"Why are you asking us, Perry? You've got to run this." The voice was petulant and Perry saw that it was one of the Boston crew, which made him wonder what Tjan was going to do when he discovered that Perry was doing this. The page pinkened and then sank into red. The other people on the call clearly thought this was BS, which was a relief to Perry. Hilda cued up the next speaker. "We could set up information pickets at the gates to each ride hitting people up for donations for our legal defense -- get the press to cover it and maybe we could bring in enough to fight all the injunctions." The pink lightened a little, went back to neutral white, turned a little green. Perry slowed down the back-channel a little and skimmed it: :: No way could we bring in enough, that's like 30 grand each I get a couple hundred people here in the morning and that would mean a hundred and fifty bucks each :: No no it's totally do-able we can raise that easy just set up some paypals and publicize the shit out of it The next speaker was talking. "What if we got the maintenance bots to break open the doors and carry the ride outside where everyone can see it?" Bright red. Dumb idea. Perry broke in. "I'm worried that when people show up it'll provoke some kind of confrontation with the law. It could get ugly here. How can we keep that cooled out?" Green. "That's totally got to be our top priority," Hilda said. Next speaker. "OK, so the best way to keep people calm is to tell them that there's an alternative to going nuts, which maybe could be raising money for a legal defense." Green-ish. "What about finding pro-bono lawyers? What about the ACLU or EFF?" Greener. The back-channel filled up with URLs and phone numbers and email addresses. "OK, time's running out here," Perry said. "You guys need to organize a call-around to those orgs and see if they'll help us out. Pass the hat at your rides, try to find lawyers. Everyone keep reporting in all day -- especially if you get a win anywhere. I'm going to go take care of things here." Hilda IMed him -- "Good luck, Perry. You'll kick ass." Perry started to IM back, but a shadow fell across his screen. It was Jason, who ran the contact-lens stall. He was staring at the two cop-cars quizzically, looking groggy but growing alarmed. Perry closed his lid and got to his feet. "Morning, Jason." Behind Jason were five or six other vendors. The sellers who lived in the shantytown and could therefore walk to work were always first in. Soon the commuters would start arriving in their beater cars. "Hey, Perry," Jason said. He was chewing on an unlit cigarette, a disgusting habit that was only marginally less gross than smoking them. He'd tried toothpicks, but nothing would satisfy his oral cravings like a filter-tip. At least he didn't light them. "What's up?"