Infoquake (23 page)

Sex Stability Friendship
Power Greed Hunger
Money Guilt Lust
Love Desire Laziness
Vanity Novelty Suffering

On through the morning he wrote, brushing aside the urgent wake-up calls he had set for his assembly-line programming job. The work
would not be necessary now.

He awoke on the couch in mid-afternoon, unable to remember how
he had gotten there, but confident he was back on track at last.

Horvil sat upside-down on Natch's chair-and-a-half with his feet
propped on the chair back and his head hanging near the ground. His
face was a jumbled stew of concern and fear topped with a thin crust
of nonchalance.

"So you're willing to help me out," said Natch, eyes ablaze. He was
practically sprinting from one end of the apartment to the other, teeth
chattering and fingertips aquiver.

"It's a little unorthodox, I guess," said Horvil, "but heck, I've known
you were unorthodox since you were six."

"I just don't want you to back out at the last minute."

"I won't. But ..."

"But what?"

The engineer threw his arms to the ground in exasperation, a move
that probably would have sent him tumbling onto his head if he were
present in the flesh. "Do you always need to have an evil nemesis,
Natch?" he cried. "First Brone, now Captain Bolbund. Can't you succeed on your own without having to beat somebody?"

Natch gave a hollow and humorless grin. "You can't win unless
somebody else loses."

Horvil flexed his jaw for a moment and watched his friend strut
energetically around the room. Natch could see a thousand witty
rejoinders crowding into his mind, eager to sharpen their claws on his
self-importance. "Okay," the engineer sighed after a minute. "What
can I do to help?"

Two days later, Horvil caught up with the flower vendor named Vellux at the annual Creed Elan convocation. The engineer looked
quite out of place at this year's event, not because of his size but
because he was the only one in the conference hall not draped from
head to toe in some shade of purple. Instead, Horvil wore a crisp dun
uniform he had borrowed from a friend working in L-PRACG security.

"You are Vellux?" Horvil announced in the authoritative tone of
voice Natch had instructed him to use.

The old woman, standing behind a table of lush passionflowers,
greeted Horvil with a bland smile. Her eyes shone a soft violet. "And
you are?"

"I'm here as part of an investigation into unethical ROD coding
practices." No names, no credentials, Natch had said. She won't ask. She'll
think you're with the Meme Cooperative, or Primo's, or some special task force
from the Defense and Wellness Council. But Horvil was paranoid about
being recognized, despite all of Natch's reassurances, and had insisted
on scrubbing his public directory profile for good measure. "Have you
recently purchased any bio/logic programming from this man?" Horvil
gestured at a viewscreen on the wall, where a gaggle of Creed Elanners
were bestowing a garland of flowers upon an addled woman of the diss
who was clearly not interested. The engineer erased the display and
summoned a particularly unflattering still of Bolbund, caught in midsmirk.

The flower vendor nodded, puzzled. "Yes, as a matter of fact I did."

"I see. Have you purchased any of the following products:
NozeGay 59, Aura of the Beach 12c, Flaming Lipps 44d, Floral Eyes
14-"

"Floral Eyes!" cried Vellux excitedly. A wrinkled man in the next
stall arched an eyebrow at her in disapproval, and the woman quickly
lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Yes, Floral Eyes 14.
That's the one."

Horvil frowned and tapped his foot for a moment. Don't tell her
what you're doing, Natch had said. Make her think you're talking to someone over Confidential Whisper. Let her wonder for a minute or two. Then the engineer abruptly motioned for Vellux to turn around and face the
viewscreen. The old woman complied, with a nervous glance towards
her table of passionflowers. "This will just take a moment," said
Horvil. He bisected the viewscreen with a gesture, summoning a
mirror on the left half and a series of flowers on the right. Daisies, buttercups, baby's breath, sunflowers. He gave an exaggerated stare at the
image of Vellux in the mirror, took note of her obviously mismatched
eye color, and shook his head sadly. "Bolbund, Bolbund, Bolbund," he
muttered with a world-weary sigh for effect.

The confused flower vendor huddled inside her purple robe and
frowned. "It's been working perfectly since I bought it," she said. "I
don't know what happened.... Should I return the program? Should
I get a refund, or, or ... report this to someone?"

Act surprised. Look around quickly. Make her believe that you've said too
much and now you're trying to cover up. "Madam," said Horvil, blooming
into a nervous smile, "I'm not allowed to make recommendations on
bio/logic programs. Please don't make any changes on my account. It's
nothing. Pretend I was never here. If we get enough evidence to move
the investigation forward, we'll be in touch with you."

Vellux smiled wanly and nodded, looking completely unconvinced.

