It had never occurred to the lords of the consumer society that consumerism as a political philosophy might one day manifest the grave systemic instabilities that Communism had. But as those instabilities multiplied, the country had cracked. Civil society shriveled in the pitiless reign of cash. As the last public spaces were privatized, it became harder and harder for American culture to breathe. Not only were people broke, but they were taunted to madness by commercials, and pitilessly surveilled by privacy-invading hucksters. An ever more aggressive consumer-outreach apparatus caused large numbers of people to simply abandon their official identities.
It was no longer any fun to be an American citizen. Bankruptcies multiplied beyond all reason, becoming a kind of commercial apostasy. Tax dodging became a spectator sport. The American people simply ceased to behave. They gathered to publicly burn their licenses, chop up their charge cards, and hit the road. The proles considered themselves the only free Americans.
Nomadism had once been the linchpin of human existence; it was settled life that formed the technological novelty. Now technology had changed its nonexistent mind. Nomads were an entire alternate society for whom life by old-fashioned political and economic standards was simply no longer possible.
Or so Oscar reasoned. As a wealthy New Englander, he had never had much political reason to concern himself with proles. They rarely voted. But he had no prejudice against proles as a social group. They were certainly no stranger or more foreign to his sensibilities than scientists were. Now it was clear to him that the proles were a source of real power, and as far as he knew, there was only one American politician who had made a deliberate effort to recruit and sustain them. That politician was Green Huey.
Having pacified the Moderators, Oscar’s second order of business was reconciling the Collaboratory’s scientists to their presence. Oscar’s key talking point here was their stark lack of choice in the matter.
The Collaboratory’s scientists had always had firm federal backing; they had never required any alternate means of support. Now there was no federal largesse left. That was bad, but the underlying reality was much, much worse. The lab’s bookkeeping had been ruined by a netwar attack. The Collaboratory was not only broke, its inhabitants were fiscally unable even to assess how broke they were. They couldn’t even accurately describe the circumstances under which they might be bailed out.
Morale at the lab had soared on the news that the President had taken notice of their plight. The President had even gone so far as to send a prepared speech for the lab’s Director, which was duly recited by Greta. However, the speech had a very conspicuous omission: money. The press release was basically a long grateful paean to the President’s talent for restoring law and order. Financing the Collaboratory was not the President’s problem. The Congress was in charge of the nation’s purse strings, and despite frenzied effort, the Congress had still not managed to pass a budget.
For a federal science facility, this was a disaster of epic magnitude, but for proles, it was business as usual.
So—as Oscar explained to the Emergency Committee—it was a question of symbiosis. And symbiosis was doable. Having boldly cut its ties to the conventional rules of political reality, the Collaboratory’s new hybrid population could float indefinitely within their glass bubble. They had no money, but they had warmth, power, air, food, shelter; they could all mind the business of living. They could wait out the turbulence beyond their borders, and since they were also ignoring federal oversight, they could all concentrate on their favorite pet projects. They could get some genuine scientific work accomplished, for once. This was a formidable achievement, a Shangri-la almost, and it was there within their grasp. All they had to do was come to terms with their own contradictions.
There was a long silence after Oscar’s presentation. The Emergency Committee gazed at him in utter wonderment. At the moment, the Committee’s quorum consisted of Greta, her chief confidant and backer Albert Gazzaniga, Oscar himself, Yosh Pelicanos, Captain Burningboy, and a representative Moderator thug—a kid named Ombahway Tuddy Flagboy.
“Oscar, you’re amazing,” Greta said. “You have such talent for making impossible things sound plausible.”
“What’s so impossible about it?”
“Everything. This is a federal facility! These Moderator people invaded it by force. They’re occupying it. They are here illegally. We can’t aid and abet that! Once the President sends in troops, we’ll all be outed for collaboration. We’ll be arrested. We’ll be fired. No, it’s worse than that. We’ll be purged.”
“That never happened in Louisiana,” Oscar said. “Why should it happen here?”
Gazzaniga spoke up. “That’s because Congress and the Emergency committees never really wanted that air base in Louisiana in the first place. They never cared enough about it to take action.”
“They don’t care about you, either,” Oscar assured him. “It’s true that the President expressed an interest, but hey, it’s been a long week now. A week is forever during a military crisis. There aren’t any federal troops here. Because there isn’t any military crisis here. The President’s military crisis is in Holland, not East Texas. He’s not going to deploy troops domestically when the Dutch Cold War is heating up. If we had better sense, we’d realize that the Moderators are our troops. They’re better than federal troops. Real troops can’t feed us.”
“We can’t afford thousands of nonpaying guests,” Pelicanos said.
“Yosh, just forget the red ink for a minute. We don’t have to ‘afford them.’ They are affording us. They can feed and clothe us, and all we have to do is share our shelter and give them a political cover. That’s the real beauty of this Emergency, you see? We can go on here indefinitely! This is the apotheosis of the Strike. During the Strike, we were all refusing to do anything except work on science. Now that we have an Emergency, the scientists can continue their science, while the Moderators will assume the role of a supportive, sympathetic, civil population. We’ll just ignore everyone else! Everything that annoyed us in the past simply falls off our radar. All those senseless commercial demands, and governmental oversight, and the crooked contractors…they’re all just gone. They no longer have any relevance.”
