Distraction - Bruce Sterling [12]
So Oscar was awake in darkness, and working. He generally ended each day with a diary annotation, a summary of the options taken and important operational events. Tonight, he wrapped up his careful annotations of the audiotape with the Air Force highway bandits. He shipped the file to Alcott Bambakias, encrypted and denoted “personal and confidential.” There was no way to know if this snippet of the modern chaos in Louisiana would capture his patron’s mercurial attention. But it was necessary to keep up a steady flow of news and counsel across the net. To be out of the Senator’s sight might be very useful in some ways, but to drift out of his mind would be a professional blunder.
Oscar composed and sent a friendly net-note to his girlfriend, Clare, who was living in his house in Boston. He studied and updated his personnel files. He examined and totaled the day’s expenditures. He composed his daily diary entries. He took comfort in the strength of his routines.
He had met many passing setbacks, but he had yet to meet a challenge that could conclusively defeat him.
He shut his laptop with a sense of satisfaction, and prepared himself for sleep. He twitched, he thrashed. Finally he sat up, and opened his laptop again.
He studied the Worcester riot video for the fifty-second time.
2
The scientist wore plaid bermuda shorts, a faded yellow tank top, flip-flop sandals, and no hat. Oscar was prepared to tolerate their guide’s bare and bony legs, and even his fusty beard. But it was hard to take a man entirely seriously when he lacked a proper hat.
The beast in question was dark green, very fibrous, and hairy. This was a binturong, a mammal once native to Southeast Asia, long since extinct in the wild. This specimen had been cloned on-site at the Buna National Collaboratory. They’d grown it inside the altered womb of a domestic cow.
The cloned binturong was hanging from the underside of a park bench, clinging to the wooden slats. It was licking at paint chips, with a narrow, spotted tongue. The binturong was about the size of a well-stuffed golf bag.
“Your specimen is remarkably tame,” said Pelicanos politely, holding his hat in his hand.
The scientist shook his bearded head. “Oh, we never claim that we ‘tame’ animals here at the Collaboratory. He’s been de-feralized. But he’s not what you’d call friendly.”
The binturong detached itself from the bench slats and trundled through the lush grass on its bearlike paws.
The beast examined Oscar’s leather shoes, lifted its pointed snout in disgust, and muttered like a maladjusted kettle. At such close and intimate range, the nature of the animal became more apparent to Oscar. A binturong was akin to a weasel. A large, tree-climbing weasel. With a hairy, prehensile tail. Also, it stank.
“We seem to be in the market for a binturong,” Oscar said, smiling. “Do you wrap them up in brown paper?”
“If you mean how do we get this sample specimen to your friend the Senator … well, we can do that through channels.”
Oscar arched his brows. “ ‘Channels’?”
“Channels, you know … Senator Dougal had his people handling that sort of thing.…” Their guide trailed off, suddenly guilty and jittery, as if he’d drunk the last of the office coffee and neglected to change the pot. “Look, I’m just a lab guy, I don’t really know much about that. You should ask the people at Spinoffs.”
Oscar unfolded his laminated pocket map of the Buna National Collaboratory. “And where would ‘Spinoffs’ be?”
The guide tapped helpfully at Oscar’s plastic map. His hands were stained with chemicals and his callused thumb was a nice dull green. “Spinoffs was the building just on your left as you drove in through the main airlock.”
Oscar squinted at the map’s fine print. “The Archer Parr Memorial Competitive Enhancement Facility?”
“Yeah, that’s the place. Spinoffs.”
Oscar gazed upward, adjusting the brim of his hat against