Distraction - Bruce Sterling [138]
“Those Louisiana state troopers had telephotos,” Oscar sighed. “I knew it all along.”
“The sex scandal didn’t break in the straight press yet. I’ve had dozens of calls, but the journos can’t get any confirmation. That’s just a typical sex smear. Nobody in the Collaboratory takes that seriously. Everybody in Buna already knows that you’re having sex with Greta. No, the serious attack was the embezzlement rap. That’s dead serious. Because the lab’s money is really gone.”
“How much did he steal?” Oscar said.
“He stole the works! The lab is bankrupt. It’s bad. It’s worse than bad. It’s beyond mere bankruptcy. It’s total financial wreckage, because all the lab’s budgets and all the records are trashed. I’ve never seen anything like it. Even the backups have been targeted and garbaged. The system can’t even add, it can’t update, it churns out nonsense. It’s a total financial lobotomy.”
“American military infowar viruses,” Oscar said. “Huey’s loot from the Air Force base.”
“Sure, that had to be military,” Pelicanos nodded. “People have brought down national governments with those things. The lab’s computers never had a chance.”
“How long before you can restore functionality?” Oscar said.
“Are you kidding? What am I, a miracle worker?” Pelicanos was genuinely wounded. “I’m just an accountant! I can’t repair the damage from a military netwar attack! In fact, I think someone’s been monitoring me, personally. Every file that I’ve accessed in the past two months has been specifically destroyed. I think they’ve even screwed with my own laptop—some kind of black-bag job. I can’t trust my own personal machine anymore. I can’t even trust my off-site records.”
“Fine, Yosh, I take the point, it’s out of your league. So whose league is this in? Who’s going to help us here?”
Pelicanos thought hard about the question. “Well, first, you’d need a huge team of computer-forensics specialists to go over the damaged code line by line.… No, forget that. Investigating and describing the damage would take years. It would cost a fortune. Let’s face it, the lab’s books are a write-off, they’re totaled. It would be cheaper to drop the whole system off a cliff and start all over from scratch.”
“I think I understand,” Oscar said. “Huey permanently trashed the lab’s finances. He’s ruined a federal laboratory with an interstate netwar attack, just to get his krewe off a few corruption hooks. That’s appalling. It’s horrifying. The man has no conscience. Well, at least we know where we stand now.”
Pelicanos sighed. “No, Oscar, it’s much, much worse than that. The Spinoffs people were always Huey’s favorite allies. They knew they were next up on Greta’s chopping block, so last night they rebelled. The Spinoffs gang have launched a counterstrike. They’ve sealed and barricaded the Spinoffs building, and they’re having a round-the-clock shredding orgy. They’re stealing all the data they can get their hands on, and they’re shredding everything else. When they’re done, they’ll all defect to Huey’s brand-new science labs in Louisiana. And they’re trying to convince everyone else to go with them.”
Oscar nodded, absorbing the news. “Okay. That’s vandalism. Obstruction of justice. Theft and destruction of federal records. Commercial espionage. All the Spinoffs people should be arrested immediately and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Pelicanos laughed dryly. “As if,” he said.
“This isn’t over,” Oscar said. “Because our kidnapping fell through. We have the tactical initiative again. Huey doesn’t know where we are. At least we’re well out of his reach.”
“So—what’ll it be? Where should we go now? Boston? Washington?”
“Well …” Oscar rubbed his chin. “Huey’s next moves are obvious, right? He’s going to crash the Collaboratory just like he did the Air Force base. Thanks to his infowar attack, there’s no money now. Soon, there will be no supplies, no food.… Then he’ll send in a massive crowd of proles to occupy the derelict facility, and it’s all over.”
“That