Distraction

by Bruce Sterling

  Once the buses and their soldiery had successfully made it through the eastern airlock gate, the assault on the Collaboratory was a foregone conclusion. Oscar watched in numb astonishment as the first platoon ambushed and destroyed a police car.

  Two cops in a car were guarding one of the airlocks into the Hot Zone, where Greta’s Strike Committee was sullenly awaiting eviction. Without warning, the youngest of the five girls clapped her hands to the sides of her head, and emitted an ear-shattering scream. The police, galvanized with surprise, left their car at once and rushed over to give the girl aid. They fell into an invisible rat’s nest of tripwires, which lashed their booted legs together with a stink of plastic. The moment they hit the ground, two other girls coolly shot them with sprayguns, pasting them firmly to the earth.

  A second platoon of girls united and turned the tiny police truck onto its roof, and web-shot its video monitors and instrument panels.

  At his own insistence, Kevin personally led the assault on the police station. Kevin’s contribution consisted of fast-talking with the female desk sergeant as thirty young women walked into the building, chatting and giggling. Smiling cops who trustingly emerged to find out what was going on were webbed at point-blank range. Gagged, blinded, and unable to breathe, they were easy prey for trained squads who seized their wrists, kicked their ankles, and knocked them to the floor with stunning force. They were then swiftly cuffed.

  The Moderators had seized a federal facility in forty minutes flat. A force of fifty girls was overkill. By six-thirty the coup was a fait accompli.

  Still, there had been one tactical misstep. The lab’s security director was not at his work, and not at his home, where a platoon had been sent to arrest him. There was no one at home but his greatly surprised wife and two children.

  It turned out that the security chief was in a beer bar with his mistress, drunk. Teenage girls couldn’t enter a bar without attracting attention. They tried luring him out; but, confused by bad lighting, they attacked and tackled the wrong man. The chief escaped apprehension.

  Two hours later the chief was rediscovered, sealed into an impromptu riot vehicle in the basement of the Occupational Safety building. He was frantically brandishing a cellphone and a combat shotgun.

  Oscar went in to negotiate with him.

  Oscar stood before the rubber bumper of the squat decontamination vehicle. He waved cheerfully through the armored window, showing his empty hands, and called the police chief on one of the Collaboratory’s standard phones.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the chief demanded. His name, Oscar recalled flawlessly, was Mitchell S. Karnes.

  “Sorry, Chief Karnes, it was an emergency. The situation’s under control now. No one is going to be hurt.”

  “I’m the one who handles emergencies,” said the chief.

  “You and your men were the emergency. Since Director Penninger was abducted yesterday, I’m afraid you and your team have forfeited her trust. However, the lab is now back in the hands of its properly constituted authorities. So you and your staff will be relieved of duty and placed under detention until we can restore the situation to normalcy.”

  “What on earth are you talking about? You can’t fire me. You don’t have the authority.”

  “Well, Chief, I’m very aware of that. But that doesn’t change the facts of our situation. Just look at us. I’m standing out here, trying to be reasonable, while you’re holed up in an armored vehicle with a shotgun, all by yourself. We’re both adults, let’s be sensible men here. The crisis is over. Put the gun down and come on out.”

  Karnes blinked. He’d been drinking heavily earlier in the day, and the full gravity of his situation hadn’t entirely registered on him. “Look, what you’re saying is completely crazy. A labor strike is one thing. Computer viruses are one thing. Netwar is one thing, even. But this is an armed coup. You can’t get away with attacking police officers. You’ll be arrested. Everybody you know will get arrested.”

  “Mitch, I’m with you on this issue. In fact, I’m way ahead of you. I stand ready to surrender myself to the properly constituted authorities, just as soon as we can figure out who they are. They’ll show up sooner or later; this will all shake out in the long run. But in the meantime, Mitch, act normal, okay? All your colleagues are down in detention. We’ve got the crisis handled now. This is doable. We’re having the place catered tonight, there’s doughnuts, coffee, and free beer. We’re playing pinochle together and swapping war stories. We’re planning to set up conjugal visits.”

