert had one elbow on the dispatch desk, three call windows open, a half-finished incident review shoved under his keyboard, and Beef asleep under the desk making tiny wheezing noises like a haunted squeaky toy.
On-screen, Z-Team had split across a strip mall with a burglary in progress, a panic crowd, and one suspect barricaded inside the back office of a phone repair shop. It was not catastrophic. It was not clean either. Nothing involving the words refurbished vape kiosk ever was.
“Punch Up, east door.”
“On it.”
“Waterboy, keep the crowd back from the broken glass.”
“I can do that. I mean, I think I can. I mean, I am doing that. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologise to the glass.”
“Right. Sorry. Sorry for that one too.”
“Flambae, do not ignite the awning.”
“Why the fuck would I ignite the awning?”
“You were looking at it.”
“It looked flammable. That’s not a crime.”
“Sonar, roof access. Tell me what’s behind the office wall.”
There was a click on the channel. Sonar’s breath came through close to the mic, then a small tongue-tick. Echolocation, probably. Or whatever bat-man version of knocking on drywall and pretending it was science.
“Robert.”
Robert watched the suspect move between two camera dead zones. “Yeah?”
“Do you have eyes on my stapler? I think I left it at your desk.”
Robert did not blink.
He looked at his desk.
There was a mug. Beef’s spare harness. Two unpaid parking tickets he had absolutely not put there. A bag of sealed donuts. A small plastic dinosaur Prism had left on his keyboard and refused to explain. No stapler.
“Nope,” Robert said. “I don’t see it.”
“I feel like you didn’t look.”
“I did. It took like two seconds. I didn’t see it.”
“Can you look again?”
A civilian on the crowd feed shouted something about their phone being inside the shop. Punch Up shouted back, “Then call it, genius,” and immediately looked pleased with himself.
Robert looked at his desk again.
Still no stapler. Weird how objects continued not to exist under pressure.
“Yup,” Robert said. “Still don’t see it, dude.”
“Shit.”
The word landed like Sonar had just watched a childhood home burn down.
Robert leaned closer to the mic. “Why do you need it? You’re in the field.”
“I just wanna make sure it’s there. It’s a nice stapler.”
For one second, the dispatch bay became very quiet.
Not outside. Outside, the suspect was yelling, Prism was somewhere off-channel making crowd-control theatre out of a reflection in a busted phone screen, and Waterboy had started saying, “Please don’t step there, please don’t step there, please don’t—OK, you stepped there.”
But inside Robert’s headset, the shape of the day changed.
“A nice stapler,” Robert repeated.
“Yes.”
“You called me during a burglary for a stapler welfare check.”
“Don’t say it like that.”
“How should I say it?”
“Like a person with office standards.”
Robert pinched the bridge of his nose. “Sonar.”
“Robert, most staplers are dogshit.”
“Sure.”
“They jam. They chew paper. They produce one good staple every seven attempts like a slot machine with toner poisoning.”
“Punch Up, do not break the window.”
“I wasnae breaking it. I was opening it wrong.”
“Use the door.”
“The door’s locked.”
“You are three feet from Flambae.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want him near the awning either.”
Flambae’s mic clicked hot. “Why is everyone acting like I fuck awnings?”
“Because you’re looking at it again,” Robert said.
“I’m allowed to look.”
Sonar cut back in. “My stapler has clean action.”
“Jesus Christ,” Flambae said. “Are we still talking about the stapler?”
“We were always talking about the stapler,” Sonar said.
“No, we were doing crime.”
“We’re preventing crime.”
“I meant as a team hobby.”
Waterboy, unfortunately, had heard enough to join in. “Is it a special stapler?”
“Thank you, Waterboy,” Sonar said. “Yes, it is.”
“Oh. That’s nice.”
“Don’t encourage him,” Robert said.
“I’m not. I mean, I don’t think I am. I just think it’s nice to have a thing that works how it’s supposed to.”
The channel went quiet again, but softer this time.
Then Flambae said, “Wetboy, do not make the stapler thing emotionally valid.”
“Sorry.”
“No, it was sweet. That’s the problem. I hate it.”
Punch Up grunted. “What kind of stapler are we talking?”
Robert’s soul left his body, looked around, saw the rest of Z-Team, and came back because clearly nobody else was available.
“We are not doing this,” Robert said.
“Just asking,” Punch Up said. “Desk stapler? Heavy duty? One of those wee shite ones that folds in half if you breathe on it?”
“Heavy,” Sonar said immediately. Too immediately.
Robert stared at the wall.
Flambae made a delighted little noise. “Oh my god.”
“What?” Sonar said.
“You know the weight.”
“Weight matters.”
“You know the weight like it touched you right.”
“Do not sexualise my office supplies.”
“You called it nice like it pays for dinner.”
“It has a clean press.”
“You hear that, Bob? Clean press.”
Robert closed his eyes. “I heard it.”
“That’s nasty.”
“It is not nasty,” Sonar said. “It is mechanical satisfaction.”
“That’s worse, babe.”
“Do not babe me during an active stapler investigation.”
Robert snapped his fingers at the board like that would restore order. “Active burglary. Remember that?”
