Harry Turtledove - Supervolcano - Things Fall Apart

“That’s nice of you, but I don’t believe it for a minute,” Colin said. “Sitting in your seat, you’ve got the weight of the department behind you. Anybody dumb enough to bump up against you would find out how much weight that was, and in a hurry, too.”

Chief Williams smiled. His teeth were white and perfect enough to belong to a TV anchorman; either he was very lucky or he’d had them fixed. “Anybody’d think you’ve been a cop for a while,” he remarked.

“Guilty,” Colin admitted. “Can I throw myself on the mercy of the court?”

“Maybe this once. After that, things go back to business as usual.”

“Good,” Colin said, which made one of the new chief’s eyebrows rise toward the hairline he didn’t have. Colin explained: “Like I was saying to the Breeze reporter out front a few minutes ago, nothing would make me happier than getting back to normal.” If I ever can . He kept that to himself, not that Williams wouldn’t get it whether he said it or not.

“If we look at the way things were before the supervolcano blew as normal, we’re never going to get back there,” Malik Williams said. “Not in your lifetime, not in mine, and probably not in our kids’ lifetimes, either. And it’s about time we started getting used to the idea.”

“I’m going to like working for you, man,” Colin blurted.

“Oh, yeah?” Williams looked and sounded dubious. “Most people I say that to, they look at me like I’m talking—what’s that word from the Catholic Church? Like I’m talking heresy, and they don’t want thing one to do with me.”

“Chief, I’m married to a geologist who was studying Yellowstone before it blew. I met her in Yellowstone before it blew, matter of fact. Kelly was telling me then how bad an eruption would be. I didn’t want to believe her, but she knew what she was talking about.” Colin let out a small, wry chuckle. “She usually does.”

The new chief grinned that ever-so-shiny grin at him again. “My Janice is the same way. Nice to know somebody else appreciates that in a woman.” The grin faded. “How do we tie being different to police work, though?”

“I’ve been thinking about that. I’ve been thinking about it ever since the shortages started to bite,” Colin said.

Williams’ eyebrow climbed once more. “Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me. What does surprise me is that you didn’t want to sit on my side of this desk.”

“I did, before Pitcavage got it,” Colin answered. “But I don’t put up with fools real well—not at all, if I can help it. Kissing up to the mayor and the city council and all would drive me to a coronary or a stroke. If you can do it and stay sane, more power to you.”

“You don’t beat around the bush, do you?” Williams said.

“Who, me?” Colin said, less innocently than he might have. After a beat, he added, “I try not to.”

“Okay,” Williams said. If Colin remembered straight, he’d run a department in a little Sacramento suburb before winning this job. The new chief went on, “So what have you been thinking about the way things work now?”

“That most of the tricks we’ve picked up over the past hundred years have gone up in smoke—and dust, and ash,” Colin replied. “We can’t count on phones or electricity 24/7/365. We can’t count on surveillance video or Internet databases. Sometimes we can manage all that stuff, but we can’t count on it any more, and God only knows when we’ll be able to. Back before the First World War, the cops with the big old walrus mustaches and the tall hats that made ’em look like London bobbies did without those things—hell, they’d never heard of most of them. Most of the time, they managed anyhow. We’ve got to be able to do that, too.” He paused, embarrassed at himself. “Sorry. I made a speech.”

“Yeah, you did,” Williams agreed, “but it was a pretty good speech. Mostly. One of the ways the guys with the walrus mustaches managed was by pinning any cases they were having trouble with on the nearest guy my color.”

“I bet they did,” Colin said. “I don’t want us to copy all their moves. But they had to solve cases and catch perps without the tools we still want to take for granted. We can learn from that. We’d better, or we’re screwed.”

“Tell you what. Work up a report for me, with ideas about how we can do a better job of what we need to do with some of the tricks the old-timers had. Not your top priority, but make sure you do it,” the new chief said. “And before you finish it, talk to some of the oldest retired cops you can find. They won’t go back to the days before phones and squad cars, but they’d type their reports with two fingers ’cause nobody ever taught ’em how to do it with ten. Those guys, the ones who half of ’em still don’t have computers.”

Now Colin looked at the man on the other side of the desk with genuine admiration. “I’ve been doing that. Some of the fellows who were retiring when I came to the department are still around, even if they’re old as the hills now. A couple of ’em started back in the Fifties.”

“A long time ago,” Malik Williams said. Colin nodded. The chief went on, “And I’m not surprised you came up with the same scheme that crossed my mind. Like they say, GMTA, right?”

“Oh, at least,” Colin said, so dryly as to make Williams laugh out loud—or LOL, if you’d already started thinking with initials.

When Colin went back to his desk, the first thing Josefina Linares asked him was, “Well? What do you think?” Naturally, his secretary knew where he’d been. And if he didn’t fancy Malik Williams, her fierce loyalty would make her ready—eager, even—to spit in the new chief’s eye.

Quickly, Colin answered, “He’ll do fine, Josie. I’m sure of it.” He would have said the same thing had he thought Williams would prove a disaster—his loyalty was to the department, and to the chain of command. But he meant it. If the new man could get along with the people set over him, Colin figured he wouldn’t have any trouble bossing the people he was supposed to lead.

Mike Pitcavage hadn’t had any trouble bossing the department, either. No, Pitcavage’s problems lay far deeper, somewhere in the twisted roots that made him do what he’d done. He’d been dead most of a year now, and Colin still brooded about him every day. He sighed. Even with the new broom of Malik Williams, this department wouldn’t get swept clean any time soon.

All you could do was all you could do. Williams, Colin figured, would do that. He sighed again and started doing some of what he needed to do.

As twilight deepened toward dark on Halloween, Guilford, Maine, reminded Rob Ferguson of a scene out of a Currier and Ives print. Snow dappled the few pines that hadn’t been cut down for fuel. People on skis and snowshoes tramped the streets. Okay, they wore jeans and anoraks and watch caps, not nineteenth-century fancy dress, but you couldn’t have everything.

A sleigh came by, drawn by two well-groomed black horses. In it rode Jim Farrell. His fancy dress—fedora and elegantly tailored wool topcoat over a suit with sharp lapels—was more Happy Days Are Here Again than Currier and Ives, but no denying he had style. Even 1930s finery made jeans and anoraks and watch caps mighty dowdy by comparison.

Not that Rob cared. Jeans and anoraks and watch caps weren’t high style, but they were his style. The only reason for dressing up he’d ever found was trolling for pretty girls. Now that he’d actually landed one, he didn’t need to worry about that nonsense any more. Lindsey wasn’t of the let’s-put-on-the-dog-to-impress-people school, either. If she were, Rob wasn’t sure he would have wanted to marry her.