  “Oscar, you can’t arrest me. It’s against the law.”

  “Mitch, just relax. You play ball with Dr. Penninger, probably we can work something out! Sure, I guess you can stand on principle, if you want to get all stiff-necked about it. But if you sit in that truck with a loaded shotgun all night, what on earth will that get you? It’s not going to change a thing. It’s over. Come on out.”

  Karnes left the truck. Oscar produced a pair of handcuffs, looked at the plastic straps, shrugged, put them back in his pocket. “We really don’t need this, do we? We’re grown-ups. Let’s just go.”

  Karnes fell into step with him. They left the basement, and walked out together beneath the dome. There were winter stars beyond the glass. “I never liked you,” Karnes said. “I never trusted you. But somehow, you always seem like such a reasonable guy.”

  “I am a reasonable guy.” Oscar clapped the policeman on the back of his flak jacket. “I know things seem a little disordered now, Chief, but I still believe in the law. I just have to find out where the order is.”

  __________

  After seeing the former police chief safely incarcerated, Oscar conferred with Kevin and Greta in the commandeered police station. The nomad girls had changed from their dainty infiltration gear into clothing much more their style: webbing belts, batons, and cut-down combat fatigues. “So, did you get our internal publicity statement released?”

  “Of course,” Kevin said. “I called up every phone in the lab at once, and Greta went on live. Your statement was a good pitch, Oscar. It sounded really…” He paused. “Soothing.”

  “Soothing is good. We’ll have new posters up by morning, declaring the Strike over. People need these symbolic breathers. ‘The Strike Is Over.’ A declaration like that takes a lot of the heat off.”

  All enthusiasm, Kevin pitched from the chief’s leather chair and crawled on his hands and knees to a floor-level cabinet. It was crammed with telecom equipment, a dust-clotted forest of colored fiber optics. “Really neat old phone system here! It’s riddled with taps, but it’s one of a kind; it has a zillion cool old-fashioned features that nobody ever used.”

  “Why is it so dirty and neglected?” Oscar said.

  “Oh, I had to turn these boards backward to get at the wiring. I’ve never had such total control over a switching station. A couple of weeks down here, and I’ll have this place ticking like a clock.” Kevin stood up, wiping clotted grime from his fingers. “I think I’d better put on one of these local cop uniforms now. Does anybody mind if I wear a cop uniform from now on?”

  “Why do you want to do that?” Oscar said.

  “Well, those nomad girls have uniforms. I’m now your chief of security, right? How am I supposed to control our troops, if I don’t have my own uniform? With some kind of really cool cop hat.”

  Oscar shook his head. “That’s a moot point, Kevin. Now that they’ve conquered the lab for us, we really need to usher those little witches out of here just as soon as possible.”

  Kevin and Greta exchanged glances. “We were just discussing that issue.”

  “They’re really good, these girls,” Greta said. “We won the lab back, but nobody got killed. It’s always very good when there’s a coup d’état and nobody gets killed.”

  Kevin nodded eagerly. “We still need our troops, Oscar. We have a gang of dangerous Huey contras who are holed up in the Spinoffs building. We have to break them right where they sta
nd! So we’ll have to use heavy nonlethals—spongey whips, peppergas, ultrasonic bullhorns…Man, it’s gonna be juicy.” Kevin rubbed his hands together.

  “Greta, don’t listen to him. We can’t risk serious injury to those people. We’re in full command of the lab now, so we need to behave responsibly. If we have trouble from Huey’s loyalists, we’ll behave like normal authorities do. We’ll just glue their doors shut, cut their phone and computer lines, and starve them out. Overreaction would be a serious mistake. From now on, we have to worry about how this plays in Washington.”

  Greta’s long face went bleak. “Oh, to hell with Washington! They never do anything useful. They can’t protect us here. I’m sick of them and their double-talk.”

  “Wait a minute!” Oscar said, wounded. “I’m from Washington. I’ve been useful.”

