He tried, with the police codes. Really, he did. Really!
But there were like a gazillion of them, and every time he went to look them up online they were different, it seemed like. Wasn't 461 public indecency yesterday? Why was it 524 today? He kept tripping over them or saying the wrong one and Barry would be like, "Sexual assault?!" and Cisco would have to explain, no, disturbing the peace.
Caitlin made him quit using them when they were communicating with Barry in an actual situation. "But I want to," he whined. "It sounds so cool."
"As long as you don't have them memorized, using them only confuses things," she said. "It makes the calls twice as long as they need to be, and that's not good."
So he started studying them during downtime. Like, seriously. How hard could it be? These were just numbers. Symbols. He could do numbers and symbols.
After a week, he felt like he had them down. So when Barry came to hang out, he said cheerfully, "Okay! Quiz me."
"Okay," Barry said. "Assault with a deadly weapon."
"245."
"No," Barry said. "Um. Grand theft."
"487?"
Barry frowned. "Nuh-uh. Okay, kidnapping."
"2 … 07?"
"Sorry. No."
"Wait a minute," Cisco said. "I swear I knew these cold." He brought up the PDF he'd been using. "No, I'm right, here it is!"
Barry leaned over to peer at his screen. "Why are you using San Jose's codes?"
"Am I?" Cisco looked. "I guess that's what Google brought up. But don't you guys use the same numbers?"
"Dude," Barry said patiently. "No. We don't."
Cisco's mouth fell open so far the lollipop fell out and splashed in his coffee. "You're screwing with me."
"No, I'm not. Some things are common, but others are different from state to state or city to city. It all depends on the local penal code. You should have heard me when I went to Starling City. I got all messed up."
Cisco gave Caitlin a glare. "Stop laughing."
"I'm not laughing," she said, turning purple with the effort of trying not to laugh.
"It's okay," Barry said. "Not a lot of people know that. Sorry, Cisco, I didn't think of telling you."
Cisco couldn't stay annoyed for long, even at himself, and soon he was laughing, too. "Man, I knew some of those were wrong." He retrieved his lollipop and sucked the coffee off it. "I guess it doesn't save that much time," he said regretfully.
"And we've gotten used to just saying things," Caitlin said. "Can you be done with those now, please?"
"I guess."
The next time, Barry came in, he dropped a pack of ragged, hand-written index cards on Cisco's desk. "What are these?" Cisco wanted to know.
"The set of flashcards Joe made me when I started working for CCPD. If you still wanted to study the radio codes."
Cisco spread them out, poring over Joe's spiky, spare handwriting. "Do you actually have to use these that much?"
"Not most of them," Barry admitted. "It's not even technically required for CSIs. It's mostly badges who use 'em."
"So why'd you learn them?"
Barry grinned. "Because. They sound so cool."
FINIS