Natch paced back and forth on the icy plain, his eyes tracing the patterns their footsteps made in the snow. It was not outside the realm of possibility that Petrucio was making the whole thing up, although the details of his story were easily verifiable. More likely he simply planned to not get caught telling lies. According to the drudges, Creed Objectivv"s enforcement of the truthtelling oath was only slightly more effective than the Meme Cooperative"s enforcement of fiefcorp business ethics.
"So let"s say I take you at your word," said Natch frostily. "You had nothing to do with this black code attack. You"re a devotee of Creed Objective now. You"re an honorable businessman. What about Frederic?"
A look of stupefaction dashed across Petrucio Patel"s face until his features abruptly morphed into a perfect PokerFace. "And exactly what are you suggesting?" he said.
Natch narrowed his eyes to slits as he strode up to his rival"s face, close enough to take a bite out of his hawkish nose. "I know all about those Objective tricks," said Natch. "You pledge to always tell the truth, so you play subtle word games. "I had nothing to do with this. I didn"t hire anybody to ambush you in the street. I"ve been far too busy preparing for our presentation." But listen carefully, Petrucio. Until you can prove to me that both you and Frederic are playing on the level, the Patel Brothers are number one on my hit list. And you haven"t seen how I do business when I"m really p.i.s.sed off. I"ll tear you to pieces. I"ll use every f.u.c.king trick outlawed by the Meme Cooperative. I"ll throw that MultiReal license to the dogs without thinking twice about it, and f.u.c.k the consequences."
Petrucio nodded almost imperceptibly, the look on his face a hybrid of amus.e.m.e.nt and respect. Then he was gone.
Shortly after the conclusion of the Patel Brothers" presentation, the Surina/Natch MultiReal Fiefcorp held a meeting. The apprentices all arrived at the conference room with their belongings in tow, since they were planning to head home immediately afterwards.
Natch was surprised to discover that Margaret Surina had not come down from her perch in the Revelation Spire after the Council"s departure, although most of the guards had already been redeployed around the compound. The scuttleb.u.t.t among the security staff was that Margaret was busy right now moving her office to an alcove in the spire"s peak. But whatever the reason, the bodhisattva had not responded to any of Natch"s ConfidentialWhispers. Instead, she sent a token message of congratulations to the entire team, the same kind of pro forma civility they had received from Lucas Sentinel, Prosteev Serly and Billy Sterno, among others.
As for Frederic and Petrucio Patel, their product demo did not go well.
Their misfortune was partly the result of a breaking news story that quickly occluded any other topic on the Data Sea. The Speaker of the Congress of L-PRACGs had been caught in a major embezzlement sting involving a group of highly placed TubeCo lobbyists. That, along with Borda"s heavy-handed and highly unpopular speech, had caused a groundswell of support for the libertarians. Opponents were clamoring for a vote of no confidence in the governmentalist Speaker. The drudges were now predicting that, within the next twenty-four hours, control of the Congress would fall to rabid libertarian Khann Frejohr.
But the Patel Brothers could not completely blame their failure on bad timing. They had compounded their misfortune with a number of poor choices of their own. They had no hands-on demonstration to show the crowd. The PatelReal 1.0 program schematics floated, unused, in an enormous Minds.p.a.ce bubble above the stage, while Petrucio prattled on about raging waters and safe sh.o.r.es. Frederic wore a hideous chocolate-brown suit that offended the sensibilities of even the most fashion-challenged members of the audience. Afterwards, the drudges spent hours comparing notes on the rampant headaches caused by the thumping ba.s.s drum of the Patels" soundtrack. Even those commentators who had been overtly hostile to Natch a day earlier had to admit that the Surina/Natch MultiReal Fiefcorp had clearly beaten its rival to the punch.
Thus, Natch and his apprentices were in a celebratory mood.
Horvil arranged for a platter full of margaritas to be delivered to the conference room and made a big production of turning off his alcohol-metabolizing OCHREs. He clinked gla.s.ses loudly with Jara, Merri, Benyamin and Quell in a show of solidarity. Even the multi- projected Vigal sipped an illusory drink from a virtual gla.s.s. Natch had never cared for the unsatisfying sensation of multi food; all taste and no substance. Yet, he too had a confident smile on his face, and his tranquil mood inspired the room to summon a cozy New England SeeNaRee. The conference table sat on a bearskin rug in the midst of an old-fashioned ski lodge, while a fire crackled on the hearth behind them.