  “Well, you’re the one exception.” She rubbed her skinned wrists angrily. “After what happened to me today, I know what I’m up against. I don’t have any more illusions. We can’t trust anyone but ourselves. Kevin and I are going to seize the airlocks and seal this entire facility. Oscar, I want you to resign. You’d better resign before the people in Washington fire you.” She began jabbing her spidery fingers at him. “No, before they arrest you. Or indict you. Or impeach you. Or kidnap you. Or just plain kill you.”

  He gazed at her in alarm. She was losing it. The skin of her cheeks and forehead had the taut look of a freshly peeled onion. “Greta, let’s go for a little walk in the fresh air, shall we? You’re overwrought. We need to discuss our situation sensibly.”

  “No more talking. I’m through being played for a sucker. I won’t be gassed and handcuffed again, unless they come in here with tanks.”

  “Darling, nobody uses ‘tanks.’ Tanks are very twentieth century. The authorities don’t have to use violent armed force. The world is past that phase as a civilization. If they want to pry us out of here, they’ll just…”

  Oscar fell silent suddenly. He hadn’t really considered the options from the point of view of the authorities. The options for the authorities didn’t seem very promising. Greta Penninger—and her allies—had just seized an armored biological laboratory. The place was blast-resistant and riddled with underground catacombs. There were hundreds of highly photogenic rare species inside, forming a combination mobile food source and corps of potential hostages. The facility had its own water supply, its own power supply, even its own atmosphere. Financial threats and embargoes were meaningless, because the financial systems had already been ruined by netwar viruses.

  The place was sewn up tight. Greta’s pocket revolutionaries had seized the means of information. They had commandeered the means of production. They had a loyal and aroused populace in a state of profound distrust for the outside world. They had conquered a mighty fortress.

  Greta returned her attention to Kevin. “When can we junk these lousy prole phones and get our regular system back?”

  Kevin was all helpfulness. “Well, I’ll have to make sure it’s fully secure first…How many programmers can you give me?”

  “I’ll run a personnel search for telecom talent. Can you find me my own office here in the police station? I may be spending a lot of time in here.”

  Kevin grinned gamely. “Hey, you’re the boss, Dr. Penninger!”

  “I need some time off,” Oscar realized. “Maybe a nice long nap. It’s really been a trying day.” They cordially ignored him. They were busy with their own agenda. He left the police station.

  As he tottered through the darkened gardens toward the looming bulk of the Hot Zone, weariness overcame him with an evil metabolic rush. His day’s experiences suddenly struck him as being totally insane. He’d been abducted, gassed, bombed; he’d traveled hundreds of miles in cheerless, battered vehicles; he’d concluded an unsavory alliance with a powerful gang of social outcasts; he’d been libeled, accused of embezzlement and criminal flight across state boundaries…He’d arrested a group of police; he’d talked an armed fugitive into surrendering…And now his sometime lover and his dangerously unbalanced security director were uniting to plot behind his back.

  It was bad. Impossibly bad. But it still wasn’t the worst. Because tomorrow was yet another day. Tomorrow, he would have to launch into a massive public-relations offensive that would somehow justify his actions.

  He realized suddenly that he wasn’t going to make it. It was overwhelming. It was just too much. He’d reached a condition of psychic overload. He was black, blue, and green with wounds and bruises; he was hungry, tired, overstressed, and traumatized; his nervous system was singing with stale adrenaline. Yet in his heart of hearts, he felt good about the day’s events.

  He’d outdone himself.

  True, he’d suffered the elemental blunder of being kidnapped. But after that, he had handled every situation, every developing crisis, with astonishing aplomb and unbroken success. Every move had been the proper move at the proper moment, every option had been an inspired choice. It was just that there were too many of them. He was like an ice-skater performing an endless series of triple axels. Something was going to snap.

  He felt a sudden need for shelter. Physical shelter. Locked doors, and a long silence.

  Returning to the hotel was out of the question. There would be people there, questions, trouble. The Hot Zone, then.

  He trudged to a Hot Zone airlock, now manned by a pair of elderly nomad sergeants, up on the night shift. The camou-clad grannies were amusing themselves, doing cat’s-cradle string-games with homemade yoyos of chemically soaked sponge. Oscar walked by the women with a ragged salute, and entered the empty halls of the Hot Zone.

