Distraction - Bruce Sterling [124]
It was also a considerable boon for Oscar’s hotel. His hotel was now crowded with laboratory equipment scavengers, fly-by-night middlemen who’d flocked into Buna as soon as the news of a hardware sale hit their net.
Most of the materials scientists sullenly recognized the fait accompli. But not Dr. David Chander. Chander had been an early and zealous striker, and he was also a quick study. To resist his own firing, he had taken his tactical cues from the Strike Committee. He had super-glued his equipment to the lab benches and barricaded himself inside the research facility. There he sat, in occupation, categorically refusing to leave.
Kevin was in favor of bringing in a hydraulic ram and blasting Chander out. The Collaboratory’s federal police were far too confused and sullen to do any such thing themselves. Kevin would have been delighted to play the role of strong-arm vigilante, but Oscar considered this a bad precedent for the lab’s new regime. He couldn’t countenance violent confrontations; they were unprofessional, not his style.
Instead, he decided to talk the man down.
Oscar and Kevin went up to Chander’s third-floor lab, and Oscar announced himself. He waited patiently as Chander unjammed his lab doors. Then Oscar slipped in, leaving a disgruntled Kevin lurking in the hall.
Chander immediately began barricading the doors again. “Let me give you a hand with that,” Oscar volunteered. He helped Chander wedge a dismantled chair leg against a superglued door chock.
Unlike the majority of Collaboratory locals, Chander, as an industrial researcher, wore a business suit and a tie, with a serious hat. His dusky face was ashen and his eyes were puffy with stress. “I was wondering if she’d have the nerve to meet with me herself,” he said, biting his plump lower lip. “I can’t say I’m surprised to see you show up.”
Oscar opened his plastic carry-case. “I brought some supplies for your sit-in,” he said. “A little frozen gumbo, some tasty rice.…”
“You know that I’m on a hunger strike, don’t you?”
“I hadn’t heard that,” Oscar lied.
“Get ’em to turn on my lab phones again, and you’ll hear plenty about all of my problems.”
“But that’s why I came here personally,” Oscar said cheerily. “To hear you out, man to man.”
“I’m not going to put up with this,” Chander announced. “She’s destroying my life’s work, it’s completely unfair. I can wait just as long as the rest of you can. I can do anything that you can do. I’ve got my own friends and supporters, I’ve got industrial backers from out of state. I’m an honest man—but you don’t have a leg to stand on. Once word gets out about all the stunts you’ve pulled around here, you’ll all be indicted.”
“But I’m from the Senate Science Committee,” Oscar said. “Of course the Senate will take an interest in your plight. Let’s have a seat, and you can fill me in on the issues.”
He sat cautiously in a partially wrecked lab chair and produced a paper notebook and a classic fountain pen.
Chander dragged up a plastic lab crate and sat with a groan. “Look, Congress won’t help me. Congress is hopeless, they never understand the technical issues. The point is … I have a breakthrough here. I’m not just promising a breakthrough. This isn’t just some empty last-minute gambit to get me off the hook. I have a major technical innovation here! I’ve had it for two years!”
Oscar examined his notes. “Dr. Chander … as you know, there’s been a general productivity audit here at the Collaboratory. Every department has gone through the same assessments: Genetic Fragmentation, Flux NMR … your department has been through five reorganizations in four years. Your production record is, frankly, abysmal.”
“I’m not denying