"Anybody been scouting around the Data Sea for reactions from the drudges?" said Horvil.
"Of course," replied Jara. "Everyone is totally polarized over your demonstration, Natch. Some people are wondering if you released some hallucinogenic black code on the audience. And there"s an amusing debate going on about whether or not you actually swung the bat 500 million times."
"Did you?" asked Ben, a little uncertainly.
Natch laughed. "Not even close! Five hundred million possible swings, but only one actual one. You want to take a stab at explaining, Horv?"
"It"s simple, really," began Horvil. "Once MultiReal has reduced the swing of the bat into a formula, you just plug in parameters and create a mathematical progression of realities. So, you swing the bat at 90 degrees and then 91 degrees and then 92 degrees and on and on ... and then you don"t actually have to do them all."
"Then you"d have an infinite number of baseb.a.l.l.s," Benyamin pointed out in confusion.
"No no no." Horvil conjured up a virtual calculator on the conference table and began drunkenly plugging in numbers. "See, if you convert the field of vision into a grid of Cartesian s.p.a.ce and calculate the coordinates of each audience member, then you can plug x, y, and z values into the MultiReal program and work backwards to generate a baseball hit to that point. Then, of course, you have to factor in wind resistance and gravitational pull-"
"Enough, Horv!" interjected Jara. "We get the point. What I want to know is why everybody remembered those discarded realities. Quell, you told us n.o.body would remember them unless they were using MultiReal themselves."
"Right," said Quell. "That was the alteration Horvil made at the last minute."
"I wasn"t even sure it was going to work," mumbled the engineer. "Just lucky it did, I guess."
"The important thing is that few people seem to doubt that the demonstration was genuine," said Serr Vigal. "Billions of people watched the whole thing over a video feed, and most of them accept what they saw as the true and actual version of events."
Quell stretched his beefy arms out behind his head and leaned back in his chair, looking well pleased. "I can"t imagine a better way to introduce MultiReal to the world," he said. "A little girl holding a baseball. You don"t get much better PR than that."
"Natch, who is Magan Kai Lee?" blurted Merri out of nowhere.
The fiefcorp master"s visage darkened. A sudden gust of wind caused the cabin door to slam open, and a SeeNaRee coyote started baying off in the distance. "Why?"
"Someone by that name keeps sending me urgent messages," responded the channel manager sheepishly. "Four times in three days. He even showed up at my apartment the other day and scared Bonneth out of her wits. He won"t say what it"s about, but I a.s.sume it has something to do with MultiReal."
Serr Vigal planted his chin on his fist with a look of exhaustion. He exchanged a dark glance with Natch, who pa.s.sed him some silent signal to proceed. "Magan Kai Lee is Len Borda"s number two man at the Defense and Wellness Council," said the neural programmer. "He was there with the High Executive during our meeting this morning. We think Borda has put him in charge of dealing with MultiReal."
"Lee ... is he the guy who"s been speaking at the Council news conferences lately?" said Horvil, scratching his head. "He"s real short. Chinese, I think."
Natch gave a weary nod. "That"s him."
"I don"t understand," said Jara. "What do they want from us? If Borda"s so worried about infoquakes, why are they terrorizing Merri? We didn"t have anything to do with that disturbance during Margaret"s speech. Shouldn"t they be talking with the Data Sea architects?"
"Haven"t you figured it out yet?" said Natch. "These infoquakes- if they even exist-are the least of Borda"s concerns. MultiReal is dangerous, Jara. Think of an a.s.sa.s.sin who can fire a black code dart that hits its target every time. That"s scary enough. But imagine what an army of people running MultiReal could do."
n.o.body said anything for a good two minutes.
"So yes, Merri, we"re going to be hearing a lot more from Len Borda and Magan Kai Lee," said Natch. "You can count on it. They"re going to be our biggest hurdle from here on out."
All trace of levity had vanished from Benyamin"s face. "Our biggest hurdle? What other hurdles are there?"
"Don"t be naive, Ben! It"s a big world. All kinds of fanatics are going to decide MultiReal is the solution to their problems. Do you think everyone"s going to sit patiently and wait for us to go through the product development process?"
"Someone has already decided not to wait," interjected Merri in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.
Silence shrouded the room once again.
"Have we made any headway on the black code problem?" said Jara. "Do we know what it does?"