  He searched for a place to hide. An obscure equipment closet would be ideal. There was just one more little matter, before he relaxed and came fully apart at the seams. He needed to have his laptop. That was a deeply comforting thought to Oscar: retreating into a locked closet with a laptop to hold. It was an instinctive reaction to unbearable crisis; it was something he had been doing since the age of six.

  He had left a spare laptop in Greta’s lab. He crept into the place. The former Strike headquarters, once sterile and pristine, bore the scars of political backroom maneuvers—it was filthy now, full of scattered papers, half-eaten food, memos, bottles, junk. The whole room stank of panic. Oscar found his laptop, half buried below a stack of tapes and catalogs. He pulled it out, tucked it under his arm. Thank God.

  His phone rang. He answered it by reflex. “Yes?”

  “Am I lucky! Got the Soap Salesman first try! How’s it goin’, Soapy? Everything under control?”

  It was Green Huey. Oscar’s heart skipped a beat as he snapped to full attention. “Yes, thank you, Governor.”

  How on earth was Huey inside the lab’s phones? Kevin had assured him that their encryption was uncrackable.

  “I hope you don’t mind a late cold-call, mon ami.”

  Oscar sat slowly on the laboratory floor, bracing his back on a metal cabinet. “By no means, Your Excellency. We live to serve.”

  “That’s mighty good of you, Soapy! Lemme tell you where I am right now. I’m riding in a goddamn helicopter above the Sabine River, and I’m lookin’ at a goddamn air strike.”

  “You don’t say, sir.”

  “I DO SAY!” Huey screamed. “Those sons of bitches blew my people away! Black helicopters with missiles and automatic weapons, murdering American civilians on the ground! It was a goddamn massacre!”

  “Were there many casualties, Governor? I mean, besides that unfortunate French submarine?”

  “HELL YES there were casualties!” Huey screeched. “How could there not be casualties? Woods on both sides of the river were crawlin’ with Regulators. Total operational dysfunction! Too many spooks spoil the broth! A total screwup! Goddammit, I never ordered those pencilnecks to dump you and the Genius Girl inside some goddamn fake ambulance!”

  “No, Your Excellency?”

  “Hell no! They were supposed to wait patiently and catch you when yo
u were sneaking out of the lab together on a hot date. In that context, an abduction woulda made sense. The problem with nomads is mighty poor impulse control. Not what I wanted, boy, not on my agenda! I just had something that I needed to show ya, that’s all. Right now, you and me and the ladylove coulda been puttin’ our feet up, with parasols in our drinks. We’re supposed to be havin’ a scientific summit over here, we’re supposed to be ironing out all our difficulties.”

  Oscar narrowed his burning, grainy eyes. “But the abduction team had a mishap on the road. They arrived late for the rendezvous. Your reception committee became anxious. When a federal SWAT team arrived unexpectedly, a violent encounter ensued.”

  Huey was silent.

  Oscar felt his voice rising to a high, rapid-fire gabble. “Governor, I hope you’ll believe me when I say I regret this event even more than you do. I can understand that it would have been of considerable political advantage to you if your agents could have apprehended us during a scandalous rendezvous. We’d have had very little recourse then, and it would have been a very effective gambit on your part. But let’s face facts. You can’t simply physically abduct a lab director and a federal official. That’s not how the game is played. Commando adventures are politically foolish. They rarely work out in real life.”

  “Huh! Well, you seem to have managed a commando attack pretty well, bubba.”

  “Governor, when I arrived here two months ago, commandeering this lab by force of arms was the furthest thing from my mind. But given the circumstances, I had no other choice. Now just look at our situation. It’s critically overburdened with extraneous factors. It’s no longer simply a question of you, and me, and Senator Bambakias, and the scientists on Strike, and your loyal fifth column inside the lab. That was a very complex situation! But now we have federal SWAT teams, semicompetent Regulator goons, armed teenage girls, software attacks, libelous black-propaganda operations…It’s all spinning totally out of control!” Oscar’s throat constricted in a shriek. He yanked the phone from his face.