Distraction - Bruce Sterling [25]
“How is that Wyoming thing shaping up, by the way?”
“Oh, the fire’s a lot worse now. The President’s there.”
“The old guy, or Two Feathers?”
“Two Feathers of course. Nobody cares about the old guy anymore, he’s finished, he’s just the duck now. I know Two Feathers hasn’t been sworn in yet, but people depreciate the post-election hang-time. People want in ahead of the curve.”
“Right,” said Oscar shortly. She was telling him the obvious.
“Oscar …” Moira looked at him with naked appeal. “Should I ask him to take me to Washington?”
Oscar silently spread his hands.
“He needs me. He’ll need someone to speak for him.”
“That’s not my decision, Moira. You need to take it up with his chief of staff.”
“Can you put in a good word for me with Leon Sosik? Sosik seems to like you so much.”
“Let me get back to you on that,” Oscar said.
The bus door banged open. Norman-the-Intern stuck his tousled head inside and yelled, “We’re eating!”
“Oh, great!” said Moira, leaping from her chair. “Weird Cajun seafood, good good good!”
Oscar put on his hat and jacket and followed her outside. With a flourish, Fontenot was spooning great ladles of swimming brown murk. Oscar brought up the end of the line. He accepted a quilt-paper bowl and a biodegradable spoon.
Oscar gazed at his hot oily gumbo and thought mournfully of Bambakias. The Cambridge PR team had certainly done a thorough job surveilling the fasting Senator: blood pressure, heartbeat, temperature, calorie consumption, borborygmus, bile production—there was no possible doubt about the raw authenticity of his hunger strike. The man’s entire corpus had become public domain. Whenever Bambakias had a sip of his famine apple juice, a forest of monitors twitched and heaved across the country.
Oscar followed them to a picnic table and sat down next to Negi. He examined his brimming spoon. He had seriously considered not eating this evening. That would be a very decent gesture. Well, let someone else make it.
“Angioplasty in a bowl,” Negi said blissfully.
Oscar sipped from his spoon. “Well worth dying for,” he nodded.
“I’m so old,” Negi mourned, blowing on her soup. “Back when I had tatts and piercings, people got on your case if you ate fats and drank yourself stupid. Of course, that was before they found out the full awful truth about pseudo-estrogen poisoning.”
“Well,” Oscar said companionably, “at least those massive pesticide disasters got us off the hook with that diet and exercise nonsense.”
“Pass the bread, Norman,” Rebecca said. “Is that real butter? Real old-fashioned tub butter? Wow!”
A light aircraft flew overhead. Its tiny engine puttered energetically, like fingernails tapping a snare drum. The aircraft seemed appallingly flimsy. With its eerie, computer-designed lifting surfaces, it resembled a child’s paper toy: something made with pinking shears, popsicle sticks, and tape. The wing edges trailed off into feathery ribbons and long tattered kite tails. It seemed to be staying aloft through sheer force of will.
Then three similar aircraft appeared, skidding and puttering just above the treetops. They flew like fishing lures tempting a trout. Their pilots were gloved and goggled and bulky, so wrapped in their padding that they resembled human bales of burlap.
One of the pilots detached himself from formation, settled down like a falling leaf, and gently circled the roadside bus. It was like being buzzed by a hay bale. Everyone looked up from their food and waved politely. The pilot waved back, mimicked eating with one gauntlet, and headed east.
“Airborne nomads,” Fontenot said, squinting.
“They’re heading east,” Oscar noted.
“Green Huey’s very tight with the leisure unions.” Fontenot shoved his bowl aside, rose deliberately, and went into the bus to see to his machines. He had the face he wore when he meant business.
Oscar