Multireal (29 page)

Jara turned around and discovered that not only had the other fiefcorpers abandoned their individual projects and gathered behind her chair to watch the video, but a cotton-headed Robby Robby had multied in at some point and was shaking his head theatrically at Jara's
elbow. She had completely forgotten he was coming here to help with
the drudge statement. Had he heard about the business license situation yet? If so, he was doing an excellent job of hiding it.

"The drudges are going to want an explanation for Quell's arrest,"
said Serr Vigal in a barely audible whisper. "We'd better include something in the statement."

"I don't think that's necessary," said Jara. "Nobody's going to
believe that Quell had anything to do with Margaret's death, will
they? Even the drudges can't be that dumb."

Horvil nuked the video display with a gesture. "Let's find out," he
said. A block of text appeared in the upper right corner of the window:

Another fine Billy Sterno program

Subject: Was Quell involved in Margaret Surina's death?

Boxes of words exploded on the screen like popcorn. Words clustering together, forming associations, merging. Pacific Islands. Unconnectible. Andra Pradesh. Words spawning new meta-concepts,
branching off into new avenues. Murder: Fiefco,p economics. MultiReal.

Finally the frenetic activity began to subside. A graph superimposed itself atop the linguistic graffiti and began spontaneously populating itself with data.

Was Quell involved in Margaret Surina's death?

1 1 % Yes
18% LeaningYes
52% Not Sure
12% Leaning No
7% No

The numbers wobbled up and down in ever-narrowing increments as
the program gauged the currents of thought traversing the Data Sea.
And then two small photographs blinked into existence next to the
words Leaning Yes: Sen Sivv Sor and John Ridglee.

The atmosphere in the room grew gloomier by the second as the
numbers quickly began to skew toward the affirmative answers. Jara
finally shut the thing off when the numbers for Leaning Yes reached 40%.

Only Robby Robby seemed not to care. "These Zeitgeist numbers
are totally meaningless, kids," he said, picking at his virtual mane with
an equally virtual comb. "Ignore 'em. Take it from a professional."

Horvil pursed his lips with skepticism. "Zeitgeist has always been
pretty accurate for me."

"Oh, I'm sure the numbers are accurate," said the channeler cryptically. "But they're still meaningless. What does Natch think?"

Jara frowned. "Where is Natch? Is he still in Andra Pradesh?"

"He multied over there," said Merri. "Vigal, didn't you follow him
over to the multi facility?"

The neural programmer clapped a hand to his forehead. "You're
right, I did. I had to make a quick stop in Omaha." He peered around
the room, as if he expected the entrepreneur to materialize there at any
moment. "Natch was standing right next to me when I opened my
connection, but he definitely wasn't there when I closed it. I never even
thought to look."

Jara gave a sidelong glance at Robby, wishing he wasn't around for
this conversation but knowing there was nothing she could do about
it now. She cast her mind out to the Data Sea. "Looks like some
drudges saw him at the Thassel Complex earlier, but he managed to
give them all the slip. How the heck does he do that?"

"One of these days," mumbled Horvil, "Natch is just going to disappear for good right under our noses, and we won't be able to do anything about it."

Vigal made an exhausted sigh. "He might prefer it that way."

20

The redwoods mocked him as the tube train hurtled through their
midst, back and forth, back and forth without ceasing. Natch wondered how much human agency was actually required to run a tube
route. Would this train still be plowing the dark between the trees a
hundred thousand years after humanity had gone permanently fallow?
Would some alien civilization stumble on this planet millions of years
from now and find nothing but self-repairing trains caught in endless
loops, transporting no one, serving nothing?

Natch focused on the curmudgeonly face staring back at him from
the window. The letters beneath the man's chin instantly solidified
into Prussian blocks of gray, obscuring Natch's view of the sequoias.

by Sen Siw Sor

Am I the only one who remembers that the death of Margaret Surina also
means the end of the Surinas?

Yes, readers, that venerable line of scientists, visionaries, and freethinkers
founded by Sheldon Surina and continued by Prengal and Marcus has now
seen its terminus with Margaret's death.There are other more distant relations still living at Andra Pradesh, but only Margaret could claim direct
descent from all three of those great scientific pioneers.

The functionaries who will rise to fill the void in the Surina organizations
are hardly worthy of the name.Jayze and Suheil Surina, the two most likely
candidates, started tussling over the family riches as soon as Margaret disappeared to the top of the Revelation Spire. Suheil has spent ten years
administering the Enterprise Facility-a cozy bit of nepotism if ever I've
seen one-while Jayze has wasted decades meddling in local Indian politics. It's doubtful that either one of them could spell MultiReal, much less
program it.

So what should the Council do with the man who has uprooted this great
tree of wisdom?

It's no secret whom I'm talking about. I'm talking about the man with the
audacity to hijack MultiReal right out from under Margaret's nose. The
man accused of violating no less than one hundred twenty Meme Cooperative rules and regulations.The man who may have just ordered a hit on
his erstwhile partner in the MultiReal business.

A premature judgment? Certainly. As the standard disclaimer for my
column states, I'm no officer of the law, and I wouldn't presume to issue
a final verdict before all the facts are in.All I can do is look at the evidence
in the public eye.

