Distraction - Bruce Sterling [72]
She was brightening. “Well …”
The door of Room 358 opened, and a black woman came through, in a creaking motorized wheelchair. She had a shock of dirty gray hair and a load of green plastic trash bags.
“I understand about the work,” Oscar said into the phone, while backing cautiously away from the door. “Boston is totally doable.”
“Hi there!” said the wheelchair woman, waving one hand. Oscar slipped his fingers over the phone’s mouthpiece and nodded politely.
The black woman bounded up from her wheelchair, shut it down, and held the door open. Three Anglo men barged into the room, in denim overalls, boots, and battered straw hats. Their hair was dyed blue, their faces were streaked with nomad war paint, and they all wore sunglasses. One of them pushed a mighty wheelbarrow full of wires and flatscreens, and the two others carried large khaki-colored electrical toolboxes.
“You really think that fibrils are hot enough for you to do all that for me?” Greta said plaintively.
“Fibrils are extremely hot.”
The woman with the wheelchair tugged off her fright wig, revealing a neat set of cornrows. She then shrugged off her ragged caftan. Beneath it she wore a navy blue skirt, a blue vest, a silk blouse, and hose.
Her three technicians began assembling a conference network on the welder-stained workbench.
“I’m Oscar Valparaiso,” Oscar announced loudly. “I’m with the committee.”
“You’re early,” the woman told him. She fetched a power-strip and a new set of shoes from one of her trash bags.
“I enjoy a fresh start.” Oscar returned to his phone. “Okay. Okay. Good. I’m glad it’s working out. Lana and I will see to everything. Good-bye.” He crumpled his phone and tucked it in his sleeve.
“So,” he said aloud, “what’s your name?”
“Chris,” the new woman said, carefully straightening a seam. “I’m the committee sysop.” She smiled. “Just the lowly sysop.”
“And is this your krewe?”
“I don’t have a krewe. I’m just a GS-Five. These guys are net subcontractors, they all live here in the squat. See, it’s a little weird about this meeting room.… I mean, for years we met in the Dirksen Senate Building. But the President’s transition team has requisitioned our old offices. So, the Senate Science Committee is kind of between permanent housing assignments right now.”
“I see.”
“They assigned us this room off the federal vacancy server. The trouble is, even though it’s still listed in the server, in reality, this whole building’s been a squat for three years. And we’re not an Emergency committee, so we can’t have the building cleared legally. We’re too low in the chain to have anyone evicted.”
“Well, at least it’s a nice big room,” Oscar said winningly.
“That’s true!” She smiled at him.
“And the two of us are here, so that’s a start. Your wheelchair bag-lady getup is extremely good, by the way.”
“Well, it sure helps a lot with the local roadblocks and ID checks.”
“I can see that you’re a true-blue Washingtonian, Chris.”
“That’s me—Southern efficiency and Northern charm.” Chris’s eye wandered and she elbowed one of her helpers aside. “No, that’s the visual outlet! It’s a sixteen-pin, okay? Let me do that!” She turned to a second man. “Get the router out of the bag. A router, and a squeegee. And a divot. Two data divots. No, not that one! Get me the green one.”
Oscar was charmed. “Do you do these metal sculptures, too, Chris?”
“Those are my boyfriend’s. He kind of guards this space for us, because he can leave the premises on short notice.” She glanced up. “It’s like multitasking, see?”
“I love