SNOW CRASH

and walked through the detector. Flashed her badge. Signed her name and noted down the digital time. Submitted to a frisking from an EBGOC girl. Annoying, but it sure beats a cavity search. They have a right to do a cavity search if they want. She got cavity-searched every day for a month once, right after she had spoken up at a meeting and suggested that her supervisor might be on the wrong track with a major programming project It was punitive and vicious, she knew it was, but she always wanted to give something back to her country, and whenever you work for the Feds you just accept the fact that there’s going to be some politicking. And that as a low-level person you’re going to bear the brunt. And later on, you dimb the GS ladder, don’t have to put up with as much shit. Far be it from her to quarrel with her supervisor. Her supervisor, Marietta, doesn’t have an especially stellar CS level, but she does have access. She has connections. Marietta knows people who know people. Marietta has attended cocktail parties that were also attended by some people who, well, your eyes would bug out.

She has passed the frisking with flying collars. Put the metal stuff back into her pockets. Climbed up half a dozen flights of stairs to her floor. The elevators here still work, but some very highly placed people in Fedland have let it be known-nothing official, but they have ways of letting this stuff out-that it is a duty to conserve energy. And the Feds are real serious about dut. Duty, loyalty, responsibility. The collagen that binds us into the United States of America. So the stairwells are filled with sweaty wool and clacking leather. If you took the elevator, no one would actually say anything, but it would be noticed~ Noticed and written down and taken into account. People would look at you, glance you up and down, like, what happened, sprain your ankle? Taking the stairs is no problem.

Feds don’t smoke. Feds generally don’t overeat. The health plan is very specific, contains major incentives, get too heavy or wheezy and, no one says anything about it-which would be rude-but you feel a definite pressure, a sense of not fitting in, as you walk across the sea of desks, eyes glance up to follow you, estimating the mass of your saddlebags, eyes darting back and forth between desks as, by consensus, your co.workers say to

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