But isn't it peculiar that Margaret was murdered right before the Meme
Cooperative suspended Natch from the fefcorp she founded? Isn't it
peculiar that the Islander Quell-a man on Natch's payroll-was dragged
out of the Revelation Spire by Len Borda's officers? Isn't it peculiar that
Natch himself left the bodhisattva's side only hours before her body was
discovered, and isn't it peculiar that he may have been the last one to see
her alive?

I repeat: what should the Council do with this man?

Natch waved his hand and sent the drudge's words back to the
netherworld of yellow journalism. He shouldn't have been surprised.
The unholy trinity of Sen Sivv Sor, John Ridglee, and Mah Lo Vertiginous had long ago set aside all political differences to declare their
hatred for Natch. Why should a worldwide tragedy change anything?

Nor should Natch have been surprised by the Council's reaction to
the accusations against him exploding across the Data Sea like miniature starbursts: nothing. No statements, no admissions, no denials.
Magan Kai Lee could dispel most of these accusations by revealing that
Natch had been on a Council hoverbird at the time of Margaret's
death, but instead he chose to drop out of public view. Nobody had
seen or heard from High Executive Borda in days. Even Chief Solicitor Rey Gonerev was maintaining complete radio silence, a remarkable
achievement considering the amount of attention she normally
received from the drudges.

The entrepreneur thought back to Quell's words atop that Spire,
moments before his arrest. Do you really think Borda would hesitate to
murder a Surina? Then you don't know your history.

Natch summoned the famous video of that burnt and twisted
shuttle wreckage on Furtoid. Marcus Surina and all the progenitors of
the stillborn teleportation industry had been in that shuttle. Now the
vehicle looked like a brummagem sculpture, like a steaming turd left
by some enormous metal beast. The camera panned over the wreckage
in silence, and then lurched suddenly. Jutting from the bottom of the
frame was a bloody severed hand....

Had Len Borda ordered the death of Marcus Surina? Had the high
executive set in motion the Economic Plunge that sent Natch's mother
to the streets of Old Chicago? Was there any way to prove such a thing
after almost fifty years?

And even if Borda had murdered Marcus Surina, did that necessarily mean he had murdered Margaret too?

Natch shook his head. These questions were too big for him; let
politicians like Khann Frejohr tackle such matters. All Natch needed
to know was who had planted MultiReal and black code in his skull
and how to get his license back from the Meme Cooperative.

That fucking weasel Magan Kai Lee, he growled to himself. The lieutenant executive had found a way to neatly slice Natch off at the knees.
It all looked so easy in hindsight. Take away Natch's license to sell
bio/logic programs on the Data Sea, and you took away his ability to
profit from MultiReal through any legitimate channel. Oh, there were
plenty of Lunar tycoons outside the aegis of the Meme Cooperative
who might stick him on their payroll, plenty of back avenues to
making money he could explore. But Magan had judged him correctly.
He knew that Natch wouldn't let go of MultiReal on any terms other than his own. And scavenging the dark corners of the marketplace for
scraps, with the Council dogging his every move-that was tantamount to giving up.

Then there was the problem of Jara. Magan had put all the leverage
in Jara's hands. If Natch obeyed the Meme Cooperative's order and
granted her core access to MultiReal, she would have just as much control over the program as he did. Natch wasn't sure if she had the legal
right to sell it off or give it away. But she would have the power to
simply move the databases somewhere else on the Data Sea where
nobody else would ever, ever find them. And yet, what alternatives did
Natch have? He could always defy the Meme Cooperative's order, but
then he would have to go on the run from the Council again, a prospect
he dreaded.

Natch summoned a mental picture of the analyst and studied it
intently. Jara was nobody's pushover. But she was also hopelessly naive
and eminently predictable. How long would she last as Magan Kai
Lee's puppet before either he or Len Borda did away with her?

Once that happened, MultiReal would be in the hands of the
Defense and Wellness Council. And after that-

The nothingness at the center of the universe.

Natch would not give up.

Borda, he's on some kind of crusade against my family and everything
we've touched, Margaret had told him. But Natch, you need to know thishe can't take MultiReal away from you. He can't. I've made sure of that.

Why shouldn't he believe it?

Jara had the advantage. She had the authorities on her side through
whatever misguided deal she thought she was making with the Council.
She had the legal rights to MultiReal while the rest of the fiefcorpers'
fates were tangled up in Meme Cooperative jurisprudence. She would
even have public opinion on her side, at least in the beginning.

But what did any of that matter? Natch knew how to control
people. He knew how to disassemble them and find their weak spots. Moreover, he possessed the ability to move the whole world, to put the
bio/logics market in a panic with a few well-placed rumors and bits of
black code, to change public opinion by cozying up to the drudges and
the opinion makers. Who cared that the public suspected him of
involvement in Margaret Surina's death? That was a temporary impression sown in panic and fed with unsubstantiated rumor. It would fade.

Natch knew what motivated Jara. He knew her better than the
Council, no matter how long they had been following her and how
many thousands of background documents they had uncovered.

He could handle Jara.

The entrepreneur nudged his eyelids open a fraction and took a
surreptitious peek around the tube car. How long had he been sitting
here debating himself with fists clenched? Time was a sieve. He looked
at the three spies of the Defense and Wellness Council who had been
following him since the Twin Cities-spies who stood out from the
rest of the businesspeople, tourists, and layabouts like ants in a bowl
of sugar. They gazed back at him and grinned cruelly.