Distraction - Bruce Sterling [24]
“You mean we build a hotel for profit?” Fred said.
“Well, for our own convenience mostly, but yes, for profit, of course. We can get the design plans and software from Bambakias’s firm. We can certainly build the structure ourselves, and best of all, we actually have the skills it requires to successfully run a hotel. A traveling political campaign is basically a mobile hotel, when you think about it. But in this case, we stay in one place, while the crowds will come to us. And then they pay us.”
“Man,” Fred said. “What a weird inside-out way to think.…”
“I think it’s doable. You can all play the same roles that you did during the campaign. Negi, you can run the kitchen. Fred, you can handle the laundry and the rooms. Corky does guest relations and works the front desk. Rebecca does physical security and the occasional massage. Everybody pitches in, and if we need them, we can take on some temp gofers locally. And we make money.”
“How much money?”
“Oh, the top end of the market should be pretty generous. I’ve seen millionaire contractors inside the Collaboratory, crammed in right next door to postdocs and grad students. That’s just not natural.”
“Not nowadays,” Negi admitted.
“It’s a good market window. Yosh will put together our finance package. Lana will deal with local zoning and the Buna city authorities. We’ll front it all through a Boston corporation to sidestep any conflict-of-interest hassles. And when we’re done here, we just sell the hotel. In the meantime, we have a decent place to live and a revenue stream.”
“You know,” said Ando “Corky” Shoeki, “I saw that done ten times. I helped to do it, even. But I still can’t get used to the concept. I mean, that big crowds of unskilled people can construct permanent housing.”
“I agree, distributed instantiation still has some shock value. It’s made Bambakias very rich, but it’s still a novelty down here. I like the idea of doing that work in East Texas. It’ll show these local yokels what we’re made of.”
“Y’know,” Fred said slowly, “I’m trying really hard, but I can’t think of any good reason not to do what Oscar says.”
“You’re all clever people,” Oscar said. “Find me some reason why it can’t be done.” He ducked back into the bus, to let them argue about it. Spelling it all out for them in black and white would only spoil their fun.
He hung his hat inside the bus. “So, Moira,” he said, “how’s the cause célèbre coming?”
“Oh, it’s great,” said Moira, spinning in her chair. Moira had been looking much better since the Senator’s hunger strike had started. Moira’s soul waxed and waned with the tides of media exposure. “The Senator’s positives are through the roof. Seventy percent, seventy-five. And the rest is real mushy, mostly undecideds!”
“Phenomenal.”
“Putting Alcott’s blood sugar levels onto the net—that was brilliant. People are logging on around the clock just to watch him starve! Lorena, too. Lorena has massive female positives. She’s been on ten glamour sites since Wednesday. They love her bread and water diet, they just can’t get enough of her!”
“How about the situation on the ground? The Emergency committees, have they done anything useful about that Air Force base yet?”
“Oh,” Moira said, “I haven’t quite gotten around to that part.… I, uh, thought Audrey was gonna handle that.”
Oscar grunted. “Okay.”
Moira touched her fingertips to her powdered chin. “Alcott … he’s just so special. I’ve seen him give so many speeches, but that stand-up he just did with the hospital pajamas and the apple juice … It was just ninety seconds, but it was drama, it’s real confrontation, it’s just pure gold. The standard site coverage wasn’t so hot at first, but the chat swaps and the downloads have been huge. Alcott’s coming up way behind