Bruce Sterling - Distraction

“That’s not political thinking, Alcott.”

“Politics don’t work anymore! We can’t make politics work, be-cause the system’s so complex that its behavior is basically random. Nobody trusts the system anymore, so nobody ever, ever plays it straight. There are sixteen parties, and a hundred bright ideas, and a million ticking bleeping gizmos, but nobody can follow through, exe-cute, and deliver the goods on time and within specs. So our politics has become absurd. The country’s reduced to chaos. We’ve given up on the Republic. We’ve abandoned democracy. I’m not a Senator! I’m a robber baron, a feudal lord. All I can do is build a personality cult.”

Five of Bambakias’s krewepeople arrived in force. They were thrilled to see the man eating. The room became an instant bedlam of kevlar picnic tables, flying silverware, packs of appetizers and aperitifs.

“I know that it’s chaos,” Oscar insisted, raising his voice above the racket. “Everybody knows that the system is out of control. That’s a truism. The only answer to chaos is political organization.”

“No, it’s too late for that. We’re so intelligent now that we’re too smart to survive. We’re so well informed that we’ve lost all sense of meaning. We know the price of everything, but we’ve lost all sense of value. We have everyone under surveillance, but we’ve lost all sense of shame.” The sudden wave of nourishment. was hitting Bambakias hard. His face was beet-red and he was having trouble breathing. And he had apparently stopped thinking, for he was quot-ing his campaign stump speech by rote.

Greta reappeared at the doorway, dodging the hospital bed as two krewemen wheeled it out. She entered and sat demurely in a newly structured chair.

“So you might as well just grab whatever you can,” Bambakias concluded.

“Thank you, Senator,” Greta said, deftly seizing a skewer of ter-iyaki chicken. “I enjoy these little office brunches.”

“See, it all moves too fast and in too complex a fashion for any human brain to keep up.”

“I suppose that’s why we can sit on it!” Greta said.

“What?” Oscar said.

“This furniture thinks much faster than a human brain. That’s why this fragile net of sticks and ribbons can become a functional chair.” She examined their stunned expressions. “Aren’t we still dis-cussing furniture design? I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, Doctor,” Bambakias told her. “That’s my worst regret. I should have stayed in architecture, where I was needed. I was getting things accomplished there, you see? A truly modern sense of structure… that could have been my monument. I might have done wonderful things… Doctor, that old glass dome of yours in Texas, it’s twenty years behind the times. Nowadays we could create a dome ten times that size out of straw and pocket money! We could make your sad little museum really live and bloom — we could make that experiment into everyday reality. We could integrate the natural world right into the substance of our cities. If we knew how to use our power properly, we could guide herds of American bison right through our own streets. We could live in an Eden at peace with packs of wolves. All it would take is enough sense and vision to know who we are, and what we want.”

“That sounds wonderful, Senator. Why don’t you do it?”

“Because we’re a pack of thieves! We went straight from wilder-ness to decadence, without ever creating an authentic American civili-zation. Now we’re beaten, and now we sulk. The Chinese kicked our ass in economic warfare. The Europeans have sensible, workable poli-cies about population and the weather crisis. But we’re a nation of dilettantes who live on cheap hacks of a dead system. We’re all on the take! We’re all self-seeking crooks!”

Oscar spoke up. “You’re not a criminal, Alcott. Look at the polls. The people are with you. You’ve won them over now. They trust your intentions, they sympathize.”

Bambakias slumped violently into his chair, which thrummed alertly. “Then tell me something,” he growled. “What about Moira?”

“Why is that subject on the agenda?” Oscar said.

“Moira’s in jail, Oscar. Tell me about that. Do you want to tell us all about that?”

Oscar chewed with polite deliberation on a dinner roll. The room had gone lethally silent. Against the glass block a mobile mosaic had established itself, gently altering the daylight. A maze of dainty lozenges, creeping like adhesive dominoes, flapping neatly across the glass.

Oscar pointed to a netfeed. “Could we have a look at that cover-age, please? Turn the sound up.”

One of Bambakias’s krewe spoke up. “It’s in French.”

“Dr. Penninger speaks French. Help me with this coverage, Doctor.”

Greta turned to the screen. “It’s defection coverage,” she trans-lated. “Something about a French aircraft carrier.”

Bambakias groaned.

“There’s been a statement from the French foreign office,” Greta said tentatively, “something about American military officers… Electronic warfare jets… Two American Air Force pilots have flown jets to a French aircraft carrier, offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. They’re asking for political asylum.”

“I knew it!” Oscar announced, throwing his napkin on the table.

“I knew Huey had people on the inside. See, now the other shoe drops. This is big, this is a major twist.”

“Oh, that’s bad,” Bambakias groaned. He was ashen. “This is the final indignity. The final disgrace. This is the very end.” He swal-lowed noisily. “I’m going to be sick.”

“Help the Senator,” Oscar commanded, jumping to his feet. “And get Sosik in here, right away.”

Bambakias vanished in a cluster of panicked retainers. The room emptied as suddenly as a Tokyo subway car. Oscar and Greta found themselves suddenly alone.

Oscar watched the screen. One of the American defectors had just appeared on-camera. The man looked very familiar, utterly cyni-cal, and extremely drunk. Oscar recognized him as an acquaintance: he was the public relations officer for the Louisiana air base. He was wearily delivering a prepared statement, with French subtitles. “What a genius move! Huey’s dumped his Trojan horse people into the hands of French spooks. The French will hide those rogue airboys in some bank vault in Paris. We’ll never hear from them again. They’ve sold out their country, and now the crooked sons of bitches will live like kings.”

“What a convenient interruption that was,” Greta told him. She was still eating lunch, pincering her chopsticks with surgical skill. “The Senator had you pinned down and right on the spot. I can’t believe you had the nerve to pull that trick.”

“Actually, I was keeping a weather eye on that screen all along, just in case I needed a nice distracting gambit.”

She sampled the dim sum and smiled skeptically. “No you weren’t. Nobody can do that.”

“Actually, yes, I can do that sort of thing. I do it every day.”

“Well, you’re not distracting me. What was it about this Moira person? It must be something pretty awful. I could tell that much.”

“Moira is not your problem, Greta.”

“Ha! Nobody around here is addressing my problems.” She frowned, then poured a little more soy. “Really good food here, though. Amazing food.”

“I’m. going to get to your problems. I haven’t forgotten them. I just had to shelve those issues for a minute while I was getting the poor man to eat.”

“Too bad you couldn’t get him to keep it down.” Greta sighed. “This has certainly been eye-opening. I had no real idea what to expect from your Senator. Somehow, I imagined he’d be just like you.”

“Meaning what, exactly?”