Distraction - Bruce Sterling [157]
This left the Collaboratory with no working budget for a police force. But that was doable. Because at the moment, there were no budgets of any kind at the Collaboratory. Everyone was working for no pay. They were living off barter, back gardens, surplus office equipment, and various forms of left-handed pin money.
The days that followed were the most intense and productive of Oscar’s political life. The lab’s situation was an absolute shambles. Only organizational skill of genius could have retrieved it. Oscar didn’t possess the skill of genius. However, he could successfully replace genius through the simple expedient of giving up sleep and outworking everyone else.
The first truly serious challenge was to mollify the giant invasion of Moderators. The Moderators had to be dissuaded from wrecking and sacking the facility. Oscar finessed this through the simple gambit of informing the Moderators that they now owned the facility. Obviously, they could wreck the place at will, but if they did so, the life-support systems would collapse, the atmosphere would sour, and all the glamorous and attractive rare animals would die. The Moderators would choke with everyone else, in an uninhabitable glass ghetto. However, if they came to working terms with the aboriginal scientists, the Moderators would possess a giant genetic Eden where they could live outdoors without tents.
Oscar’s argument carried the day. There were naturally a few ugly incidents, in which proles abducted and barbecued some especially tasty animals. But the ghastly stench made it clear that open fires within the dome were counterproductive for everyone. The situation failed to explode. As days passed it began to show definite signs of stabilizing.
A new committee was formed, to negotiate the terms for local coexistence between the scientists and the invading dropouts. It consisted of Greta, the board’s division heads, Kevin, Oscar himself, occasional consultant members of Oscar’s krewe, and a solemn variety of gurus, sachems, and muckety-mucks from Burningboy’s contingent. This new governing body needed a name. It couldn’t be called the “Strike Committee,” as that term had already been used. It swiftly became known as the “Emergency Committee.”
Oscar regretted this coinage, as he loathed and despised all Emergency committees; but the term had one great advantage. It didn’t have to be explained to anyone. The American populace was already used to the spectacle of its political institutions collapsing, to be replaced by Emergency committees. Having the Collaboratory itself run by an “emergency committee” was an easy matter to understand. It could even be interpreted as a prestigious step upward; it was as if the tiny Collaboratory had collapsed as grandly as the U.S. Congress.
Oscar canceled his public relations poster campaign. The Strike was well and truly over now, and the lab’s new regime required a new graphic look and a fresh media treatment. After a brainstorming session with his krewe, Oscar decided on the use of loudspeakers. The Emergency Committee’s continuing negotiations would be broadcast live on half a dozen loudspeakers, situated in various public areas within the dome.
This proved a wise design choice. The loudspeakers had a pleasantly makeshift, grass-rootsy feeling. People could gently drift in and out of the flow of political agitation. The antiquated technology provided a calming, peripheral media environment. People could become just as aware of the continuing crisis as they felt they needed to be.
Thanks to the use of loudspeakers, the Collaboratory personnel and their mongrelized invaders were placed on an equal informational plane. As an additional gambit, tasteful blue plastic “soapboxes” were set up here and there, where especially foolish and irate people could safely vent their