to.
“It’s gotta be hardware, then,” Johnston insisted.
There were only two things that could go wrong with a computer. The complex set of instructions, the software, could be bad in any one of a hundred different ways. Alternatively, the hardware, made up of thousands of complex components, could fail. It had to be one or the other. There was no third alternative.
“We isolated and tested each of the CPUs, remember?” Kosinski was adamant. “The equipment is fine. Besides, what conceivable fault could create this kind of problem?”
Johnston spread his hands. “If it’s not the CPUs, then the problem has to be in the hookup somewhere in the system how they interact.”
“Could be.” Kosinski frowned. “Geez, that could be either a hardware or a software screw up… or some weird combination of both.” Part of her mind groaned at the thought. Debugging the intricate interactions of the machines and code as they communicated with each other would be a brain-burning exertion.
She shrugged. It was necessary. Then she brightened. If she was the one who brought the phone system back into operation, she would get the glory. Of course, she was also the one who would take the fall if the system stayed down.
Kosinski got to work.
“Our top story this hour is the continuing phone outage in the Midwest.
“Phone service in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, and Indiana remains at a complete standstill. While some attempts to place calls have been successful, Midwest Telephone spokesmen estimate that only one in a thousand or even one in ten thousand calls are being connected.
“The outage remains confined to the six-state region, but the rest of the nation’s telecommunications companies are reported to be closely monitoring the situation.
“In an exclusive radio interview with CNN, an assistant to John F. Taylor, Midwest Telephone’s CEO, hinted that the company suspects outside interference with its operations. Apparently, Midwest Telephone has requested emergency assistance from both the FBI and the Federal Communications Commission…”
Randy Newcomb stood with the rest of the crowd watching the fire gutting old Mr. Romano’s house. The fire department was nowhere in sight.
He felt strangely detached. Neither the sight of the fire nor the old geezer’s loss meant anything to him.
Randy lived on the corner with an older brother and an alcoholic mother. Just eighteen, he’d been drifting in and out of high school for more than a year. He was a bright kid, and his brains had earned him leadership of the F Street posse. But they hadn’t been enough to keep him off crack.
The fire was just one more unimportant event in his drab existence. The only color was provided by small vials of crack. Getting the money for the next vial and the one after that occupied his entire being. Nothing else was worth much thought or worry.
Newcomb heard the neighbors talking about the phones being out, and complaining about not being able to call a fire truck or an ambulance. That struck a sudden spark in his brain. If people couldn’t reach the fire or emergency services, they also couldn’t alert the police to any trouble, he slowly realized, smiling.
Drifting away from the crowd, he trotted back to his own house and grabbed the car keys. He had to collect a few of his friends. If they moved fast before the phones came back on, they could really score.
He turned the key, and the old Ford turned over. Reaching under the seat, he pulled out a 9mm automatic. He checked the magazine and patted the weapon affectionately. This was going to be fun. After all, the police couldn’t possibly be everywhere at once.
Newcomb wasn’t alone.
Ninety minutes after the phones went dead, Officer Bob Calvin had the frustrating feeling of knowing there might be crimes going on all around him, but of being unable to do more than sweep up. He’d found out about the Napoli restaurant robbery only when someone flagged down his car and told him about the shooting.
By then, it was far too late for Joe Millunzi. All Calvin had been able to do was summon the detectives and the coroner. Even that took extra time, because the coroner’s office was not normally on the radio circuit. Someone had finally passed them a walkie-talkie, but until then Dispatch had to send a runner over to their office. Calvin had the sinking feeling that Detroit’s medical examiners would be busy today.
He scrambled back into his patrol car still trying to think of a way to increase his chances of stopping the bad guys before they struck again. It was the old story. Walking a beat instead of driving would make him more accessible to the community but it would also cut the ground he could cover by a factor of ten. Using a motorcycle or bicycle instead of an enclosed car would have been a compromise, but just looking at the freezing weather outside made him shiver at the thought. Bike patrols were practical in the Sun Belt not here.
Detroit’s police force had operated with radio dispatch for years, and before that they’d used a call box system for the beat cops. But both those communications systems depended on people phoning the police when they spotted trouble. You just couldn’t protect a large city any other way.
Now the city’s officials were scrambling to patch together a makeshift replacement for the telephone system. Neighborhood watch patrols and citizens with CB radios were already taking to the streets, but they were sometimes more of a hindrance than a help. He’d already heard of an incident where one officious idiot thought a radio in his car gave him arrest powers and tried to stop a liquor store holdup on his own. The man had paid for his overzealousness with his life.
The CB nets were confused too. Most of the people using them lacked the discipline and training needed to manage a communications net efficiently. Multiple callers on a limited number of channels often turned the airwaves into a static laden Towel of Babel. There were even some jokers actually putting out false alarms sending an already strained police force off on wild-goose chases across the city.
But then again, maybe they weren’t just pranksters, Calvin suddenly thought. The street gangs and other criminals infesting Detroit’s poorer neighborhoods knew what was happening around them. Maybe some of the smarter bastards just wanted to make sure they were left to run wild unmolested.
He slowed as a knot of people on the sidewalk ahead drew his attention and his concern. What he saw was unusual, and today anything unusual was bad.
Storefront shops and rundown apartments lined both sides of this two-way street. As he drove closer, he saw that the crowd he’d spotted was clustered around an appliance store. People were moving quickly in and out of the store, and even from this distance he could see a shattered window.
Wonderful.
He picked up the microphone. “Dispatch, this is Unit FiveThree-Two. I’ve got looting at Concord and St. Paul. I need some backup.”
The dispatcher’s voice came back through the radio speaker, relaying his request to the closest patrol cars. “Any units to assist FiveThree-Two at Concord and St. Paul?”
The responses were not reassuring.
“Unit Five-Two-One, I’m stuck here for at least fifteen more minutes.”
“Dispatch, this is Two-Four-Four. Negative on that. I’m tied up with two in custody.”
“Unit Two-Three-Two, I can clear and go. But I’m ten out.”
Shit. Ten minutes was way too long. Calvin thumbed his mike again.
“Roger, Dispatch. I’ll do it myself. Out.”
He shook his head. Trying to break up a crowd alone violated not only standing department policy but common sense. Handling a mob this size ordinarily required half a dozen men. But the times were not ordinary and he’d studied the crowd’s behavior while the dispatcher made her futile calls. He had a glimmering of an approach that might pay off.
He was facing about twenty or thirty people, most of them adults. They seemed more intent on getting into the store and getting out with boxes or items in their arms than in physical violence. He didn’t see any gang members nearby with bloodier ideas on their tiny minds.
Calvin parked the car half a block up from the store and hopped out, taking the riot gun with him. He stood behind the driver’s side door for half a moment, surveying the situation one last time. No one in the crowd paid much attention to the lone cop car and the lone cop.
