Distraction - Bruce Sterling [68]
“Stop calling them that. They’re our perimeter controls. They’re for crowd safety. We got a very big crowd of people around here, so we have to take safety measures. What? Tanglewire? Yeah, of course! Spongey sticks, yeah, we always have spongey sticks. Foam barricades and the tear gas, sure, that’s all over-the-counter stuff, you can buy that anywhere. What? Superglue? Hell yeah, we got a couple tanker trucks of that stuff. Little kids can make superglue.”
A German correspondent took the floor. He had brought an entire media krewe with him, two bench-ranks of veteran Euro hustlers bristling with precision optical equipment. The Germans were the richest people on earth. They had the highly annoying habit of always sounding extremely adult and responsible. “Why are you destroying the roads?” the German inquired, adjusting his designer sunglasses. “Isn’t that economically counterproductive?”
“Mister, those are condemned roads. They’ve all been condemned by the State Highway Department. Tarmac pollutes the environment. So we’re cleaning up these roads as a public service. Tarmac is petroleum-based, so we can crack it for fuel. We need the fuel so our little kids don’t freeze to death. Okay?”
Oscar touched his mute and the video windows in the campaign bus fell silent. He called out, “Hey, Jimmy, how are we doing for fuel?”
“We’re still okay, man,” Jimmy said distantly.
Oscar looked at the bunks. Lana, Donna, and Moira were fast asleep. The bus seemed painfully empty now, like a half-eaten tin of sardines. His krewe was dwindling away. He’d been forced to leave most of them in Texas, and he missed them sorely. He missed looking after his people, he missed cheering them up and cheering them on. He missed loading them and pointing them at something vulnerable.
Moira was fiercely determined to quit, and she was bitter about it. Fontenot was out of the picture for good now; he had dumped his phone and laptop in a bayou and moved into his new shack with a boat and fishing tackle. The Bambakias campaign team was the finest thing he had ever built, and now it was history, it was scattering to the winds. This realization inspired Oscar with deep, unreasoning dread.
“What do you make of all this?” he called out to Jimmy.
“Look, I’m driving,” Jimmy said reasonably. “I can’t watch the news and drive.”
Oscar made his way up the aisle to the front of the bus, where he could lower his voice. “I meant the nomads, Jimmy. I know you’ve had experience with them. I just wondered what you make of this development. Regulator guerrillas, strangling a U.S. Air Force base.”
“Everyone else is asleep, so now you have to talk to me, huh?”
“You know I always value your input. You have a unique perspective.”
Jimmy sighed. “Look, man, I don’t do ‘input.’ I just drive the bus. I’m your bus driver. Lemme drive.”
“Go ahead, drive! I just wondered if … if you thought they were a serious threat.”
“Some are serious.… Sure. I mean, just because you’re a nomad, and you’re on a reputation server with a big trust-rating, and you’re eating grass and home-brewing all kinds of weird bio-stuff.… Look, that doesn’t make you anything special.”
“No.”
“No, but some of ’em are pretty serious guys, because, well, you might bust some homeless loser someday who looks shabby and acts nuts, but it turns out he has heavy-duty netfriends from all over, and bad weird stuff starts happening to you out of thin air.… But hell, Oscar, you don’t need me to tell you about that. You know all about power networks.”
“Yeah.”
“You do that kind of stuff yourself, that’s how you got that guy elected.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“You’re on the road all the time. You’re a nomad yourself, just like they are. You’re a suit-nomad. Most people who meet you—if they don’t know you like we do—they have you figured for a really scary guy, man. You don’t have to worry about your reputation. There might be some nomad netgods who are scarier guys than you are, but not many, believe me. Hell, you’re rich.”
“Money isn’t everything.”
“Oh, come on! Look, I’m