Cyberpunk

on all sides, your cheap manufactured goods seducing the people of our great country, our minerals and works of art disappearing into your fortresses, never to reappear!” The last line brought Jefferson to his feet.
    Sutherland shrank back into her chair. “The common good requires a certain period of, uh, adjustment—”
    “Oh, come on, Tom,” Rice broke in. “We didn’t ‘join forces,’ that’s a lot of crap. We kicked the Brits out and you in, and you had damn-all to do with it. Second, if we drill for oil and carry off a few paintings, it doesn’t have a goddamned thing to do with your liberty. We don’t care. Do whatever you like, just stay out of our way. Right? If we wanted a lot of backtalk we could have left the damn British in power.”
    Jefferson sat down. Sutherland meekly poured him another glass, which he drank off at once. “I cannot understand you,” he said. “You claim you come from the future, yet you seem bent on destroying your own past.”
    “But we’re not,” Rice said. “It’s this way. History is like a tree, okay? When you go back and mess with the past, another branch of history splits off from the main trunk. Well, this world is just one of those branches.”
    “So,” Jefferson said. “This world—my world—does not lead to your future.”
    “Right,” Rice said.
    “Leaving you free to rape and pillage here at will! While your own world is untouched and secure!” Jefferson was on his feet again. “I find the idea monstrous beyond belief, intolerable! How can you be party to such despotism? Have you no human feelings?”
    “Oh, for God’s sake,” Rice said. “Of course we do. What about the radios and the magazines and the medicine we hand out? Personally I think you’ve got a lot of nerve, coming in here with your smallpox scars and your unwashed shirt and all those slaves of yours back home, lecturing us on humanity.”
    “Rice?” Sutherland said.
    Rice locked eyes with Jefferson. Slowly, Jefferson sat down. “Look,” Rice said, relenting. “We don’t mean to be unreasonable. Maybe things aren’t working out just the way you pictured them, but hey, that’s life, you know? What do you want, really ? Cars? Movies? Telephones? Birth control? Just say the word and they’re yours.”
    Jefferson pressed his thumbs into the corners of his eyes. “Your words mean nothing to me, sir. I only want . . . I want only to return to my home. To Monticello. And as soon as possible.”
    “Is it one of your migraines, Mr. President?” Sutherland asked. “I had these made up for you.” She pushed a vial of pills across the table toward him.
    “What are these?”
    Sutherland shrugged. “You’ll feel better.”
    After Jefferson left, Rice half expected a reprimand. Instead, Sutherland said, “You seem to have a tremendous faith in the project.”
    “Oh, cheer up,” Rice said. “You’ve been spending too much time with these politicals. Believe me, this is a simple time, with simple people. Sure, Jefferson was a little ticked off, but he’ll come around. Relax!”
    Rice found Mozart clearing tables in the main dining hall of the Hohensalzburg Castle. In his faded jeans, camo jacket, and mirrored sunglasses, he might almost have passed for a teenager from Rice’s time.
    “Wolfgang!” Rice called to him. “How’s the new job?”
    Mozart set a stack of dishes aside and ran his hands over his short-cropped hair. “Wolf,” he said. “Call me Wolf, okay? Sounds more . . . modern, you know? But yes, I really want to thank you for everything you have done for me. The tapes, the history books, this job—it is so wonderful just to be around here.”
    His English, Rice noticed, had improved remarkably in the last three weeks. “You still living in the city?”
    “Yes, but I have my own place now. You are coming to the gig tonight?”
    “Sure,” Rice said. “Why don’t you finish up around here, I’ll go change, and then we can go out for some sachertorte, okay? We’ll make a night of it.”
    Rice dressed carefully, wearing mesh body armor under his velvet coat and knee britches. He crammed his pockets with giveaway consumer goods, then met Mozart by a rear door.
    Security had been stepped up around the castle, and floodlights swept the sky. Rice sensed a new tension in the festive abandon of the crowds downtown.
    Like everyone else from his time, he towered over the locals; even incognito he felt dangerously conspicuous.
    Within the club Rice faded