Fifty Degrees Below - Kim Stanley Robinson [184]
Frank drove back to NSF and slept in his van, or tried to. Upstairs early the next morning, feeling stunned and unhappy, he looked at the disk Caroline had given him. Clearly he had to do something with it. He was afraid to put it in his computers. Who knew what it would trigger, or wreak, or report to.
He could put them in a public computer. He could turn off his laptop’s airport transmitter permanently. He could buy a cheap laptop and never airport it at all. He could . . .
He went for a run with Edgardo and Kenzo and Bob. When they got to the narrow path that ran alongside Route 66, he tailed behind with Edgardo, and then slowed a little, and then saw that Kenzo and Bob were talking about some matter of their own, in the usual way of this stretch.
He said, “Edgardo, do you think the election matters?”
“What, the presidential election?”
“Yes.”
Edgardo laughed, prancing for a few strides to express his joy fully. “Frank, you amaze me! What a good question.”
“But you know what I mean.”
“No, not at all. Do you mean, will it make a difference which of these candidates takes office? Or do you mean are elections in general a farce?”
“Both.”
“Oh, well. I think Chase would do better than the president on climate.”
“Yes.”
“But elections in general? Maybe they don’t matter. But let’s say they are good, sure. Good soap opera, but also they are symbols, and symbolic action is still action. We need the illusion they give us, that we understand things and have some control. I mean, in Argentina, when elections went away, you really noticed how different things felt. As if the law had gone. Which it had. No, elections are good. It’s voters who are bad.”
Frank said, “That’s interesting. I mean—if you think they matter, then I find that reassuring.”
“You must be very easily reassured.”
“Maybe I am. I wouldn’t have thought so.”
“You’re lucky if you are. But—why do you need reassurance?”
“I’ve got a disk back in my office that I’d kind of like to show you. But I’m afraid it might be dangerous.”
“Dangerous to the election?”
“Yes. Exactly.”
“Oh ho.” Edgardo ran on a few strides. “May I ask who gave it to you?”
“I can’t tell you that. A friend in another agency.”
“Ah ha! Frank, I am surprised at you. But this town is so full of spooks, I guess you can’t avoid them. The first rule when you meet one is to run away, however.” Edgardo considered it. “Well, I could put it in a laptop I have.”
“You wouldn’t mind?”
“That’s what it’s for.”
“Do you still have contacts with people at DARPA?”
“Sort of.” He shook his head. “My cohort there has scattered by now. That might not be where I would go to get help anyway. You could never be sure if they weren’t the source of your problem in the first place. Do you know what the disk has on it?”
Frank told him what Caroline had said about the plan to fix the election. As he spoke he felt the oddity of the information coming out of his mouth, and Edgardo glanced at him from time to time, but mostly he ran on nodding as if to confirm what Frank was saying.
“Does this sound familiar?” Frank asked. “You’re not looking too shocked.”
“No. It’s been a real possibility for some time now. Assuming that it hasn’t already happened a time or two.”
“Aren’t there any safeguards? Ways of checking for accuracy, or making a proper recount if they need to?”
“There are. But neither are foolproof, of course.”
“How can that be?”
“That’s just the way the technology works. That’s the system Congress has chosen to use. Convenient, eh?”
“So you think there could be interventions?”
“Sure. I’ve heard of programs that identify close races as they’re being tallied, close ones but just outside