[h1]Hungary[/h1]
[h2]Budapest[/h2]

The rise of a note played over the radio, carried up and skyward on the string of a violin. A like a flock of doves, an entire orchestra took wing and flew to follow. With softly bending springs and the gentle pride of brass horns  the concerto commenced, helping to drown out the soft, nearly inaudible hum of the car engine. Though it couldn't be called much a car, as it had no steering wheel or console for human input. Like so much a large smattering of things on the road there was little input by man in control of the vehicle as it through the roads of central Budapest. Traffic rolled on in its regular way on either side of the Hungarian central city just as it had in the century passed. In the early summer light the clean avenues of the city bore a striking homeliness.

Milo Silolti reclined back in the front seat of the car, thumbing through the news of a thin softpad. With a swipe of the hand the articles flew off to the side to be replaced by another in kind, and then slowly scanned with a drag of his scarred calloused fingers as it quickly skimmed the lines, getting a general look at what had been happening these passed few days. The scores of local sports games, broader geopolitical information, and entertainment drama from as far flung as Bollywood and Nigeria, that long held Hollywood in their shadows now these passed decades had passed. His lips curled down sourly as he skimmed over the trivial headlines and stopping to study the headier headlines from out of Asia. But eventually he passed them all by.

Milo had hardly time to return to local news before the car pulled to the side and with practiced care fit into a parking space. A light chime sang in the interior and Milo looked up to see he had arrived to his destination, an otherwise nondescript red-brick building with the sterile architectural flare to come out of the last gasps of the Warsaw Pact. A painted sign over the door, lit up with neon read, “Budapest Central Police District #1”. Milo shut off the soft pad and slid it into his jacket and stepped out into the sun.

Milo was an imposing figure, standing just over a solid six feet with a broad Hunnic face with small eyes that had simply been plucked into his face with a needle. Across a broad nose a pair of rimless glasses  say just above a small scar that cut width-wide across. He had many more, but he hid those under his thick beard. It had been red once, but like the short combed over hair hanging above a back-sloping brow it was beginning to fade and traces of gray and white peppered his head.

With a wide gait he crossed the sidewalk and stepped inside.

Out of the traffic, it was easy to be reminded with how loud standing outside was. Even with so many motors running quietly on electricity the groan of rubber on pavement and the rattle of trucks became almost a backdrop to life in the city that only stood out when left-behind for some quieter corner, the library, a diner at downtown, or the central police department. As equally spartan inside as it was outside, the details of the building were no more unique as the concrete slab it stood on. Though the building has its scars, so did the rest of the city. The bullet holes patched quickly with cement, the fresh brick faces that contracted light vs dark where a bomb had gone off, or a shell pierced. Hell, there were even parts of  the city still that stood as skeletons amid the backdrop for the stage show of slow as-needed urban reconstruction.

Seated at desks behind lightly frosted glass the various policemen – volunteers of even career volunteers the large part of them – sat at desks taking calls and doing light paperwork for the courts. It was said between all them that while the crime of necessity had been extinguished, the crime of passion still lived. It was broadly recognized that some people would need to keep their eyes out on the rest's back, or be a factor to removing some citizens for cool down. This was Milo's job, a disciplinarian called out to pull a drunk or wife-puncher from the streets, get them to court to be tried, and then see them sat down in a cell.

And also while it was that no one had their own desk per-say, among the house it was recognized some had their own spaces. Milo had his, a corner room where the windows looked out on the Danube, and the other an alley where the next building over was a lower apartment; an elderly man raised a small colony of pigeons there in a hut and he sometimes like to watch them fly about between smokes. And as day, it was empty and he stepped inside and made himself at home.

On the desk was already a folder with forms to fill out, in regards to an incident involving a suspected heroin addict and a tourist he had intervened in at the metro. As he sat down and pushed it aside to begin filling it out for the local court, he spied something it had been hiding. A small slip of folded paper. Setting aside the regularities he unfolded the small slip.

“Call came in, 05:43. Missing tourist. French girl. Speak with me, Imre.”

The corners of his mouth dropped down in a bitter frown as he thumbed the corner of the message. “Fucking tourists.” he whispered hoarsely as he set it aside and quickly went about finishing the court documents.

With the court documents finished he folded them back up into their folder and took them with him as he stepped out to find Imre.

In their own way, Tourists were the most complicating thing in the world of post-revolutionary Hungary. Young Bohemians from Western Europe, Asia, and the developed world coming to gawk in wonder at the first nation to have a settled government described as Anarchist. The successor to the legacies of the Catalonians in the thirties, the country's own uprising in the fifties, and of Kurdish Rojava thirty years earlier. Hungary was the remarkable country, it won and survived. Hungary was the terrifying country, it marked the possibility of total systemic change.

The misfortune to Hungary though was these tourists came into the country expecting punk-level anarchy. If they could get it, they'd race at high speeds through the country. If they have it, they think any sort of narcotic can be used or distributed. And if it was given to them there was a fear they'd start shooting something up. It was certain that the virgin tourist would become shocked and horrified to find the police were alive and well, and that the local worker's councils had worked out just what the fuck they didn't want. And the worker's unions on top of it. There was horrified shock to find an active judicial body, with a jury to convict them.

Because even with society-wide equality, no one still can pretend to be an untouchable billionaire.

Imre's office was at the top floor, and the only one recognized not just commonly, but on all the papers he was the station chief; union elected. His name was on the door, and from his transparent kingdom he looked out on the operations of the station from behind a desk of phones between the other stations and the popular councils of Budapest proper. His computer was always on to some recently received incident report or email, and if it couldn't be handled with that he was bent over the desk writing notes and letters out to the numerous officers that had put their trust in him.

He looked up quickly as Milo entered. Imre's eyes were dark and peerless and they glowered up sharply at him behind the large lenses of heavily rimmed spectacles. He was old, older than Milo and even more a military type from the days of the old fascist, reactionary government. He had remained trusted, and dutiful; ignoring the transfer of power over him like clouds passing in an overcast day. His sharp wrinkled features only hardened his stoic appearance. On some days, he looked like he had been left out in the sun too long, his face was blotching with liver spots and stains. Thick fingers heavily burned and stained from more than a life-time's worth of smoking.

“Got your message.” Milo said.

“I fucking well see that.” Chief Imre sputtered in a low crackling voice. He gestured out his hands to the seats infront of his desk. Sit down, he invited, we have a case to discuss.

“So some foreigner cunt went missing.” he said, dodging all ceremonial euphemism.

“You had no other option?” Milo asked. The question drew a sharp critical glare from Imre.

“Unless any of these shitters want to learn French in half an hour, I don't have any other choice.”

“French, really? Is it that bad.”

Imre grumbled, it was a heavy phlegmy growl from the very bottom of his gut. “Her name's Marie leParche. Some actress libertine. It wouldn't be a problem at all if she also wasn't the French financial minister's son's fiancee.”

“Why would she even be here?” Milo asked, perplexed.

“Because western children are shitters.” Imre groaned.

“Alright, so where she'd go missing at?”

“She and her friends are encamped at the old Prestige across the river. Way it came in over the phones she apparently went missing for an 'early morning walk' and never quiet got around to coming back. There's some men already there, they took their statements and are keeping an eye on them in case they start to leave. We need an investigator to speak with them and take their statements before they go.

“What do you want the case information in, hard form or soft form?” Imre finally asked, grunting.

“Soft.” Milo answered, tapping the pocket where his tablet had been stashed.

“I'll send you the link then and you can go over it on your way there.”