Geosynchron (66 page)

Somehow the thought of writing a straightforward account of her
relationship with Horvil and the lessons she had learned over the past
few months seemed utterly inadequate, even if she could get over the
embarrassment of dictating the entire thing to Horvil's Aunt Berilla.
If Margaret's failsafe really did wipe out crucial parts of her memory,
was there anything she could say to convince herself that her relationship with Horvil was real? She imagined a future Jara pursing her lips,
skeptical of the whole business, wondering if somebody was playing
her for a fool. Or worse-maybe she herself had willingly leapt into the
jaws of an emotional trap, just like she had done so many times before.

Jara asked herself: what obligation did she have to force herself to
accept the reality of a romantic relationship with Horvil? Who knew
what circumstances Jara would find herself in, what emotional baggage the failsafe would leave her with? Who was to say that Horvil
would survive it unscathed? Perhaps he would emerge from the whole
experience with some crucial part of his personality emasculated from the tumult. Perhaps they would no longer be compatible people after
this business was over with.

Besides which-did it really matter in the grand scope of things
whether her relationship with Horvil survived intact? There were an
infinite number of tracks her life could have taken in the past few
months; why should she shackle herself to one particular track and
stubbornly declare that one to be the best of all possible tracks? Jara
had the power now to navigate among those different tracks, to choose
her own. Whether she ended up happy with Horvil or not was precisely beside the point. No matter what happened today, this was a
decision she would need to make again tomorrow, and the next day,
and the day after that, and every sun and moon from now until she
walked through the gates of the Prepared. Every day was a new choice
and a new opportunity.

"Well?" said Berilla testily. "I've got a letter here addressed to you.
What do you want it to say?"

Jara shook her head, landed back in the present. "Here's what I
want you to write down. It's only one sentence. Ready?"

A sigh. "Yes."

"`You are yourself, and you are whole."'

43

"You're in luck," says Quell. "You're not going to die. At least, not
today."

Natch doesn't realize how much the fear has taken hold of him
until he hears the Islander's words of reprieve. It feels like an enormous
fist has loosened its grip on his chest. But if Quell has indeed figured
out a way to neutralize the lethality of Margaret's failsafe code, then
why does he still sound so weary, so defeated? "What's wrong?" asks
Natch.

"You might want to die after this is all over."

The entrepreneur searches his feelings and still finds the will to
live as strong as it was when Frederic Patel's sword almost sliced off his
head. No, in spite of everything he has learned and lost in the past few
months, Natch no longer wants to succumb to the Null Current. "Tell
me," he says.

"I'll give you the short version because Brone's about to release
MultiReal on the Data Sea," explains Quell. "Margaret's failsafe calls
up a subroutine that blows out your neural OCHREs. It's like a lethal
burst of electricity that just fries all the circuitry running through your
brain. But I found a loophole. The failsafe doesn't actually check to
make sure there's no neural activity after the subroutine runs. It just
checks to make sure your OCHREs aren't functioning. The program
assumes that if the OCHREs are dead, then the subroutine has done its
job and destroyed the host. But I think I've figured out another way to
destroy your neural OCHREs without killing you. If we run that first,
then we can fake the failsafe out. It'll see that the OCHREs have gone
dead and skip right over the lethal jolt of electricity."

"So ... if all of the neural machinery is gone ..."

"No more running bio/logic programs. Ever." Quell pauses and inhales sharply. "But that's not the worst part. There'll be collateral
damage."

"Collateral damage?"

A pause. "You understand I'm simplifying this quite a bit."

"Yes. Go on."

"This alternate method of destroying the OCHREs ... it's not
electrical, it's chemical. It's not acid, exactly, but it'll be like acid. Some
of the machines in the brain are very tightly interwoven with the structures they regulate. Like the OCHREs on the optic nerve-they're literally coiled around it. So if you destroy those machines ..."

"I'll be blind, is what you're saying," interrupts Natch.

There's an uncomfortable silence as if Quell is trying to psyche
himself up to say something. "Blind and deaf, I think," continues the
Islander. "You'll be functional-you won't be in a vegetative state.
Should be able to walk around, eat, pick up things. But you'll have ...
cognitive problems."

"What kind of cognitive problems?"

"I have no fucking idea. You might lose your sense of time. Or be
unable to reason linearly. You might lose your emotions. There's going
to be a thousand microscopic pinholes in your brain. Absolutely no way
to tell what they'll hit." A long, ragged exhalation of breath. "Butyou'll live. You'll survive. You'll function. Oh, and one more thing."

Natch blanches. What else could there be?

"It's going to hurt like a bitch. Like nothing you've ever felt
before."

Quell was right. The choice between this kind of half-existence
and a clean death is not an easy one. Is his desire for life strong enough
to accept it regardless of the consequences? It's entirely possible that
once the decision's been made, he will be unable to change his mind.
Will he have the ability to bring himself to the Prepared if life in this
state proves unbearable? He's not sure.

