The Long Run | Page 9

around his muscles, joints, and ligaments, reinforcing the bones; this, the direct work of the transform viruses, enabled the Elite to withstand acceleration that would have quickly killed any normal human. Threads of room temperature superconductor were woven into his skin; he would barely notice most lasers. His skin would turn a knife, and his hair would not burn.
There was an inskin at the Peaceforcer's left temple.
Trent stood motionless under the weight of the Peaceforcer Elite's frozen glare.
"Come on," said one of the gendarmes contemptuously, and shoved Trent forward into Mac Devlin's office.
"I like to dance," Trent tried to explain to the man.
Police Chief Maxwell Devlin was responsible for overseeing the precincts that policed much of the Fringe and a considerable fraction of the Peaceforcer Patrol Sectors.
Devlin's office was an odd mixture of gray leather and chrome. There was a huge sheet of opaqued glassite immediately behind Trent; cleared, it would look out on the waiting area. A single painting, done fashionably in electrolytes, hung immediately to Mac Devlin's left: a glowing violet Easter egg in the midst of a scarlet desert, sitting exactly on the divider line of a laser-straight two-lane highway.
The sunpaint was turned off. A small bright reading lamp sat at Devlin's right elbow, providing the only illumination in Devlin's office; it seemed to Trent that he and Devlin hung suspended in dimness, two images at the edges of the light.
Aside from Devlin's desk, the chair he sat in and the chair Trent was seated in, there were only two pieces of furniture in the room: a coat rack with two identical overcoats hung on it, and a small credenza immediately behind and to the right of Mac Devlin. The credenza had a miniature antique cannon on it.
The cannon pointed directly at Trent.
Devlin said, "What were your people doing down on Eight tonight?"
Devlin could not possibly have expected an honest answer from Trent.
Trent said, "We were going to boost CalleyTronics and then go dancing and drink coffee over at The Emerald Illusion, in the basement of the Red Line Hotel." His left hand was snaked to the chair he sat in. "Actually, Jimmy was probably going to get drunk and fight somebody, but then he would have drunk coffee with us." Trent's right hand was still twitching, but he could sit upright without help and so far had not spilled any of the coffee he was drinking with his free hand. "Jimmy's been reading Hemingway again. I don't know what to do about it."
Mac Devlin was middle-aged, which, with modern geriatrics, might have meant anywhere from forty to seventy. His brown hair was streaked with dusty silver and his features were comfortably wrinkled. He was a big man, two hundred and five centimeters; a hundred and ten kilos of solid muscle.
His complexion was tinged with the faintest trace of pallor, a suggestion of gray.
Devlin gazed at Trent. "You're either a lot smarter than I ever thought," he said at last, "or I've been giving you way too much credit, these last couple of years. I don't know which." With the windows darkened Trent could not see the Peaceforcer sitting out in Devlin's waiting room, but Trent had no doubt he had not left. Devlin continued. "I either have to give you to the Peaceforcers or charge you with a crime. No matter what your papers say you're not nineteen yet; if you're convicted of emblade possession you'll end up in Public Labor for sure. On the other hand," he said without change of expression, "that might be better than giving you to the Peaceforcers."
Trent sat quietly and said nothing. He did not bother pointing out that he'd written tracking software for the department on occasion, nor that he'd paid his dues, promptly and regularly; Devlin knew it, and in the current circumstances both items were meaningless.
Trent could think of only one thing that was not meaningless.
The antagonism between the largely French United Nations Peace Keeping Force--the Left Hand of the Devil--and the city police across Occupied America was old, deeply ingrained, and very powerful. Even in New York City, even on Manhattan island itself, where the United Nations had established Capitol City, little love was lost between the Peaceforcers and the police. Police had been known to look the other way for members of the Erisian Claw, and though Trent had never heard of any gendarme being involved with that group of religious ideologs, there were indeed police who had gone in front of PKF firing squads for Johnny Reb activities.
Devlin said abruptly, "Why were you going to boost Calley's place?"
Trent simply looked at the man for a moment. "I was getting paid."
Devlin actually smiled. "Excuse me, that was a stupid question, wasn't it?" His fingers drummed restlessly on the desktop. "You're a problem for me, Trent.