"She's hysterical," Oscar gasped. He ducked another swing. The cop pulled her spraygun and fired. There was a hiss of high-speed mist. Moira's eyelids flicked upward like electric shutters. She collapsed to the floor.

"She was really in a state," Oscar said, rubbing his elbow. "You have to allow her some leeway."

"Mr. Valparaiso, I understand that sentiment," Officer O'Reilly said.

"But I'm on live helmetcam. She disobeyed two direct orders to stop battering you. That is not acceptable. City policy is very strict regarding domestic disputes. If we have to take action to break up a physical quarrel, the offending party is gonna spend the night in the cooler. You understand me, sir? That's city policy. No ifs, ands, or buts. She's under arrest."

"She'd just been shot at. She was very upset."

''I'm very aware of that fact, but you'll have to take that up with Special Weapons and Tactics. I'm with the bicycle patrol." She paused. "Don't worry, SWAT is on their way right now. They're very rapid-response when it comes to firearm incidents."

"Oh, that's all right," Oscar said. "Please don't think I was being ungrateful. It was very brave of you to charge headlong into a shootout. That's a very commendable action."

Officer O'Reilly smiled briefly. "Oh, the drones had the perp down as soon as the shots were triangulated. He's in custody already."

"Excellent work."

The officer gazed at him thoughtfully. "Are you really sure you're all right?"

"Why do you say that?" He paused. "Oh. Yes, of course. Yes, I'm very upset by all this. It's the fourth attempt on my life in the past three weeks. I need to make my situation clear to the local authorities-but I got into town just an hour ago. I lost track of time."

Moira stirred on the floor and moaned faintly.

"Would you like a hand loading her into the paddy wagon?"

"That's all right, Mr. Valparaiso. I think we can manage."

The police downtown were very polite to him. Polite, but unyield-ing. Once Oscar had successfully repeated his story for the third time, he relaxed. He had been in a little mental fugue state. Not for the first time, of course-they'd been happening to him since childhood. Nothing life-threatening, but it wasn't the kind of response that formed the human standard.

Oscar sometimes liked to imagine that he was brilliant under pressure, but that was a pretense. He wasn't brilliant. He was just extremely fast. He wasn't a genius. He just burned more brightly, his internal chip-cycle ran a little faster. Now, with the fugue fading, he felt shaky-even with a solemn police promise of extra surveillance and bike patrols.

His assailant-a victim of senile paranoia-had almost managed to shoot him. But Oscar couldn't seem to connect. The facts weren't registering. He was numbed.

He went upstairs to his third-floor office. He unlocked his desk and retrieved his super-special crisis notebook. Also, a vintage Water-man pen. At times like this it always helped him to make a list. Not on a screen. With his own hands. He placed the journal down on his Eero Saarinen desktop, and began to write: A. Become Bambakias chiif of staff.

B. Reform Collaboratory. Internal coup. Purge. Remove entire old guard. Cut budget drastically, reform finances. Note: with luck a success here will obviate any need for second committee assignment.

C. Huey. Is deal possible? Consider full range of countermeasures. D. Augment personal krewe. Stop desertions. Note: Buna hotel must clear profit. Note: engage new security director at once. Must be trusted implicitly.

E. Return bus to FedDems, must pay for new paint job.

F. Greta. More sex, less email. Note: Boston Visit Imminent!!! Fly krewe members in for conference support, prepare total makeover. Note: use ALL extra days, insist on this. Note: prepare groundwork within Buna while she is OUT of lab-feigned illness gambit. PS I think I love her.

G. Need house-sitter.

H. Return stupid animal to Buna, arrange good cover story. Note: avoid corruption entanglements.

I. I really must stay alive and not be shot thru netwar harassment. Note: this issue needs much higher ranking.

J. Who the hell sent that demolition mob to the bank in Worcester?

Note: rational game strategy not possible when pieces are invisible, intangible, or immaterial.

K. Emergency committees must go. They were basic source of Bambakias/Huguelet contretemps. American political situation basically impossible when constitutional authority flouted by irresponsible usurpers. Note: even chief of staff position is fatally subject to their caprice.

