Geosynchron (40 page)

Magan lets his guard down long enough for a vigorous laugh to
escape. It leavens the mood considerably. The lieutenant executive gives Natch a curt nod and dashes off to speak with two of his undercover officers who are inhabiting a booth at the other end of the
bodega.

Horvil and Serr Vigal approach him as soon as Magan is out of
earshot. Horvil seems somewhat sheepish now that he's actually faceto-face with his old friend, while Vigal looks like he's holding back
tears of gratitude.

"So," begins Horvil lamely, twirling his hands like a magician
about to reveal his latest trick. "I guess we found you."

"You did."

Vigal is studying him closely. "You're uninjured? You're okay?"

"I am."

Natch feels a little awkward being so laconic with his oldest friend
and his legal guardian. These aren't strangers, but the two people in
the world who know him better than anyone. Yet Natch senses that the
gulf separating them has only grown wider in the past few months.
How to explain what he has been through? How to explain that the
person they have been pursuing spiraled down into nothingness on
the streets of Old Chicago? Not only is that person gone, but some of
the memories of their common experiences have disappeared too.

Apparently Horvil and Vigal also perceive that something has
changed. Now that they've found him, they don't quite know what to
say. Natch takes the initiative. "Who's the Pharisee that's been traveling with you?" he asks.

Horvil and Vigal exchange a look. "Richard Taylor," says the engineer. "Very nice guy. He's the whole reason we were able to track you
here in the first place. Says he belongs to an organization that you've
dealt with-the Renowned Order of, of the ..."

"The Faithful Order of the Children Unshackled?" says Natch.
"Yes, I remember them. What does he want?"

"Says he's got a message for you." Horvil heads off the inevitable
question with a shrug. "I have no idea. You'll have to ask him."

The conversation loses its legs at that point. Serr Vigal looks like
he's burgeoning with awkward questions and confessions that aren't
appropriate for a 49th Heaven bodega, so Natch decides to usher them
out for now. "Listen, Magan's going to be back any minute. I'm going
to need to talk with him." He gestures at the lieutenant executive, who
has been holding intense conversations with a series of grim Council
officers that are streaming purposefully in and out of the doorway. The
proprietor has been watching all this with a terror approaching full-on
meltdown.

"I'm sorry," says Vigal, hands in his pockets and eyes downcast.
"We really had no idea Magan Kai Lee was following us. If we had
known we were leading him to you ..."

Natch waves his hand dismissively. "Of course you didn't know.
I'm aware of that. Don't worry, if I didn't want to talk to him, I would
have stayed hidden. Things are different now."

"So. . ."

"Why don't you wait for me at your hotel. I'll catch up with you
in an hour or two, after I'm done with Magan." And then, seeing the
anxious expressions on Horvil's and Vigal's faces at his suggestion: "As
I said, things are different now. I'm not running anymore. Not ever
again. I'll come find you."

The engineer and the neural programmer might realize that something has changed, but they still aren't persuaded by Natch's words.
Nevertheless, they give him awkward pats on the shoulder and edge
out of the bodega with multiple backward glances.

Not two minutes later, Magan Kai Lee returns. He takes a seat
opposite Natch without asking and pours himself two fingers of sake.
"My troops are coordinating with the 49th Heaven L-PRACGs.
They've got the storefront under surveillance, and it looks like Halloran Kushida will be in our custody within the hour." Magan lifts the
green ceramic cup to his face and inhales. "Mah Lo Vertiginous keeps
saying that my struggle with Borda is causing a collapse of law and order. This arrest will provide a nice counterweight to that argument."
He downs the sake with a single gulp, smiles. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," replies the entrepreneur. "Kushida's the last of
the big Chomp dealers on 49th Heaven. The local L-PRACGs will find
the trade much easier to control from here on out."

"So you are this `Nohwan' that's been cleaning up the black coders
here on 49th Heaven. Rey Gonerev suspected as much, but I didn't
believe her. I couldn't see a reason you would do something like that."

"I've been through a lot in the past few months," says Natch.

"I suppose you have. You've been able to elude my officers here for
over a week."