Vigal shook his head. "I"ve taken a few cursory scans of Natch"s system, but I haven"t been able to come up with much. It"s capable of putting him to sleep. That much is clear. All I can say is, be patient. There are thousands of OCHRE machines in the human body. It may take some time to examine them all."
"How do you know the code is still there?" asked the bio/logic a.n.a.lyst.
"Programs have signatures, Jara," explained Horvil. "They leave traces." His alcohol-inhibiting OCHREs were back on in full force; the engineer was now stone cold sober. "Your typical piece of black code self-destructs after it"s done all its dirty work. No incriminating evidence, right? But there"s so many safeguards against erasing OCHRE programming that you usually know it if a piece of black code selfdestructs inside of you."
"That is often the only way people know they"ve been infected at all," added Vigal. "They don"t notice the insertion, but the selfdestruct they can feel."
"So who are the prime suspects?" asked Jara.
Natch muttered something noncommittal.
Jara tugged at a few stray curls of hair in frustration. "Well, who do you think did it? The Patel Brothers? Lucas Sentinel? This other bodhisattva you"ve been working with? Who?"
The fiefcorp master"s face suddenly twisted into a rictus of fear, anger and pain. His right fist flew out and slammed into the conference table with a reverberating thump that caused everyone to gasp in astonishment. "I don"t know!" he cried out. "I just don"t know, Jara! But it"s my problem-not yours! Leave me the f.u.c.k alone!"
n.o.body spoke for a few moments as Natch wrestled with his emotions. The fiefcorp master seemed to be on the verge of losing complete control. Vigal raised a hand and started towards Natch"s left shoulder, then thought better of it and returned the hand to his lap.
The SeeNaRee picked up on the foul mood and hurled a blistering wind across the plain outside. There were so many possibilities, so many potential enemies. Everyone had heard stories about the shadowy organizations that existed outside the dominion of the Prime Committee and the Defense and Wellness Council. The violent factions of the Pharisees who yearned to bring humanity back to G.o.d"s Natural Order ... the unpredictable ma.s.ses of the diss who escaped, eluded or just plain ignored the edicts of the law ... creed bodhisattvas on the fringes who preached destruction while spurning the normalizing umbrella of the Creeds Coalition ... radical libertarians who denied the legitimacy of the central governments and actively worked for their destruction. And this list didn"t even include the disruptive forces arrayed against them inside the bounds of civilized society. L-PRACGs desperate to get their hands on any ultimate weapon that could put an end to ancient ethnic rivalries ... unscrupulous fiefcorps which would leap headlong into thievery and murder if it would help them make a profit ... drudges and demagogues with narrow personal agendas who could whip the public into a revolutionary frenzy ... conservative politicians who could quarantine MultiReal behind a wall of rules and regulations to ensure that the program never saw the light of day.
Soon, Natch had muscled the panic into a temporary chokehold, and his face showed nothing but the normal intensity, the normal restlessness, the normal insanity. "I don"t think we need to worry too much about the black code for the moment," he said. "Len Borda"s people are sniffing around looking for the ambushers. I think his show of force this afternoon scared them off. If these people in the black robes wanted me dead-or wanted you all dead-it would have happened by now.
"But if you"re looking for a way out ..."
Without warning, the wolf inside took over and Natch burst into that predatory grin. The grin of the savage beast, the grin that put fear inside his friends and enemies alike.
"If you want a way out, I"ll give you one. You all have twenty-four hours to liquefy your shares and cash out your contracts at no penalty. Anyone who doesn"t have the stomach for this, anyone who doesn"t want to keep looking over their shoulder wondering where the next surprise is coming from, now"s your chance to get out."
Natch took the tube out to Cisco again to see the redwoods. He sat for hours mesmerized by their beauty, until they merged together in his mind, until all he could see were different aspects of one universal Tree.
Of course, the challenges had just begun. They had always just begun. Natch had connived and bargained and bluffed his way through the bio/logics game, only to find himself playing in a much more complex game. The stakes were higher here. You could lose your business. You could lose your possessions. You could lose your life, and the lives of those around you.
But had anything really changed? He remembered being five years old and feeling the oppressive weight of that bureau pressing down upon him. He remembered a very real fear that the blocks he had used to prop it up would slip away and leave him dead on the floor.
He stopped in Omaha on the way home.
"I think she"s going to quit," Natch said to Serr Vigal, sitting on a velvet chaise in the neural programmer"s study.
