Bruce Sterling - Distraction

“And you want me to come and see it with you.”

“I’m not saying that, Oscar. I’m just saying… well, the parish police are crooked, the state militia is crooked, the Secret Service won’t listen to me anymore, and nobody even cares. They’re Haitians, from a barren, drowning island, and nobody cares. Not a damn soul cares. ”

“Oh, believe me, I care, Jules. Trust me on that one.”

“It’s more than I can stand, that’s all. I can’t sleep nights, thinkin’ about it.”

“Rest easy. You have done the right and proper thing. I am definitely going to take steps. Is there a way that I can contact you? Safely, confidentially?”

“Nope. Not anymore. I threw all my phones away.”

“How can I pursue this matter, then?”

“I’m retired! Hell, Oscar, don’t let anybody know that I outed this thing! I live here now. I love this place. I wanna die here.”

“Now, Jules, you know that’s not right. This is a very serious matter. You’re either a player, or you’re not a player. You can’t teeter along on the edge like this.”

“Okay. I’m not a player.” The phone went dead.

Oscar turned to Kevin. “Were you following the gist of that?”

“Who was that guy? Is he nuts?”

“That’s my former krewe security chief, Jules Fontenot. He ran security for the Bambakias campaign. He happens to be a Cajun. He retired just before I met you, and he’s been out in the bayou, fishing, ever since.”

“And now he’s calling you up with some cock-and-bull story about a scandal, and he’s trying to lure you into the backwoods of Louisiana?”

“That’s right. And I’m going.”

“Hold on, cowboy. Think about this. What’s more likely? That Huey is running weird atrocity camps in the bayou, or that your for-mer friend the Cajun has just been turned against you? This is a trap, man. So they can kidnap you just like they tried before. They’re gonna curb-stomp you and feed you to the alligators.”

“Kevin, I appreciate that hypothesis. That’s good, street-smart, bodyguard-style thinking. But let me give you the political angle on this. I know Fontenot. He was a Secret Service special agent. I trusted that man with my life — and with the Senator’s life, the life of the whole krewe. Maybe he’s plotting to kidnap and murder me now. But if Huey can turn Jules Fontenot into a murderous traitor, then Arner-ica as we know it has ceased to exist. It would mean that we’re doomed.”

“So you’re going into Louisiana to investigate these things he told you about.”

“Of course I am. The only question is, how and under what circumstances. I’m going to have to give this project some serious thought.”

“Okay, I’m going with you, then.”

Oscar narrowed his eyes. “Why do you say that?”

“A lot of reasons. I’m supposed to be your bodyguard. I’m in your krewe. You pay me. I’m the successor of this Fontenot guy that you’re so impossibly respectful of. But mostly — it’s because I’m so sick and tired of you always being four steps ahead of me.” Kevin slapped his desk. “Look at me, man. I’m a very smart, clever, sneaky guy. I’m a hacker. And I’m good at it! I’m such a net-dot-legend that I can take over federal science labs. I slot right into the Moderators. I even hang out with NSC agents. But no matter what I do, you always do some-thing crazier. You’re always ahead of me. I’m a technician, and you’re a politician, and you’re always outthinking me. You don’t even take me seriously.”

“That is not true. I know that you count! I take you with com-plete seriousness, Captain Scubbly Bee.”

Kevin sighed. “Just make a little room for me in the back of your campaign bus, all right? That’s all I ask.”

“I need to talk to Greta about this development. She’s my neural science expert.”

“Right. No problem. Just a second.” Kevin stood up and limped barefoot to a desktop computer. He typed in parameters. A schematic map of the Collaboratory appeared. He studied it. “Okay. You’ll find Dr. Penninger in her supersecret lab in the fourth floor of the Human Resources division.”

“What? Greta’s supposed to be here at the party.”

“Dr. Penninger hates parties. She bores real easily. Didn’t you know that? I like doing favors for Dr. Penninger. Dr. Penninger’s not like most women — you can talk to her seriously about stuff that mat-ters. She needed a safe house in case of attacks, so I built her a cute little secret lab over in Human Resources. She fired all those clowns anyway, so there’s plenty of room now.”

“How do you know where she is at this very moment?”

“You’ve got to be kidding. I’m Security, and she’s the lab’s Di-rector. I always know where the Director is.”

After considerable ceremonial pressing of the flesh, Oscar left the party to find Greta. Thanks to Kevin’s explicit surveillance, this wasn’t difficult.

Kevin and his prole gangs had assembled a hole-in-the-wall workspace for Greta. Oscar punched in a four-digit code, and the door opened. The room was dark, and he saw Greta crouched over her dissecting microscope, its lights the only illumination. Both her eyes were pressed to the binocular mounts and both her hands were encased in step-down AFM dissection gloves. She had thrown a lab coat over her glamorous party gear. The room was as bare as a monk’s cell, and Greta was utterly intent: silently and methodically tearing away at some tiny fabric of the universe.

“It’s me,” he said.

“Oh,” she said. She looked up, nodded, and returned her attention to the lenses.

“Why did you leave the party?”

“Why shouldn’t I? You weren’t paying any attention to me.” Oscar was surprised, even mildly thrilled, to see Greta being coy.

“We’re in the Emergency Committee. You see me for hours and hours every day.”

“We’re never together. You’ve lost interest in me. You’re neglect-ing me.”

Oscar paused. He was certainly interested now. It occurred to hirn suddenly that he deeply enjoyed this part of a relationship. Women always seemed more interesting to him as objects of negotia-tion than they were as lovers or partners. This was a sinister self-revelation. He felt very contrite about it.

“Greta, I don’t like to admit it, but you’re right. Now that ev-eryone knows we’re lovers, we never have time for ourselves. We were together in a public situation tonight, and I tactlessly deserted you. I admit that. I regret it. I’m going to make it up to you.”

“Listen to yourself It’s like you’re addressing a committee. We’re just two politicians now. You talk to me like a diplomat. I have to read speeches from the President that are full of lies. I don’t get to work at anything that interests me. I spend my whole life in an endless political crisis. I hate administration. God, I feel so guilty.”

“Why? It’s important work. Someone has to do it. You’re good at it! People respect you.”

“I never felt this guilty when we were off in beach hotels having sleazy, half-violent sex. It wasn’t the center of my life or anything, but it was really interesting. A good-looking, charming guy with hun-dred-and-one-degree core body heat, that’s pretty fascinating. A lot more interesting than watching all my research die on the vine.”

“Oh no, not you too,” Oscar said. “Don’t tell me you’re turning on me now when I’ve put so much effort into this. So many people have left me now. They just don’t believe it can work.”

She looked at him with sudden pity. “Poor Oscar. You’ve got it all backward. That’s not why I feel guilty. I’m guilty because I know it’s going to work. Talking with those Moderators for so long … I really understand it now. Science truly is going to change. It’ll still be ‘Science.’ It’ll have the same intellectual structure, but its political structure will be completely different. Instead of being poorly paid government workers, we’ll be avant-garde dissident intellectuals for the dispossessed. And that will work for us. Because we can get a better deal from them now than we can from the government. The proles are not so new; they’re just like big, hairy, bad-smelling college students. We can deal with people like that. We do it all the time.”