Interface

by Neal Stephenson

  The man pointed. Mary Catherine headed across the floor of the Rotunda, building up to a full sprint.

  It wasn’t hard to find the bathroom where Eleanor was holed up: the entrance was almost obscured by a knot of black-shirted Posse members. Mary Catherine just aimed at the door and relied on them to recognize her, and to get out of the way.

  They did, but she had to slow down to a brisk walk. She entered the women’s lounge. The first thing she saw was Eleanor’s dress spread out across a couch near the entrance, spattered with blood. She rounded a corner and saw a row of sinks. Eleanor was bent over one of the sinks, hot water blasting. She had stripped down to a camisole and panties. Her arms were wet up to the shoulders and she was bent over the sink splashing water on her face; flecks of blood were still visible in her hair.

  One other woman was in the bathroom: from her appearance, obviously one of the invited guests. Mary Catherine had spent enough time with people of the advanced upper crust to know one when she saw one.

  She even recognized this woman. It was Althea Coover. DeWayne Coover’s granddaughter. She and Mary Catherine had gone to Stanford together and attended a lot of the same parties. Because of Coover’s support of the Radhakrishnan Institute, his family had gotten several invitations to the Inauguration.

  Althea Coover was standing at the sink next to Eleanor’s. She had put a few small cosmetics containers out on the shelf beneath the mirror, as though she were here to fix her face. But just as Mary Catherine was rounding the corner, althea was pulling something else out of her bag: a capped hypodermic needle.

  Mary Catherine headed straight for her.

  Althea saw Mary Catherine and startled. Her eyes jumped to the hypodermic needle, then Eleanor, then up to Mary Catherine’s face. She pulled the cap off, exposing the hair-thin needle, and raised it like a dart, aiming it at Eleanor’s exposed shoulder.

  Then Mary Catherine shoved her stun gun into the side of Althea Coover’s neck and pulled the trigger.

  Althea dropped the needle, collapsed, and smacked her head into the marble floor with a shocking thud. Eleanor straightened up, blinked water out of her eyes, and jumped to see Mary Catherine suddenly standing there with lightning in her hand, and Althea Coover gone.

  When Mary Catherine and Eleanor returned to the Rotunda, now surrounded by very nervous and trigger-happy men in black Tshirts, they discovered that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court had not been as lucky. He was collapsed on the marble floor, unconscious and unresponsive. Immediately before his collapse he had been seen talking to another invited guest who had made a hasty exit; later, an empty hypodermic syringe was found in an ashtray by the door. The Chief Justice was being attended to by a couple of old and distinguished doctors who had made it on to the guest list. A few Posse members picked him up and carried him into the Capitol infirmary.

  Anyone wearing white tie or a formal gown was now being viewed with intense suspicion by the Posse. Mary Catherine and Eleanor found themselves dead center in the Rotunda, surrounded by Posse members facing outward, as the remaining guests were herded toward the outside of the room.

  Between the knot in the center and the people crowded to the edges, there was a broad, doughnut-shaped, empty space, now occupied by a grand total of three people: a minicam operator from CNN, his sound man, and a bald, middle-aged man in a long black robe. The robe was a flimsy thing made of synthetic fibers and looked as though it had been wadded up into a ball and then sat on for a few days. It was unzipped to reveal a bulletproof vest underneath; beneath the vest, a black T-shirt could be seen. This guy was a member of the Posse.

  In his right hand he was carrying a thick black book with the words HOLY BIBLE printed on the cover in gold letters. A single sheet of typing paper was clasped in the front cover.

  “Excuse me,” said the man in the black robe, standing up on tiptoes trying to see over the shoulders of the bodyguards, “but I could not help but notice that the Chief Justice has been incapacitated. Can I be of some assistance here?”

  “Who are you?” Mary Catherine said, peering at him between a couple of Posse members.

  “Stanley Kotlarski, Fifth Circuit Court Judge, Cook County, Illinois,” the man said. “Mel asked me to hang around in case something happened to the Chief Justice. Are you ready to do the honours, or are we going to stand around here all day?”

