“Perfectly clear, Mr. President.”
“Welcome to the glamorous world of the executive branch.” The President vanished. The amber waves continued on, serenely.
With persistent effort, they pried Oscar’s head out of the virtuality rig. He found himself the center of the transfixed attention of two hundred people.
“Well?” Kevin demanded, brandishing a leftover microphone.
“What did he say?”
“He hired me,” Oscar announced. “I’m on the National Secu-rity staff.”
Kevin’s eyes widened. “Really?”
Oscar nodded. “The President is backing us! He’s sending troops here to protect us!”
A ragged cheer broke out. The crowd was overjoyed. There was a pronounced hysteric edge to their reaction: farce, tragedy, triumph; they were punch-drunk. It was all they could do to jostle each other and yak into their phones.
Kevin shut off the microphone and tossed it aside. “Did he say anything about me?” Kevin asked anxiously. “I mean, about my wak-ing him up last night, and all that?”
“Yes he did, Kevin. He mentioned you specifically.”
Kevin turned to the person nearest at hand, who happened to be Lana Ramachandran. Lana had been rousted from a shower and had rushed to the media center in her dressing gown and slippers. “The President noticed me!” Kevin told her loudly, rising to his full height with a look of ennobled astonishment. “He talked about me! I really count for something! I matter to the President.”
“God, you are hopeless!” Lana told him, gritting her teeth.
“How could you do this to poor Oscar?”
“Do what?”
“Look at him, stupid! He’s covered with hives!”
“Those aren’t hives,” Kevin corrected, staring at Oscar analyti-cally. “It’s more like heat rash or something.”
“What is this huge bloody lump on his head? You’re supposed to be his bodyguard, you dumb bastard! You’re killing him! He’s only flesh and blood!”
“No he’s not,” Kevin said, wounded. His phone rang. He an-swered it. “Yes?” He listened, and his face fell.
“That big stupid cop-dressing faker,” Lana growled. “Oscar, what’s wrong with you? Say something to me. Let me feel your pulse.” She seized his wrist. “My God! Your skin’s so hot!”
The front of Lana’s dressing gown fell open. Oscar examined a semicircle of puckered brown nipple. The hair stood up on his neck. He suffered a sudden, violent, crazy surge of sexual arousal. He was out of control. “I need to lie down,” he said.
Lana looked at him, biting her lip. Her doelike eyes brimmed with tears. “Why can’t they tell when you’re coming apart? Poor Oscar! Nobody even cares.”
“Maybe a little ice water,” he muttered.
Lana found his hat and set it gently on his head. “I’ll get you out of here.”
“Oscar!” Kevin shouted. “The south gate is open! The lab is being invaded! There are hundreds of nomads!”
Oscar responded instantly, with whip crack precision. “Are they Regulators or Moderators?” But the emerging words were gibberish. His tongue had suddenly swollen inside his head. His tongue was bloated and huge. It was as if his mouth had two tongues in it.
“What’ll we do?” Kevin demanded.
“Just get away from him! Let him be!” Lana shrieked. “Some-body help me with him! He needs help.”
Once checked into the Collaboratory clinic, Oscar got the reaction he always received from medical personneclass="underline" grave puzzlement and po-lite distress. He was exhibiting many symptoms of illness, but he couldn’t be properly diagnosed, because his metabolism simply wasn’t entirely human. His temperature was soaring, his heart was racing, his skin was erupting, his blood pressure was off the scale. Given his unique medical background, there was no obvious course of treat-ment.
Nevertheless, a proper head bandage, an ice pack, and a few hours of silence did him a lot of good. He finally drifted into a healing sleep. He woke at noon, feeling weary, sore, and shaken, but back in control. He sat up in his hospital bed, sipping tomato juice and exam-ining news on his laptop. Kevin had abandoned him. Lana had insisted that the rest of the krewe leave him alone.
At one o’clock Oscar had an impromptu gaggle of visitors. Four hairy, booted nomads burst into his private room. The first was General Burningboy. His three young toughs looked impossibly sinister — war-painted, glowering, muscular.
The General had brought him a large bouquet. Holly, yellow daffodils, and mistletoe. The floral symbolism was painfully obvious.
“Howdy,” said Burningboy, appropriating a vase and dumping its previous contents. “Heard you were feelin’ poorly, so me and my boys dropped by to cheer you up.”
Oscar gazed thoughtfully at the invaders. He was glad to see them. It improved his morale to be back on the job so quickly. “That’s very good of you, General. Do have a seat.”
Burningboy sat on the foot of the clinic bed, which squealed alarmingly under his weight. His three followers, ignoring the room’s two chairs, crouched sullenly on the floor. The oldest one set his back firmly against the door.
“Not ‘General.’ Corporal. I’m Corporal Burningboy now.”
“Why the demotion, Corporal?”
“Simple matter, really. I used up all my network trust and credi-bility when I ordered fifty girls into this facility. Those young women have fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters — boyfriends, even. I put those little darlings into harm’s way, just on my own recognizance. And, well, that pretty much burned out all my credibility. Years of effort, right down the drain! Now, I’m just some little jasper.”
Oscar nodded. “I take it this has something to do with reputa-tion servers and your nomad networks of trust.”
“Yup. You got it.”
“It seems absurd that you should be demoted, when your paramilitary operation was such a signal success.”
“Well now …” Burningboy squinted. “I might recoup some of my lost prestige — if it could be shown that we Moderators were der-ivin’ some benfjit from all this risky activity.”
“Aha.”
“So far, we haven’t gotten a dang thing outta any of this, except a sleepless night for the worried families of our valiant warriors.”
“Corporal, you are right. I completely concur with your analysis. Your help was invaluable, and as yet, we’ve done nothing for you in return. I acknowledge that debt. I am a man of my word. You were there for us when we needed you. I want to see you happy, Corporal Burningboy. Just tell me what you want.”
Burningboy, all beard-grizzled smiles, turned to one of his com-panions. “Did you hear that? Beautiful speech, wasn’t it? Didya get all that down on tape?”
“Affirmative,” the nomad thug growled.
Burningboy returned his attention to Oscar. “I seem to recall a lot of pretty promises about how we Moderators were going to get a lovely press spin out of this, and how we were going to be knights and paladins of federal law and order, and all about how we were going to embarrass our old rivals the Regulators… And not that I doubt your sworn word for a minute, Mr. Presidential Science Adviser, sir, but I just figured that with four hundred Moderators in-house, that would be… how do I put this?”
“You said it was an incentive,” offered thug number two. “That’s the very word. ‘Incentive.’ ”
“Very well,” Oscar said. “The facility is in your hands. Your troops took it over last night; and now you’ve occupied it with hundreds of squatters. That wasn’t a part of our original agreement, but I can understand your motives. I hope you can also understand mine. I talked to the President of the United States last night. He told me he’s sending in troops.”