Distraction - Bruce Sterling [189]
“How can you prove that a man is concentrating on two things at once?” Fontenot said. “How do you prove he’s thinking at all?”
“It’s difficult. But it’s doable. Because that’s what they’re doing, all right. That’s why they’re never bored here. It’s because they pray. They pray all the time—and I wouldn’t be surprised if all that prayer wasn’t serving some other purpose, too. I think it’s some kind of relay between two separate streams of consciousness. You tell God what you’re thinking every minute—and that’s how you know it yourself. That’s what Christophe was trying to tell us with the song-and-dance about the ‘fiery heart.’ ”
“So it’s like he’s got two souls,” Fontenot said slowly.
“Sure,” Oscar said. “If that’s the word you want to use. I sure wish Greta were here with her lab equipment, so we could nail this down.” He shook his head regretfully. “That State of Emergency at the Buna lab has seriously stepped on our downtime together.”
They’d now arrived at the hovercraft, but Fontenot showed no sign of leaving. His artificial leg was troubling him. He sat down on the hull of the hovercraft and removed his hat, breathing heavily. Kevin clambered over the back and sat inside the huvvy, propping up his aching feet. A pair of herons flew nearby, and something large and oily surfaced near a clump of tangled reeds.
“I don’t know what to make of it,” Fontenot confessed. He stared at Oscar, as if the revelation were all his fault. “I don’t know what to make of you anymore. Your girlfriend won the Nobel Prize. A hacker is your security man. And you dropped on the roof of my house without a word of warning, dressed like a flying ape.”
“Yeah. Of course.” Oscar paused. “See, it all makes sense, if you get there step by step.”
“Look, don’t tell me any more,” Fontenot said. “I’m in way too deep already. I don’t want to play your game. I want to go home, and live here, and die here. If you tell me any more of this, I’m gonna have to take it to the President.”
“I’ve got you covered on that issue,” Oscar told him. “I work for the President. I’m with the National Security Council.”
Fontenot was astonished. “You’re in the Administration now? You work for the NSC?”
“Jules, stop acting so surprised at every single thing I say. You’re starting to hurt my feelings. Why do you think I came here? How do you think I end up in situations like this? Who else could do this properly? I’m the only guy in the world who would walk into a neural voodoo cult in the middle of nowhere, and immediately figure out exactly what was going on.”
Fontenot rubbed his stubbled chin. “So … Okay! I guess I’m with you. So, Mr. Super Expert Know-it-all, tell me something. Are we really going to have a war with Holland?”
“Yes. We are. And if I can get out of this damn swamp in one piece, and brief the President on my findings here, we’re probably going to have a war with Louisiana.”
“Oh my God.” Fontenot groaned aloud. “It’s beyond bad. It’s the worst. It’s the very worst. I knew I should have kept my mouth shut. I knew I shouldn’t have outed this thing.”
“No, it was the right thing to do. Huey’s a great man, and he’s a visionary, but Huey is around the bend. He’s not just your standard southern-fried good-old-boy megalomaniac anymore. Now I know the full truth. These Haitians? They were just his proof of concept. Huey’s done something weird to himself. Something very dark and neural.”
“And you have to tell the President about that.”
“Yes, I do. Because our President is not like that. The President is not insane. He’s just a hard-as-nails, ambitious, strong-arm politician, who is going to bring law and order to this two-horse country, even if it means setting fire to half of Europe.”
Fontenot considered this subject at length. Finally he turned to Kevin. “Hey, Hamilton.”
“Yes sir?” Kevin said, startled.
“Don’t