“Yeah,” Prism said, suddenly on comms. “I’m watching three grown men kink-shame stationery while handling crowd optics. Honestly? Multitasking.”
“Where are you?”
“On top of the nail salon.”
“Why?”
“Better lighting.”
“For what?”
“For me.”
Robert accepted that because he could either accept it or spend the next forty seconds learning about Prism’s relationship with backlight.
“Sonar,” he said. “Map the office.”
“I’m mapping.”
“No, you’re litigating.”
“I can do both. Harvard.”
“Boo,” Prism said.
“Booo,” Flambae echoed.
Punch Up added, “Shite school.”
“You people are so intimidated by prestige,” Sonar said.
“Your prestige lost a stapler,” Robert said.
That hurt him. Robert could hear it.
Good.
The call lurched forward. Sonar, despite everything wrong with him, mapped the wall cavity and found a maintenance gap behind the office. Punch Up fit through it because Punch Up could fit through things with the hostile determination of a cork fired from a cannon. Waterboy kept civilians back by turning the sidewalk into a polite moat. Flambae did not ignite the awning, though he did say, “You’re welcome, architecture,” which Robert chose not to review.
The suspect surrendered after Prism projected a forty-foot duplicate of herself over the strip mall and said, “Babe, come out before the short king gets bored.”
Dispatch logged it as visual deterrence.
Robert logged it as fine.
He had just started closing the call when Sonar came back over the private channel.
“Robert, you were the last one to see my stapler.”
Robert stared at the headset.
“Was I? I don’t think that’s true.”
“You’re the prime suspect.”
“I’m the dispatcher.”
“Criminals can have jobs.”
“You would know.”
A pause.
“Low blow,” Sonar said.
“You accused me of stealing a stapler while wearing a suit you probably bought with money laundering.”
“Alleged money laundering.”
“You pled guilty to money laundering.”
“That was before I understood myself as a brand.”
Robert dragged one hand down his face. “Why would I need to steal your stapler? I already have a stapler.”
“So what you’re saying is now you have two staplers.”
Punch Up laughed so loudly Robert had to pull the headset half off his ear.
The private channel, apparently, had not been private.
“Who patched everyone in?”
Prism said, “Me.”
“Why?”
“Because the public has a right to know.”
“The public is not Z-Team.”
“The public is whoever I think is funniest.”
Flambae was wheezing. “Bob got caught hoarding staplers like a divorced substitute teacher.”
“I did not steal the stapler.”
“That’s exactly what a man with two staplers would say.”
Waterboy said, “Maybe it fell behind the desk?”
“Thank you,” Robert said. “That is the first normal contribution.”
“Or maybe Beef took it.”
Beef lifted his head under the desk, offended by name recognition.
“Beef did not take the stapler.”
“He could’ve,” Waterboy said, increasingly committed to the worst possible defence. “Dogs like objects.”
“Beef weighs eight pounds.”
“Crime has no weight class,” Sonar said.
Punch Up snorted. “Put the dog on trial.”
Robert pointed down at Beef. “You are not on trial.”
Beef huffed, then went back to sleep because he had a union-level understanding of his responsibilities.
Prism gasped. “Wait. What if Robert stole it for Beef?”
Robert stood up.
Alone, in the dispatch bay, he stood up because sitting had become legally unsafe.
“I am going to say this one time,” he said. “I did not steal Sonar’s stapler. Beef did not steal Sonar’s stapler. No one has stolen Sonar’s stapler.”
“Classic denial structure,” Sonar said.
“You are in so much danger when you get back.”
“Threatening the witness.”
“You are the accuser.”
“Whistleblower retaliation.”
Punch Up cleared his throat, lowering his voice into what he apparently believed was legal authority. “Mr Robertson, where were you on the afternoon in question?”
Robert sat back down because standing had not helped.
“At my desk. Dispatching you idiots.”
“And what was on your desk?”
“A keyboard, a coffee, three bad decisions, and not the stapler.”
Sonar made a wounded sound. “You didn’t mention the donut.”
“I’m allowed privacy.”
“Consciousness of guilt.”
Robert muted the channel.
The rest of the call paperwork happened in blessed, artificial silence. Robert watched the team wrap the scene, watched Prism bow at a crowd that should not have been applauding, watched Flambae attempt to sign someone’s burned phone case before Waterboy gently redirected his hand, watched Punch Up steal a bag of chips from the evidence vending machine and pretend it was restitution.
Five minutes later, after Robert had cleared the call and Z-Team had begun committing several forms of unsanctioned dispersal, Sonar’s icon blinked.
Robert considered ignoring it.
Robert had grown as a person, but not enough.
He opened the channel.
“Robert, I found my stapler.”
Robert put his forehead on the desk.
“Where was it?”
“I left it in a locker at the gym.”
Robert lifted his head.
On the main feed, Prism had stopped walking. Flambae turned very slowly. Punch Up’s shoulders began to shake. Waterboy looked relieved in the sincere, damaging way of a man who thought the justice system had worked.
Robert looked at the ceiling.
“I have a lot of follow-up questions, but... I don’t care about the answers.”