“But nomads don’t understand science,” Gazzaniga said. “Why would they support scientists, when they could just loot the place and leave?”
“Hey,” said Burningboy. “I can understand science, fella! Wernher von Braun! Perfect example. Dr. von Braun lucked into a big ugly swarm of the surplus flesh, just like you have! They’re heading for Dachau anyway if he don’t use ’em, so he might as well grind some use out of ’em, assembling his V-2 engines.”
“What the hell is he talking about?” Gazzaniga demanded. “Why does he always talk like that?”
“That’s what science is!” Burningboy said. “I can define it. Science is about proving a mathematical relationship between phenomenon A and phenomenon B. Was that so hard? You really think that’s beyond my mental grasp? I’ll tell you something way beyond your mental grasp, son—surviving in prison. You fair-haired folks might have, like, a bruising collision with nonquantum reality if somebody drove a handmade shiv right through your physics book.”
“This just isn’t going to work,” Greta said. “We don’t even speak the same language. We have nothing in common.” She pointed dramatically. “Just look at that laptop he’s carrying! It’s made out of straw.”
“Why am I the only one who sees the obvious here?” Oscar said. “You people have amazing commonalities. Look at all that nomad equipment—those leaf grinders, and digesters, and catalytic cracking units. They’re using biotechnology. And computer networks, too. They live off those things, for heaven’s sake.”
Greta’s face hardened. “Yes but…not scientifically.”
“But they live exactly like you live—by their reputations. You are America’s two most profoundly noncommercial societies. Your societies are both based on reputation, respect, and pr
estige.”
Gazzaniga frowned. “What is this, a sociology class? Sociology’s not a hard science.”
“But it’s true! You scientists want to become the Most Frequently Cited and win all the honors and awards. While Moderators, like the Captain here, want to be streetwise netgod gurus. As a further plus, neither of you have any idea how to dress! Furthermore, even though you are both directly responsible for the catastrophe that our society is undergoing, you are both incredibly adept at casting yourselves as permanent, misunderstood victims. You both whine and moan endlessly about how nobody else is cool enough or smart enough to understand you. And you both never clean up your own messes. And you both never take responsibility for yourselves. And that’s why you’re both treated like children by the people who actually run this country!”
They stared at him, appalled.
“I am talking sense to you here,” Oscar insisted, his voice rising to an angry buzz. “I am not ranting. I possess a perspective here that you people, who are locked in the ivory basements of your own subcultures, simply do not possess. It is no use my soft-pedaling the truth to you. You are in a crisis. This is a crux. You have both severed your lifelines to the rest of society. You need to overcome your stupid prejudice, and unite as a powerful coalition. And if you could only do this, the world would be yours!”
Oscar leaned forward. Inspiration blazed within him like Platonic daylight. “We can survive this Emergency. We could even prevail. We could grow. If we handled it right, this could catch on!”
“All right,” Greta said. “Calm down. I have one question. They’re nomads, aren’t they? What happens after they leave us?”
“You think that we’ll run away,” Burningboy said.
Greta looked at him, sad at having given offense. “Don’t you always run away? I thought that was how you people survived.”
“No, you’re the gutless ones!” Burningboy shouted. “You’re supposed to be intellectuals! You’re supposed to be our visionaries! You’re supposed to be giving people a grasp of the truth, something to look up to, the power, the knowledge, higher reality. But what are you people really? You’re not titans of intellect. You’re a bunch of cheap geeks, in funny clothes that your mom bought you. You’re just another crowd of sniveling hangers-on who are dying for a government handout. You’re whining to me about how dirty morons like us can’t appreciate you—well, what the hell have you done for us lately? What do you want out of life, besides a chance to hang out in your lab and look down on the rest of us? Quit being such a pack of sorry weasels—do something big, you losers! Take a chance, for Christ’s sake. Act like you matter!”
“He’s really lost it,” Gazzaniga said, goggling in wounded amazement. “This guy has no grasp of real life.”
Flagboy’s phone rang. He spoke briefly, then handed the phone to his leader.
Burningboy listened. “I gotta go,” he announced abruptly. “There’s been a new development. The boys have brought in a prisoner.”
“What?” Kevin demanded. As the new police chief, Kevin was instantly suspicious. “We already agreed that you have no authority to take prisoners.”
Burningboy wrinkled his large and fleshy nose. “They captured him in the piney woods east of town, Mr. Police Chief, sir. Several kilometers outside your jurisdiction.”
“So then he’s a Regulator,” Oscar said. “He’s a spy.”
Burningboy put his notes and laptop in order, and nodded at Oscar reluctantly. “Yup.”
“What are you going to do to this captured person?” Greta said.
Burningboy shrugged, his face grim.
“I think this Committee needs to see the prisoner,” Oscar said.
“Oscar’s right,” said Kevin sternly. “Burningboy, I can’t have you manhandling suspects inside this facility, just on your own recognizance. Let’s interrogate him ourselves!”
“What are we, the Star Chamber?” Gazzaniga said, aghast. “We can’t start interrogating people!”
