Distraction - Bruce Sterling [115]
“Actually, I think she might do very well.”
“No, she’ll do much better where she belongs—back behind her lab bench. We can ease her off the board now, and back to her proper role as a working researcher, and everything will fall neatly into place.”
“So that you can continue having an affair with her, and nobody will bother to notice it.”
Oscar said nothing.
“Whereas, if she became Director, she’d be right in the public spotlight. So your sordid little dalliance becomes impossible.”
Oscar stirred in his seat. “I really didn’t expect this of you. This is truly beneath you. It’s not the act of a gentleman and scholar.”
“You didn’t think I knew anything about that business, did you? Well, I’m not quite the helpless buffoon that you take me for! Penninger is the next Director. You and your scurvy krewe can sneak back to Washington. I’m leaving this office—no, not because you’re forcing me out, but because I’m sick to death of this job!”
Felzian banged his desk. “It’s very bad here now. Since we lost our support in the Senate, it’s impossible. It’s a farce now, it’s untenable! I’m washing my hands of you, and Washington, and everything that you stand for. And keep one thing in mind, young man. With Penninger in office here, if you out me, I can out you. You might embarrass me—even humiliate me. But if you ever try it, I’ll out you and the new Director. I’ll break you both in public, like a pair of matchsticks.”
8
The abrupt departure of Dr. Felzian gave Oscar a vital window of opportunity. With the loss of his patron Bambakias, he had very little to fall back on. He had to seize the initiative. Their numbers were small, their resources narrow, their budget nonexistent. The order of the day was sheer audacity.
During Greta’s first day as Director, her followers formed a Strike Committee and physically occupied the Hot Zone. Strikers commandeered the airlocks overnight, overriding all the police-installed safety locks and replacing them with brand-new strikers’ pass-cards. Seizing the Hot Zone made excellent strategic sense, since the giant ceramic tower dominated the facility. The Hot Zone was a natural fortress.
Given this physical safe haven, the second order of business in Oscar’s internal coup was to attack and seize the means of information. The Hot Zone’s computers received a long-postponed security overhaul. This revealed an appalling number of police back doors, unregistered users, and whole forests of snooping crackerware. These freeloaders were all swiftly purged.
The lab’s internal phone system was still under the control of the Collaboratory police. The lab’s tiny corps of police were something of a comic-opera outfit, but they had been suborned by Huey long ago. They represented the greatest local threat to Greta’s fledgling administration. The lab’s phone system was riddled with taps, and beyond secure repair.
So, the strikers simply abandoned the phone system entirely, and replaced it with a homemade network of dirt-cheap nomad cellphones. These semi-licit gizmos ran off relay stakes, hammered into walls, ceilings, roofs, and (in a particularly daring midnight maneuver) all across the underside of the dome.
Greta’s first official act as Director was to abolish the Public Relations department. She accomplished this through the lethally effective tactic of zeroing-out the PR budget. She then returned the funds to Congress. Given the ongoing federal budget crisis, this was a very difficult move to parry politically.
Within the lab itself, abolishing the PR department was a hugely popular decision. At long last, the tedious jabber of the obnoxious pop-science pep squad ceased to irritate the local populace. There was no more chummy propaganda from on high, no more elbow-grabbing official email, no more obligatory training videos, nothing but blissful quiet and time to think and work.
The Collaboratory’s official PR was replaced by Oscar’s revolutionary