Multireal (31 page)

Jara couldn't have said how long she slept. The sun was no longer
burning a warm spot into her forearm, and the chattering of the
apprentices down the hall had faded. She must have been out for a few
hours, at least, but she didn't really want to know.

I'm not ready for this responsibility, she confided silently to the fates.
The pit of her stomach felt hollow, acidic. I'm not ready to run a fiefcorp.
Please tell me I don't have to.

As if in answer to her plea, Jara opened her eyes and saw a familiar
face.

Natch.

The sight was so embedded in her consciousness it had almost
become archetype: Natch making tracks across the carpet, arms
clasped behind his back, muttering to himself. All the scene needed
was an obscure piece of bio/logic code floating in MindSpace and a
window full of share price histograms. "Good job," Natch said gruffly.

Jara had never felt so happy to receive a rude half-greeting in her
life. She could feel her anxieties melting away. Natch would know how
to handle the situation. He always did. "What did I do this time?" she
replied.

"The statement to the drudges. Short and sweet, I like that."
Natch tromped right over a green throw pillow that Jara must have
knocked to the floor in her sleep.

The analyst propped herself up on one elbow; not satisfied, she
clambered to a sitting position. A quick skim of her mental inbox revealed the finished drudge statement and about a hundred commentaries from across the Data Sea. Seemed like the statement had produced exactly the reaction Jara was hoping for: total indifference.

"We have a lot to do," continued Natch, talking to himself more
than he was talking to Jara. "A whole lot. We've got to get that MultiReal exposition back on track. That's critical. We need to time it carefully. Can't give people the impression that we're trying to profit from
Margaret's death. But we can't let anyone forget about the exposition
either. You've got a script ready?"

Jara nodded drowsily. After all that had happened in the past
twenty-four hours, the exposition felt like it belonged in another universe altogether. "I do have a script," she said. And it was a pretty good
script, too, she remembered. Easily digestible without being too gimmicky; a departure from the first baseball demo, but a departure to a
familiar territory. "No worries on that score. But-"

Natch was in no mood for objections. "But what?" he snapped.

"Aren't you worried about our business licenses? We can't just
keep going forward like nothing's happened. How's everyone going to
get paid?"

Natch stopped, planted his hands in his pockets, and stared Jara
directly in the face with such intensity it was almost surreal. "Don't
worry about the licenses," he said. "It's all under control."

Jara could feel a throbbing current run from her abdomen to the
back of her neck. Geronimo had utterly failed to spark that current in
all his weeks of fumbling, and yet Natch could ignite her from halfway
across the room. Keep it together, Jara admonished herself, turning away
from those radiant blue eyes. You're exhausted and you're not thinking
clearly. "What do you mean, it's `under control'?" she said.

The entrepreneur got down on his haunches and reached out to
steady himself momentarily with a hand on Jara's kneecap. "Follow the
chain of command." His tone was low, conspiratorial. "Who pressured
the Meme Cooperative to suspend our licenses? The Defense and Well ness Council. And what's the one governing body in the world that can
put pressure on the Defense and Wellness Council? Who does Len
Borda answer to?"

The answer was straight out of hive-level civics. "The Prime
Committee," said Jara, trying to mentally will Natch's hand away
from her knee.

"Exactly."

"But the Prime Committee's afraid of Len Borda. They're practically a rubber stamp for the Council. When was the last time they disagreed with Borda on ... anything?"

"They'll disagree with him on this. Trust me." Natch had not so
much as blinked in a minute, perhaps two.

Jara was starting to feel dizzy. Every time she got a handle on the
situation, Natch would ratchet things up to some new plane with a
totally different set of rules. He had jumped into fund-raising and
product marketing and high-stakes mergers with great success, but
did he know anything about politics? Jara didn't think so. In fact, she
didn't know anyone who paid less attention to the ins and outs of government than Natch. How could he be so certain he knew how to
influence the Prime Committee?

"Listen, Natch," she said. "I don't think you've thought this
through. Even if the Committee is sympathetic to our cause, how are
you going to get to them? There's only twenty-three of them, and sixty
billion people clamoring for their attention. What are you going to do,
just walk over to Melbourne and demand they focus on MultiReal?"