"I've had a lot of practice."

Magan nods and pours himself more sake. Natch wonders if his
alcohol-metabolizing OCHREs are on or off, but there's no reliable
way to tell. All the bio/logic programs that purport to detect blood
alcohol content from a distance are easily scammed. "I suppose I could
try to tease the truth out of you bit by bit," says the lieutenant executive. "But after your little gift, I'm in no mood for games. So I'll just
ask you outright. Why give me Kushida?"

"With all the other big players gone, I can't take him down by
myself."

"That's not what I mean," replies Magan. "You must be aware that
Len Borda has agents trying to track you down as well. Some of them
have even followed Horvil and Serr Vigal here. Two of them are lying
in an alley outside with black code darts in their necks." Magan makes
a gesture over his left shoulder. "You could have given this arrest to
Borda. You could have stayed hidden and found some other avenue to
pursue Kushida. But instead you chose to give him to me. Why?"

Natch decides to try the sake himself and pours a sliver into his
cup. The brew is pungent, yet surprisingly soothing after the initial
kick. "I read Josiah Surina's manifesto," he says. "I saw what you
agreed to do for the Islanders. It intrigued me."

"Intrigued you how?"

"It made me wonder if I really understood your motives for pursuing MultiReal and rebelling against Borda."

The lieutenant executive nods, and his expression quickly hardens
into solemnity. Natch doesn't think he's ever met anyone with such a
tight control over his tongue. "Let me make one thing clear. I did not
choose this rebellion. I was prepared to wait for Len Borda to step
down from the high executive's chair. He fired the first shot."

Natch finds that horrific day in Melbourne rearing up in his
memory again, as it has so often in the past few months. Infoquakes
rumbling, darts flying in every direction, Serr Vigal passed out on the
floor, Brone's fanatics in black. Council officers firing upon other
Council officers. He's lost so much memory lately, but every detail of
that day is carved in his memory, rigid and indelible. It was such a
calamitous event for Natch that he sometimes forgets he is not the only
one who suffered that day. "You're being obtuse," he tells Magan.
"There are any number of ways you could have reacted to Borda's
actions at the Tul Jabbor Complex. You could have called for the Prime
Committee to impeach him."

"That would not have worked," says the lieutenant executive flatly.
"Gorda owns the Committee."

"You could have taken your case to the public then. The drudges
would have listened. They would have trumpeted your evidence to the
skies. Instead you decided to play down Borda's attempt to kill you
and focus on armed rebellion." Natch pours himself another cup, but
decides to simply hold it in his hands for a moment and savor the
warmth. "It made me wonder what you were really up to."

Magan is reflective now as he spills a third serving of sake into his
cup. Natch is beginning to think that the lieutenant executive is
allowing himself the luxury of creeping intoxication after all. "You
have been to Sao Paulo," says Magan. "I take it you know something
now about the Patels' MultiReal-D programs."

"They kept me their prisoner for several days," replies Natch, surprised that he's no longer angry about his captivity. "Petrucio
explained it all to me pretty thoroughly."

The lieutenant executive seems amused at the idea of Natch's
imprisonment, but he's curious as well. "They imprisoned you-even
though you had MultiReal? How did they accomplish that?"

Natch explains the MultiReal-D SeeNaRee room to him. Magan
seems impressed.

"Remarkably clever," he says, chuckling. "It only underscores what
I've believed all along. Private companies are better at innovation than
government entities." He takes a sip of his sake but does not down the
whole cup. "Hardly a revolutionary statement to you, coming from the
fiefcorp sector. But you'd be surprised how many people in the Council
and the Prime Committee still disagree vehemently with me on that
point."

"If you believe that ... then why seize MultiReal for the government?"

"Who says I ever intended to?"

"Rey Gonerev said so, at the Tul Jabbor Complex."

"Not so." Magan smiles. "Rey never advocated keeping the program in the government's hands. She simply argued that the program
shouldn't be left in your hands." He finishes his sake, puts down his cup,
and makes no move to pour another. "The fact of the matter is that my
goal has always been to let MultiReal out into the marketplace-with
regulation and oversight by the centralized government."

