Distraction - Bruce Sterling [21]
Argow flinched theatrically. “That’s right! Rub it in! Look, I know full well that I’m part of the problem. I’ve wasted my life running networks, while the planet was destroyed all around me. Well, so have you, Audrey. We’re both guilty, but the difference is that I can recognize the truth now. The truth has really touched me. It’s touched me in here.” Argow pounded his bulky chest.
Audrey’s grainy voice grew silkier. “Well, I wouldn’t fret too much, Bob. You’re not good enough at your work to be any real menace.”
“Take it easy, Audrey,” Oscar said mildly.
Audrey Avizienis was a professional opposition researcher. Once roused, her critical faculties were lethal. “Look, we all came down here, and I’m doing my damn job. But laughing boy here is being a big, holier-than-thou, depressive bringdown. What, he thinks I can’t appreciate nature just because I spend a lot of time on the net? I know plenty about the birds and the bees, and the butterflies, and the cabbages, and all the rest of that stuff.”
“What I know,” Argow muttered, “is that the planet is coming apart, and we’re sitting in this stupid building with these hopeless bureaucratic morons dithering on and on about their sewage problems.”
“Bob,” Oscar said calmly, “you’re missing something.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s every bit as bad as you say. It’s worse than you say. Much worse. But this is the biggest bio-research center in the world. These people in front of us—these are the people who are in charge of this place. So you’re at the front lines now. You’re guilty all right, but you’re nowhere near as guilty as you will be, if you don’t shape up. Because we are in power and you are the responsible party now.”
“Oh,” Argow said.
“So get a grip.” Oscar flipped back his laptop screen. “Now, take a look at this. You too, Audrey. You’re systems professionals, and I need your input here.”
Argow examined Oscar’s laptop screen, his owlish eyes glowing. A lime-green plane with lumpy reddish mountains. “Uhm … yeah, I’ve seen those before. That’s a, uhm …”
“It’s an algorithmic landscape,” Audrey said intently. “A visualization map.”
“I just received this program from Leon Sosik,” Oscar said. “This is Sosik’s simulation map for current public issues. These mountains and valleys, they’re supposed to model current political trends. Press coverage, the feedback from constituents, the movement of lobbying funds, dozens of factors that Sosik fed into his simulator.… But now watch this. See, I’m moving these close-up crosshairs.… See that big yellow amoeba sitting on that purple blur? That is the current public position of Senator-elect Alcott Bambakias.”
“What,” Argow said skeptically, “he’s way down that slope?”
“No he’s not, not anymore. He’s actually moving up the slope.…” Oscar double-clicked. “See, this huge khaki mountain range represents military affairs.… Now I’ll kick the simulation back a week, and run it back up to the Bambakias press conference this morning.… See the way he kind of oozes up to the issue, and then suddenly jets across the landscape?”
“Wow!” Audrey said. “I’ve always loved old-fashioned hotshot computer graphics.”
“It’s garbage,” Argow grumbled. “Just because you have a cute simulation doesn’t mean you’re actually connecting to political reality. Or to any kind of reality.”
“Okay, so it’s not real. I know it’s not real, that’s obvious. But what if it works?”
“Well,” Argow mused, “even that doesn’t help much. It’s just like stock-market analysis. Even if you get some technique that does work, that’s strictly temporary. Pretty soon everyone else gets the same analytical tools, and then your advantage disappears. You’re right back where you started. Except for one thing. From then on, everything becomes much, much more complicated.”
“Thanks for that technical insight, Bob. I’ll try to keep that in mind.” Oscar paused. “Audrey, why do you suppose Leon Sosik sent me this program?”
“I guess he appreciates the way you airmailed him that binturong,” Audrey said.
“Maybe he thought you’d be impressed by this,” Argow said. “Or maybe he’s so old