Distraction - Bruce Sterling [17]
“I take your point,” Oscar said.
Donna was in a confessional mood. Oscar had sensed this. He generally made it a point to appear in the lives of his entourage whenever they were confessing. “Life is so ironic,” Donna sighed, ironically. “I used to hate it when my mother taught me how to sew. I went off to college, I never imagined I’d hand-make clothes as an image consultant. When I was young, nobody wanted handmade tailoring. My ex-husband would have laughed his head off if I’d made him a suit.”
“How is your ex-husband, Donna?”
“He still thinks real people work nine-to-five jobs. He’s an idiot.” She paused. “Also, he’s fired, and he’s broke.”
Men and women in white decontamination suits had appeared amid the genetically upgraded crops. They were wielding shiny aluminum spray-wands, gleaming chromium shears, high-tech titanium hoes.
“I love it inside here,” Donna said. “The Senator was so sweet to dump us in here. It’s so much nicer than I thought it would be. The air smells so unusual, have you noticed that? I could live in a place like this, if there weren’t so many slobs in cutoffs.”
Oscar hotlinked back to the minutes of the Senate Science and Technology Committee for 2029. These sixteen-year-old volumes of committee minutes had the works on the original founding of the Buna National Collaboratory. Oscar felt quite sure that no one had closely examined these archives for ages. They were chock-full of hidden pay dirt. “It was a hard-fought campaign. It’s right to relax for a while. You certainly deserve it.”
“Yeah, the campaign wore me out, but it was worth it. We really worked well together; we were well organized. You know, I love political work. I’m an American female in the fifty-to-seventy demographic, so life never made any sense to me. Nothing ever turned out the way I was taught to expect. Ever since the economy crashed and the nets ate up everything … But inside politics, it all feels so different. I’m not just a straw in the wind. I really felt like I was changing the world, for once. Instead of the world changing me.”
Oscar bent a kindly gaze upon her. “You did a good job, Donna. You’re an asset. When you’re in close quarters like we were, under so much stress and pressure, it’s good to have a member of the team who’s so even-tempered, so levelheaded. Philosophical, even.” He smiled winningly.
“Why are you being so good to me, Oscar? Aren’t you about to fire me now?”
“Not at all! I want you to stay on with us. At least another month. I know that isn’t much to promise you, since a woman of your talents could easily find some more permanent position. But Fontenot will be staying on with us.”
“He will?” She blinked. “Why?”
“And of course Pelicanos and Lana Ramachandran and I will be plugging away.… So there will be work for you here. Not like the campaign was, of course, nothing so intense or hectic, but proper image is still very important to us. Even here. Maybe especially here.”
“I might stay on with you awhile,” Donna said serenely, “but I wasn’t born yesterday. So you’d better tell me something better than that.”
Oscar slapped his laptop shut, and stood up. “Donna, you’re right. We should talk seriously. Let’s go for a little stroll.”
Donna quickly closed her sewing basket and got to her feet. She’d come to know Oscar’s basic routines, and was pleased to be out with him on one of his confidential walking conferences. Oscar was touched to see her being so streetwise—she kept glancing alertly over her shoulder, as if expecting to find them trailed by sinister operatives in black trench coats.
“You see, it’s like this,” Oscar told her soberly. “We won that election, and we won it walking away. But Alcott Bambakias is still a newcomer, a political outsider. Even after he’s sworn into office, he still won’t have much clout or credibility. He’s just the junior Senator from Massachusetts. He has to pick and choose the issues where he can make a difference.”
“Well, of course.”
“He’s an architect, a large-scale builder with a very innovative practice. So science and technology issues are naturals