The Zenith Angle - Bruce Sterling [13]
Van winced at the memory of the three FBI guys who had shown up at his Merwinster mansion, seeking his computer security advice. The FBI G-men had been forced to sit in Van’s white plastic picnic chairs. The Bureau guys hadn’t said a word about the plastic chairs—they just drank their instant coffee and took thorough notes on yellow legal pads—but they got that dismissive FBI look in their eyes. They were reclassifying him as a mere informant rather than a fully qualified expert. That wouldn’t do, either.
Dottie didn’t know about the FBI and their discreet visits to the house. Van hadn’t told Dottie about the FBI, for he knew she wouldn’t approve. The interested parties from the Treasury Department and the U.S. Navy Office of Special Investigations had also escaped Dottie’s notice.
This was some catalog. It had chairs made of black leather and bent chrome tubing. Chairs like baseball mitts. Chairs like bent martini glasses. Chairs cut from single sheets of pale, ripply plywood.
Dottie slid a breakfast plate before him. Dottie’s new toaster oven had browned Van’s toast to absolute perfection. Van had never before witnessed such perfect toast. It lacked the crude striping effect that toast got from the cheap hot wires in everyday toasters.
“Derek, can you open this?”
Van put his manly grip to an imported black jar of English jam. The enameled lid popped off with a hollow smack. There was a rush of aroma so intense that Van felt five years old. This was very good jam. This black British jam had such royal Buckingham Palace authority that Van wanted to jump right up and salute.
“Honey, this stuff is some jam.”
“It’s blackberry!” Dottie sang out from behind her copper frying pan. “It’s your favorite!”
Even the baby was astounded by the wondrous smell of the jam. Ted’s round blue eyes went tense. “Dada!” he said.
“He said ‘dada’ again.” Van spread the happy black jam across his perfect toast.
Ted slapped his spit-shiny mitts on his feeding tray. “Dada!” he screeched. “Dada!”
Dottie stared at her son in awe and delight. “Derek, he did say it!”
She rushed over to praise and caress the baby. Baby Ted grinned up at her. “Dada,” he confided. Ted was always good-natured about his mother. He did his best to mellow her out.
Van watched the two of them carrying on. Life was very good for the Dada today. Van wolfed down all eight pieces of his toast. This was a caviar among blackberry jams. “Where on earth did you find this stuff, Dots?”
“Off the Internet.”
“That’ll work. Can you get a case discount?”
“You want more?”
“You bet. Point, click, and ship.”
Van leaned back and slid his toast-crumbed plate aside, increasingly pleased with the universe. Dottie sidled over, bearing a plate of fluffy scrambled eggs. Van lifted his fork, but then his gaze collided with yet another catalog chair. The spectacle unhinged him.
“Holy gosh, Dottie! Look at this thing. Now that’s a chair!”
“It looks like a spider.”
“No, it’s like an elk! Look at those legs!”
“The legs, that’s the most spidery part.”
“It’s made out of cast magnesium!”
Dottie took away Van’s jar of jam. “Paging Stanley Kubrick.”
No way, thought Van. Kubrick’s movie 2001 was all 1968! Now that it really was 2001, all that futuristic stuff was completely old-fashioned. Van sampled his scrambled eggs. They were very tasty indeed. “Magnesium! Wow, no one in the world can tool that stuff, and now it’s in chairs!”
Dottie set her own plate down, with dabs of food on it that would scarcely feed a sparrow. She heaved the restless baby from his high chair and propped him on her slender thigh. Ted was a big kid and Dottie was a small woman. Ted flopped back and forth, flinging his solid head at her like a stray cannonball. “How much does it cost?” she said practically.
“Six hundred. Plus shipping.”
“Six hundred dollars for