Sixty days and counting - Kim Stanley Robinson [184]
Frank tried to remember if Caroline had mentioned taking the vote-tilting program out of her own computer or not.
Disturbed, he said, “Edgardo? If I’m going to go along with something like this, I have to be sure it’s for real, and that it’s going to work.” He remembered the SWAT team they had run into in the park, busting the bros with overwhelming force. “That it’s being done by professionals.”
Edgardo nodded. “They can brief you. You can judge for yourself. And she’ll be judging it too. She’ll be in on the planning. It’s not like you will be deciding for her.”
“I should hope not.”
“We would also have to study the situation very thoroughly, until we understood how they have been tracking you, so we can deal with that and put it to use.”
“Good.”
“Stay late tonight at work,” Umberto said. “I’ll try to get you a confirmation.”
“Confirmation?”
“Yes. I can’t guarantee it for tonight, but I’ll try. Just stay late. So we can get you the assurances you require.”
“Okay.”
“Let’s get back to the office,” Edgardo suggested. “This has been a long run.”
“Okay.”
On the way back, after a long silence, Frank said, “Edgardo, what’s this about it all coming from her computers?”
“That’s what they’re finding.”
“Could they have set her up like that?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“But, on the other hand, could she have done the whole thing herself? Written the tampering program, I mean, and then leaked that to us, so we would counteract it ourselves, and thus tip the election to Chase?”
Edgardo glanced at him, surprised perhaps that such a thing would occur to him. “I don’t know. Is she a programmer?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, then. That would be a very tricky program to write.”
“But all the tampering comes from her computer.”
“Yes, but it could have been done elsewhere and then downloaded into her computer, so that this is all we can see now. Part of a frame job. I think her husband set her up from the start.”
“Hmmm.” Frank wasn’t sure now whether he could trust what Edgardo was saying or not; because Edgardo was his friend.
So Frank went back to his office, and tried to think about work, but it was no good; he couldn’t. Diane came by with news that the Netherlands had teamed with the four big reinsurance companies to fund a massive expansion of the Antarctic pumping project, with SCAR’s blessing. The new consortium was also willing to team with any country that wanted to create salt water lakes to take on some of the ocean excess, providing financing, equipment, and diking expertise.
Frank found it hard to concentrate on what Diane was saying. He nodded, but Diane stared at him with her head cocked to the side, and said suddenly, “Why don’t we go out and get lunch. You look like you could use a break.”
“Okay,” Frank said.
When they were in one of the loud little lunch delis on G Street he found he could focus better on Diane, and even on their work. They talked about Kenzo’s modeling for a while, his attempt to judge the effect of the new lakes, and Diane said, “Sometimes it feels so strange to me, these big landscape engineering projects. I mean, every one of these lakes is going to be an environmental problem for as long as it exists. We’re taking steps now that commit humanity to like a thousand years of planetary homeostasis.”
“We already took those steps,” Frank said. “Now we’re just trying to keep from falling.”
“We probably shouldn’t have taken the steps in the first place.”
“No one knew.”
“I guess that’s right. Well, I’ll talk with Phil about this Nevada business. Nevada could turn into quite a different place if we proceeded with all the proposals. It could be like Minnesota, if it weren’t for all the atomic bomb sites.”
“A radioactive Minnesota. Somehow I don’t think so. Does the state government like the idea?”
“Of course not. That’s why I need to talk to Phil. It’s mostly federal land, so the Nevadans are not the only ones who get to decide, to say the least.”
“I see,” Frank said. And then: “You and Phil are doing well?”
“Oh yes.” Now she was looking