What would life be like without bio/logics? Natch tries to remember what a normal day looks like, tries to take inventory of all
the things he's losing.

He wakes up-usually prompted by a gentle nudge from QuasiSuspension at a preset time. He stands and stretches-activating a
quick burst from a common joint-soothing program by reflex. He
walks into the shower room and takes a quick look at the mirror-with
a half-conscious query to his bio/logic systems to check on the status
of his teeth. He steps into the shower-and feels the hot spray of water
automatically adjusting to his internal thermostat....

Barely three minutes out of bed, Natch has already counted half a
dozen ways in which he relies on bio/logics. Could he even count the
number of programs he uses in an entire day? Hundreds, thousands?
What about the routines he has tagged for quick access, programs that
he can flick on and off with the twitch of a finger? He sprinkles NiceSpice 52 throughout his meals to liven up a dull scone or soothe the
bite of a hot pepper.... He fires up Urban Botanist 18c to idly peruse
databases of redwood trees when he takes his tube trips between Cisco
and Seattle....

Initiation taught Natch that most bio/logic programs are not necessities at all, but luxuries earned by the human race after a thousand generations of toil. But in a society that runs on bio/logics, that was built on
bio/logics, some programs are not luxuries. How will he walk down the
street, when he won't be able to sense the tube tracks in front of him?
How can he read the news, when he has no way of accessing the Data
Sea? How can he even access a Vault account to pay for anything?

How can he program, when he can neither see nor interact with
MindSpace?

Without all of those things ... what's left?

"Listen, I know this isn't what you were hoping for," says Quell
dejectedly. "I haven't given up. Do you hear me? I haven't given up. I'm
going to keep battering away on this thing until the very last second.
I might still be able to find a breakthrough."

"Can I ask you one favor?" says Natch.

"What?"

"Don't tell anyone about this, okay? Especially Horvil and Serr
Vigal."

"This is a most peculiar contraption," says Richard Taylor. "I don't
believe I've seen anything like this before."

"I can imagine," replies Natch. "Who rigged it up for you?"

"Your former apprentice Benyamin accomplished this for me. He
claims it was not particularly difficult-it was simply a matter of
locating an apparatus that could synthesize voices through a speaker,
and from there channeling your words was rather easy. I suppose I can
grasp that aspect of the conversation. But how he can translate my
words from sound waves into brain waves-well, I'm satisfied to let
that remain beyond my comprehension."

The entrepreneur smiles. At first, he wondered if his inexplicable
fondness for the Pharisee was simply condescension-amusement at
the man's ignorance. But the more words he exchanges with Richard
Taylor, the more Natch realizes that he has a genuine fascination with
the Pharisee's outsider perspective, with his boundless curiosity, with
his occasional timidity and self-doubt. It would be very intriguing to
see this man on his home turf. "Does the voice sound like me?" he asks.

Taylor laughs. "The voice sounds like the drama actor Juan
Nguyen."

"Fitting."

"So Benyamin claims that you wish to ask me an important
question."

"I do." Natch tries to formulate the best method of segueing into
it, but he can think of nothing better than directness. He provides as
basic an explanation of Margaret's failsafe and Quell's modification as he can. Taylor listens with complete silence, and somehow even
through the strangely modulated voice of the sound wave conversion
Natch can tell that the man is giving him his full attention. "My question is this," concludes the entrepreneur. "Can the Faithful Order of
the Children Unshackled grant me asylum?"

Taylor is taken aback. "You wish to live ... in the Pharisee
Territories?"

"Yes."

"Ordinarily I would beg off answering such a question without
consulting the leadership of my order. But in this circumstance, I
believe I can answer you promptly and without qualification. Yes,
Natch, we would consider it a great honor to host you in the Pharisee
Territories, in Khartoum, for as long as you wish to stay."

"I wouldn't want to mislead you," says Natch. "I'll be a great
burden. I won't be able to contribute to your society. I'll probably have
to be fed and clothed."

"Nonetheless, we will welcome you with open arms."

"You'll have to figure out how to get to me too. I'm outside the Twin
Cities right now, surrounded by drudges and Thasselians. Once I activate the failsafe, this place could get real chaotic real fast. Of course,
you'll have an advantage-you'll be one of the few people around with
absolutely no memory loss. You might be able to just swoop in there
during the confusion and grab me before anyone notices."

"I don't think we'll have to worry too much about getting hold of
you."

"Why?"

"Because I have discovered where my missing brethren from 49th
Heaven are. Just today I received a message via Data Sea terminal that
they were directed to the Twin Cities. They are already camped in a
hotel not too far from the Kordez Thassel Complex, where they were
told to await your arrival. That is why I was surprised to hear your
request."