To: 
From: "Jay  P Hailey" 
Reply-To: trekcreative{at}yahoogroups.com


Title:Water Dictatorship
Author: Jay P. Hailey (JayPHailey{at}tic1.net) Series: Vista City
Part: 07/11
Rating [PG]

Angelo walked back into the Vista City Police Station the next morning.  As
he walked through the labyrinthine  old building, all hell seemed to be
breaking loose.  Cops were standing around with confused looks on their
faces.  Suspects and other people were standing around being irritated.
Some in louder tones of voice than others.

Angelo observed quietly.  He walked around to the back of the building to
the old squad room that was the headquarters for the Special Investigation
Squad.

Just down the hallway he spotted the Systems Administrator for the Vista
City Police Computer Network.  She was a short black lady with a funny face
and an irrepressibly happy attitude.  She was merrily cursing in her native
Swahili tongue.

"Hi Uhura.  What's going on?"  Angelo asked.

Her name was Uhura Young.  Uhura from the old Star Trek television show
that her parents enjoyed, and Young from their Mormon religion.  Naturally,
the woman had an interesting point of view on the world.

"Some mis-guided person hacked our system last night." Uhura
said.  She pronounced "mis-guided" to rhyme with
"Son-of-a-bitch" but Uhura never cursed in English.

"Well, your computer seems to be working okay." Angelo observed
the colors and graphics flashing on Uhura's screen.

"Yeah, but mine's the only one, and that's because I never let Wild
Bill Dornan hoodwink me."  Uhura said.

"What does that mean?"  Angelo asked.

"Some one introduced a virus that destroys all Geos based programming.
 It even got my Geos emulators.  I run my system on CP/M, and that saved
it, but every other computer in the station is down today."  Uhura
said.

"Any clues about who might have done it?"  Angelo asked.

"I don't know, but it was a brilliant piece of coding.  I'll give the
mis-guided soul that."  Uhura bent back to her task.  "I'm sorry
Angelo, but I have some heavy work to do here, and explaining it step by
step slows me down by a factor of ten."

"Excuse me.  I'll just be in my office, painting on the cave
walls."  Angelo said.

"Save me a space.  We're not an effective police force today without
the computers."  Uhura said.

-*-

Angelo walked into the old squad room  and took his seat at his desk.  An
old metal board had been unearthed.  Metal pegs had the names of the SIS
officers in three columns.  There were people off duty, people in the
station, and people on patrol.  Next to that was a marker board with every
one's cell-phone number scrawled on it.  Angelo shook his head ruefully.
The VCPD was getting a lesson in how important their computers were today.
It seemed as though they weren't enjoying it.

Scott Ashby walked out of his office with his cell phone glued to his ear.
"No,  I don't really  need regular reports, Terry...No.  That's right.
 Just if you need back-up or advice.  Yes I know. Well, I trust your
judgment.  Ha ha, well Angelo's back, so I've got to go.  Right.  Over and
out."

Scott walked up to Angelo's desk.  "Good morning, Angelo."

"Good morning, Captain."

"Well. where to start?  I may have to put you on a uniformed patrol
today. The dispatch office was crippled when the computers went down, so
they're putting everyone they can out on the street."  Scott said.

Angelo sighed and nodded.  He'd spent more time in uniform in Vista City
than he had since his days at the Academy. but that was part of the job.
They were pick up officers and they had to try to be able to do any job
that came up.  Sometimes pulling extra patrols was the duty of the day.

"First, though, let's talk about your little adventure in L.A." 
Scott said. His wry tone let Angelo know that there had been some problems.

"Uh..." Angelo said.  "My friend's death seemed to have some
loose ends. I started pulling and..."

"First we got a call from Ira Johnson, an attorney.  He called to
check your credentials and than complained of possible unlawful activity
and warned us that a lawsuit might follow.  That made Moody happy." 
Scott said.

"I've met him." Angelo said.  "He'd like to sue us into the
ground."

"Well,  I don't want to soak the department for three or four hundred
thousand dollars, so let's see if we can avoid the whole lawsuit
thing." Scott said good naturedly.

