AN: Because I was an idiot and forgot to put the 'My Girlfriend is an Animal tag on the chapter title
The evening following the debate, where Hireman pulled a commanding initial lead, in one of a number of ordinary looking homes, a solitary figure was slaughtering his victim. A punching bag. Joseph Patten, 34 years of age as of the end of April that year. His was a mind in rage. And only the equipment in his basement could enable the venting of his intense fustrations.
Blow, after blow, after kick, after blow, after blow, after kick, after blow, after blow, after kick, after blow, after blow, after kick, after blow, after blow, after kick, after blow, after blow, after kick, after blow, after blow, after kick.
A continual repitition that served to provide him a means to vent his rage safely.
Finally, he had worn himself out, and rested, using the abused punching bag for support. 'Damn him,' he thought to himself. 'Damn that bastard, using my concerns for his own, ill-gotten gain.' He referred to Hireman, he still had problems wrapping his brain around it all. That he saw fit to record all his meetings while - at the same time - concealing that knowledge from everyone else, a fact he could be certain of as all the other teachers who were both at the debate AND had attended that particular meeting had been in largely the same state of shock.
"Clearly, you're no amateur." He spoke to himself. And he had good reason to be worried. Unlike Williams, MacClure and Beauregard, who had essentially been absolute retards, Hireman was using his twisted 148 IQ brain as his primary weapon of choice. This, he knew, would make Hireman an exceptionally dangerous adversary. But then, so was he.
Grabbing a nearby towel to wipe the sweat of his face and bald head, he made his way to his private study. Inside was a large desktop, which held a Desktop Mac, powered by a pair of linked hard drives, utilising a tri-widescreen setup. Perfect for when you needed to do a lot of work in short time. Already fully powered up and ready to go, he set to work, accessing all the relevant public information sites he could, gathering every last scrap of information he could concerning one Wayne Hireman. Once he had completed this task, he would compile the information, with which he could use to build the true character of him, aided by his knowledge of Psychoanalysis and related personality profiling, combined with his ability to properly utilise said techniques. The same way, he mused, that he determined the mindset of now-Officer George Wayne.
Thankfully, the following week's debate carried with it one distinct advantage. Since an individual could only moderate the debates once per election, he could cease impartiality and come out firmly in support of Mrs Tabitha Choir. The downside was he knew who was moderating that next debate, and that she was firmly allied with Hireman. Even though the rules stated that you had to be level with all candidates, they could easily be breached, and he would need to be ready for that. He knew, that from this point forward, insofar as these elections were concerned, he had no more margin for error. He had to get it exactly right every time.
Patten was loathe to admit it, but he had been caught off-guard. And it was that very lapse in judgement, prior to the debate, that had allowed Hireman to twist his statement for his own racist purposes. And that was just the start. If he was allowed to build on it, he could turn the entire district against not only Tabitha, but Molly as well. During the - very - few times they HAD spoken, he had learned what she was truly like, and he knew, beyond all possible doubt, that nothing that Hireman had said about her was true. At the absolute worst, she was simply too lovestruck with George to notice his behaviour. That certainly was not a crime, and he couldn't fault her for something like that.
On top of that. He knew he would have to answer for his own part in it all. And he would have to convince them, that he judged, not in group mentality, but the individual. That he took each person one at a time, observed them over time, and only when he had the knowledge base in which to make a proper judgement, would he do that.
A mindset that made him very few friends, he knew and accepted. But the few he had, he called true friends, ones that would watch your back while he watched theirs. Ones he is proud to call his friends.
Soon enough, he had all the information he could on Hireman, and began the lengthy task of compiling it all into a usable form. Cross-checking every single piece for ensurance of accuracy, using only what he could determine to be of highest accuracy. This, he concluded, would take him the entire night. However. This had not stopped him before, and it would not stop him now.
"As long as Joseph Patten is around, I will allow none to infect them with your Racist Bullshit." He monologued, referring to the children, whose welfare was his everytime they crossed the school lines. He would keep them safe from any and all threats to their safety, and their development. And he would do whatever it took to make it happen.
WITHIN, the Law.