  The circle of bodyguards opened up to admit Judge Kotlarski and the camera crew. Judge Kotlarski pulled the sheet of paper out of the Bible and then handed the Bible to Mary Catherine. “You know the drill,” he said.

  She did know it. She had just done it about fifteen minutes before. Now, tear-streaked, bloodstained, barefoot, and dishevelled, she did it again: held the Bible out in front of the President-to-be. Eleanor Richmond didn’t hesitate. She put one hand on the Bible and held up the other one. Judge Kotlarski looked at the cameraman. “You ready?”

  “We’re live to planet Earth,” the cameraman said. Judge Kotlarski began to read from the sheet of paper. “Repeat after me. In the middle of the oath of office, Eleanor and the Judge had to raise their voices; they were nearly drowned out by the sound of a medevac chopper setting down out front, then, within a few seconds, lifting off again.

  Mary Catherine didn’t pay much attention to the oath. She was looking out the windows, watching the chopper carry her father away. The first thing she really heard was the voice of the President issuing her first order: “Evacuate and seal the Rotunda.”

  Then President Richmond bent down, pulled a thick black envelope out of her bag, and ripped it open.

  William A. Cozzano arrived at the Lady Wilburdon Gunshot Wound Institute via helicopter, roughly fifteen minutes after the bullet had entered his body. By that point, he had lost roughly half of his blood supply. He was trucked straight into a trauma room, where his chest was split open by Dr. Cornelius Gary. The President was in good hands: between his service in the Gulf War and the trauma centers of D.C., Dr. Gary had personally treated more gunshot wounds than any other physician in the United States.

  Before going under anaesthesia, Cozzano’s last words to his son, James, were: “You’re free now, son. Go out and be a good man.”

  Dr. Gary worked to mend Cozzano’s shattered organs for thirty minutes. William A. Cozzano died on the operating table at 12:58 p.m., having been President for just under one hour.

  62

  The first document in the black envelope was a one-sentence executive order that continued in force all of the orders made by Cozzano from the inaugural platform.

  President Richmond moved her temporary headquarters to the Senate Press Room, which was easier to secure than the Rotunda, and well equipped with communications gear. She ordered a confirmation from all elements affected by Cozzano’s orders that they had received, understood, and would obey. She faxed a message to the ops center on the seventh floor of the State Department and told them to send a copy to every other country in the world. The message stated that today’s violence was strictly a domestic affair, things were in order, and full disclosure would be made soon.

  She called in the Senate and House leadership. Each was examined by a physician. The Speaker of the House, who had suffered a stroke in November and been rehabilitated at the Radhakrishnan Institute in California, was declared to be medically incapacitated - the document stating so was already drawn up inside the black envelope; the senior whip of the majority party took over as acting House Speaker.

  She sent out messages to all four network anchors requesting their presence in the Rotunda. They and their crew members were all carefully frisked and then ushered up to the Senate Press Room, where they interviewed President Richmond, who was flanked by the Senate majority leader and the acting Speaker. The most junior Justice on the Supreme Court had by now been rustled up and brought into the room.

  The broadcast went live to all the networks at 2:08 p.m. Eleanor led off by making the first official announcement of President Cozzano’s death.

&n
bsp; Then she said, “You see before you the three branches of the United States government. Our purpose in being here is to reassure you of the continuity of the basic institutions of this government and to respond to the questions of these journalists, which will hopefully reflect the concerns of the nation.”

  A network anchorwoman raised her hand. Eleanor nodded to her.

  The anchorwoman said, “Madame President. How do you feel at this moment?”

  Cyrus Rutherford Ogle, handcuffed in the back of the GODS truck, had no idea what was going on until about 2:30, at which point the doors were suddenly thrown open and he was blinded by a rectangle of pure white light.

  Framed in the white rectangle was a man in a black suit. Behind him were several men wearing dark FBI windbreakers. “Ogle,” said the man in the black suit, “I’ve been looking for you.”

  “Howdy. Who are you?” Ogle asked.

  “I’m the new Attorney General of the United States,” the man said.

  “I’ve been out of touch the last little while,” Ogle said apologetically.

  “Oh. I’m sorry. My name is Mel Meyer.”

