Distraction

by Bruce Sterling

  Then he deliberately placed the phone against his ear again, as if it were the muzzle of a revolver. “This is going to cost me my Senate career. I suppose it’s petty of me to mention that, but I enjoyed that work. I regret that. Personally.”

  “Son, it’s all right. Calm down. I know what a promising Senate career can mean to a young man like you. That’s exactly how I got into politics myself, don’t you see? I was Senate chief of staff for Dougal of Texas when we built that lab in the first place.”

  “Governor, why have we come to this? Why are you trying so hard to outsmart me? We’re both very smooth operators. We’re outsmarting ourselves out of all sense and reason. Why didn’t you just call me in for a private conference? I would have gone to see you. I would have negotiated. I’d have been happy to.”

  “No you wouldn’t. Your Senator wouldn’t have stood for that kind of mischief.”

  “I wouldn’t have told him about it. I would have gone to meet you anyway. You’re a major player. I have to talk to the players, or I’ll never accomplish anything.”

  “Then the poor bastard really is through,” Huey sighed. “You really don’t care a hang about ol’ Bambakias, you’re runnin’ around behind his back. Poor old Bombast Boy…I never had nothin’ against him; hell, I love Yankee egghead liberals who can’t park their bicycles straight! Why on God’s green earth did he ever get on my case about some pissant base-finance hassle? I cain’t put up with that! I cain’t have some freshman Senator yankin’ my chain when he’s got no grip on reality. A hunger strike, for Christ’s sake—hell, I didn’t starve him! He’s rich, he could afford a lunch tab. He’s got no common sense at all! You’re a smart boy, you musta known all o’ that.”

  “I knew that he was an idealist.”

  “Why’d you even pick on him?”

  “He was the only one who was willing to hire me to run a Senate campaign,” Oscar said.

  Huey grunted. “Well! Okay then! Now it’s makin’ sense to me. I mighta known it was you all along, because you’re a boy who’s got some starch and fiber. But why the hell did you wind him up and send him after me? Who are you, anyhow? What the hell are you doin’ inside my favorite science lab? You don’t even know what they’re up to in there. You don’t even know what they’re worth!”

  “I have my suspicions,” Oscar said. “They’ve got something crucially important to you here, and it’s worth plenty.”

  “Look, I need that lab. I need those people. Sure, they’ve got something very special going on. I wouldn’t fuss so much, otherwise. I was gonna demonstrate the app for y’all. It would have changed everything.”

  “Governor, don’t try to mystify me. I already know what you were planning for us. Greta and I would have vanished into some offshore salt mine, where you and your industrial spies have been developing neural technology. It’s a big neural breakthrough that’s got you so anxious, and it has something to do with mind control. It’s just like the animals in here. We would have turned into well-mannered zombies. We’d have become your de-feralized pets, and we would have agreed to anything you said. That’s your ultimate network attack: subverting the human nervous system.”

  Huey barked with astonished laughter. “What? Who do you take me for, Mao Zedong? I don’t need any brainwashed robots! I need smart people, all the smart people I can get! You just don’t understand!”

  “So what am I missing, exactly?”

  “You’re missing me, boy, me! I love my state! I love my people! Sure, you despise Louisiana, Mr. Harvard Business Boy—it’s corrupt, it’s too hot, it’s half under water, it’s dirt poor, it’s poisoned with years of pesticides and pollution, it’s all outta gas and oil for you Yankees to burn in the winter. Half its people speak the wrong goddamn language, but goddamn you, people are still real here! My people got soul, they’ve got spirit, they’re authentic real-live people! We’re not like the rest of the USA, where people are too sick and shocked and tired and spied-on even to fight for a decent future.”

