Bruce Sterling - Distraction

“I’ve never been the rest of anybody,” Oscar said. “Even people like me are never people like me. You want a coffee?”

“Okay.”

Oscar poured two cups. Kevin reached companionably into his back pocket and pulled out a square white baton of compressed vege-table protein. “Have a chew?”

“Sure.” Oscar gnawed thoughtfully on a snapped-off chunk. It tasted like carrots and foam.

“You know,” Oscar ruminated, “I have my share of prejudices — who doesn’t, really? — but I’ve never had it in for proles, per se. I’m just tired of living in a society permanently broken into fragments. I’ve always hoped and planned for federal, democratic, national reform. So we can have a system with a decent role for everyone.”

“But the economy’s out of control. Money just doesn’t need human beings anymore. Most of us only get in the way.”

“Well, money isn’t everything, but just try living without it.”

Kevin shrugged. “People lived before money was invented. Money’s not a law of nature. Money’s a medium. You can live without money, if you replace it with the right kind of computation. The proles know that. They’ve tried a million weird stunts to get by, road-blocks, shakedowns, smuggling, scrap metal, road shows… Heaven knows they never had much to work with. But the proles are almost there now. You know how reputation servers work, right?”

“Of course I know about them, but I also know they don’t really work.”

“I used to live off reputation servers. Let’s say you’re in the Reg-ulators — they’re a mob that’s very big around here. You show up at a Regulator camp with a trust rep in the high nineties, people will make it their business to look after you. Because they know for a fact that you’re a good guy to have around. You’re polite, you don’t rob stuff, they can trust you with their kids, their cars, whatever they got. You’re a certifiable good neighbor. You always pitch in. You always do people favors. You never sell out the gang. It’s a network gift econ-omy.”

“It’s gangster socialism. It’s a nutty scheme, it’s unrealistic. And it’s fragile. You can always bribe people to boost your ratings, and then money breaks into your little pie-in-the-sky setup. Then you’re right back where you started.”

“It can work all right. The problem is that the organized-crime feds are on to the proles, so they netwar their systems and deliberately break them down. They prefer the proles chaotic, because they’re a threat to the status quo. Living without money is just not the Ameri-can way. But most of Africa lives outside the money economy now — they’re all eating leaf protein out of Dutch machines. Polynesia is like that now. In Europe they’ve got guaranteed annual incomes, they’ve got zero-work people in their Parliaments. Gift networks have always been big in Japan. Russians still think property is theft — those poor guys could never make a money economy work. So if it’s so impracti-cal, then how come everybody else is doing it? With Green Huey in power, they’ve finally got a whole American state.”

“Green Huey is a pocket Stalin. He’s a personality cultist.”

“I agree he’s a son of a bitch, but he’s a giant son of a bitch. His state government runs Regulator servers now. And they didn’t over-run that air base by any accident. Huey’s nomads really have what it takes now — no more of this penny-ante roadblock and wire-clipper nonsense. Now they’ve got U.S. Air Force equipment that’s knocked over national governments. It’s a silent coup in progress, pal. They’re gonna eat the country right out from under you.”

“Kevin, stop frightening me. I’m way ahead of you here. I know that the proles are a threat. I’ve known it since that May Day riot in Worcester, back in ’42. Maybe you didn’t care to notice that ugly business, but I have tapes of all that — I’ve watched it a hundred times. People in my own home state tore a bank apart with their hands. It was absolute madness. Craziest thing I ever saw.”

Kevin munched his stick and swallowed. “I didn’t have to tape it. I was there.”

“You were?” Oscar leaned forward gently. “Who ordered all that?”

“Nobody. Nobody ever orders it. That was a fed bank, they were running cointelpro out of it. The word bubbled up from below, some heavy activists accreted, they wasp-swarmed the place. And once they’d trashed it, they all ducked and scattered. You’d never find any ‘orders,’ or anyone responsible. You’d never even find the software. That thing is a major-league hit-server. It’s so far underground that it doesn’t need eyes anymore.”

“Why did you do that, Kevin? Why would you risk doing a crazy thing like that?”

“I did it for the trust ratings. And because, well, they stank.” Kevin’s eyes glittered. “Because the people who rule us are spooks, they lie and they cheat and they spy. The sons of bitches are rich, they’re in power. They hold all the cards over us, but they still have to screw people over the sneaky way. They had it coming. I’d do it again, if my feet were a little better.”

Oscar felt himself trembling on the edge of revelation. This was almost making sense. Kevin had just outed himself, and the facts were finally falling into place. The situation was both a lot clearer and rather more dangerous than he had imagined.

Oscar knew now that he had been absolutely right to follow his instincts and hire this man. Kevin was the kind of political creature who was much safer inside the tent than outside it. There had to be some way to win him over, permanently. Something that mattered to him. “Tell me more about your feet, Kevin.”

“I’m an Anglo. Funny things happen to Anglos nowadays.” Kevin smiled wearily. “Especially when four cops with batons catch you screwing with traffic lights … So now, I’m a dropout’s dropout. I had to go straight, I couldn’t keep up on the road. I got myself a crap security gig in a tony part of Beantown. I put most of the old life behind me … Hey, I even voted once! I voted for Bambakias.”

“That’s extremely interesting. Why did you do that?”

“Because he builds houses for us, man! He builds ’em with his own hands and he never asks for a cent. And I’m not sorry I voted for him either, because you know, the man is for real! I know that he blew it, but that’s for real — the whole country has blown it. He’s rich, and an intellectual, and an art collector, and all that crap, but at least he’s not a hypocrite like Huey. Huey claims he’s the future of Amer-ica, but he cuts backroom deals with the Europeans.”

“He sold out our country, didn’t he?” Oscar nodded. “That’s just too much to forgive.”

“Yup. Just like the President.”

“Now what? What’s the problem with Two Feathers?”

“Actually, the President’s not a bad guy in his own way. He’s done some good refugee work out in the West. It’s really different out there now; since the giant fires and relocations, they’ve got nomad posses taking over whole towns and counties… But that doesn’t cut much ice with me. Two Feathers is a Dutch agent.”

Oscar smiled. “You lost me there. The President is a Dutch agent?”

“Yeah, the Dutch have been backing him for years. Dutch spooks are very big on disaffected ethnic groups. Anglos, Native Americans … America’s a big country. It’s your basic divide-and-conquer hack.”

“Look, we’re not talking Geronimo here. The President is a bil-lionaire timber baron who was Governor of Colorado.”

“We are talking Geronimo, Oscar. Take away America’s money, and you’ve got a country of tribes.”

Once the charges were dismissed against Norman-the-Intern, Oscar’s krewe held a nice going-away party for him. It was very well attended. The hotel was crowded with Collaboratory supporters, who professed heartfelt admiration for Norman and deeply appreciated the free drinks and food.