Distraction

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Distraction Page 9

by Bruce Sterling


  “I see.” She straightened in her seat, placed her hands on the steering wheel, and drew a breath. “Please do go on, this is truly enormously interesting.”

  “Well, they were trying to sell me and their other products, but the overhead was just too high, and their failure rate was huge, and worse yet the market crashed when it turned out there was a cheaper medical workaround for sperm damage. Once they had the testicular syndrome fixed, it kicked the bottom right out of the baby market. So I was less than a year old when somebody ratted them out to the world health people, and then the blue-helmet brigade busted in from Europe and shut the whole place down. They confiscated all of us. I ended up in Denmark. Those are my earliest memories, this little orphanage in Denmark…An orphanage and health clinic.”

  He had forced himself to tell this story many times, far more times than he had ever wanted to tell it to anyone. He had a prepared spiel of sorts, but he had never fully steeled himself to the dread it caused him to talk about it, the paralyzing stage fright. “Most of the product just didn’t make it. They’d really screwed with us trying to get us tank-worthy. I had a full genetic scan done in Copenhagen, and it turned out that they’d simply lopped off most of the introns from the zygote DNA. See, they somehow figured that if they could prune away some junk DNA from the human genome, then the product would be hardier in the tank and would run more efficiently…Their lab guys were all med-school dropouts, or downsizees from bankrupt HMOs. Also, they spent a lot of time high on synthetic cocaine, which was always the standard collateral industry with South American genetic black-marketeering…”

  He cleared his throat and tried to slow down. “Anyway, to get back to the point of my personal history, they had this blue-helmet Danish commando type who had led the raid in Colombia, and he ended up as the expert technical adviser on my dad’s movie. This Danish commando and my dad got to be drinking buddies on the set, so when my dad came up with this adoption notion, the Danish guy naturally thought, ‘Well, why not one of the kids from my own operation?’ and he pulled some strings in Copenhagen. And that’s how I ended up in Hollywood.”

  “Are you really telling me the truth?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Could I drive you back to the lab and take a tissue sample?”

  “Look, the tissue’s just tissue. To hell with my tissue. The truth is a much bigger thing than my tissue. The truth is that people have a prejudice against persons like me. I can take their point, too, frankly. I can run a political campaign and I can get away with that, but I don’t think I’d ever actually vote for me. Because I’m not sure that I can really trust me. I’m really different. There are big chunks in my DNA that probably aren’t even of human origin.”

  He spread his hands. “Let me tell you how different I am. I don’t sleep. I run a permanent mild fever. I grew up really fast—and not just because I spent my childhood in the L.A. fast lane. I’m twenty-eight now, but most people assume I’m in my mid-thirties. I’m sterile—I’ll never have kids of my own—and I’ve had three bouts of liver cancer. Luckily, that kind of cancer treats pretty easily nowadays, but I’m still on angiogenesis inhibitors, plus growth-factor blockers, and I have to take antitumor maintenance pills three times a month. The other eight kids from that raid—five of them died young of major organ cancers, and the other three…well, they’re Danes. They are three identical Danish women with—let me just put it this way—with extremely troubled personal lives.”

  “Are you sure you’re not making this up? It’s such a compelling story. Do you really have an elevated body-core temperature? Have you ever had a PET-scan done?”

  He looked at her meditatively. “You know, you’re really taking this very well. I mean, most people who hear this story have to go through a certain shock period…”

  “I’m not a medical doctor, and genetic expression isn’t really my field. But I’m not shocked by that story. I’m astonished by it, of course, and I’d really like to confirm some details in my lab, but…” She considered it, then found the word. “Mostly, I’m very intrigued.”

  “Really?”

  “That was truly a profound abdication of scientific ethics. It violated the Declaration of Helsinki, plus at least eight standards of conduct with human subjects. You’re obviously a very brave and capable man, to have overcome that childhood tragedy, and achieved the success that you have.”