  Huey coughed loudly and resumed bellowing into the phone. “They call me a ‘rogue Governor’—well, what else can I be? All them ‘emergency committees’—they’re totally illegal, oppressive, and unconstitutional! Look at this new President! He’s a trigger-happy killer—and that’s the very best man you got! That man wants me driven out of my own statehouse—hell, the President would like to kill me! I’m under constant threats to my life now! I watch the skies every minute so’s I don’t get fried like a fritter by goddamn X-ray lasers! And you—you think that I wanna lobotomize Nobel Prize winners! Are you as nuts as your boss? My God Almighty, why would I do that? Where is that supposed to get me?”

  “Governor, if you’d told me these things earlier, I think we could have come to an understanding.”

  “Why the hell am I supposed to tell you a damn thing? You don’t rank! You don’t count! Am I supposed to drop my pants to every pipsqueak Senate staffer in America? You are a political nightmare, kid—a player with no history and no power base, who comes totally out of left field! If it weren’t for you, everything would have been perfect! The air base would have gone broke. The science lab would have gone broke. All the people would have left nice and peaceable. I woulda picked ’em all up for a song.”

  Kevin arrived in the laboratory. He was wearing an ill-fitting cop’s uniform, and he looked as if his feet ached badly. “Just a moment, Governor,” Oscar said. He put his hand over the mouthpiece. “Kevin, how’d you find me in here?”

  “There are location trackers in those phones.”

  Oscar throttled the phone with his fist. “You never told me that.”

  “You didn’t need to know.” Kevin frowned. “Oscar, pay attention, man. We have to go to the media center, right away. The President of the United States is on the line.”

  “Oh.” Oscar removed his hand from the phone’s mouthpiece. “Excuse me, Governor. I can’t continue our discussion now—I have to field a call from the President.”

  “Now?” Huey yelled. “Doesn’t anybody sleep anymore?”

  “Good-bye, Governor. I appreciate your call.”

  “Wait! Wait. Before you do something stupid, I want you to know that you can still come and talk to me. Before everything gets out of hand…next time, let’s talk it out first.”

  “It’s good to know that we have that option, Your Excellency.”

  “Kid, listen! One last thing! As Governor of Louisiana, I strongly favor genetic industries. I got no problem at all with your personal background problem!”

  Oscar hung up. His nerves were buzzing like a shattered electrical transformer. His eyes burned and the bare walls seemed to pitch. He threw an arm over Kevin’s shoulder. “How are your feet, Kevin?”

  “You sure you’re all right?”

  “I’m really dizzy.” He snorted. His heart was pounding.

  “Must be allergies,” Kevin said. “Everybody gets allergies when they work in the Hot Zone. Kind of an occupational hazard.”

  Kevin’s blather was light-years away. “Uh, why do you say that, Kevin?”

  “Understanding workplace hazards is a basic mandate for the security professional, man.”

  The event affecting Oscar didn’t feel like allergy. It felt like an undiagnosed concussion. Maybe some evil side effect of military knockout gas. Maybe an oncoming case of bad flu. It was bad. Very bad. He wondered if he was going to survive it. His heart gave a sudden lurch and began beating fast and lightly in his rib cage, like a trapped moth. He stumbled and almost fell.

  “I think I need a doctor.”

  “Sure, man, later. Just as soon as you talk to the President.”

  Oscar blinked repeatedly. His eyes were swimming with tears. “I can’t even see.”

  “Take some antihistamines. Listen, man—you can’t blow it now, because this is the President! Get it? This is the big casino. If you don’t chill him out about this Sabine River shootout, I’m done for. I’ll be doing a bad-whitey terrorist rap, right next to my
dad. And you, you personally, and Dr. Penninger too, you’re both gonna go down in major flames. Okay? You have got to handle this.”

  “Right,” Oscar said, straightening his back. Kevin was absolutely correct. This moment was the crux of his career. The President was waiting. Failure at this point was unthinkable. And he was having a heart fibrillation.

  Kevin led him through the Hot Zone airlock. Then he pulled a monster beltphone and called a cab, and a fleet of twelve empty cabs arrived at once. Kevin picked one, and it took them to the media center. Up an elevator. Kevin led him to the green room, where Oscar scrubbed his head in the sink. He was coming apart. There were scarlet hives on his chest and throat. His hands were palsied. His skin was taut and prickly. But still, somehow, a gush of cold water on the nape of his neck brought him to snakelike alertness.

