"Vernor Vinge - Across Realtime 2 - The Ungoverned" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vinge Vernor)

INTERLUDE: THE UNGOVERNED

Al's Protection Racket operated out of Manhattan, Kansas. Despite the name,
it was a small, insurance-oriented police service with about twenty thousand
customers, all within one hundred kilometers of the main shop. But apparently
"Al" was some kind of humorist: His ads had a gangster motif with his cops
dressed like twentieth century hoodlums. Wil Brierson guessed that it was all
part of the nostalgia thing. Even the Michigan State Police тАУ Wil's outfit тАУ capi-
talized on the public's feeling of trust for old names, old traditions.
Even so, there's something more dignified about a company with a name like
"Michigan State Police," thought Brierson as he brought his flier down on the
pad next to Al's HQ. He stepped out of the cockpit into an eerie morning si-
lence: It was close to sunrise, yet the sky remained dark, the air humid. Thun-
derheads march around half the horizon. A constant flicker of lightning chased
back and forth within those clouds, yet there was not the faintest sound of
thunder. He had seen a tornado killer on his way in, a lone eagle in the far sky.
The weather was almost as ominous as the plea East Lansing HQ had received
from Al's just four hours earlier.
A spindly figure came bouncing out of the shadows. "Am I glad to see you!
The name's Alvin Swensen. I'm the proprietor." He shook Wil's hand enthusias-
tically. "I was afraid you might wait till the front passed though." Swensen was
dressed in baggy pants and a padded jacket that would have made Frank Nitti
proud. The local police chief urged the other officer up the steps. No one else
was outside; the place seemed just as deserted as one might expect a rural
police station early on a weekday morning. Where was the emergency?
Inside, a clerk (cop?) dressed very much like Al sat before a comm console.
Swensen grinned at the other. "It's the MSP, all right. They're really coming,
Jim. They're really coming! . . . Just come down the hall, Lieutenant. I got my
office back there. We should clear out real soon, but for the moment I think
it's safe."
Wil nodded, more puzzled than informed. At the far end of the hall, light
spilled from a half-open door. The frosted glass surface was stenciled with the
words 'Big Al'. A faint smell of mildew hung over the aging carpet and the woo,
floor beneath settled perceptibly under Wil's ninety kilo tread. Brierson almost
smiled: maybe Al wasn't so crazy. The gangster motif excused absolutely slov-
enly maintenance. Few customers would trust a normal police organization that
kept its buildings like this.
Big Al urged Brierson into the light and waved him to an overstuffed chair.
Though tall and angular, Swensen looked more like a school teacher than a cop
тАУ or a gangster. Hi reddish-blond hair stood out raggedly from his head, a
though he had been pulling at it, or had just been wakened. From the man's
fidgety pacing about the room, Wil guesses the first possibility more likely.
Swensen seemed about at the end of his rope, and Wil's arrival was some kind
of reprieve. He glanced at Wil's name plate and his grin spread even further.
"Wil Brierson. I've heard of you. I knew the Michigan State Police wouldn't let
me down; they've sent their best."
Wil smiled in return, hoping his embarrassment didn't show. Part of his pre-
sent fame was a company hype that he had come to loathe. "Thank you, uh,

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