Kevin sneered. “Okay, fine! Albert, you’re excused. Go out for an ice cream cone. In the meantime, us grown-ups need to confront this terrorist guerrilla.”
Greta declared a five-minute break. Alerted by the live coverage over the loudspeakers, several more Committee members showed up. The break stretched into half an hour. The meeting was considerably enlivened by an impromptu demonstration of the prisoner’s captured possessions.
The apprehended Regulator had been posing as a poacher. He had a pulley-festooned compound bow that would have baffled William Tell. The bow’s graphite arrows contained self-rifling gyroscopic fletching and global-positioning-system locator units. The scout also owned boot-spike crampons and a climber’s lap-belt, ideal for extensive lurking in the tops of trees. He carried a ceramic bowie knife.
These deadly gizmos might have passed muster on a standard hunter, but the other evidence cinched the case against him: he had a hammer and a pack of sabotage tree-spikes. Tree-spikes, which ruined saw blades, were common enough for radical Greens; but these spikes contained audio bugs and cellphone repeaters. They could be hammered deep into trees, and they would stay there forever, and they would listen, and they would even take phone calls. They had bizarre little pores in them so that they could drink sap for their batteries.
The Committee passed the devices from hand to hand, studying them with grave attention, much as if they captured saboteurs every day. Producing a pocket multitool, Gazzaniga managed to pry one of the spikes open. “Wait a minute,” he said. “This thing’s got a mitochondrial battery.”
“Nobody has mitochondrial batteries,” objected the new head of the Instrumentation division. “We don’t even have mitochondrial batteries, and the damned things were invented here.”
“Then I want you to explain to me how a telephone runs on wet jelly,” Gazzaniga said. “You know something? These spikes sure look a lot like our vegetation monitors.”
“It was all invented here,” Oscar said. “This is all Collaboratory equipment. You’ve just never seen it repackaged and repurposed.”
Gazzaniga put the spike down. Then he picked up a dented tin egg. “Now this thing here—see, this is the sort of thing you associate with nomad technology. Scrap metal, all crimped together, obviously homemade…So what is this thing?” He shook it near his ear. “It rattles.”
“It’s a piss bomb,” Burningboy told him.
“What?”
“See those holes in the side? That’s the timer. It’s genetically engineered corn kernels. Once they’re in hot water, the seeds swell up. They rupture a membrane inside, and then the charge ignites.”
Oscar examined one of the crude arson bombs. It had been created by hand: by a craftsman with a hole punch, a ball peen hammer, and an enormous store of focused resentment. The bomb was a dumb and pig-simple incendiary device with no moving parts, but it could easily incinerate a building. The seeds of genetically engineered maize were dirt-cheap and totally consistent. Corn like that was so uniform in its properties that it could even be used as a timepiece. It was a bad, bad gizmo. It was bad enough as a work of military technology. As a work of primitive art, the piss bomb was stunningly effective. Oscar could feel sincere contempt and hatred radiating from it as he held it in his hand.
The prisoner now arrived, handcuffed, and with an escort of four Moderators. The prisoner wore a full-length hunter’s suit of gray and brown bark-and-leaf camou, including a billed cap. His lace-up boots were clogged with red mud. He had a square nose, large hairy ears, heavy brows, black shiny eyes. He was a squat and heavy man in his thirties, with hands like callused bear paws. He’d suffered a swollen scrape along his unshaven jaw and had a massive bruise on his neck.
“What happened to him? Why is he injured?” Greta said.
“He fell off his bicycle,” Burningboy offered flatly.
The prisoner was silent. It was immediately and embarrassingly obvious to all concerned that he was not going to tell them a thing. He stood solidly in the midst o
f their boardroom, reeking of wood-smoke and sweat, radiating complete contempt for them, everything they stood for, and everything they knew. Oscar examined the Regulator with deep professional interest. This man was astoundingly out of place. It was as if a rock-hard cypress log had been hauled from the bat-haunted depths of the swamp and dumped on the carpet before them.
“You really think you’re a tough customer, don’t you?” Kevin said shrilly.
The Regulator signally failed to notice him.
“We can make you talk,” Kevin growled. “Wait’ll I load up my anarchy philes on improvising interrogation! We’ll do hideous and gruesome things to you! With wire, and matchsticks, and like that.”
“Excuse me, sir,” Oscar said politely. “Do you speak English? Parlez-vous français?”
No response at all.
“We’re not going to torture you, sir. We are civilized people here. We just want you to tell us why you were exploring our neighborhood with all these surveillance and arson devices. We’re willing to be very reasonable about this. If you’ll tell us what you were doing and who told you to do it, we’ll let you go home.”
No answer.
“Sir, I recognize that you’re loyal to your cause, whatever it is, but you are captured, you know. You don’t have to remain entirely mute under circumstances like this. It’s considered entirely ethical to give your name, your number, and your network address. If you did that for us, we could tell your friends—your wife, your children—that you’re alive and safe.”
No answer. Oscar sighed patiently. “Okay, you’re not going to talk. I can see that I’m tiring you. So if you’ll just indicate that you’re not deaf…”
Distraction Page 37