  “Is there a comb?” Oscar asked.

  “You won’t need a comb,” Kevin said. “The President’s calling on a head-mounted display.”

  “What?” Oscar said. “Virtual reality? You’re kidding! That stuff never works.”

  “They had VR installed in all the federal labs. Some high-bandwidth initiative from a million years ago. There’s a VR set in the White House basement.”

  “And do you really know how to run this gizmo?”

  “Hell no! I had to roust up half the lab just to find somebody who could boot it. Now there’s a huge crowd sitting in there. They all know it’s the President calling. You know how long it’s been since a President took any notice of this place?”

  Oscar fought for breath, staring in the mirror, willing his heart to slow. Then he walked into the studio, where they produced a casque like a deep-sea diver’s helmet. They bolted it over his head.

  The President was enjoying a stroll through amber waves of grain below the purple majesty of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. Oscar, after a moment’s disorientation, recognized the backdrop as one of Two Feathers’s campaign ads. Apparently this was the best virtual backdrop that the new White House staff could produce on short notice.

  Leonard Two Feathers was a creature in stark contrast to a generation of prettified American politicians. The President had huge flat cheekbones, a great prow of a nose, a bank-vault slit of a mouth. Long black-and-gray hair streamed down his shoulders, which were clad in his trademark fringed buckskin jacket. The President’s black, canny eyes seemed as wide apart as a hammerhead shark’s.

  “Mr. Valparaiso?” the President said.

  “Yes? Good evening, Mr. President.”

  The President gazed at him silently. Apparently, to the President’s eye, Oscar was a disembodied face floating somewhere at shoulder level.

  “How is the situation at your facility? You and the Director, Dr. Penninger—are you safe and well?”

  “So far so good, sir. We’ve sealed the premises. We suffered a severe netwar attack that trashed our financial systems, so we’ve had to cut most of our phone and computer lines. We still have internal problems with a group of malcontents who are occupying a building here. But our situation seems stable at this hour.”

  The President considered this. He was buying the story. It wasn’t making him happy. “Tell me something, young man. What have you gotten me into? Why did it take a French submarine and three hundred Cajun guerrillas to kidnap you and some neurologist?”

  “Governor Huguelet wanted to see us. He wants this facility, Mr. President. He has a great deal of irregular manpower. He has more manpower than he can properly control.”

  “Well, he can’t have that facility.”

  “No sir?”

  “No, he can’t have it—and neither can you. Because it belongs to the country, dammit! What the hell are you up to? You can’t hire Moderator militia and overpower a federal lab! That is not in your job description! You are a campaign organizer who has a patronage job. You are not Davy Crockett!”

  “Mr. President, I completely concur. But we had no other realistic option. Green Huey is a clear and present danger. He’s in league with a foreign power. He completely dominates his own state, and now he’s launching paramilitary adventures over state borders. What else could I do? My security staffer informed your national security office as soon as he could. In the meantime, I took what steps I could.”

  “What is your party affiliation?” the President said.

  “I’m a Federal Democrat, sir.”

  The President pondered this. The President’s party was the Social Patriotic Movement, the “Soc-Pats.” The Soc-Pats were the leading faction in the Left Tradition Bloc, which also included the Social Democrats, the Communist Party, Power to the People, Working America, and the ancient and shriveled Democratic Party. The Left Tradition Bloc had been suffering less ideological disarray than usual, lately. They had been able—barely—to seize the American Presidency.

  “That would mean Senator Bambakias of Massachusetts?” he said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What did you ever see in him?”

  “I liked him. He has imagination and he’s not corrupt.”

