The Complete Roderick by John Sladek

of some kind. Student demonstration? Good diversion there, all set for a quick in-and-out operation.
    He paused, waggled his stiff right forefinger until it clicked, then removed the tip of it. Half the fingernail slotted into the remaining finger to form a forward sight. Not more than three or four in the lab, he reckoned, should be able to get the drop on two of ’em before the others could close their mouths.
    Better get this Dr Lee Fong first thing, you never knew with chinks and their martial arts. Then the notes, grab essentials (they’d be most likely in top desk drawers and pockets) and use the rest to start the fire. Whole thing didn’t need to take more’n fifteen minutes.
    He was closer to the car now, and could see students sprawling over the hood, banging on it, scratching the paint with their signs. Punks! If he didn’t need the ammo he’d take out a couple of ’em right here and now.
    Suddenly the car broke free, flinging a body and a sign into the air, and careered towards him. O’Smith dodged left as it swerved left, dodged right as it swerved right, and collided with someone else, a student with a sign.
    ‘Murderer!’
    O’Smith felt the blast of bad breath, saw NO FASCH and felt the impact; before he could argue the truth of the accusation, or demonstrate it, he was down and out.

V
    The room that had been a lab was nearly empty now, its grey floor material marked with pale squares and rectangles. In one corner two men wearing the orange uniforms of Custodial Services struggled to lift the last large cabinet, revealing the last pale rectangle. In the opposite corner Dan sat at a table sorting papers into two piles. Franklin paced up and down, stepping carefully in the pale parts. Finally he hunkered down and lit a cigarette.
    ‘Christ,’ he exhaled. ‘Seeing all this you might think we’d lost out or something.’
    ‘Maybe we did, in a way.’
    ‘Like hell. Lee’s just the same, moping around his office like a Jehovah’s Witness the day after the world didn’t end. I mean what the hell’s wrong with you two, we’ve got the green light on this, now we can really be –’
    A thump from the other corner made him look up. ‘Careful, fellas. That stuffs expensive.’
    One of the men put down his end of the cabinet and turned around. ‘Listen, you think you can move this fuckin’ ton a junk any better, you just come over and try.’
    ‘Okay, I just, okay.’
    ‘Smartass perfessers.’
    He waited until the two had lifted their burden on to a trolley and wheeled it out of the room. ‘Be lucky if anything works when we get moved. I don’t know where Custodial gets these guys. Saw one in the hall just now didn’t even have a uniform; old clothes and a straggly beard looked like it had mange on one side. Only reason I knew he worked here was I saw him carrying a box of your stuff. Can’t be two Bugleboy Peanut Butter cartons on the whole campus.’
    ‘Him? That’s, that’s a guy I used to know. Keeping some stuff for me.’ A grubby notebook with a loose page flopped on one pile.
    Franklin waved his cigarette. ‘Look, this move to a new lab is just what we need, a chance to really get organized.’
    ‘What for?’
    ‘I mean, don’t you want to see this project running like any other, teamwork, I mean a team, I mean – listen, this is a hell of a time to deliver an ultimatum, but to put it bluntly if I don’t get some real work to do around here, I quit. Already told Lee, he sees my point, I work or I walk.’
    Dan squared up a stack of dog-eared sheets. ‘Well, maybe we should all just quit. Now that Roderick’s safe, well …’
    ‘Quit? But we haven’t even begun, what do you mean “safe”? Of course he’s safe, we’ve got the green light, the, now we can really go ahead –’
    Dan looked at the two stacks of yellowing paper. ‘I’ve got one or two things to clear up here. Okay if I meet you in Lee’s office in a few minutes?’
    ‘Okay, sure.’ Ben Franklin