Distraction - Bruce Sterling [2]
The ensuing criminal investigation had not managed to apprehend, convict, or even identify a single one of the “rioters.” Once fuller attention had been paid to the Worcester bank, a number of grave financial irregularities had surfaced. The scandal eventually led to the resignation of three Massachusetts state representatives and the jailing of four bank executives and the mayor of Worcester. The Worcester banking scandal had become a major issue in the ensuing U.S. Senate campaign.
This event was clearly significant. It had required organization, observation, decision, execution. It was a gesture of brutal authority from some very novel locus of power. Someone had done all this with meticulous purpose and intent, but how? How did they compel the loyalty of those agents? How did they recruit them, train them, dress them, pay them, transport them? And—most amazing of all—how did they compel their silence, afterward?
Oscar Valparaiso had once imagined politics as a chess game. His kind of chess game. Pawns, knights, and queens, powers and strategies, ranks and files, black squares and white squares. Studying this tape had cured him of that metaphor. Because this phenomenon on the tape was not a chess piece. It was there on the public chessboard all right, but it wasn’t a rook or a bishop. It was a wet squid, a swarm of bees. It was a new entity that pursued its own orthogonal agenda, and vanished into the silent interstices of a deeply networked and increasingly nonlinear society.
Oscar sighed, shut his laptop, and looked down the length of the bus. His campaign staffers had been living inside a bus for thirteen weeks, in a slowly rising tide of road garbage. They were victorious now, decompressing from the heroic campaign struggle. Alcott Bambakias, their former patron, was the new U.S. Senator–elect from Massachusetts. Oscar had won his victory. The Bambakias campaign had been folded up, and sent away.
And yet, twelve staffers still dwelled inside the Senator’s bus. They were snoring in their fold-down bunks, playing poker on the flip-out tables, trampling big promiscuous heaps of road laundry. On occasion, they numbly rifled the cabinets for snacks.
Oscar’s sleeve rang. He reached inside it, retrieved a fabric telephone, and absently flopped his phone back into shape. He spoke into the mouthpiece. “Okay, Fontenot.”
“You wanna make it to the science lab tonight?” said Fontenot.
“That would be good.”
“How much is it worth to you? We’ve got a roadblock problem.”
“They’re shaking us down, is that it?” said Oscar, his brow creasing beneath his immaculate hair. “They want a bribe, straight across? Is it really that simple?”
“Nothing is ever simple anymore,” said Fontenot. The campaign’s security man wasn’t attempting world-weary sarcasm. He was relating a modern fact of life. “This isn’t like our other little roadblock hassles. This is the United States Air Force.”
Oscar considered this novel piece of information. It didn’t sound at all promising. “Why, exactly, is the Air Force blockading a federal highway?”
“Folks have always done things differently here in Louisiana,” Fontenot offered. Through the phone’s flimsy earpiece, a distant background of car honks rose to a crescendo. “Oscar, I think you need to come see this. I know Louisiana, I was born and raised here, but I just don’t have the words to describe all this.”
“Very good,” Oscar said. “I’ll be right there.” He stuffed the phone in his sleeve. He’d known Fontenot for over a year, and had