  “Well,” the President said, “I am not a mentally ill Senator. I happen to be your President. I am your newly sworn-in President, and I have naive, new-hire staffers who are easily fooled by fast-talking hustlers with family links to white-supremacist gangsters. Now, thanks to you, I am also a President who has had the misfortune to kill and wound several dozen people. Some of them were foreign spies. But most of them were our fellow citizens.” Despite his expressed regret, the President looked quite ready to kill again.

  “Mr. Valparaiso, I want you to listen to me carefully. I have about four more weeks—maybe three weeks—of political capital to expend. Then the honeymoon is over, and my office will be broken on the rack. I will have to face all the lawsuits, constitutional challenges, palace revolutions, outings, banking scandals, and Emergency machinations that have screwed every American President in the past twenty years. I want to survive all that. But I have no money, because the country is broke. I can’t trust the Congress. I certainly can’t trust the Emergency committees. I can’t trust my own party apparatus. I’m the nation’s Commander in Chief, but I can’t even trust the armed forces. That leaves me with one source of direct Presidential power. My spooks.”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  “My spooks are gung ho! They just shot up a bunch of people in the dark of night, but at least they’re not politicians, so at least they do what they’re told. And since they’re spooks, they don’t officially exist. So the things they do don’t officially happen. So if all the relevant parties keep their mouths shut, I might not have to account for this bloody debacle last night on the Louisiana border. Are you following me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I want you to resign your Senate post, first thing tomorrow. You cannot pull a stunt like the one you just pulled and call yourself a congressional staffer. Forget the Senate, and forget your poor friend the Senator. You are a pirate. The only way you can survive this situation is if you join my National Security staff. So, that’s what you’ll have to do. From now on, you’ll be working for your President. You will be reporting to me. Your new title will be—NSC Science Adviser.”

  “I understand, sir. If I may say so, that’s a very good situational analysis.” There was no question that he would take the job. It would mean pruning himself away from the Bambakias inner circle; it would also mean abandoning months of painstaking backstage work in the Senate Science Committee. That was like losing two lobes of his brain in an instant. But of course he would drop everything to work for the President. Because it meant an instant leap to a much higher pinnacle of power—a pinnacle where options bloomed all around him like edelweiss. “Thank you for your offer, Mr. President. I’m honored. I accept with pleasure.”

  “You have been a cowboy. That was bad. Very bad. However, from now on, you are my cowboy. And just to make sure there are no more of these untoward incidents, I’m sending in a paratroop regiment of crack U.S. Army personnel t
o secure the lab’s perimeter. You can expect them by seventeen hundred hours, tomorrow.”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  “My staff will be sending along a prepared statement for your Director to read to the cameras. That’ll establish who’s who and what’s what, from now on. Now these are your marching orders, direct from your Commander in Chief. You keep that place out of the hands of Governor Huguelet. You will keep the data away from him, you will keep the personnel away from him, you will keep that place sewn up completely, until I understand just why that little man is so desperate to have it. If you succeed, I’ll bring you into the White House. Fail, and we’ll both go down in flames. But you will go down first, and hardest, and hottest, because I will be landing on top of you. Are we clear?”

  “Perfectly clear, Mr. President.”

  “Welcome to the glamorous world of the executive branch.” The President vanished. The amber waves continued on, serenely.

  __________

  With persistent effort, they pried Oscar’s head out of the virtuality rig. He found himself the center of the transfixed attention of two hundred people.

  “Well?” Kevin demanded, brandishing a leftover microphone. “What did he say?”

  “He hired me,” Oscar announced. “I’m on the National Security staff.”

  Kevin’s eyes widened. “Really?”

  Oscar nodded. “The President is backing us! He’s sending troops here to protect us!”

  A ragged cheer broke out. The crowd was overjoyed. There was a pronounced hysteric edge to their reaction: farce, tragedy, triumph; they were punch-drunk. It was all they could do to jostle each other and yak into their phones.

  Kevin shut off the microphone and tossed it aside. “Did he say anything about me?” Kevin asked anxiously. “I mean, about my waking him up last night, and all that?”