L. Sen. Bambakias-hunger strike physical state depression?

Oscar gazed at his list. He had already used up half the alphabet, and he could feel the very air around him swarming with the unfore-seen. It was all just too much. It was chaos, madness, a writhing nest of eels. It was just too complex. It was utterly unmanageable. Un-less . . . unless somehow the process was automated. With more specific goals. Some reengineering. Critical path analysis. Decentral-ization. Co-optation. Thinking outside the box. But then there were so many other people. They all depended on him. He had to depu-tize. . ..

He was stymied. He was surrounded. He was through, finished, crushed. There was no possibility of coherent accomplishment. Noth-ing was ever going to move.

He had to do something. Just one thing. Get one single thing accomplished, put one issue finally away.

He picked up the desk phone. Lorena's secretary fielded the call. He fought his way through.

''I'm sorry, Oscar," Lorena told him, "I have Alcott on another line. Can I call you back?"

"This won't take long. It's important."

"Yes?"

"There's news. Moira is in jail, here in Boston. I tried to reason with her about the situation. She lost control, she got violent. There happened to be a policeman handy, luckily for me. The Boston cops have nailed Moira on a domestic battery charge."

"Good Lord, Oscar."

"I don't plan to press charges against her, but I don't want to tell her that. I want you to handle it now. It's time for you to take over. Moira's in the slammer, I'm playing the angry heavy, and you're her forgiving guardian angel. You see? You're going to smooth it all over for her, keep it all quiet. That's how we have to play it with her, because that's how it's going to work."

"Are you kidding? Let her rot!"

"No, I'm not kidding. I'm handing you a permanent solution here. Think about it."

A long and thoughtful silence. "Yes, you're right, of course. That is the best way to handle it."

"I'm glad that you see it my way."

"I'll have to grit my teeth a little, but it's worth it." A meditative pause.

"You're really amazing."

"Just part of the job, ma'am."

"Is there anything else?"

"No. Wait. Yes. Tell me something. Does my voice sound all right to you?"

"For an encrypted line, this is a great connection."

"No, I mean, I'm not talking really fast? Not, like, a high-pitched squeal?"

Lorena lowered her voice to a croon. "No, Oscar, you sound great. You are completely wonderful. You are handsome and charm-ing, you are completely dependable, you are Mr. Realpolitik. I trust you completely. You have never, ever failed me, and if I had owned that goddamn lab in Colombia I would have cloned a dozen of you. You are the best in the whole wide world."

6.

Greta arrived after midnight, in an unmanned cab. Oscar checked his door monitor. A Green-house nor'easter had come in, and fat snowflakes swirled in the conical glow of alerted streetlights. A wan-dering police drone zipped behind Greta's head like a black leather swallow. Oscar unlocked his door, peering with a game and cheery grin from behind its bulletproof facing. She stamped in with a face like a thundercloud. He rapidly abandoned the notion of embracing her. "You didn't have any trouble getting here, I hope?"

"In Boston? Heavens no." She yanked her hat off and knocked snow from its brim. "Boston's so civilized."

"There was a little trouble in the street earlier." Os-car paused delicately.

"Nothing too serious. Tell me all about your conference."

"I've been out with Bellotti and Hawkins. They were trying to get me drunk." She was, Oscar realized belatedly, very drunk indeed. She was plastered. He re-lieved her of her coat like a nurse removing a bandage. Greta was dressed in her best: knee-length woolen skirt, sensible shoes, green cotton blouse.

He hung her hat and rumpled coat inside the entrance alcove. "Bellotti and Hawkins would be the gentlemen study-ing fibrils," he prompted. Her scowl faded. "Well, it's a pretty good conference. It's just a bad night. Bellotti was buying us drinks, and Hawkins was shaking me down for lab results. I don't mind talking results before publication, but those guys don't play fair. They don't want to reveal their really hot stuff" Her lips thinned with contempt. "It might have commer-cial potential."

"I see."

"They're industry hustlers. They're all cagey, and edgy, and streetwise. They're hopeless."

He led her through the dayroom and snapped on the kitchen lights. In the sudden cozy glow, her face looked congealed and waxy. Smudgy lipstick. Loopy-looking crisp dark hair. The unplucked eye-brows were especially unfortunate.

She closely examined the pedestal chairs, the chromed table, the ceramic rangetop island, the built-in resonators. "This is some kind of kitchen you have here," she said wonderingly. "It's so . . . clean. You could do labwork in this kitchen."

"Thanks. "

She settled with drunken caution into the white plastic shell of a Saarinen tulip chair.

