Distraction

“Naturally. ”

“The hunger strike is very dangerous. Dramatic moral gestures are very strong meat. They really bring out the sharks.”

“I realize that, and I’m not afraid of it.”

“Let me put it this way, Senator. You and your wife had better really starve.”

“That’s all right,” Bambakias said. “That’s doable. We’ve been hungry for years.”

Like most elements of modern American government, the Buna Na-tional Collaboratory was run by a committee. The source of local authority was a ten-person board, chaired by the Collaboratory’s Di-rector, Dr. Arno Felzian. The members of the board were the heads of the Collaboratory’s nine administrative divisions.

Sunshine laws required the board’s weekly meetings to take place publicly. The modern legal meaning of “public” meant camera cover-age on a net-accessible address. The older tradition of a public meet-ing still held true in Buna, though. Collaboratory workers often showed up in person for board meetings, especially if they expected to see some personal ox gored.

Oscar had chosen to physically attend all of the Collaboratory board meetings. He had no plans to formally a

The board’s public studio was on the second floor of the Col-laboratory’s media center, across an open-air flywalk from the central administration building. The studio had been designed for public meetings back in 2030, with slanted racks of seats, decent acoustics, and nicely placed camera coverage.

But the Collaboratory’s local government had had a checkered history. The net-center had been looted and partially burned during the lab’s violent internal brawls of 2031. The damaged studio had naturally been somewhat neglected during the ensuing federal witch-hunts and the economic warfare scandals. It had crawled some dis-tance back toward respectable order and repair in 2037, when the Collaboratory had shored up its pere

The board’s stage was fully functional, with sound baffles, over-head lighting, standard federal-issue table and chairs. The automatic cameras were in order. The board members were gamely plowing through the week’s agenda. The issue currently at hand was replacing the ailing plumbing system in one of the Collaboratory cafeterias. The head of the Contracts Procurements Division had the floor. He was mournfully reading a list of repair charges from a spreadsheet.

“I can’t believe it’s this bad,” Argow muttered.

Oscar deftly adjusted the screen of his laptop. “Bob, there’s something I need to show you.”

“This is just so impossibly awful.” Argow was ignoring him.

“Before I came here, I never really understood the damage we’ve done. The human race, I mean. The terrible harm we’ve done to our planet. Once you really think about it, it’s absolutely horrifying. Do you realize how many species have been killed off in the past fifty years? It’s just a total, epic catastrophe.”

Audrey leaned in over Oscar’s shoulder. “You promised you’d stop drinking, Bob.”

“I’m sober as a judge, you little shrew! While you’ve been sitting in the dorm with your nose in your screen, I’ve been touring the gardens here. With the giraffes. And the golden marmosets. All wiped out in a holocaust! We’ve poisoned the ocean, we’ve burned down and plowed the jungles, and we even screwed up the weather. All for the sake of modern life, right? Eight billion psychotic media-freaks!”

“Well,” sniffed Audrey, “you’re a fine one to talk on that score.” Argow flinched theatrically. “That’s right! Rub it in! Look, I know full well that I’m part of the problem. I’ve wasted my life run-ning networks, while the planet was destroyed all around me. Well, so have you, Audrey. We’re both guilty, but the difference is that I can recognize the truth now. The truth has really touched me. It’s touched me in here.” Argow pounded his bulky chest.

Audrey’s grainy voice grew silkier. “Well, I wouldn’t fret too much, Bob. You’re not good enough at your work to be any real menace.’

“Take it easy, Audrey,” Oscar said mildly.

Audrey Avizienis was a professional opposition researcher. Once roused, her critical faculties were lethal. “Look, we all came down here, and I’m doing my damn job. But laughing boy here is being a big, holier-than-thou, depressive bringdown. What, he thinks I can’t appreciate nature just because I spend a lot of time on the net? I know plenty about the birds and the bees, and the butterflies, and the cab-bages, and all the rest of that stuff”

“What I know,” Argow muttered, “is that the planet is coming apart, and we’re sitting in this stupid building with these hopeless bureaucratic morons dithering on and on about their sewage prob-lems.”

“Bob,” Oscar said calmly, “you’re missing something.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s every bit as bad as you say. It’s worse than you say. Much worse. But this is the biggest bio-research center in the world. These people in front of us — these are the people who are in charge of this place. So you’re at the front lines now. You’re guilty all right, but you’re nowhere near as guilty as you will be, if you don’t shape up. Because we are in power and you are the responsible party now.”

“Oh,” Argow said.

“So get a grip.” Oscar flipped back his laptop screen. “Now, take a look at this. You too, Audrey. You’re systems professionals, and I need your input here.”

Argow examined Oscar’s laptop screen, his owlish eyes glowing.

A lime-green plane with lumpy reddish mountains. “Uhm… yeah, I’ve seen those before. That’s a, uhm …”

“It’s an algorithmic landscape,” Audrey said intently. “A visual-ization map.”

“I just received this program from Leon Sosik,” Oscar said.

“This is Sosik’s simulation map for current public issues. These moun-tains and valleys, they’re supposed to model current political trends. Press coverage, the feedback from constituents, the movement of lob-bying funds, dozens’ of factors that Sosik fed into his simulator… But now watch this. See, I’m moving these close-up crosshairs … See that big yellow amoeba sitting on that purple blur? That is the current public position of Senator-elect Alcott Bambakias.”

“What,” Argow said skeptically, “he’s way down that slope?”

“No he’s not, not anymore. He’s actually moving up the slope…” Oscar double-clicked. “See, this huge khaki mountain range represents military affairs … Now I’ll kick the simulation back a week, and run it back up to the Bambakias press conference this morning… See the way he kind of oozes up to the issue, and then suddenly jets across the landscape?”

“Wow!” Audrey said. “I’ve always loved old-fashioned hotshot computer graphics.”

“It’s garbage,” Argow grumbled. “Just because you have a cute simulation doesn’t mean you’re actually co

“Okay, so it’s not real. I know it’s not real, that’s obvious. But what if it works?”

“Well,” Argow mused, “even that doesn’t help much. It’s just like stock-market analysis. Even if you get some technique that does work, that’s strictly temporary. Pretty soon everyone else gets the same analytical tools, and then your advantage disappears. You’re right back where you started. Except for one thing. From then on, every-thing becomes much, much more complicated.”

“Thanks for that technical insight, Bob. I’ll try to keep that in mind.” Oscar paused. “Audrey, why do you suppose Leon Sosik sent me this program?”