[Interior] The investigatory unit sits at an oversized card table in their basement work space. Cork boards are neatly organized along the walls, each displaying a web of yarn linking documents, photos, and index cards. 5-drawer file cabinets have replaced the towers of manila folders that had previously occupied most of the corners. The single uniformed individual is completing his morning brief.

LIEUTENANT CEDRIC DANIELS: …Greggs and Sydnor will stay on the Tempe elections department until they can produce more evidence on the failed arena vote. Herc and Carver, I need you both with eyes on everyone coming and going as the Suns complete their head coaching search.

SERGEANT ELLIS CARVER: We know it’s going to be Kevin Young. And, all due respect Lieutenant, it’s 115 degrees on those rooftops downtown. Maybe it’s time to accept this new owner, Mat Ishbia just isn’t in on this trying to lose thing.

DANIELS: Put on a hat and drink water. Dismissed.

CARVER’s grumbles are inaudible over the sounds of chairs sliding back on the concrete floor and the room clearing. DANIELS exits to his adjacent office and is followed by two men.

DETECTIVE ROLAND PRYZBYLEWSKI: Sir, one thing real quick? I was showing this to McNulty earlier and we’re having a disagreement over pertinence. Picked up a conversation but not clear how to mark it.

DETECTIVE JAMES MCNULTY: It’s pertinent! Nuk and Frank Sobatka! You’ve got the supply right there! Nuk is disgruntled and, if there were bamboo ballots coming into this country, you know they had to come through the docks! This is the informant we need! You wanted election fraud proof and now the wire is going to get us there!

DANIELS: You’ve got Sobatka on the phone with DeAndre Hopkins discussing the bamboo ballots conspiracy? Hopkins didn’t even come to Arizona until March 2020.

MCNULTY: Well no. But this leads us to Nuk.

DANIELS: Let’s hear it. I’ll call in Pearlman if we can use it.

FRANK SOBATKA: DeAndre! You’re one of the best receivers I got in the union! How’d you go and get yourself straight up released?!

DEANDRE “NUK” HOPKINS: Look Frank, I don’t need to stick around with a bunch of losers. Team sets out to lose. They got nothing next year and I want a ring.

SOBATKA: A ring? A RING?! You’re 31, rarely available for games, don’t practice, and cost $20 million a year! Where the fuck was your union rep?! Did you get any advice before just going out and blasting your employer on some podcast?

HOPKINS: Arizona ain’t where I wanna be.

SOBATKA: You think any of this is where we wanna be?! You think this is where I wanna be? My union barely has enough work for the old boys, let alone our kids! We’re relying on our union network to stand with us just to have enough men to have a voice. We work too hard for too little with no security and for 25 years we’ve been dying slow down there. Dry docks rusting and piers standing empty. Nothing from nobody. And now my Stevedores are being compared to the lazy NFLPA? Use your head!

HOPKINS: Look, it’s different man. They headhuntin’ around here. They wasn’t going to keep me. They shopping me. Man gotta lead his own path.

SOBATKA: And what about your union brothers? You’re happy to have us defend your skipping practices. You’re happy to have us backing your bullshit PED excuse without question! You love having the opportunity to show off your style at the NFL Honors events. But you never come buy a round for the boys at Delores’s! We gotta be in this together!

HOPKINS: It ain’t that way anymore, Frank! It’s too hard to do it all! I catch. I run. I’m 31 and I’m everyone is telling me the end is coming. You’re worried about ten years left? I’m worried about five! Where were you when I got traded here?! Where were you when Steve Keim was signing this franchise into years of irrelevance? How are we all union players but we all know three years in Arizona is more debilitating to a career than three years in Kansas City?! I need my touches!

SOBATKA: We all do! We need ships! We need dredging! We need manufacturing! We all need touches! And didn’t the union get you the kickoff rule changed? That’s going to get more offensive snaps in the typical NFL game. That’s the union getting you your touches!

HOPKINS: It’s not enough, Frank! Face it! We’ve all gotta do more. I gotta model. I gotta ball. I gotta Twitch. World has changed. I’m a brand, not a union card. But it starts with touches. And a ring.

SOBATKA: We’ve always been doing more. But we used do more for each other. Now men just do more for themselves. Get a dollar and sit out until he’s promised two more. Happy to sign the contract but cry when asked to honor it. Business decisions? It used to be the same thing. A man had pride in his work. Pride in his business. Pride in the way he went about his business.

HOPKINS: Different game now, Frank. Your old ways….they’re just wrong. Unsustainable in the face of market forces. Look around and face the facts. You don’t even play straight anymore. No way your union brings in enough dues to get that kickoff rule changed without some other dealing. Talk honestly.

SOBATKA: And say what? I’m sitting here trying to figure it out myself. It didn’t happen overnight. I knew I was wrong. But in my head, I thought I was wrong for the right reasons, you know? There are different kinds of wrong. And we had a good thing going in 2020. We had ships backed up at the ports! We had work! Work for everyone! Stevadors and teamsters! Steelworkers were in demand! It was a time for operating engineers and the Amalgamated Transit Union that hadn’t been seen in decades. America was Great Again, you remember.

HOPKINS: And you sold it out for a single shipping container full of bad ballots?

SOBATKA: Hey! We don’t know what’s in those boxes! They say paper we move paper! How’s we supposed to know what Bidwill runs through that port?

HOPKINS: And that’s the difference between me and you, Frank. You don’t pay attention and now look at where it got you. Look at the kind of people who do business with Mike Bidwill. When you’re in the game, you’re in the game. I’m paying attention. I got my head on a swivel. And I’m getting the hell out of Arizona now because Bidwill and Keim have no loyalty and they’re looking for scapegoats as we speak.

SOBATKA: Keim?! He’s out. Ossenfort is calling the shots now.

HOPKINS: Haha. See Frank? This is what I mean; you don’t pay attention. You listen to the headlines instead of focusing on yourself and getting your stats. You’re so concerned about my decisions, what about your own? Do yourself a favor. Put yourself first, for once.

SOBATKA: It ain’t about me, Nuk.

HOPKINS: Then you’re on your own, Frank.