  Ogle was deeply mortified. Not to mention confused. “I thought that President Cozzano was going to appoint-

  “Change of plans. When you weren’t there to keep things in hand at the crucial moment, we had to do a little improvising. I had to step in and fill the vacuum. You know all about filling vacuums, don’t you, Mr. Ogle?”

  “Well, I’ve done my share.”

  “But I think you’ll be happy with the results,” Mel Meyer said. He waved his hand at the FBI men. “I’ve directed the FBI to arrest you. I’m sure you understand.”

  Ogle didn’t understand at all. “On what charge?” “Turning the Attorney General’s best friend into a degraded slave,” Mel said. “And a number of other charges which I have written out at great length, and which we can discuss in the fullness of time. President Richmond has ordered you held for a few days until we can sort things out.” “President Richmond?”

  The FBI agents grabbed Ogle’s arms and hauled him up out of the chair where he’d been sitting for the last two hours. His feet almost slipped out from under him on the blood-slickened floor; they gripped his arms tightly and ushered him out the door and down the steps. An FBI chopper was idling on the ground in Taft Park.

  “I hope you’re not going to use the power of your office to pursue some kind of personal vendetta,” Ogle said, shouting back over his shoulder as the agents took him across Louisana Avenue.

  “Oh, on the contrary,” Meyer said. “I’ve gone to great trouble to arrange a cell for you that I think will be to your liking.” “You’re not putting me in with crack dealers, are you?” “Absolutely not,” Meyer said. “You’ll be with people much like yourself.”

  “I thank you for that courtesy,” Ogle said. They loaded him on to the chopper, strapped him into the seat, and lifted off, cutting forward across Constitution at a low angle. Ogle had a spectacular view of the Capitol dome out his window. He had gotten damn close. And now, in some way that no one had bothered to explain to him yet, he had lost.

  It was okay. He was tied into the Network now. The Network needed him. As long as that was the case, he’d never have to worry about anything.

  The chopper headed due south, crossing over the Southeast Freeway and then over Fort McNair, on the point of land where the Potomac and the Anacostia rivers came together. They cut down the center of the Potomac until they were south of National Airport, then banked into a gentle right turn and headed south-southeast, passing near the spire of the Masonic Memorial in Alexandria.

  “Where are we going?” he asked twice. But the FBI agents either couldn’t hear him or pretended they couldn’t.

  They flew for several miles across the suburban sprawl of northern Virginia, roughly paralleling I-395. The broad grassy lawns of Fort Belvoir were visible on the left. Perhaps they were using Fort Belvoir as a temporary camp for political prisoners. That wouldn’t be so bad; folks in the Army called Belvoir the Country Club.

  Instead, they came down in a yard amid enormous, drab buildings, surrounded by tall fences topped with swirls of razor ribbon.

  Lorton. They were putting him in Lorton Reformatory. The District of Columbia was so small and so full of criminals that there wasn’t room to build a big enough prison; they had built one out in Virginia instead. And now Ogle was going to be an inmate.

  He reckoned they would put him in a minimum-security wing somewhere, maybe out in a nice wooded area. But they took him straight into one of the big prison buildings. Straight to a maximum-security wing, where all of the prisoners were locked in their cells all day long.

  The prisoners hung on their bars and watched Ogle hungrily as he was led down the corridor in his nice suit and his polished shoes. They shouted things to him. Disgusting things.

  Ogle was almost paralyzed with fear. Meyer had lied to him.

  Finally they reached a cell that was empty. Maybe he’d be put there.

  But they passed right on by it and continued to the next cell. This cell had one man in it, curled up on the upper bunk, not moving. Ogle just got a quick glimpse of him before he was shoved in through the door: his new roommate was small, stoop-shouldered, late middle-aged, wearing a dress shirt and slacks just like Ogle.

  The massive iron door thudded shut behind him.

  Ogle turned to greet his new cellmate. The man had risen up to his hands and knees and was now looking down at Ogle from the upper bunk like a jaguar perched in a tree. He was breathing rapidly and raggedly.

  A huge bubble of mucous grew from Jeremiah Freel’s left nostril and popped.

