Distraction - Bruce Sterling [33]
“Why not? I can understand that. Sometimes these things just don’t work out. Romance in the sciences … ‘The odds are good, but the goods are odd.” ’ She shook her head.
“I know that you’re not married. You’re not seeing anyone?”
“Nothing steady. I’m a workaholic.”
Oscar found this encouraging news. He felt instinctive camaraderie for any ambitious obsessive. “Tell me something, Greta. Do I seem like a frightening person to you?” He touched his chest. “Am I scary? Be frank.”
“You really want me to be frank?”
“Yes.”
“People always tell me that I’m much too frank.”
“Go ahead, I can take it.”
She lifted her chin. “Yes, you’re very scary. People are extremely suspicious of you. No one knows what you really want from us, or what you’re doing in our lab. We all expect the very worst.”
He nodded sagely. “You see, that’s a perception problem. I do turn up for your board meetings, and I’ve brought a little entourage with me, so rumors start. But in reality, I shouldn’t be scary—because I’m just not very significant. I’m only a Senate staffer.”
“I’ve been to Senate hearings. And I’ve heard about others. Senate hearings can be pretty rough.”
He edged closer to her. “All right—sure, there might be some hard questions asked in Washington someday. But it won’t be me asking those questions. I just write briefing papers.”
She was entirely unconvinced. “What about that big Air Force scandal in Louisiana? Didn’t you have a lot to do with all that?”
“What, that? That’s just politics! People claim that I influence the Senator-elect—but the influence goes all the other way, really. Until I met Alcott Bambakias, I was just a city council activist. The Senator’s the man with the ideas and the message. I was just his campaign technician.”
“Hmmm. I know a lot of technicians. I don’t know many technicians who are multimillionaires, like you are.”
“Oh, well, that.… Yes, I’m well-to-do, but compared to what my father made in his heyday, or the Senator’s fortune … I do have money, but I wouldn’t call that serious money. I know people with serious money, and I’m just not in their league.” Oscar hefted a long green tube from the packing case, examined its crooks and angles mournfully, and set it back down. “The wind’s picking up.… I don’t have the heart for this anymore. I think I’ll walk back to the dome. Maybe somebody’s still up in the dorm. We’ll play some poker.”
“I have a car,” she said.
“Really.”
“You get a car, when you’re on the Collaboratory board. So I drove here. I can give you a ride back to the lab.”
“That would be lovely. Just let me stow the gear and shut down the system.” He took off his hard hat and kneepads. He shed his padded construction jacket, and stood there hatless in a long-sleeved shirt; the cold wind ripped into the damp at his armpits. When he was done, he set the alarms and they left the site together.
He stopped at the sidewalk. “Wait a moment.”
“What is it?”
“We seem to be chatting along pretty well here. But your car may be bugged.”
She brushed her windblown hair back, skeptically. “Why would anyone bug me?”
“Because it’s so cheap and easy. So tell me something just now, before we get into your car. Tell me something very frankly. Do you know about my personal background problem?”
“Your background? I know that your father was a movie star.…”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought that matter up. Really, I’m being completely impossible tonight. It was really good of you to visit the site tonight, but I’ve gotten off on the wrong foot here. I shouldn’t bother you with any of this. You’re on the board of directors, and I’m a federal official.… Listen, if our personal circumstances were different … And if either