An Opening in the Air (Applied Topology Book 2) by Margaret Ball

Author:Margaret Ball [Ball, Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-05-31T22:00:00+00:00

The next Ice Age

Chapter 14

Lensky and I went back to his place with Mr.M., who was ready for another long nap. After, of course, a stop at the doughnut shop. Maintaining a shield wasn’t nearly as draining as teleporting, but being terrified had its own effect on my blood sugar. Still, Lensky seemed to be even more shaken up than I was. He certainly went through his share of sour cream glazed doughnuts after we got home.

After rinsing the sugar off his fingertips, he clicked the remote and pulled me down beside him on the couch facing the TV.

“Planning to watch a nice spy drama to calm yourself down?” I kicked my sandals off so I could sit crosslegged on the oversized sofa cushions.

“Local news,” he said. “Wondering what they made of all this.”

What made it to the news was, as you might expect, not much like what had really happened. The story was headlined as, “Conservative activists clash with liberals over freedom of speech,” and there were no shots of the black-clad BFiN mob in action. What they did have was an interview with the ringlet-adorned guy I’d seen at the BFiN meeting, and either he was making more sense now or the interview had been artistically cut to remove some of the craziness. He actually came across as almost calm and reasonable – if you didn’t listen to the words. I thought his mantra of “Hate speech is violence,” was a stupid way of justifying the actual violence he’d been promoting, but the interviewer treated him as though this was an actual, reasonable argument and that in itself gave him unearned credibility.

Then I sat up in surprise as the talking head on TV said something about “a balanced view,” and they broadcast a picture of Dr. Verrick in his office. His accessible office, that is – the one in the math building. Someone was asking him how he justified his Center researchers’ attacks on protestors.

“That’s not what happened!”

“Shut up,” Lensky said, “I want to hear what they say.”

The unseen interviewer was now asking Dr. Verrick why the Center staff was not more diverse. It wasn’t a line of questioning which inspired him to tactful evasions.

“I hire whoever can do the work,” he snarled. “If you want a black lesbian dwarf on the staff, feel free to encourage her to apply. Him. Them. Xer. Whatever. I don’t care about pronouns, I just want people who can think intelligently about topology.”

“And there you have it,” the interviewer said, cutting off whatever else Dr. Verrick might have said, “a divisive clash between student protestors alarmed by hate speech on their campus, and the representatives of an Center whose director evidently does not believe that diverse applicants are qualified to work there.”

“And that’s not what he said!” I shouted at the screen.

“You should watch more TV,” Lensky said, “you’d get used to the way they lie. I wonder how they got on to Verrick so quickly? Anyway, relax. It could have been worse.

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