"Are you telling me to abandon my investigation?"  Angelo asked. 
He'd never heard that from Scott, but he was expecting it at any time. 
Detectives pursued cases, captains killed them, that was the way it worked.

"I'm not quite finished, yet.  Later, I got a series of calls from
Captain Brown of the LAPD."  Scott said.  His eyes were bright. 
"He was highly offended at your presence.  He seemed to think that we
had plenty to do here giving cows tickets and chasing rustlers."

"I was off duty, Captain.  I was operating on my own
recognizance."  Angelo said.

"Yes, that's why you used your badge to get into the morgue and into
the squad room down there."  Scott said.

Angelo sighed.  He was caught there.

"Well, I really can't say that I haven't done the same thing from time
to time, but now I have an appreciation for the consequences of that.  That
put our name and our reputation behind you, even though we might not have
approved of it, Angelo.  You committed us in LAPD turf.  Believe me, the
LAPD is touchy about turf.  Now we have no choice but to either cut you
loose, or to take the plunge with you.  Remember that the next time you
flash that badge."  Scott said.

"I'm sorry.  I guess I'll let it go."  Angelo said.  It was new
perspective for him, too.  There were people who worked at the SIS who
simply wouldn't be cops anywhere else.  Rebecca Stevens had an artificial
arm.  She wouldn't be accepted anywhere.  Sonja Traveler wandered in out of
the blue.  A lot of her background was hard or impossible to check.  Angelo
knew this because he tried to check it.  Somehow they'd let her stay in
SIS, before she decided to move on.  Angelo and Marcus should not have
stayed cops after the disaster at the Russian Consulate, but thanks to the
VCPD, they did.

"Now, I didn't say that."  Scott said.  "Tell me what you found."

Angelo looked at Scott sharply  "I don't understand.  Weren't you just
saying that I had to be careful with where I took this?"

"True, but on the other side of that there's finding out the truth. 
What else are we in business for?"  Scott said.  "I didn't say we
weren't going to support you,  I was just asking you to try and make
certain what you were doing, first.  Now, tell me what you found."

Angelo reported what he found to Scott.  It took a little bit.

"Hmmm...There's a lot of computer stuff in there."  Scott said.

"I don't know that much about it, but it seems as though the computer
industry is a large component of the situation."  Angelo said.

"Well then, we'll call in our computer expert."  Scott said.

-*-

Uhura Young looked at the dead screen of Angelo's computer thoughtfully.
"Shane Chee was the big thing when he graduated.  I'd wondered what
was happening with him."

"How might this relate to Randi Aiken-Marlowe's murder?" 
Alejandro Moody asked.  He was the Assistant Chief of Police and
responsible for the day-to-day operations of the VCPD.

"I don't know. Didn't you say that she worked for GeosWorks?"  Uhura said.

"Yes."  Angelo said.

"Well, once upon a time, when we wanted to find out what one company
was doing, we'd go and ask their competition."  Uhura said.  "Why
not take advantage of all the corporate espionage?"

"Then I'll go have a talk with GeosWorks and see what they have to
say." Angelo said.

"Wait for me. I've got to get some things together and then I'm
ready." Uhura said.

Scott looked at her.  "Why are you going?"

"Technical support.  I can't really fix this mess.  I'd have to
rewrite certain very important pieces of Geos.  Then you'd have the
"Uhura Young Operating System", and there's no guarantee that
anything else written for Geos would work with it."  Uhura explained. 
"We'll have to call in Wild Bill's big guns."

"I guess I'll have to authorize it, then."  Moody said. 
"Angelo.  Make sure you have your ducks in a row before you take on
John Marlowe again.  If the Chief hears a whisper of a big money law suit,
he'll chuck you overboard so fast your head will spin.  If we have some
facts to back it up with, then we might be able to turn him around on it,
but I don't want to have to do it that way."

"Yes, Sir."  Angelo said.

"If Angelo gets thrown to the wolves, I'll have to quit on you,
Alejandro." Scott said quietly.  "I might have to take some of
the SIS people with me."

"Scott, if we eat a big, messy lawsuit, I don't see where there's
going to be an SIS afterwards." Alejandro said.  "You might find
me going with you."

"All for one and one for all!"  cheered Uhura.



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