NEAL STEPHENSON

atmosphere is different again. The top deck has been turned into an open-air refugee camp. It is swarming with Bangladeshis that L. Bob Rife plucked out of the Bay of Bengal after their country washed into the ocean in a series of massive floods, caused by ieforestation farther upstream in India-hydrological warfare. The camera pans to look out over the edge of the flight deck, and Iown below, we see the first beginnings of the Raft: a relatively small collection of a few hundred boats that have glommed onto the Enterprise, hoping for a free ride across to America.

Rife’s walking among the people, handing out Bible comics and kisses to little kids. They cluster around with broad smiles, pressing their palms together and bowing. Rife bows back, very awkwardly, but there’s no gaiety on his face. He’s deadly serious.

“Mr. Rife, what’s your opinion of the people who say you’re just doing this as a self-aggrandizing publicity stunt?” This interviewer is trying to be more of a Bad Cop.

“Shit, if! took time out to have an opinion about everything, I wouldn’t get any work done,” L. Bob Rife says. “You should ask these people what they think.”

“You’re telling me that this refugee assistance program has nothing to do with your public image?”

“Nope. L-“

There’s an edit and they cut away to the journalist, pontificating into the camera. Rife was on the verge of delivering a sermon, Hiro senses, but they cut him off.

But one of the true glories of the Library is that it has so many outtakes. Just because a piece of videotape never got edited into a broadcast program doesn’t mean it’s devoid of intel value. CIC long ago stuck its fingers into the networks’ videotape libraries. All of those outtakes-millions of hours of footage-have not actually been uploaded to the Library in digital form yet. But you can send in a request, and CIC will go and pull that videotape off the shelf for you and play it back.

Lagos has already done it. The tape is right there.

“Nope. Look. The Raft is a media event. But in a much more profound, general sense than you can possibly imagine.”

“c~h,P

“It’s created by the media in that without the media, people wouldn’t know it was here, Refus wouldn’t come out and glom

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