  Oscar said nothing. Suddenly, his eyes were stinging. He’d seen a wide variety of reactions to his personal background confession. Mostly, reactions from women—because he rarely had to confess it at all, except to women. A business relationship could be begun and concluded without outing himself; a sexual relationship, never. He’d seen a full gamut of reactions. Shock, horror, amusement, sympathy; even a shrug and shake of the head. Indifference. Almost always, the truth gnawed at them over the long term.

  But he’d never seen a reaction like Greta Penninger’s.

  __________

  Oscar and his secretary Lana Ramachandran were walking through the garden behind the sloping white walls of the Genetic Fragmentation Clinic. The garden bordered one of the staff housing sections, so there were children around. The constant piercing screams of young children meant that this was a good place to talk privately.

  “Stop sending the flowers to her dorm residence,” Oscar told her. “She never goes there. Basically, she never sleeps.”

  “Where should I have them delivered, then?”

  “Into her laboratory. That’s more or less where she lives. And let’s turn up the heat on those bouquets—move off the pansies and zinnias, and right into tuberoses.”

  Lana was shocked. “Not tuberoses already!”

  “Well, you know what I mean. Also, we’re going to start feeding her soon. She doesn’t eat properly—I can tell that. And later, we’ll style her and dress her. But we’ll have to work our way up to that.”

  “How are we even supposed to reach her? Dr. Penninger works inside the Hot Zone,” Lana said. “That’s a full-scale Code 4 biohazard facility. It’s got its own airlocks, and the walls are eight feet thick.”

  He shrugged. “Dip the flowers into liquid nitrogen. Get ’em sealed in plastic. Whatever.”

  His secretary groaned. “Oscar, what is it with you? Have you lost your mind? You can’t really be making a play for that woman. I know your type really well by now, and she’s definitely not your type. In fact, I’ve asked around some—and Dr. Penninger is not anybody’s type. You’re gonna do yourself an injury.”

  “Okay, maybe I have a sudden aberrant sweet tooth.”

  Lana was genuinely pained. She wanted the best for him. She was quite humorless, but she was very efficient. “You shouldn’t act like this. It’s just not smart. She’s on the board of directors, she’s someone who’s officially in charge around here. And you’re a staffer for her Senate oversight committee. That’s a definite conflict of interest.”

  “I don’t care.”

  Lana was in despair. “You’re always doing this. Why? I can’t believe you got away with shacking up with that journalist. She was covering the campaign! Somebody could have made a huge ethics stink about that. And before that, there was that crazy architecture girl…and before that, there was that worthless Boston city management girl…You can’t keep getting away with this, cutting things close this way. It’s like some kind of compulsion.”

  “Look, Lana, you knew my romantic life was a problem as soon as you met me. I do have ethics. I draw the line at having an affair with anyone in my own krewe. All right? That would be bad, that would be workplace harassment, it’s like incest. But here I am, and what’s past is past. Greta Penninger has made her career here, she’s someone who really understands this facility. Plus, she’s very bored, and I know that I can get to her. So we have commonalities. I think we can help each other out.”

  “I give up! I’ll never figure out men. You don’t even know what you want, do you? You wouldn’t know what to do with happiness if it was s
tanding right in front of you, begging you to notice.”

  Lana had gone too far now. Oscar assembled and aimed a scowl at her. “Look, Lana, when you find me some happiness that you know will really suit me—me, in particular—then write me a memo about it. All right? In the meantime, can you get off the dime with the flowers effort?”

  “All right, I’ll try,” she said. “I’ll do my best.” Lana was angry with him now, so she stalked off into the gardens. He couldn’t help that. Lana would come around. Lana always did. Dealing with him took her mind off her own troubles. Oscar strolled on, whistling a bit, examining the fretted dome of the sky, an evil winter skein of gray scudding harmlessly above the sweet federal bubble of warm and fragrant air. He tossed his hat in his hand, catching it by its sharp and perfect brim. Life was definitely looking up for him. He skirted a blooming mass of rare azaleas in order to miss a drowsing antelope.

