"They're my guests," Carver said protectively. "So what happens now?"
"That depends. Is what Pastor Simms said correct? Did you have a sales contract with JonesCo?"
Carver was about to answer when Ifan interrupted. "If he did, officer, it was obtained under duress. All we've done is to question the chain of custody on the deed to this property. You can't violate an invalid contract."
The officer thought for a moment. "Are you acting as his attorney, then, Mr"?"
"Davies. No, sir, but in my role at the Occupy--."
"You're part of Occupy Wall Street? Then what are you doing here?"
"It's not like we're prisoners of that city park we've been using," Angela said. "Besides, with the mayor's new rule against unified action, it seemed wise to change our strategy."
"By engaging in what I suppose you could call community outreach and enlisting people like Mr. Carver here to take individual action?"
"Now that you put it that way," she said, "that's exactly what we're doing: empowering the ninety-nine percent. Have you ever though about going into marketing?"
"Or political activism?" Ifan added, chuckling.
"All that aside," the officer said, "I do have to file a report."
"In that case," Carver said, "wouldn't you have to establish whether this contract I'm accused of violating actually exists? And since Simms contends that my friends have come to incite my neighbors to do the same thing, wouldn't you have to ask them as well?"
The officer eyed him suspiciously. "Are you trying to get me to take sides in this? I'm supposed to be impartial."
"You're right," Ifan said. "The executives in any organization would want their enforcers to play at being impartial. But the fact remains; you are part of the ninety-nine percent. We're doing this to protect your rights, just as much as we're protecting Mr. Carver's and all of his neighbors'. So yes, I'm trying to get you to take sides. I'm trying to get you to cross that line they want you to toe and be a protector of the people, rather than of the likes of Pastor Simms, Wendell Jones, and for that matter our not-so-beloved mayor."
"You wouldn't be the first," Angela said, digging out her netbook. "This morning, when the riot police were ordered to arrest a group of downstate occupiers for violating a rule patterned after the one we've been saddled with, one of them switched sides."
He nodded. "Yeah. I heard. He would have had to arrest his own sister, a city councilwoman. Not that it did any good. They still arrested the lot of them, then cleared and locked the site. All he gained from his foolishness was trouble from his CO."
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