Bruce Sterling - Distraction

“You should try it, amigo. It’s the ultimate invisible American population. Prisons have everything that interests you. People with a lot of spare time. Weird economics, based on drugs and homemade tattoos. There’s a lot of time to think seriously. You really do regret your old mistakes inside a penitentiary.” Burningboy had an impossi-bly remote look now. Oscar was losing him; it was as if he were bound on a flower-decked Valkyrie ship for the shores of Avalon. “Besides, some of those poor evil bastards are so far gone that they actually have bad teeth. I can practice dentistry again, when I’m in stir. Did I ever tell you I used to be a dentist? That was before the caries vaccine came in and destroyed my profession.”

Oscar had forgotten that Burningboy had once been a dentist. The man had earned a medical degree. Oscar was alarmed by this, not merely because the annihilation of the noble profession of dentistry was a stark barometer of America’s social damage. It bothered him because he was forgetting important things about important people. Was he too old now, at twenty-nine? Was he losing his grip? Had he taken on too much? Maybe it was the way Burningboy dressed and talked. He was a dropout, a prole, a marginal. It was just impossible to take him seriously for more than a few instants.

“I have no regrets,” Burningboy said, emptying his cocktail glass with a flourish. “I led my people into a lot of trouble here. That wasn’t my idea — it was your damned idea — but they wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t given it my big say-so. If you change hundreds of people’s lives, you ought to pay a stiff price for that. Just to, you know, keep everybody from tryin’ it. So I’m doing the honorable thing here. My people understand about prison.”

“That is the honorable thing, isn’t it? Doing time. Paying dues.”

“That’s right. I led the charge, and now I step aside. At least I won’t end up like Green Huey.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean that Huey can’t put it down, son. He can’t put down the cross and take off the crown of thorns. He can’t mosey off the stage and go sit quietly in the corner. He’s the red-hot self-declared super-savior of the meek and downtrodden, and you can’t pull a stunt like that in America without somebody shooting you. That’s just the kind of thing we do in this country. Huey looks a mile high right now, but he’s made out of meat. Sornebody’s gonna kill Huey. The lone nut sniper, a crowd of spooks outside the motorcade …” He shot Oscar a sudden opaque look. “I just hope he doesn’t get offed by somebody that I personally know.”

“It would be very regrettable if the Governor came to harm.”

“Yeah, right.”

Oscar cleared his throat. “If you’re leaving us, General, who’s going to be in command here?”

“You are. You’ve always been in command here. Don’t you get that yet? You need to wake up a little, son.”

“Look, I don’t give any orders. I just talk to the relevant parties.”

Burningboy snorted.

“Okay, then let me rephrase my question. Who do I talk to, when I need to talk to the Moderators?”

“All right.” Burningboy shrugged. “I’ll introduce you to my anointed successor.”

Burningboy led him inside the police station. From behind the locked door of the chiefs office came a loud series of groans. Burn-ingboy produced a swipecard from inside his medicine bag, and opened the door. Kevin had his bare feet up on his desk. He was receiving dual foot rubs from a pair of nomad women. He was very drunk, and wearing a silly party hat.

“All right, ladies,” Kevin gurgled. “That’ll be enough for now. Thank you so much. Really.”

“Your metatarsals are really trashed,” said the first masseuse, with dignity.

“Can we mark off a whole hour?” said the second. “Oh, go ahead!” Kevin said royally. “Who’s to know?”

“This is my successor,” said Burningboy. “Our new security honcho. Captain Scubbly Bee.”

“That’s just great,” Oscar said. “That’s good news. Incredible. It’s so wonderful I scarcely know what to say.”

Kevin swung his oily feet from the desk. “I enlisted, man. I signed up with the mob. I’m a made guy, I’m a Moderator now.”

“I understood that much,” Oscar told him. “New alias and ev-erything. ‘Scubbly Bee,’ am I right? What is that? Not ‘Stubbly’?”

“No, Scubbly. Scubbly Bee.” Kevin pointed to a nearby shred-der. “I just trashed all my official ID. I can’t tell you how great that felt. This is the best party I ever had.”

“What’s the significance of ‘Scubbly Bee’? It must mean some-thing of drastic importance in order to sound so silly.”

Kevin grinned. “That’s for me to know and you to find out, chump.”

Burningboy shook Kevin’s hand. “I’ll be going soon,” he said. “You keep your nose clean, all right, Captain? This is the last time I want to see you so drunk.”

“I’m not all that drunk,” Kevin lied. “It’s mostly that intoxicat-ing endorphin rush from my feet.”

Burningboy left the office, throwing his arms over the willing shoulders of the two nomad women. Oscar sat down. “I hope you didn’t destroy your voter registration, too.”

“As if absentee voting in Boston is somehow gonna help us down here.”

“He’s really put you in direct charge over his own people inside the facility?”

Kevin yawned. “Y’know, when this party is over, I’m gonna have a serious talk with you, man. In the meantime, you need to eat something. Maybe even have a drink. After all, you’re the guy who’s paying for all this.”

“I won’t take much of your valuable party time, Captain Bee. This is just a friendly krewe-style chat.”

“If we’re going to be all friendly, then you’d better call me ‘Scubbly.’ ” Kevin pulled his socks over his reddened, liniment-reeking feet, with a theatrical series of winces. “You’ve just got to know why he did that, don’t you? You’ve got to be on top of developments, you can’t even wait till morning to learn. Well, it’s because he’s setting me up, that’s why. He’s getting off the hot seat, and he’s putting me right on it. See, he thinks the Regulators are gonna cross the border and come after us with everything they have. Because that’s what he wants, that’s his agenda. The Regulators will stomp this place, and then the Regulators will catch a truly massive counterreaction from the feds.”

“That seems like a far-fetched gambit, doesn’t it?”

“But that’s the way he set this up, man. He didn’t come here because he wanted to help your little pet scientists. You’re too straight, you just don’t understand these guys’ priorities. They gave up on you a long, long time ago. They don’t expect any law or justice from the U.S. government. They don’t even expect the government to be sane. The whole federal system just detached itself from them and floated off into deep space. They think of the government as something like bad weather. It’s something you just endure.”

“You’re wrong, Kevin — I understand all of that perfectly.”

“When they want to take action, they take actions that matter to them. The other proles, that’s who matters. They’re like tribes who are wandering through an enormous hostile desert made of your laws and money. But the Moderators hate the Regulators. The Regulators are strong and scary now. They’ve got a state Governor as their big secret Grand Dragon Pooh-bah. They overwhelmed an Air Force base. The Moderators… all they own is a few dozen ghost towns and national parks.”

Oscar nodded encouragement.

“Then you came along. All of a sudden there was a chance to take over this place. It’s a federal science facility, a much better facility than a pork-barrel Air Force base. It has big prestige. Grabbing it is an intolerable insult to Regulator prestige, because their main man Huey built this place, and he thinks he owns it by right. He’s nuts about green genetic gumbo and weird cognition crap. So that’s why Burn-ingboy helped you. And that’s why he’s getting out now, while the getting is good. He set a trap for the other side, and to his eyes, we’re just poisoned bait.”