Distraction - Bruce Sterling [32]
Dr. Penninger collapsed heedlessly to earth in a sharp sprawl of kneecaps. “I can’t even think properly anymore. They don’t let me think. I try to stay alert during those meetings, but it’s just impossible. They won’t let me get anything accomplished.” She sipped cautiously at the yellow swill in her biodegradable cup, then put the cup on the grass. “Lord knows I’ve tried.”
“Why did they put you into administration in the first place?”
“Oh,” she groaned, “a slot opened up on the board. The guy running Instrumentation had to resign, after Senator Dougal cracked up.… The board asked for me by name because of the Nobel award nonsense, and the neuro krewe told me I should take the post. We do need the labware. They nickel and dime us to death on equipment, they just don’t understand our requirements. They don’t even want to understand us.”
“Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me. I’ve noticed that the bookkeeping at the Collaboratory is not in standard federal formats. There seem to have been some irregularities in supply.”
“Oh, that’s not the half of it,” she said.
“No?”
“No.”
Oscar leaned forward slowly on his folded tarp. “What is the half of it?”
“I just can’t tell you,” she said, morosely hugging her shins. “Because I don’t know why you want to know that. Or what you’d do about it, if you knew.”
“All right,” Oscar said, sitting back deliberately. “That answer makes sense. You’re being very cautious and proper. I’m sure I’d feel much the same about it, if I were in your position.” He stood up.
The plumbing pipes were made of a laminated polyvinyl the color of dried kelp. They had been computed and built in Boston to specifically fit this structure, and they were of a Chinese-jigsaw complexity that only a dedicated subroutine could fully understand.
“You have real talent with the mortar, but this plumbing is serious work,” Oscar said. “I wouldn’t blame you if you gave up and left now.”
“Oh, I don’t mind. I don’t have to hit the lab until seven AM.”
“Don’t you ever sleep?”
“No, I just don’t sleep much. Maybe three hours a night.”
“How odd. I never sleep much, either.” He knelt at the side of the plumbing case. She alertly handed him a nearby pair of snips, slapping them into his gloved hand, handle first.
“Thank you.” He snapped through three black plastic packing bands. “I’m glad you came here tonight. I was rather wasting my time working alone on a group project like this. But it’s therapeutic for me.” He pried up the lid of the case and threw it aside. “You see, I’ve always had a rather difficult professional life.”
“That’s not what your record shows.” She was hugging her jacketed arms. The wool hat had slipped down on her forehead.
“Oh, I suppose you’ve run some searches on me, then.”
“I’m very inquisitive.” She paused.
“That’s all right, everybody does that sort of thing nowadays. I’ve been a celebrity since I was a little kid. I’m well documented, I’m used to it.” He smiled sourly. “Though you can’t get the full flavor of my delightful personality from some casual scan of the net.”
“If I were casual about this, I wouldn’t be here now.”
Oscar looked up in surprise. She stared back boldly. She’d done all this on purpose. She had her own agenda. She’d plotted it all out on graph paper, beforehand.
“Do you know why I’m out here in the middle of the night tonight, Dr. Penninger? It’s because my girlfriend just left me.”
She pondered this. Wheels spun in her head so quickly that he could almost hear them sizzle. “Really,” she said slowly. “That’s a shame.”
“She’s left our house in Boston, she’s walked out on me. She’s gone to Holland.”
Her brows rose under the rim of the woolly hat. “Your girlfriend has defected to the Dutch?”
“No, not defected! She left on assignment, she’s a political journalist. But she’s gone anyway.” He gazed at the elaborate nest of convoluted plumbing. “It’s been a blow, it’s really upset me.”
The sight of all that joinery and tubing, complex and gleaming in its tatty plastic