Infoquake (2 page)

Jara gave one last wistful glance at her apartment and opened
another multi connection. Multivoid swallowed her empty walls and
regurgitated Natch's metropolitan windows. The fiefcorp master was
nowhere to be found, but Jara was in no mood to track him down. He
had to be here somewhere, or she would have never made it into the
building. Jara threw herself down on the couch and waited.

Five minutes later, Horvil materialized in the room wearing the
same mixture of bonhomie and bafflement he always wore. "Towards
Perfection," he greeted his fellow apprentice amiably as he plopped
down in Natch's favorite chair. It was actually a chair-and-a-half, but
still barely wide enough to accommodate Horvil's considerable bulk.
"Who's ready to wallow around in the mud? I know I could use a good
wallow right about now."

Jara frowned, wondering whether Horvil had concocted some algorithm to make even his virtual clothes look disheveled. "That makes
one of us," she said.

The engineer yawned and sat back in his chair with a smile. "Stop
being so dramatic, Princess. If you don't want to be here, go home.
What's Natch going to do? Cancel your contract? Fire you?"

Jara extended her finger into an accusatory position by reflex. She
lowered it when she realized she had nothing to say.

And then Natch returned.

Neither apprentice saw the fiefcorp master come in, but now there
he stood with his arms crossed and his eyes glaring. For once, he was
not pacing, and this made Jara nervous. When Natch chose to focus all
that kinetic energy on some concrete goal instead of stomping it into
oblivion, mountains moved. Jara examined the gorge in her stomach
and came to a sudden realization: she was afraid of Natch.

"We're going to the top of the bio/logics market," he announced.
"We're going to be number one on Primo's."

Horvil put his feet up on the coffee table. "Of course we are," he
said breezily. "We've been over this shit before. Market forces, fiefcorp
economics, blah blah blah. It's inevitable, ain't it?"

Natch closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened
them, his gaze fixed on a spot of nothingness hovering midway
between the two apprentices. Jara suddenly felt transparent, as if the
world had gained presence at her expense. "You don't understand,
Horvil," he said. "We're going to be number one on Primo's, and we're
going to do it tomorrow."

The two apprentices sat stiffly, afraid to move. Jara wondered if she had
stumbled onto the set of an old-fashioned drama by mistake, with
Natch playing the part of the Mad Capitalist Who Went Too Far. Or
maybe the fiefcorp master was starring in a farce instead. Number one
on the Primo's bio/logic investment guide tomorrow?

"Impossible," said Jara. "You can't just press a button and will
yourself to the top of Primo's. It's all impartial, rules-based. They've
got strict formulas that nobody knows except the senior interpreters."

Natch regarded her with a stare he might have given a less-evolved
subspecies of humanity. "And?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Natch. They sift through ten thousand
bio/logic programs a day, and every decision they make affects the hierarchy. You can't predict Primo's rankings. And don't give me that
look-you can't rig them either. People have tried." She turned to
Horvil, aiming her index finger at his bulbous nose. "Come on,
Horvil-you know about Primo's as well as I do. They're not accountable to anyone."

The engineer stretched his arms out over his head, suspended them
there momentarily, then sent them crashing down onto his commodious lap. "Primo's: impartial because we have to be," he quoted the
company's official slogan. "Your biollogic systems depend on us, from hearts
and lungs to stocks and funds. "

Natch might well have been a video clip in pause mode. He gave
no outward sign he had even been listening to his apprentices'
exchange.

"All right," spat Jara, anxious to break the tension in the room. "I
suppose you have some brilliant plan to make this happen."

The fiefcorp master began to pace once more. "Of course I do," he replied, stone-faced. "Now, as you know, today we're scheduled to
release NiteFocus 48, our biggest-and best product this year."

Jara thought about debating the best portion of his statement, but
changed her mind and leaned back in the sofa. Horvil was one of the
best engineers in the business, but Jara knew from experience he got
sloppy when he worked long hours. NiteFocus 48 would have its share
of bugs and inconsistencies, like any program bred of human thought.

"Well, guess who else is planning a product launch this week," continued Natch.

Jara's heart skipped a beat. "Don't tell me the Patel Brothers are
finally releasing NightHawk 73," she said.

The fiefcorp master nodded. "The same."

Jara frowned and crossed her arms over her chest. With that kind
of competition, how in the world did Natch expect to top the market
this week of all weeks? The Patel Brothers had dominated the number
one rating on Primo's for the past two and a half years. They were
widely perceived to be unbeatable. Of course, this hadn't stopped
Natch from confronting the Patels head-to-head on a variety of programs over the past few months-on the contrary, the challenge
spurred him to new heights of competitive frenzy. He plotted their
release schedules on graphs of three, four and five dimensions. He
hunted down even the deadendingest rumors about Frederick and
Petrucio Patel.

And now, it seemed, after feeling the occasional prick of Natch's
jabs on the Primo's battlefield-a loss of a point here, a pre-empted
product launch there-the Patel Brothers had finally accepted the
challenge of their younger rival. Releasing NightHawk in the same
week as NiteFocus was a direct assault.

Horvil was unperturbed by this latest turn of events. "Why are you
two so worried?" he said, trying unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn. "We've
put a lot of work into NiteFocus. It's good code. I'm not afraid to go
up against the Patels."

"So then, what do we do?" asked Natch. His tone of voice indicated
it was a rhetorical question.

Jara scowled. She knew where this was heading. "If anybody but
you asked me that question, I would say, We both launch our products on
the Data Sea, and may the best company win."

The fiefcorp master gave her one of his wolfish grins, the kind that
had little to do with humor. On some alternate plane of existence,
Natch's audience howled in gleeful anticipation. "You think I'm afraid
to go up against the Patels."

