Duty’s Quiet Rot

In the sweltering borderlands between the Federated States of Aldenmoor and the Republic of Vasquez, a civil lawsuit—Scott v. Hawkins et al—rips open the hidden machinery of corruption. Through the lens of this case, the story unearths the slow, self-righteous decay of Deputy Frank Hawkins, a once-loyal patrolman who becomes a silent guardian of a vast narcotics and firearms pipeline. It is not overt villainy that haunts this world, but the methodical, comfortably justified evil of ordinary men who believe they are simply keeping order.