The Caryatids - Bruce Sterling [70]
Radmila leaned in. “And you, Glyn Montgomery: You think you’re pretty smart, but you’d better work like you’ve never worked before. Because the Firm’s gotten fat and lazy. We need skill and discipline. You think you know what pain and trouble is all about? You are the fair-haired child of fortune, girl! You don’t know half of what it means to suffer in this world. Well, I do know that: and you will know it. So you just get ready.”
Glyn stared at her in astonishment. Glyn was genuinely frightened. But Glyn was frightened in a new and different and much more constructive way.
This was going to work. This had to work. Radmila would make it work.
RADMILA’S FAMILY COUP D’éTAT went according to Glyn’s careful plan. If the new Montgomery-Montalban system was not yet a regime, it was at least a provisional government. It was a huge emotional relief to the Family-Firm that someone—anyone—had stepped into the aching gap left by Toddy Montgomery.
So that first bold act would carry Radmila a little ways, but to cement her position, she would need a Dispensation-style juggernaut of rapid and effective action.
So: a major household remodeling project. The Bivouac was well overdue for a remake and remodel, and it was one arena where Radmila would not be challenged.
Toddy Montgomery had placed the gymnasium in the basement of the mansion, for a lady did not show her public that she had to sweat. Obviously, in the modern Los Angeles star system, where stars were physically dominant, swaggering street presences, the gym had to become the lady’s power base.
So: Radmila moved the gymnasium into the former Situation Room. Radmila hired—not Frank Osbourne, he was too much the seasoned establishment starchitect—but one of Osbourne’s best disciples, a younger woman freshly gone into her own practice. This young architect was ambitious, modish, and contemporary, and she badly needed a leg-up.
Grateful for her big break, the new decorator didn’t dawdle. Radmila’s new gym was transformed. It was no longer a dusty place of clanking iron and steroidal machismo. No, it was the “Transformation Spa,” a gleaming balletic wonderland of Zen river pebbles embedded in clear Perspex, reactive areogel yoga mats, sunlight-friendly, semitranslucent, ultra-high-strength oxide ceramic roof panels, with a one-way treatment that repelled passing spyplanes…
Furthermore—lest the Family-Firm feel neglected—the newly emptied basement was swiftly transmuted into the new Situation Room, or rather, the Montgomery-Montalban Situation Bunker.
If California was facing a looming supervolcano, then the revived and vigorous Family-Firm would not wring their hands about that challenge. Their new Situation Bunker was entirely mounted on tremor-proof springs, and fully sealable against volcanic, seismic, atomic, biological, and chemical mishaps.
The Situation Bunker was soberly traditional in its design philosophy—American Superpower traditional. It was a bunker fit for the Joint Chiefs of Staff Planning for D-Day: pragmatic, sleek, no-nonsense, efficient, incorruptible, and continental in scale. Very Bell System, very Westing-house, very General Motors.
There was some mild grumbling about Radmila’s ambitious reforms, but Glyn held up her end, Uncle Jack was with her all the way, Lionel was infallibly enthusiastic, and there were no Family arguments at all about the new nursery.
Furthermore, no one could deny that a young matriarch was much more fun than an elderly matriarch. For all Toddy’s wisdom and street smarts, Toddy’s last years had had a Hapsburg Empire feeling, an overwrought, enfeebled system tottering toward its grave on a baroquely gilt walker. With Radmila in charge, the Family-Firm had a spring in its step again. There was a clear dynamic visible. There was forward motion.
Since the