Part III

As Chet watched Marco leaving the office, the thought ran briefly through his mind that if this were a cartoon, steam would be coming out of his friend's ears. He wished that Marco had hung around for at least a minute or two though. Right now, he felt like he was alone in a lion's cage at feeding time.

As expected since he was the only one left, he heard his name and entered the office.

"Close the door behind you, Kelly. Sit."

Poole narrowed his cold grey eyes at him while Chet consciously kept himself from squirming. After what felt like an eternity under the gaze, Poole finally spoke, tossing a folder over near Chet as he did.

"I've put together the papers that you'll need to fill out for requesting a transfer to another station. Have them back on my desk by the end of this rotation."

The folder wasn't touched, but Chet's eyes were on it as he tried to process what had just been said. He was, for once, speechless.

"That's all, Kelly. Dismissed."

The curt words broke through to him and Chet finally responded.

"Wait a minute, Captain."

"That's Captain Poole. Or sir. You will only address me that way. Understand?"

Chet hadn't felt as flustered since the last time he'd been screamed at by a nun back in high school. But he pulled himself together.

"Yessir. I understand. I just don't understand the folder. I don't want to transfer to another station."

"Of course you do. Why would you want to stay at a station where none of the other men can stand you? Transfer to a new area and get a fresh start."

Chet knew his mouth had dropped open, so he closed it and swallowed before speaking again.

"Sir?"

"Come on, man. I've spoken to the rest of the crew. Just because they're too polite to tell you to your face doesn't mean you aren't dragging the rest of the shift down. Still, I can't force you to request a transfer. But I can limit the damage. Stay away from the others. I don't want to see you talking to them unless it's work related. I will take action otherwise. Are we clear?"

There was a pause, then Chet gave a short nod.

"Yessir."

"Good. Get out of here and go to work. You have latrine duty. Permanently. Close the door behind you."

Chet got up and left quietly. He felt nauseous. Old insecurities flared up that he hadn't felt since he'd come to Station 51. He couldn't think of any reason Poole might have had it in for him, so maybe the guys really were tired of him, his jokes and his horror movies.

The silence was abnormally thick at the station. In less than an hour, Poole had managed to insult, offend and/or alienate every single man on A Shift. Worse, he'd made it uncomfortable for the men to even talk to one another.

They had the usual calls and dealt with them efficiently, but the interactions were more stiff than they normally were. Roy was keeping both his eyes and ears open. It didn't take long to notice that Chet was being shafted with all of the more disagreeable tasks at the scene. He also noticed how subdued the usually very animated man was being.

On the first run that required taking a victim to the hospital, Poole spelled out another set of new rules. Any patient that needed to be accompanied in the ambulance, Gage had to do it. Whoever drove the squad in, stayed with the squad and didn't enter the hospital. Even if the run was a supply run, that would be the rule. The driver would stay with the squad, the other would grab the supplies. It wasn't lost on Roy that Poole had basically just made the hospital off limits to him.

Of course, it didn't take very long at all for the staff at Rampart to notice. In fact, Dixie picked up on it immediately.

"Johnny? Where's your other half?"

Johnny gave a smirk at the way she referred to Roy, but that fell away as he looked to the doors.

"He's out in the squad waiting on me, Dix. I'd better get going."

"Nothing's wrong with Roy, I hope?"

"Nothing but our new Captain. He's really -"

Before Johnny could get out another word, his HT went off.

"Captain Poole is about to chew my ear off because we're still at Rampart, Gage."

"On my way, DeSoto."

Then he gave a sad sigh to Dix as he headed for the door.

"See what I mean?"

Dixie just stared. Gage? DeSoto? Frowning, she went to track down Joe. Something strange was going on at her favorite station and it didn't sound good.