  Freel launched himself from the bunk headfirst, trying to sink his teeth into Ogle’s cheek. Ogle instinctively turned his head away and snapped his head back. The impact slammed him back against the bars. Freel tumbled to the floor.

  Freel reached for Ogle’s groin. Ogle bent over and shoved his finger into one of Freel’s eyes. Freel moved his head at the last moment and sank his teeth into Ogle’s finger. Ogle stomped on one of Freel’s hands.

  And then they started fighting. In cells all around them, the convicts from D.C. flocked to the bars shouting, laughing, and pumping their fists in exultation.

  Several hundred feet beneath Cacher, Oklahoma, Otis Simpson was sitting in a swivel chair in the Communications Center, staring at a wall of dead screens. He had been staring at them ever since roughly 19:08 Greenwich Mean Time. At that moment, President Richmond had gone live to the world, flanked by the leaders of the legislative and judicial branches. Then all the screens had gone black. The faxes had gone silent. The computer links had been cut off. He had tried sending messages to the Network, but all the encryption keys had been changed.

  Finally he stood up, harvested a few remaining faxes that had come out of the machines earlier that day, and fed them into the shredder. He typed a command into the computer system that would cause it to re-format all of its disks seven times in a row, destroying all of the information in the system.

  Otho was lying in his bed. He had been lying there since earlier today and was now beginning to go into rigor mortis. Otis bent over him and closed his eyes and smoothed back what was left of his hair.

  Then he climbed on the lift and took it up to the surface. It was a bleak midwinter day, a strong steady wind coming out of the northwest prairie, whistling and gusting between the heaps of lead tailings as it picked up a load of toxic metal dust. Otis put on his warm coat and his mittens and his hat with the earflaps. Then he started to walk down the shoulder of the highway, headed southward, where he thought it might be warmer.

  Dr. Radhakrishnan V.R.J.V.V. Gangadhar was poised above his anaesthetized patient, just about to flick the power switch on his bone saw, when the first tendrils of noise began to infiltrate the reinforced-concrete walls of the Radhakrishnan Institute. It was a noise that was senses through the soles of the feet - not so much an actual sound as a change in the way the gro
und felt. Perhaps there had been another earthquake up in Uttar Pradesh. He flicked the switch and pressed the madly vibrating blade of the bone saw against the freshly peeled skull of Sasha Yakutin, a promising young up-and-coming Russian politician who had just been cut down in the prime of his life by a tragic stroke.

  When he finished cutting a hatch through Mr. Yakutin’s head and turned off the saw, the room became quiet - but not entirely quiet. A palpable noise was penetrating the walls of the operating room.

  A nurse entered the operating theater. “Your brother Arun in on the telephone,” she said.

  “Can’t you see I am in the middle of an operation?”

  “He says it’s an emergency. He says you should get out of the country.”

  A tremendous impact reverberated through the structure of the building, causing the steel instruments to vibrate against their trays. Down the hallway, someone screamed.

  “Continue the operation,” Dr. Radhakrishnan said to Toyoda, one of his most promising young proteges.”

  “Doctor?” Toyoda said.

  Dr. Radhakrishnan stripped off his gloves and tossed them into a rubbish can.

  When he stepped out into the corridor, the noise became louder; but it was still indistinct. He had heard something like this once in Elton. He had been awakened early in the morning by the most frightening noise, a noise that could peel paint from walls, the noise that madmen must hear in their nightmares, and had shivered under the covers for a few moments, thinking it was the end of the world; finally he had peered out under a windowshade and discovered that the trees in his front yard had been taken over by a vast flock of starlings, millions of them, all screeching at the tops of their lungs.

  Dr. Radhakrishnan was approaching a closed door at the end of a hallway. The noise was coming through that door, seeping around its edges.

  He opened the door. The sound was crushing, maddening, a noise that could cave your skull in. This room was a third-story office with a picture window that faced on to a major street. But the window had been smashed out. Slivers of smoked glass had been strewn explosively all over the room. A few rocks and bricks littered the floor, looking crude and dirty in this clean hightech space. Hot polluted air streamed in through the window and blew over Dr. Radhakrishnan’s face. He stepped forward, walking carefully on the broken glass, and looked out the window.