Natch frowns. He has always assumed that Magan's reticence to
explain his motives was covering for something much more sinister.
Could he have been wrong about Magan Kai Lee? "If that's the case,
why have you been so coy about it? Why haven't you been open about
your intentions, instead of letting everyone believe you're planning to
seize the program for the Council?"

"It's quite a tightrope I have to walk, Natch. Until recently, I've
had to convince Len Borda that I was trustworthy enough to be the Council's point person on MultiReal. I've had to rally my supporters in
the Council who believe the government should have control of MultiReal. But at the same time, I've had to leave enough room to allow
MultiReal to be sold to the public when I take the high executive's
seat." Magan sits back, plants one elbow on the table, and rests his chin
on his fist. "Would I have been better off declaring my intentions for
MultiReal from the beginning? Perhaps. I don't really know anymore.

"You have to understand something. We live in a world that's too
dangerous for extremes. Putting MultiReal solely in the hands of the
Defense and Wellness Council, or throwing it out to the marketplace
unregulated-neither solution is acceptable. We need to be able to
forge consensus today. Make compromises, walk tightropes. That's
why I worked diligently to get MultiReal into the hands of the one
person involved who understands this, the one person I judged strong
enough to withstand the pressure from all sides and make deals with
the government."

"Jara," says Natch.

"Jara," Magan agrees. "I thought the Patel Brothers could accomplish this, at first. I soon discovered that what I originally thought to
be capable of seeing multiple points of view was really willing to do anything
for money." They both laugh. "There's a big difference. Still, Frederic
and Petrucio have come up with some useful ideas. If everything had
gone the way I planned, we would have been able to release some good
defensive programs to help ease the public's anxiety about MultiReal.
Programs that could actually help protect them from totalitarian
government."

Natch sits back, attempting to fit this new vision of Magan Kai
Lee with the one that he's had in his head for all these months. It makes
him a little uneasy, this yen for flexibility that's so quick to mask itself
under pressure. But compared to the unyielding Len Borda, Natch can
live with it. "So if you do triumph over Len Borda," he says, "what do
you envision for MultiReal after that?"

Magan has obviously thought this question through, because he
has an answer right on the tip of his tongue. "The formation of a quasigovernmental entity to study the program," he replies. "Followed by
several years of intensive experimentation and public discussion about
the dangers and challenges of multiple realities. Then a limited public
release of MultiReal by those private companies that meet our qualifications and agree to oversight by the Prime Committee and the Congress of L-PRACGs. Provided all that is successful, finally we embark
on a ten-year period where restrictions are gradually loosened until
we're satisfied that the public's safety is ensured."

The entrepreneur bursts out in laughter, causing the few other
patrons in the Treble Clef to turn their heads in surprise. "Hardly
works as a campaign slogan, does it?" says Natch.

Magan smiles. "The good solutions never do."

"Obviously you convinced Quell that you're sincere, or he never
would have agreed to testify for you in Andra Pradesh."

"Quell." The lieutenant executive gives a long, searching look at
the tabletop. "Quell understands compromise, and he's willing to give
me a chance-provided that he and Josiah have a place at the table."

Natch nods and closes his eyes for a moment. He has given MultiReal little thought for the past couple months. The program belongs
to another life, one that he has abandoned. But now he realizes that
this burden Margaret Surina laid on him has been there the whole
time, weighing on his thoughts. And no matter if MultiReal should
end up being batted around by some quasi-governmental agency, it
will always be with him. Perhaps now with someone like Magan
involved, it will be a burden he doesn't have to bear alone.

He looks around the bodega at the seedy treble clef, the luckless
patrons, the bartender who has recognized Magan by now and seems
to be trying to plot an escape. Natch has taken on the troubles of 49th
Heaven too, but he knows now that they're not troubles he can, or
should, fix alone. Cleaning up 49th Heaven is a worthwhile goal, and one that can only be accomplished by the slow, gradual efforts of a
broad spectrum of private individuals and public officials.