“That’s avoidance,” Sonar said.
“That is survival.”
“I respect that.”
“Do you?”
“No.”
Punch Up lost it first. He folded over with both hands on his knees, laughing so hard the camera shook.
Flambae pointed at Sonar with his whole body. “You accused Robert of stealing your slutty little office brick, and it was in your gym locker?”
“It is not slutty.”
“Why was it at the gym?”
“Administrative reasons.”
“What administrative reasons happen at a gym?”
“Territorial documentation.”
Robert went very still.
Prism’s voice dropped into reverence. “Oh no, this is going to be better than sex.”
“It’s not,” Waterboy said, then immediately panicked. “I mean, for me. I don’t know about you. Sorry.”
Sonar sighed like everyone else had forced him to be reasonable.
“There is a bench at the gym,” he said, “with optimal acoustic positioning.”
“Normal sentence,” Robert said.
“And some absolute dumbass keeps taking it.”
“Public gym,” Punch Up said.
“Incorrect. Socially public. Acoustically mine.”
Flambae screamed.
Sonar pushed on. “So I stapled a notice to my towel.”
Robert stared at the board.
“You stapled a notice to your towel.”
“To reserve the bench.”
“With the stapler.”
“How else would I staple it?”
Prism made a strangled sound. “What did the notice say?”
“No.”
“Victor.”
“No.”
“Read the notice.”
“You are not entitled to my intellectual property.”
Flambae clapped once. “Oh, it was horny.”
“It was legal.”
“That means horny.”
“It said: BENCH UNDER ACOUSTIC REVIEW. DO NOT DISTURB.”
The channel detonated.
Waterboy made a little helpless noise that might have been laughter and might have been respiratory distress. Punch Up was gone, fully gone, just Irish static and violence wheezing. Flambae kept repeating 'acoustic review’ like each pass made it more delicious. Prism was laughing too hard to speak, which Robert understood as a regional disaster.
Robert leaned into his mic.
“Victor.”
“What?”
“You stapled a fake official notice to a towel to reserve a gym bench.”
“I never said official.”
“You wrote it like a municipal threat.”
“It worked.”
“You forgot the stapler in the locker.”
“Temporarily.”
“You accused me of stealing it.”
“You had access.”
“I had innocence.”
“You had opportunity.”
Robert looked at Beef. Beef had rolled onto his side, one paw twitching, completely untouched by the collapse of professional standards.
“New rule,” Robert said.
Everyone kept laughing.
“New rule,” he repeated. “No staplers in the field.”
“I wasn’t in the field.”
“You were on a roof six minutes ago.”
“Irrelevant.”
“No staplers at the gym.”
“That feels targeted.”
“No stapler investigations during active calls.”
“What if it’s urgent?”
“It will never be urgent.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know exactly that.”
Prism finally got enough air to speak. “Can the stapler have a name?”
“No,” Robert said.
Sonar said, too fast, “It doesn’t have a name.”
The entire channel inhaled.
Robert felt the day tilt.
Flambae whispered, “Oh, bitch.”
Punch Up stopped laughing. “What’s the stapler’s name, Victor?”
“No.”
Waterboy said, “Maybe we shouldn’t pressure him.”
“We should absolutely pressure him,” Prism said.
Sonar’s ears were not visible on the comm icon, but Robert could hear them flattening.
“It is not a name,” Sonar said. “It is an asset designation.”
Robert closed his eyes.
“What is the asset designation?”
A pause.
Then, very quietly, Sonar said, “Gregory.”
Flambae hit a note that probably counted as structural damage.
Punch Up fell over. The camera confirmed it. He just tipped sideways out of frame.
Prism shouted, “GREGORY!”
Waterboy gasped, “That’s a nice name.”
“It is a stapler,” Robert said.
“He has clean action,” Sonar said, like that explained any of this.
Robert took off his headset.
The team kept going through the desk speakers.
“Gregory needs a locker,” Prism said.
“Gregory needs therapy,” Flambae said.
“Gregory needs a wee solicitor,” Punch Up said from the floor.
“Gregory might need waterproof labels,” Waterboy offered.
Sonar’s voice rose over them all. “Gregory needs respect.”
Robert looked down at Beef.
Beef opened one eye.
“I hate it here,” Robert said.
Beef sneezed.
Robert put the headset back on.
“Z-Team,” he said, “return to SDN. Good work on the call. Terrible work on everything else.”
“Robert,” Sonar said.
“No.”
“Gregory accepts your apology.”
“I did not apologise.”
“He knows what he heard.”
Robert ended the channel.
For three seconds, there was peace.
Then his phone buzzed with a new message from Prism, who had somehow turned “found in a locker” into an evidence packet within five minutes.
It was a photo of the missing stapler sitting in an open gym locker beside a towel. The towel had a paper sign stapled to it.
BENCH UNDER ACOUSTIC REVIEW. DO NOT DISTURB.
Underneath, Prism had added:
you and 0% of players respected gregory’s boundaries
Robert looked at the ceiling.
Then he looked at Beef.
Then he opened the incident log and typed, very carefully:
No additional equipment issues reported.
It was a lie.
But Robert had learned from the best.