Natch was unfazed. "I won't. I'm going to get someone else to do
it for me. Someone they'll listen to."

The analyst's brain flitted through the roster of governmental figures that paraded around the drudge reports. Natch's touch wasn't
making things any easier. Most of the politicians she could name were
either too beholden to the Defense and Wellness Council or too ineffectual to put up any resistance. Unless ... yes, there was one person who didn't fall into either of those categories. "The speaker of Congress," said Jara. "Khann Frejohr."

Natch grinned crazily in affirmation and pushed himself to his
feet, using Jara's knee as fulcrum. Then he began marching around the
small room again like an automaton.

Not knowing what else to do, Jara straightened her spine and
threw the results of an InfoGather 99 onto the window.

Speaker of the Congress of L-PRACGs Khann Frejohr came into power
at the end of 359, after a vote of no confidence toppled the previous
speaker from office. Frejohr is the foremost representative of the libertarians, the political movement that seeks to shift power from the central
government to the L-PRACGs.

As a youth, Frejohr was a well-known labor activist and vocal opponent
of High Executive Len Borda. His career suffered a serious setback when
he was accused of fomenting the Melbourne riots of 318. The atrocities
committed there by angry rioters shocked the public, which had only
recently endured the death of Marcus Surina and the collapse of the
world economy. Many claim that these riots put the libertarian movement
back twenty years.

Frejohrs role in inciting the riots was never proven, but he spent several
years in a Defense and Wellness Council prison on related charges. He
was subsequently pardoned by the Prime Committee in 326 under a general amnesty for political prisoners. Frejohr was first elected to the Congress of L-PRACGs in 332.

The analyst skimmed through a listing of the speaker's parliamentary maneuvers in a daze. Khann Frejohr started the Melbourne riots?
Now that her attention had been drawn to this fact, Jara realized she
had known it all along but simply forgotten. Her respect for the Congress's PR apparatus grew exponentially.

Jara found an image of the speaker and projected it into the middle of the room so he appeared to be standing on the coffee table. Khann
Frejohr was rather short, with a shock of white hair and a single eyebrow forming a shelf of moral rectitude across his forehead. He had the
look of a man who had been rakishly handsome decades ago. Hardly
the type to lead an opposition to Len Borda.

Natch's hands were quivering, his voice a low rasp. "Don't you see
the opportunity we have?" he said, stretching an arm through the
holograph of Frejohr without appearing to notice. "Magan Kai Lee
used the Meme Cooperative to take away a fiefcorp from its rightful
master. How do you think the other fiefcorps are going to react to that?
Do you think Lucas Sentinel and Pierre Loget and the Deuterons are
going to sleep easy knowing Len Borda can shut down their businesses
whenever he feels like it? No, of course not. They're scared to death.

"And they're not alone! The libertarians have just taken control of
the Congress. They're putting up a united front and recruiting people
to the movement left and right. That creed of theirs, Creed Libertas?
You should see their new membership numbers. And guess what? You
read that article by Sen Sivv Sor-people are flocking to Creed Libertas
because of the Council's actions against me. I'm sure Margaret's death'll
bring them a ton of converts too.

"Meanwhile, what's the Council doing? They're sending armed
goons to break into my apartment! They're seizing businesses! They're
marching on Andra Pradesh!" Natch's face was flushed and feverish now,
his hands gesticulating wildly at the four corners of the room. "Don't
you see? This is going to cause a tidal wave-the kind of wave that only
comes along once in a generation. We can ride that wave, Jara."

The analyst shrank as far back into the couch as she could, teetering between fear and excitement, not wanting to let go of either. "I
don't understand," she protested weakly. "You're going to use Khann
Frejohr to get to the Prime Committee? But there are sixty billion
people trying to get his attention too. What makes you think Khann
Frejohr will talk to you?"

"The meeting's already been arranged," said Natch with a smirk.
"Come on, Jara, I'm the face of the libertarian movement! Why
wouldn't he talk to me?" His voice was completely lacking in irony.

