Pick a Side

The rain came down in a steady, freezing mist, slicking the concrete of the rooftop community garden and beading on the heavy plastic of the potting shed. Tatum Reyes stood beneath the thin overhang, wrapping both hands tightly around a chipped ceramic mug that had gone stone cold twenty minutes ago. Through the soles of their boots, the relentless, thudding bass from the cocktail bar on the ground floor vibrated up through the mid-rise’s structural beams. On the wooden potting bench in front of them sat a curling, damp stack of official noise complaints. Dozens of them. Most were neatly printed, color-coded and meticulously logged by Michael Hsu, detailing decibel levels and timestamped disturbances. One was a frantic, tear-stained scrawl from Priya Banerjee, begging for just four hours of uninterrupted sleep before her next hospital shift. But the top page—the one Tatum could not stop staring at—had been defaced. Slashed across the neat bureaucratic lines in thick, jagged black Sharpie were three words: “pick a side”. Tatum’s stomach twisted. They adjusted the strap of their overstuffed messenger bag, feeling the weight of the color-coded folders inside. Neutrality. That was the job. De-escalate, reflect, find the middle ground where everyone was equally unhappy but willing to sign a piece of paper. But the thick black ink of Rook Callahan’s handwriting mocked them in the hazy orange glow of the city’s sodium streetlights bleeding up through the chain-link fencing. The heavy metal door leading to the stairwell groaned open, scraping against the wet concrete. Tatum looked up. Rook stepped out into the drizzle, letting the door slam shut behind him. He wore a heavy leather jacket, already dark and shining with rain, his shoulders tense and his jaw set in a rigid line. He did not carry an umbrella. He looked exactly like the kind of problem Michael Hsu wanted eradicated, and exactly like the kind of man Tatum had spent two years trying not to look at too closely. “Midnight on a wet roof,” Rook said, his voice carrying easily over the thrum of the city and the bass below. He walked toward the potting bench, his boots heavy on the deck. “Very cinematic, mediator Reyes. Did city hall run out of fluorescent-lit basements?” “The residents requested a neutral space that wasn’t in anyone’s apartment,” Tatum said, their voice measured, professional. They tapped the back of their pen three times against the edge of the bench. “And you didn’t answer the door when I…