Vigal was in his kitchen, preparing tea the traditional way, by steeping fragrant leaves in near-boiling water. Natch found it a peculiar time-wasting habit. But then again, he had trekked across the continent enough times for a glimpse at the redwoods to look past a petty vice like caffeine. The older man carefully drew the antique china cup and saucer to his lips, blew softly, and took a tentative sip. Relaxation immediately rippled across his face. "Which one?" he said. "Merri or Jara? "
"Jara, of course. Mark my words, she"ll be taking orders from that peon Lucas Sentinel before the end of the week. As for Merri-I think she"ll stay aboard."
"Are you certain?"
"I know what you"re afraid of, Vigal. You"re thinking that sooner or later, Magan Kai Lee is going to get to her and start playing the morality card. Would the Bodhisattva of Creed Objective want you to stand up for a man like Natch? He hasn"t been asking you to lie and violate your vows, has he? But I think she"s stronger than she looks. Merri won"t turn on us."
The neural programmer came into the study and took a seat across from his protege. Natch watched his mentor squint at something out the window. He knew from long experience that Vigal wasn"t preoccupied with the view of downtown Omaha two hours before sun-up; he was preparing to make an emotional statement. "So who do you think was responsible for the black code, Natch?" he asked finally. "The Patels?"
"Petrucio says he doesn"t know about any black code," replied Natch. "And even though I"ve never trusted him before, there"s something different about him lately. He really did pledge to Creed Objective. He was telling the truth about that much at least. Maybe Frederic ordered the black code attack-although if it was Frederic, he did it behind Petrucio"s back."
"So if not the Patels, who then? One of your other compet.i.tors?"
"Like who? Bolliwar Tuban, or the Serlys, or Billy Sterno? They don"t have that kind of imagination. Pierre Loget has the expertise to put together a piece of black code that powerful, but it would never occur to him. And Lucas Sentinel is afraid of his own shadow. The Meme Cooperative scares him silly, let alone the Council."
"What about your old hivemate? Have you considered whether he might have been involved?"
"Krone." The word came out like a sneer. "Well, he certainly has the motive. And he has all those Creed Tha.s.sel resources at his disposal. But I stood in the same room with him for an hour, Vigal, and I came out in one piece. If Brone wanted me dead, Len Borda wouldn"t have scared him off-he would"ve pulled the trigger and gotten his revenge on me regardless."
"Gorda then."
Natch rose impatiently from the chaise and began to tread around the room, doing his best to avoid the Oriental knickknacks stacked in every corner. "That"s my worst fear. Hasn"t everything turned out his way? After sixteen years of failed negotiations with Margaret, he"s finally gotten his foot in the door. But if shooting me full of black code was Borda"s way of getting me under his thumb, he went to some pretty extraordinary lengths to pull off the bluff. If Borda knew I wasn"t in any danger, why did he order a legion of Council troops to swarm all over the Surina compound and make all those threats? It just doesn"t make sense."
"Perhaps his henchman Lee ordered the attack without Borda"s knowledge."
"Maybe. Magan Kai Lee is a weasel. Who knows what that man is capable of."
Vigal caressed his goatee thoughtfully. Natch could see a grand topic of conversation sequestered behind that furrowed brow, waiting for the right moment to spring. "I know this might sound absurd," said the neural programmer, "but have you considered the possibility that Margaret Surina was behind this?"
Natch halted mid-pace and gave Vigal a look as if the caffeine had addled his brain. "Margaret? Why? She brought me into this whole mess in the first place."
"I don"t know." The neural programmer finished his tea down to the dregs and set the empty cup on a side table. "I really can"t think of a motive. But she certainly has the ability to create that kind of black code-and plenty of people at her disposal to marshal a strike team. And let us not forget that you"ve been conducting all these fiefcorp meetings at the Enterprise Facility. She could very easily have put you under surveillance."
Natch shook his head. "Margaret can"t be too happy about my making a deal with Len Borda so quickly, but I"m not sure she even knows about it yet." Brone"s words echoed in his mind: Certainly you must know by now that Margaret isn"t dealing in good faith with you. What happens when Margaret Surina grows tired of you, as she surely will? Natch thought back to that conversation and barely stopped himself from kicking over Vigal"s ceramic tea service in anger. "I wonder what Margaret"s going to do. I can"t believe she"s just going to sit up in that tower and forget about MultiReal."