"So you've got a meeting with Speaker Frejohr," said Jara. "But
why would he stick his neck out for you? How are you going to convince him to confront the Prime Committee?"

Natch's face turned into one mad rictus of glee. Jara shuddered; she
had seen that look before. It meant that once again, the entrepreneur
was three steps ahead of everyone else on the planet.

And then he collapsed.

There was no swoon or gradual loss of consciousness. One moment
Natch was striding around the room with his normal swagger, the next
he was lying in a heap on the floor. He only missed banging his head
on the sharp edge of the desk by centimeters. Jara was kneeling on the
floor next to him in an instant.

Before she even had a chance to feel his forehead, the entrepreneur
sprang up, flailing his arms to ward off some unseen terror. His elbow
smacked Jara across the face, causing him to recoil and scurry back into
a far corner. For a moment, she could see him bare and unmasked, a
child in the dark.

Then Natch was back. Exhausted, confused, determined. A little
embarrassed. "I'm sorry," he blurted out.

Jara shook her head. She rubbed her cheek where Natch had hit
her. The fact that it was clearly an accident didn't make her feel any
less uneasy. She sat on the floor with her back to the couch and waited
for her pulse to slow to a manageable level. The hologram of Khann
Frejohr stood placidly on the coffee table, forgotten.

"Listen," said the entrepreneur quietly after several minutes of
awkward silence. He gazed intently at the carpet, searching for the
right words. "This whole business with Magan Kai Lee and the Meme
Cooperative. Putting you in charge of the fiefcorp. It's okay. It's not
your fault."

The analyst blushed. "I should have told you," she muttered. "I
should have let you know he was planning something." She hunched
forward, planting her elbows on her thighs and her chin in her palms.
"Natch, you know I didn't make any deal with the Council, don't you?"

Natch shrugged. "Of course." Jara couldn't help but let out a sigh
of relief.

They sat silently, listening to the floorboards outside in the
hallway creaking as the servants passed. Somewhere down the hall, servants were dragging furniture around in preparation for a group of
Creed Elan do-gooders who Berilla had invited over, despite all the
calamity of the past twenty-four hours. Jara tried to remember the last
time she had been alone in a room with Natch for more than thirty seconds and came up empty.

"So what happens now?" Jara ventured after a few minutes.

Natch's eyes were suddenly suspicious. "What do you mean?"

"Well ... technically, I'm your boss right now."

A tired smile crept over Natch's face, though Jara couldn't quite
see the humor in the situation. "Let's just see how it goes," he said,
making a dismissive motion with one hand as if he were tossing troubles over his shoulder. "I'm not worried. We can make some kind of
arrangement until we figure out this whole license thing."

"An arrangement?"

"Well, someone's got to be in legal control of MultiReal. We can't
have it floating out there in receivership. And we can't let Magan Kai
Lee get ahold of it."

"No, I suppose not."

"So I sat down and thought about it for a while, and then I came
to a decision." The entrepreneur took a deep breath. "I've decided to
let things stand for now. The Meme Cooperative wants you to be the
master of MultiReal? Fine. I've given you core access to the program."

Jara did her best not to gape in shock. Natch complying with a
regulatory body's orders was like the wolf cozying up to the sheep. Natch simply didn't do these kinds of things without ulterior motive.
"Why?" she said.

"Because I need you to trust me," he replied. "I need you on my
side."

The analyst stared into his eyes, trying to penetrate those depths
the best she could. Jara had been working for Natch for several years
now, and she had never felt like anything but a useful vessel for his
ambitions. She had never felt like she deserved to be anything else. Now
she was being entrusted with the most important thing in Natch's life:
his business. Should she feel pleased or dejected that he would only do
so grudgingly, after a deluge of threats from the government?

The important thing is that you've finally earned his respect, Jara told
herself. She had thought she was looking for Natch's love, or maybe
even his lust, but now she realized that what she was really after was
just basic understanding and acceptance. She wanted parity. Did it
really matter how she had achieved that?