Bruce Sterling - Distraction

“This place is our problem.”

Oscar nodded. “Exactly. Donna, I know that working in a giant, airtight, gene-splicing lab might seem pretty mundane. Obviously this isn’t a plum Senate assignment, compared to the Dutch Cold War or those catastrophes out in the Rockies. But this is still a major federal installation. When this place started, it worked pretty well: a lot of basic advances in biotechnology, some good jump starts for American industry, especially next door in Louisiana. But those glory days were years ago, and now this place is a pork-barrel bonanza. Kickbacks, payoffs, sweetheart deals … I hardly know where to start.”

She looked pleased. “It sounds like you’ve already started.”

“Well… Officially, I’m here to work for the Senate Science Committee. I no longer have any formal ties to Bambakias. But the Senator has arranged that, deliberately. He knows that this place re-quires a serious shaking-up. So, our agenda here is to provide him with what he needs for a real reform effort. We’re laying the groundwork for his first legislative success.”

“I see.”

Oscar took her elbow politely as they sidestepped a passing okapi. “I’m not saying that the work will be easy. It could get ugly. There are a lot of vested interests here. Hidden agendas. Much more here than meets the eye. But if this were easy work, everybody would do it. Not people with our talents.”

“I’ll stay on.”

“Good! I’m glad.”

“I’m glad that you’re leveling with me, Oscar. And you know? I think I need to tell you this, right now. Your personal background problem — I just want you to know, that whole business never both-ered me. Not for one minute. I mean, I just thought the issue through, and then I put it right out of my mind.”

It seemed unlikely that anybody would be doing anything ambitious with the telephones in the children’s playground. So Fontenot had arranged for Oscar to take the Senator’s voice call there. Oscar watched a ragged pack of scientists’ children screaming like apes on the jungle gym.

Fontenot carefully hooked a Secret Service-approved encryptor to the wallphone’s candy-colored mouthpiece.

“You’ll notice a time lag,” Fontenot warned Oscar. “They’re doing traffic analysis countermeasures back in Boston.”

“What about the locals? Are they a monitoring threat?”

“Have you been to the police offices here?”

“Not yet, no.”

“I have. Maybe ten years ago they were still taking security seri-ously. Now you could knock this place over with a broomstick.” Fontenot hung the brightly colored handset in its plastic cradle, then turned and studied the capering children. Like their parents, they were bareheaded and shaggy and wore geekish, ill-fitting clothes. “Nice-looking kids.”

“Mmmrnh. ”

“Never had the proper time for little ones …” Fontenot’s hooded eyes were full of obscure distress.

The phone rang. Oscar answered it at once. “Yes?”

“Oscar. ”

Oscar straightened a little. “Yes, Senator.”

“Good to hear from you,” Bambakias announced. “Good to hear your voice. I sent you a few files a while ago, but that’s never the same, is it.”

“No, sir.”

“I want to thank you for bringing that Louisiana matter to my attention. Those tapes you sent.” Bambakias’s resonant voice glided upward into its podium pitch. “That roadblock. The Air Force. Amazing, Oscar. Outrageous!”

“Yes sir.”

“It’s a complete scandal! It beggars belief! Those are citizens serving in the uniform of the United States! Our own armed forces!” Bambakias drew a swift breath, and grew yet more intense and sono-rous. “How on earth can we expect to command the loyalties of the men and women who are sworn to defend our country, when we cynically use them as pawns in a cheap, sordid power struggle? We’ve literally abandoned them to starve to death, freezing in the dark!”

Fontenot had joined the children at the teeter-totter. Fontenot had shed his vest and hat and was cordially helping a squirming three-year-old onto the end of the board. “Senator, nobody starves nowa-days. With food as cheap as it is, that’s almost impossible. And they’re not likely to freeze here in the Deep South, either.”

“You’re evading my point. That base has no funding. It’s lost its legal standing. If you believe the Emergency budget committee, that Air Force base no longer even exists! They’ve simply been written out of the record. They’ve been turned into political nonpersons by a stroke of a bureaucrat’s pen!”

“Well, that’s certainly true.”

“Oscar, there is a major issue here. America’s had her ups and downs, nobody denies that, but we’re still a great power. No great power can treat its soldiers this way. I can’t recognize any extenuating circumstances for this. It’s absurd, it’s rank folly. What if this behavior spreads? Do we want the Army, the Navy, and the Marines shaking down the citizens — the voters — just so they can scratch up enough cash to live? That’s mutiny! It’s open banditry! It’s close to treason!”

Oscar turned from the shrieking children and cradled the phone at his ear. Oscar knew full well that roadblocks were a very common business. On any particular day, hordes of people blocked roads and streets all over the USA. Roadblocking was no longer considered “highway robbery,” it had become a generally tolerated form of civil disobedience. Roadblocking was just a real-world analog for the native troubles that had always existed on information highways: jamming, spamming, and denial of service. To have the Air Force getting into the act was just a somewhat exotic extension of a very common prac-tice.

But on the other hand, Bambakias’s rhetoric clearly had merit. It sounded very strong and punchy. It was clear, it was quotable. It was a bit far-fetched, but it was very patriotic. One of the great beauties of politics as an art form was its lack of restriction to merely standard forms of realism.

“Senator, there’s a great deal to what you say.”

“Thank you,” Bambakias said. “Of course, there’s nothing much we can do about this scandal, legislatively speaking. Since I’m not yet officially in office and won’t be sworn in until mid-January.”

“No?”

“No. So, I believe a moral gesture is necessary.”

“Aha.”

“At least — at the very least — I can demonstrate personal solidarity with the plight of our soldiers.”

“Yes?”

“Tomorrow morning, I’m holding a net conference here in Cambridge. Lorena and I are declaring a hunger strike. Until the United States Congress agrees to feed our men and women in uni-form, my wife and I will go hungry as well.”

“A hunger strike?” Oscar said. “That’s a very radical move for an elected federal official.”

“I hope you don’t expect me to lead any hunger strikes after I take office,” Bambakias said reasonably. He lowered his voice. “Listen, we think this is doable. We’ve discussed it at the Washington office and the Cambridge HQ. Lorena says that we’re both fat as hogs from six months of those campaign dinners. If this gambit is going to work at all, it might very well work right now.”

“Is it” — Oscar chose his words — “is it fully consonant with the dignity of the office?”

“Look, I never promised the voters dignity. I promised them results. Washington’s lost its grip, and everything they try just makes it worse. If I don’t seize the initiative from these sons of bitches on the Emergency committees, then I might as well declare myself a decora-tive bookend. That’s not why I wanted the job.”

“Yes sir,” Oscar said. “I know that.”