"I just don't like pulling these dirty tricks of yours. We're number
six on Primo's, in a field of thousands. Why can't you be happy with
that?"

Natch stopped in mid-stride and gave his apprentice a piercing
look. "Happy with failure?" he said incredulously, as if she had suggested joining one of the creeds and devoting his life to poverty.
"Happy with this?" He gestured wildly around him at what seemed to
Jara to be a pretty nice flat. Natch's apartment had enough space for
both living and working quarters, with room left over to entertain.
Not only that, but it boasted real and programmable windows, as well
as a lush garden of daisies right smack in the middle of the place.
Maybe Natch's apartment paled in comparison to the lunar estates of
the big tycoons, but at least it was decorated.

Jara composed herself. "Natch, number six on Primo's isn't
failure," she said. "Most programmers spend their whole lives trying to
crack the top ten. We've gotten here in thirty-six months. Thirty-six
months, Natch! Primo's has been around for almost seventy years, and
nobody's ever done it as fast as we have. Horvil, where were we a year
ago today?"

The engineer focused his attention inward for a split-second, the
tell-tale sign of a brain angling for information on the Data Sea.
"Sixty-two," announced Horvil momentarily. "The year before that,
four hundred nineteen." Jara threw up her hands as if to say, See what I mean? "And the year before that, we didn't-"

Natch cut his apprentice off in mid-sentence. "Does this shit have
a point?"

Jara stood her ground. "I'm not suggesting we quit trying, Natch.
I'm just saying we'll get to the top eventually, by the strength of our products, without dirty tricks. The Patel Brothers are getting older, and
we're gaining on them all the time. In a couple of years, when all the
tax breaks dry up, they'll sell out and dissolve their fiefcorp. That's
what happens in this business."

Natch grimaced, rocked back and forth on his heels, and let out a
restless sigh. He looked like the little boy who had been scolded by his
proctors for staying out past curfew. Despite all his frantic motion,
every chestnut-colored hair on his head remained perfectly in place.
Jara met his stare, but she was disappointed to see Horvil struggling
to stay awake. Thanks for backing me up, Horv!

"All right," said the fiefcorp master, with a look on his face that
said, I'll go through the motions of considering your worthless ideas, but only
for form's sake. "Let's take a look at NiteFocus 48 in MindSpace. Let's
see how strong our products really are."

Jara and Horvil followed Natch into his office. The room was short
and sparsely decorated and functional, but still quite a bit nicer than
Jara's workspace. Artificial daylight, streaming into the room from two
square windows, showed a hectic market square somewhere in Beijing.
That's one way to keep working through all hours of the night, Jara thought
sourly. Pretend it's day.

Natch walked up to the squat workbench that sat in the center of
the room and waved his hand to summon the virtual programming
bubble known as MindSpace. He was instantly surrounded by a clear
holographic sphere about two meters in diameter, along with an assortment of interlocking geometric shapes and connecting fibers.

The program loaded in MindSpace looked like a dense pyramid
carpeted with spikes. It wasn't any code that Jara recognized. "What's that?" she said.

"Nothing," grumbled the fiefcorp master, banishing the display
with a flick of his wrist. A more cohesive structure appeared in the
layer beneath, shaped like a lopsided donut and colored in soft grays
and blues. Strands of purple and white formed an intricate net through
the center. Jara could have traced those supple curves with her eyes
closed. NiteFocus 48.

Natch took one look at the mass of bio/logic code floating in front
of him and gave a snort of disgust. His dissatisfaction grew as he
rotated the donut slowly along its z-axis. Imperfect! Jara could hear him
thinking, a fourth-act soliloquy to his invisible audience. Unsatisfactory! A mockery of all the projects I've left unfinished, all the goals I've left
unattained.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" said Horvil. "Let's fire this baby
up ,,

Jara gave her internal system a silent command to activate NiteFocus, and then waited a few seconds as the program disseminated its
instructions to the microscopic machines floating in her bloodstream.
She tried to detect the millions of calculations going on right now
inside her brain, the logical handshakes extending thousands of kilometers from her virtual body here to cellular structures standing slack
on a red tile in London. But she knew that even if she were here in the
flesh, the chemical reactions in the retina and the electric pulses along
the ciliary muscle would be completely undetectable. Bio/logic programs had not been that crude since Sheldon Surina invented the science some three hundred sixty years ago.

"I think it's working," said Jara. A hopeful statement.

Horvil puffed up his chest and clapped a virtual arm around
Natch's shoulder. "Of course it's working. What'd I tell you?"

The fiefcorp master said nothing. He turned off the Beijing scene
on the left window, leaving a view of the real darkness outside. Natch
squinted, shook his head, and marched through the other room to the balcony door. Horvil and Jara followed him as he stepped outside into
the coal-dark Shenandoah night, about half past three now. A platform
promptly slid under their feet from the side of the building.

The three fiefcorpers stood at the railing and gazed into the distance, looking for a suitable object on which to test their enhanced
vision. Flashing lights were still evident in the rowdier quarters of the
city, but out here in the residential district, things were relatively
quiet. "There," said Horvil, pointing towards a viewscreen that stood
several blocks down the road, its lights dim now that there was no foot
traffic. Jara found she could read the advertisement clearly.

Because the Defense and Wellness Council Still Lets You.

Beneath the print, the smart-alecky ChaiQuoke pitchman suckled on
a neon purple bottle while a Council officer looked on with overt disapproval.

Horvil danced a clumsy jig of triumph. "Looks like the Natch Personal Programming Fiefcorp will still be in business tomorrow," he
crowed. "Oh yeah!"