  He’d chosen these Collaboratory gardens as his confidential offices lately. He’d given up using the Bambakias tour bus, since the bus seemed to attract so many determined bugging efforts. They would have to return the bus to Boston soon, anyway. That seemed just as well—high time, really. There was no use in remaining dependent on loaned equipment. Scratch the old bus, inhabit the brand-new hotel. Just keep the krewe together, keep up the core competencies. Keep the herd moving. It was progress, it was doable.

  Fontenot emerged from the flowering brush and discovered him. To Oscar’s mild surprise, Fontenot was exactly on schedule. Apparently the roadblock situation was easing in Louisiana.

  The security man was wearing a straw hat, vest, jeans, and black gum boots. Fontenot had been getting a lot of sun lately. He looked more pleased with himself than Oscar had ever seen him.

  They shook hands, checked by habit for tails and eavesdroppers, and fell into pace together.

  “You’re getting a lot of credit for this Air Force base debacle,” Fontenot told him. “Somehow, it’s staying news. If the pressure keeps building, something’s bound to crack.”

  “Oh, giving me the credit for that is all Sosik’s idea. It’s a fallback position for the Senator. If the situation blows a valve, then the experienced chief of staff can always make a fall guy out of the rash young campaign adviser.”

  Fontenot looked at him skeptically. “Well, I didn’t see ’em twisting your arm when you did those two major interviews…I don’t know how you found the time to get so fully briefed on power blackouts and Louisiana politics.”

  “Power blackouts are a very interesting topic. The Boston media are important. I’m very sentimental about the Boston media.” Oscar laced his hands behind his back. “I admit, it wasn’t tactful to publicly call Louisiana ‘the Weird Sister of American States.’ But it’s a truism.”

  Fontenot couldn’t be bothered to deny this. “Oscar, I’ve been pretty busy getting my new house set up properly. But proper security isn’t a part-time job. You’re still paying me a salary, but I’ve been letting you down.”

  “If that bothers you, why not put in a little work on the hotel site for us? It’s a big hit locally. These Buna people love us for it.”

  “No, listen. Since we’ll soon be parting company for good—and I really mean that, this time—I thought I’d run some full-scale security scans for you, across the board. And I’ve got some results for you. You have a security problem.”

  “Yes?”

  “You’ve offended the Governor of Louisiana.”

  Oscar shook his head rapidly. “Look, the hunger strike isn’t about Governor Huguelet. Huguelet has never been the issue. The issue is the starving air base and the federal Emergency committees. We’ve scarcely said a word in public about Green Huey.”

  “The Senator hasn’t. But you sure have. Repeatedly.”

  Oscar shrugged. “Okay, obviously we haven’t much use for the Governor. The guy’s a crooked demagogue. But we’re not pushing that. As far as the scandal goes, if anything, we’re Huey’s tactical allies at the moment.”

  “Don’t be naive. Green Huey doesn’t think the way you guys think. He’s not some go-along get-along pol, who makes tactical deals with the opposition. Huey is always the center of Huey’s universe. So you’re for him, or you’re agin him.”

  “Why would Huey make unnecessary enemies? That’s just not smart politics.”

  “Huey does make enemies. He enjoys it. It’s part of his game. It always has been. Huey’s a smart pol all right, but he can be a one-man goon squad. He learned that when he worked in Texas for Senator Dougal.”

  Oscar frowned. “Look, Dougal’s out of the picture now. He’s finished, history. If Dougal wasn’t in the dry-out clinic, he’d probably be in jail.”

  Fontenot glanced around them with reflexive suspicion. “You shouldn’t talk like an attack ad when you’re standing inside a place that Dougal built. This lab was always Dougal’s favorite project. And as for Huey, he used to work in here. You’re walking in Huey’s footsteps. When he was the Senator’s chief of staff, he twisted arms around here hard enough to break a few.”

  “They built this place all right, but they built it crooked.”

