The Zenith Angle - Bruce Sterling [89]
Van’s footsteps echoed from the distant vault. This place was like an opera stage, and here, wired for sound, was the diva. Mondiale had spent billions laying fiber-optic easements across America. Out here, DeFanti found a quiet way to cross the Rocky Mountains, sliding through the wilderness, with a giant firehose of natural gas. Gas pipelines were notorious for exploding. Gas pipelines were very dangerous and dirty, never the kind of thing you could build right out in the open. But that infrastructure had to get built somehow. People needed the energy. Everybody happily used the gas pipes. Nobody faced up to the consequences. So the pipes got built by quiet operators. Guys like Tony. A guy who could do a little sleight-of-hand with those telescope mirrors and the all-natural windmills. Who would ever guess that building a telescope was all about natural gas?
Was he being too cruel, too suspicious? His work had changed him. All that dirty work on computer security, stuck inside some bombproof vault. Was he a professional paranoid now? Was he a mean bastard, because he’d spent so much time thinking about terrorists and crooks? Maybe he should have more trust for the motives of big business. Like those fine people of Enron, Arthur Andersen, Global Crossing, and his own beloved Mondiale.
Van rounded the telescope. He spoke to Dottie again. “These walls were built out of hay, right? Don’t you worry about that?”
“It’s strawbale, honey. Strawbale is very safe. When strawbale is packed down tight and walled off like this, it can’t catch fire. Straw is very light, and it’s Green and organic, and it’s great insulation. A telescope spins to follow the stars, you know. This whole building spins just like a top.”
He smiled briefly. “Then it’s great.”
“Everybody asks me that question, about the straw. That’s my number one Frequently Asked Question. The straw is great, honey.”
Dottie drove their electric buggy back to the Facility. Van found himself tired but clearheaded. That ugly failure at Cheyenne Mountain still rankled him, but the sting was fading. Yes, everybody he knew faced a compromise or two. Real life was never made of spun sugar.
Was it so bad that he’d blown it, trying to tackle some satellite’s bureaucracy? Was it that bad that his best friend politically faked people out, so that he could sell them the power and energy those very same people had to have?
Then Dottie took Van into his element. The Facility’s Network Operations Center was three stories high, glass-fronted, and nestled right into a cliff.
“We never thought we’d have so much telecom equipment in here,” she told him. “Our architect built this place for our public relations people. This was supposed to become their office here, a kind of big tourist attraction, but . . .”
Van was thrilled. Every Internet2 office he’d ever seen was like a tomb compared to this fantastic place. It didn’t even spoil his enjoyment that all the hardware was 1990s vintage. Cisco Catalysts, Juniper T640s, Force10s, and Chiaro optical switches . . . They were up and running, too, their fans were humming busily. They were dumping the power of hundreds of toasters into the February air. Van walked past a glass library of color-coded backup tapes. He skirted open metal cabinets, draped with thick gushes of fiber-optic cable.
“Over here”—Dottie beckoned—“there are stairs.”
“Just a sec,” said Van. He had discovered the local network technician on duty. The guy, an Indian, was wearing a bright polyester T-shirt, sky-blue jeans, and joggers. He had a thin hipster chin beard and was leafing through a magazine called Stardust.
He glanced up politely as Van approached him.
“So,” said Van. “How’s that big Code Red attack working out for you guys?”
“Oh, sir! Do I look worried?” The tech chuckled indulgently. “We’re an OpenBSD shop here!”
Van’s eyebrows rose. “Good man! Well then, how about those new RPC vulns?”
“Is just