"Yet, that appears to be what she is doing."
The two remained silent for a few minutes, lost in thought. Natch moved to the window to watch the pre-dawn lights from Omaha"s gambling quarter. Behind him, he could hear the neural programmer delicately crack his knuckles in preparation for a strenuous lecture.
"Natch, do you remember what that capitalman once told you about the natural wants of the universe?" the neural programmer burst out suddenly.
"Figaro Fi," Natch replied. "Everything that a.s.shole said is permanently stuck in my head. The universe just won"t stay still. It wants to move; even its smallest particles want to be in motion."
"Have you ever thought," said Vigal hesitantly, "about whether the universe wants you to succeed?"
The laughter came bubbling out of Natch like a hot spring. "What a silly thing to say! Do you think the Demons of the Aether are out to get me?"
"Demons of the Aether?"
"You know, those old stories about bio/logic programs that come alive ... and turn on their masters!" The fiefcorp master raised his hands in mock horror as he pantomimed the old dramas, the trite serials that used to exploit fears of the Autonomous Revolt. "So you think I was attacked by ghosts in Shenandoah. Is that it, Vigal?"
His old mentor smiled good-naturedly and rolled his eyes. "No, no, no, I didn"t mean it that way. The Data Sea isn"t conjuring up evil robots to interfere with your sales demos. There"s a depressingly human explanation behind that black code incident, even if we haven"t been able to figure out what it is."
"So what do you mean?"
Vigal ducked his head shyly and plowed on, his eyes glued to the carpet. "I mean that the world runs by natural laws, Natch. Just as there are laws of physics and thermodynamics and gravity, there are laws of social dynamics too. Laws of humanity. Figaro Fi was right: the universe does push and pull you in certain directions, but that doesn"t mean it wants you to succeed. For thousands of years, we"ve been telling tales about the dangers that befall people who accomplish too much. Why? Because those tales have an underlying truth: power unbalances the natural energy of the world.
"Stop chuckling! I"m quite serious. You follow the bio/logic markets, don"t you? You see this happen every day. A business triumphs over its rivals and gets stronger. Others become jealous and resentful. Eventually, the company"s enemies conspire together to bring it down, or it rots from within. It"s the same thing that happens with animals ... plants ... trees. Why? Because there"s some mystical force guiding our actions? No, because too much power concentrated in one place creates stasis. And stasis is anathema to a universe that desires constant motion and change."
Natch grimaced and tugged at his hair, but there was more annoyance than anger in his voice. "Vigal, you can be so frustrating sometimes!" he protested. "All this nonsense about what the universe wants-you"re worse than all the creed bodhisattvas put together! Why do you have to make some kind of-of fairy tale out of this whole thing? I"m just a businessman trying to sell some programs. That"s all."
The neural programmer gave a self-deprecating shake of the head. "All right, you want more down-to-earth advice? Sheldon Surina once said, Practice should not precede theory. Savor your moment of triumph and don"t do anything rash."
"If I never did anything rash, I"d still be coding RODs."
"All I"m saying is that Margaret worked on MultiReal for sixteen years without bringing it to market. She must have had her reasons. You"ve had control of the program for less than a week and you"re ready to sell it to everyone from here to Furtoid."
"That"s called capitalism, Vigal. What do you want me to do? If I don"t keep moving, someone else will just snap up MultiReal and do the same thing."
All at once, Serr Vigal looked weary and old. He shrank deeper into his chair as if trying to will himself into the seams of the fabric. "I think you"re too young to understand this. The natural wants of the universe do not work in our favor, Natch. Autumn always follows summer. Everything dies. You may be on top of the world now, but you cannot stay there forever. The world is not kind to conquerors."
The fiefcorp master stood at the window, facing the sunset with a gladiator"s belligerent stare. He could feel faint echoes of death emanating from the black code inside him. But during the past twentyfour hours, he had found a new confidence flowering beside the dread, a confidence fertilized by desire and sprouted from fear. He had seriously expected to be dead by now, and the fact that he was still living and breathing and staring out Vigal"s window gave him hope.
"Don"t worry about me, Vigal," he said. "I can handle everything the world throws at me. Just watch."
Night came to London. For Jara, it was not a falling but a terrible rising, a mute upsurge of blackness that seeped from every pore of the apartment walls and puddled along the floors until it soaked her to the chest, constricting her breath.