The Zenith Angle - Bruce Sterling [131]
Derek Vandeveer was also a nonperson. Jeb had a new job handling security with eBay. Fawn had a nice federal post. Michael Hickok, as a policy, never explained to anyone what he was doing.
Van was left alone. Van’s phone did not ring with eager job offers. His e-mail bore no pleas and flattering invitations. Van wasn’t looking for any job in computer security, anyway. Van wasn’t exactly looking for much of anything, really. He was searching.
He was running a small Web log. Nobody seemed to understand Web logs yet. Van had one. It was a quiet, fast-paced Web log. He used it to absorb and spread ideas. Van’s Web log involved genuine issues. The genuine issues were the issues that political people lacked clichés for. Web logs interested Van. There was no money in them, yet, and the political campaigners were just catching on. Web logs were in combat for attention. That was the most interesting thing about them. Combat for attention. War of ideas.
In his deep exile, Van was doing a lot of reading. His field of study was war. He was reading Clausewitz. Clausewitz was a dolt. He was reading Lidell-Hart. Lidell-Hart was full of himself. He was reading Miyamoto Musashi. Musashi was a New-Agey Zen mystic. He was reading Sun Tzu. Sun Tzu had some rather interesting stuff going on.
Official Washington was avoiding Van. Van understood this. He was no more welcome to the official power structure than Watergate burglars and Iran-Contra conspirators. Washingtonians avoided such people while the heat was still on them. The wheel moved back around, eventually. Then the malefactors became talk-show hosts.
Van was earning a little pin money by working on a rollout of Bastille Linux. He was also drinking rather a lot. It was hard for a warrior not to drink when he was kept away from the action. He had discovered a fondness for big pint cans of Foster’s Lager. Once he had been bright, whimsical, inventive. Now he was dark, dangerous, inventive.
The loss of her telescope had brought Dottie’s career to a shattering halt. She left Colorado and brought Ted with her to share Van’s life. The family was broke, and living in a tiny, unfurnished duplex in Pentagon City. They had no careers, few prospects, large tax debts, and a host of personal humiliations. They had no offices, and both had to work underfoot in the grimy nook that called itself a living room. That was also where Ted had his playpen.
If times were hard in computer science, they were brutal in astronomy. Dottie’s people were cutting budgets past the bone. Dottie’s blighted résumé included a lot of public relations work for an astronomical facility that had somehow burned down its telescope. Through no fault or intention of her own, Dr. Dottie Vandeveer had wandered into a world of hurt.
Dottie looked pale and drawn lately. Her face was lined, her brown hair showing strands of gray.
Van rose from the bed. He showered, ignoring the mildew in the grout. He went into the soot-stained kitchen in a T-shirt and underwear.
The four new chairs in the kitchen had red bows on them.
“Happy birthday, honey,” Dottie told him.
“Wow,” Van blurted. “Magnesium chairs!”
“You like them?”
“They are the best!”
“I got them secondhand for you!” Dottie crowed. “Barely used! They were so cheap!”
Van sat in one of the metal chairs. His ass felt metallic and cold through his white cotton underwear, but the chairs had always been a lot more comfortable than they looked. “Four of them, wow!” he said loudly. He sipped his instant coffee. “That’s just great! You are so good to me, babe.” He nibbled some burnt toast.
Dottie perched in one of the chairs. “Derek,” she said shyly.
Van looked at his wife. He knew instantly, in his gut, that Dottie was about to tell him something dreadful. She was using her kindest, sweetest voice, the kind she used when tactfully urging him toward something that would have great rusty fangs like a bear trap. Dottie looked pained