Distraction - Bruce Sterling [146]
“Oscar, you can’t arrest me. It’s against the law.”
“Mitch, just relax. You play ball with Dr. Penninger, probably we can work something out! Sure, I guess you can stand on principle, if you want to get all stiff-necked about it. But if you sit in that truck with a loaded shotgun all night, what on earth will that get you? It’s not going to change a thing. It’s over. Come on out.”
Karnes left the truck. Oscar produced a pair of handcuffs, looked at the plastic straps, shrugged, put them back in his pocket. “We really don’t need this, do we? We’re grown-ups. Let’s just go.”
Karnes fell into step with him. They left the basement, and walked out together beneath the dome. There were winter stars beyond the glass. “I never liked you,” Karnes said. “I never trusted you. But somehow, you always seem like such a reasonable guy.”
“I am a reasonable guy.” Oscar clapped the policeman on the back of his flak jacket. “I know things seem a little disordered now, Chief, but I still believe in the law. I just have to find out where the order is.”
After seeing the former police chief safely incarcerated, Oscar conferred with Kevin and Greta in the commandeered police station. The nomad girls had changed from their dainty infiltration gear into clothing much more their style: webbing belts, batons, and cut-down combat fatigues. “So, did you get our internal publicity statement released?”
“Of course,” Kevin said. “I called up every phone in the lab at once, and Greta went on live. Your statement was a good pitch, Oscar. It sounded really …” He paused. “Soothing.”
“Soothing is good. We’ll have new posters up by morning, declaring the Strike over. People need these symbolic breathers. ‘The Strike Is Over.’ A declaration like that takes a lot of the heat off.”
All enthusiasm, Kevin pitched from the chief’s leather chair and crawled on his hands and knees to a floor-level cabinet. It was crammed with telecom equipment, a dust-clotted forest of colored fiber optics. “Really neat old phone system here! It’s riddled with taps, but it’s one of a kind; it has a zillion cool old-fashioned features that nobody ever used.”
“Why is it so dirty and neglected?” Oscar said.
“Oh, I had to turn these boards backward to get at the wiring. I’ve never had such total control over a switching station. A couple of weeks down here, and I’ll have this place ticking like a clock.” Kevin stood up, wiping clotted grime from his fingers. “I think I’d better put on one of these local cop uniforms now. Does anybody mind if I wear a cop uniform from now on?”
“Why do you want to do that?” Oscar said.
“Well, those nomad girls have uniforms. I’m now your chief of security, right? How am I supposed to control our troops, if I don’t have my own uniform? With some kind of really cool cop hat.”
Oscar shook his head. “That’s a moot point, Kevin. Now that they’ve conquered the lab for us, we really need to usher those little witches out of here just as soon as possible.”
Kevin and Greta exchanged glances. “We were just discussing that issue.”
“They’re really good, these girls,” Greta said. “We won the lab back, but nobody got killed. It’s always very good when there’s a coup d’état and nobody gets killed.”
Kevin nodded eagerly. “We still need our troops, Oscar. We have a gang of dangerous Huey contras who are holed up in the Spinoffs building. We have to break them right where they stand! So we’ll have to use heavy nonlethals—spongey whips, peppergas, ultrasonic bullhorns.… Man, it’s gonna be juicy.” Kevin rubbed his hands together.
“Greta, don’t listen to him. We can’t risk serious injury to those people. We’re in full command of the lab now, so we need to behave responsibly. If we have trouble from Huey’s loyalists, we’ll behave like normal authorities do. We’ll just glue their doors shut, cut their phone and computer lines, and starve them out. Overreaction would be a serious mistake. From now on, we have to worry about how this plays in Washington.”
Greta’s long face went bleak. “Oh, to hell with Washington!