"You have every right to complain," Oscar said. "You're sur-rounded by exploiters and morons."

"They're not morons, they're very bright guys. It's just ... Well, I don't do industrial work. Science is not about the money. Basic science is all about ... Basic research, you see, it's supposed to be for . . ." She waved one hand irritably. "What the hell was it?"

"For the public good?" Oscar suggested suavely.

"Yeah, that was it! The public good! I suppose that sounds totally naive to you. But I do know one thing-I'm not supposed to be stuffing my own bank account while the taxpayers pick up my tab."

Oscar dug through the glossy sliding shelves of a Kuramata cabi-net.

"Would a coffee help? I've got freeze-dried."

The scowl returned, settling into her eyebrows as if tattooed there. "You can't do real science and be a businessman on your week-ends. If you're serious about it, there aren't any weekends."

"This is a weekend, Greta."

"Oh." She gazed at him with an alcohol-fueled melange of sur-prise and regret. "Well, I can't stay with you for the whole weekend. There's a hot seminar tomorrow morning at nine. 'Cytoplasm Domains.'"

"Cytoplasm sounds very compelling."

''I'm here for tonight, anyway. Let's have a little drink together." She opened her purse. "Oh no. I forgot my gin. It's in my bag." She blinked. "Oh no, Oscar, I forgot my overnight bag! I left it back at the hotel. .

"You also forgot I don't drink," Oscar said.

She cradled her forehead on the heels of her hands.

"It's fine," Oscar said. "Just forget about work for a minute. I have a krewe. We can supply anything you need."

She was havinga bad moment at the kitchen table: doubt and bitterness.

"Let me show you my house," Oscar told her cheerfully. "It'll be fun." He led her into the dayroom. It had a Piet Heim elliptical coffee table, steel-and-birchwood cantilever chairs, an inflatable vinyl divan.

"You've got modern art," she said.

"That's my Kandinsky. Composition VIII, from 1923." He touched the frame, adjusting it by a hair's width. "I don't know why they still call this 'modern art' when it's a hundred and twenty years old." She carefully studied the glowing canvas, glanced at Oscar medi-tatively, examined the painting again. "Why do they call this stuff 'art' at all? It's just a big mess of angles and blobs."

"I know it seems that way to you, but that's because you don't have any taste." Oscar restrained a sigh. "Kandinsky knew all the big period art krewes: Blaue Reiter group, Surrealists, Suprematists, Fu-turists .... Kandinsky was huge."

"Did it cost you a lot of money?" Clearly she hoped not.

"No, I picked it up for peanuts when the Guggenheim threw a fire sale. All the art between 1914 and 1989-you know, the Com-munist Period, the core of the twentieth century-that's all totally out of fashion nowadays. Kandinsky is the very opposite of 'modern art' now, but you know, I find him absolutely relevant. Wassily Kandinsky really speaks to me. You know .

. . if Kandinsky were alive to-day . . . I really think he might have understood all this."

She shook her head woozily. "'Modern art' ... How could they get away with all that? It's like some huge, ugly scam." She sneezed suddenly. "Sorry. My allergies are acting up."

"Come with me."

He led her to his media center. He was particularly proud of this room. It was a modern political war room done in a period idiom. Chairs of pierced aluminum were stacked against the wall, there were modular storage units, swarms of flat displays. Danish shelving, a caster-trolley, bright plastic Kartell office baskets. Handsome Milanese lamps. . . . No frills, no furbelows, no wasted motion. Everything pruned back, all very efficient and sleek.

"This looks all right," she said. "I could work in a place like this. "

"I'm glad to hear you say that. I hope you'll have that chance." She smiled. "Why not? I like it here. This place is very you." He was touched. "That's very sweet, but I should be honest about it .... It's not my interior design. I mean, that Kandinsky canvas was certainly my choice, but after I sold my start-up company, I bought this house, and I brought in a professional designer. . . . I was very focused about my house then. We worked on this place for months. Giovanna was very good about it, we used to absolutely haunt the antique markets. . . ."

" 'Giovanna,' " she said. "What a lovely name. She must have been very elegant."

"She was, but it didn't work out."

Greta gazed with sudden waspish attention at the tracklights and the gleaming tower of chairs. "And then there was that other per-son-the journalist. She must have loved this media room."

"Clare lived here! This was her home."