Distraction - Bruce Sterling [215]
“You don’t look so bad,” Kevin said analytically. “Your color’s a little high, and you’re holding your neck like a giraffe on speed, but you don’t look crazy.”
“I’m not crazy. Just different.”
“Uh-huh.” Kevin took a disinfected metal chair and eased his aching feet. “So, uhm, sorry about the security screwup, man.”
“These things happen.”
“Yeah. See, it was all those Boston people from the old Bambakias krewe: that was the problem. The Senator’s wife … she went way out of her way to tell me I was supposed to let it slide with the press secretary. You and this press babe being the former romantic item, and all that. Great, I thought, better really bury this one; but then, in comes this Moira Matarazzo woman who was the Senator’s former press secretary.… See, I just lost track. That’s all. Just plain couldn’t keep up with it all. All these Boston krewepeople, and former krewepeople, and krewepeople of the former krewepeople; look, nobody could keep track of that crap. Hell, I don’t even know if I’m your krewepeople anymore.”
“I get the picture, Kevin. That’s a by-product of what’s basically a semifeudal, semilegal, distributable-deniable, net-centered segmented polycephalous influence sociality process.”
Kevin waited politely for Oscar’s lips to stop moving. “For what it’s worth, I’ve got Moira’s movements tracked. Into the dome, into the Administration building, out of the dome … I’m practically sure that she didn’t leave any of those tasty little time bombs for the rest of us.”
“Huey.”
Kevin laughed. “Well, of course it was Huey.”
“It just seems so pointless and small of him to do this to us now. After the war’s over, after he’s out of office. When I was getting ready to leave all this.”
“So you really meant it about leaving us, then.”
“What?”
“I overheard. I forgot to mention that I ran the tapes of the poisoning incident. That romantic discussion that you and Dr. Penninger were having as you were being gassed.”
“You have that conference room bugged?”
“Hey, pal, I’m not brain-damaged. Of course I have the conference room bugged. Not that I have time to listen to every damn room that I bug around here.… But hey, when there’s a terrorist biowar incident taking place in one, you bet I run the tapes back and listen. I do pay attention, Oscar. I’m a quick study. I make a pretty good cop, really.”
“Never said you weren’t a good cop, you big-mouthed incompetent.”
“Holy cow, there it is again.… Did you know that you actually have two different voices when you say contradictory stuff like that? I need to run a stress analysis there, I bet that could screw up vocal IDs.” Kevin leaned back in his chair and put a sock-clad foot on Oscar’s bed. Kevin was taking developments rather easily, Oscar thought. Then again, Kevin had witnessed this phenomenon among the Haitians. He’d had time to get used to the concept.
“Sure I’ve had time to get used to the concept,” Kevin said. “It’s obvious. You mutter things aloud to yourself, just so you know what you’re thinking. I recognize the syndrome, man. Big deal! I got used to your other personal background problem.… Oscar, haven’t we always been on good terms?”
“Yeah.”
“I have to tell you, it really hurt my feelings when Dr. Penninger said I was a ‘scary little brute.’ That I ‘bullied people’ and ‘spied on them.’ And you didn’t stick up for me, man. You didn’t tell her a thing.”
“I was proposing marriage to her.”
“Women,” Kevin grunted. “I dunno what it is with women. They’re just not rational. They’re creepy little Mata Hari sexpots carrying poison gas bombs.… Or maybe they’re like Dr. Penninger down the hall, the Rigid Ice-Queen of Eternal Light and Truth.… I just can’t understand what it takes to please that woman! I mean, system-crackers like me, we have everything in common with scientists. It’s all about hidden knowledge, and how you find it, and who gets to know it, and who gets the rep for finding out. That’s all there is to science. I loved working for her, I thought she was really getting it.