  “Other politicians are crooked too, and they don’t build a goddamn thing. East Texas and South Louisiana—they finally got their heads together and cut a big piece of the pie for themselves. But things have always run crooked in this part of the country, always. They wouldn’t know what to do with clean government. Old Dougal fell down pretty hard in the long run, but that’s just Texas. Texas is ornery, Texans like to chew their good old boys up a little bit before they bury them. But Huey learned plenty from Dougal, and he doesn’t make Dougal’s mistakes. Huey is the Governor of Louisiana now, he’s the big cheese, the boss, the kahuna. Huey’s got himself two handpicked federal Senators, just to shine his shoes. You’re bad-mouthing Huey up in Boston—but Huey is sitting just over yonder in Baton Rouge. And you’re getting in Huey’s face.”

  “All right. I take the point. Go on.”

  “Oscar, I’ve seen you do some very clever things with nets, you’re a young guy and you grew up using them. But you haven’t seen everything that I’ve seen, so let me spell this out for you nice and careful.”

  They turned around a riotous bougainvillea. Fontenot assembled his thoughts. “Okay. Let’s imagine you’re a net-based bad guy, netwar militia maybe. And you have a search engine, and it keeps track of all the public mentions of your idol, Governor Etienne-Gaspard Huguelet. Every once in a while, someone appears in public life who cramps the style of your boy. So the offender’s name is noticed, and it’s logged, and it’s assigned a cumulative rating. After someone’s name reaches a certain level of annoyance, your program triggers automatic responses.” Fontenot adjusted his straw hat. “The response is to send out automatic messages, urging people to kill this guy.”

  Oscar laughed. “That’s a new one. That’s really crazy.”

  “Well, yeah. Craziness is the linchpin of the whole deal. You see, there have always been a lot of extremists, paranoiacs, and antisocial losers, all very active on the nets…In the Secret Service, we found out a long time ago that the nets are a major intelligence asset for us. Demented, violent people tend to leave some kind of hint, or track, or signal, well before they strike. We compiled a hell of a lot of psychological profiles over the years, and we discovered some commonalities. So, if you know the evidence to look for, you can actually sniff some of these guys out, just from the nature of their net activities.”

  “Sure. User profiles. Demographic analysis. Stochastic indexing. Do it all the time.”

  “We built those profile sniffers quite a while back, and they turned out pretty useful. But then the State Department made the mistake of kinda lending that software to some undependable allies…” Fontenot stopped short as a spotted jaguarundi emerged from under a bush, stretched, yawned, and ambled past them. “The problem came when our profile sniffers fell into the wrong hands…See, there’s a different application for that protective software. Bad people
can use it to compile large mailing lists of dangerous lunatics. Finding the crazies with net analysis, that’s the easy part. Convincing them to take action, that part is a little harder. But if you’ve got ten or twelve thousand of them, you’ve got a lotta fish, and somebody’s bound to bite. If you can somehow put it into their heads that some particular guy deserves to be attacked, that guy might very well come to harm.”

  “So you’re saying that Governor Huguelet has put me on an enemies list?”

  “No, not Huey. Not personally. He ain’t that dumb. I’m saying that somebody, somewhere, built some software years ago that automatically puts Green Huey’s enemies onto hit lists.”

  Oscar removed his hat and carefully adjusted his hair. “I’m rather surprised I haven’t heard about this practice.”

  “We Secret Service people don’t like it publicized. We do what we can to fight back—we wiped out a whole nest of those evil things during Third Panama…but we can’t monitor every offshore netserver in the world. About the best we can do is to monitor our own informants. We always check ’em, to see if they’re getting email urging them to kill somebody. So have a look at this printout.”

  They found a graceful wooden garden bench. A small child in a pinafore was sitting on it, patiently petting an exotic stoat, but she didn’t seem to mind adult company. Oscar silently read through the text, twice, carefully.

  The text was nowhere near so sinister and sophisticated as he had somehow imagined it. In fact, the text was crude and banal. He found it deeply embarrassing to discover his own name inserted into a murderous rant so blatant and so badly composed. He nodded, slipped the paper back to Fontenot. The two of them smiled, tipped their hats to the little girl, and went back to walking.

  “It’s pathetic!” Oscar said, once they were out of earshot. “That’s spam from a junk mailbot. I’ve seen some junkbots that are pretty sophisticated, they can generate a halfway decent ad spiel. But that stuff is pure chain-mail ware. It can’t even punctuate!”

 

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