"Towards Perfection," said Horvil, and gave her a formal bow.
Then he was gone. The entire encounter took about five minutes.

That afternoon, Natch logged his first sale of the EyeMorph program.

Natch spent the week tracking down Captain Bolbund's best customers. He did so by personally following the man, who turned out to
be as offensive to the eyes as his poetry was to the ear. Bolbund had a body like a misshapen bowling pin, with an uneven beard and a nose
like a wedge of putty.

But Natch did not fear his rival now that he had put his finger on
Bolbund's mortal flaw: vanity. It was this vanity that led him to conduct his business out in the open, where others could see and post
reports on the Data Sea. Where people could observe him personally
delivering programs to his customers and reciting lines of his gutwrenching poetry. Natch had to admit that it was a clever gimmick;
customers appreciated the attention, and onlookers remembered his
name. During the next few days, Natch and Horvil watched him sell
two phallic enhancement programs to old Creed Objectivv devotees
and repackage the same eyelash curling program for a handful of debutantes. By the end of the week, they had compiled a sizeable list of
clients and the RODs Bolbund had sold them.

The two quickly developed a solid routine. Natch would buy
copies of Captain Bolbund's routines (using Horvil's money, of course)
and study them in MindSpace for hours on end. Cracking into the programming code was no simple matter, even for such retrograde technology as a ROD. But even without root-level access, Natch could
glean a lot of information just by eyeballing a program's surface and
running it through a battery of tests. Within a few weeks, he could
reverse-engineer Bolbund's code blindfolded and put together
improved versions in mere hours. Once a ROD was completed, Natch
would pass the customer's name and the script on to Horvil for his
unique brand of social engineering.

Horvil was having the time of his life. He pinned bits of ceremonial bric-a-brac to his costume like medals, and constantly pestered his
old hivemate with new character improvisations. Horvil had lived his
whole life in decadent boredom, every move choreographed by an autocratic family. All Natch had to do was show the engineer a glimpse of
spontaneity, and Horvil was dancing to his music.

Natch was astonished at how quickly Captain Bolbund's operation folded under pressure. He expected to run into a few snags along the
way: programs he could not duplicate, customers he could not sway.
But these problems never materialized. Bolbund's customers continued to roll over and switch to Natch's brands. Credits continued to
accumulate in Natch's Vault account.

Of course, Bolbund did not accept the ravaging of his client list
without a fight. But once again, Natch was shocked by his rival's stupidity.

The whole affair came to a head one morning as Natch was swigging down a cup of nitro and scanning the drudge headlines. The previous night he had relished his first mention in the Primo's investment
guide.

Then he received a multi request from a Meme Cooperative official.

Natch activated a serenity program and granted the multi request.
Within seconds, he was greeted by a smartly dressed woman flashing
the official crest of the Meme Cooperative, the ancient Hebrew character of the aleph on a field of azure.

"Towards Perfection," said the woman. She then proceeded to reel
off her name, position, division and supervisor, along with a string of
unnecessary provisos and notifications.

"Perfection," replied Natch, his anxiety now well under control.
"What can I do for you?"

"You can tell me what your relationship is with this man." The
Cooperative official held out her hand and flashed the same obnoxious
picture of Bolbund that Horvil had been using in his charades.

Natch rolled his eyes. "Captain Bolbund," he moaned with distaste. "We've been scrapping over ROD customers for months now. He
just can't accept that I'm beating him."

"Well, apparently he has gone over the line." The woman nodded
towards the nearest viewscreen and began playing back a heated discussion between one of Natch's new customers and an ugly man with
large ears. The video was obviously captured on the sly. Natch couldn't make out the words passing between the two, but they nearly came to
blows before the encounter was over. "Do you know this man?" said
the Cooperative woman, freezing the display and tapping one of the
interrogator's floppy ears.

"No," Natch replied truthfully.

"This man has been passing himself off as a Meme Cooperative official," she said. Natch looked closer at the display and noticed that the
imposter's uniform was nearly identical to that of the woman standing
in his apartment. "He's been telling people that he's conducting an
official investigation into `unethical ROD coding practices.' When we
caught up with him, he told us that this Captain Bolbund has been
paying him to put on this charade."

Natch was by now the very model of unconcern. "So what does this
have to do with me?"

"Apparently, Bolbund specifically requested that his accomplice
tell people that you were the one under investigation."

Natch masked his laughter by burying his face in his mug of nitro.
You fumbling idiot! he chided Bolbund in his head. The key to the
whole scam was to not mention any specific names or organizations
whatsoever. After all, who could accuse Horvil of misrepresenting
himself if he never made any representations in the first place?

"I don't know anything about it," Natch said at length to the
Cooperative official.

The woman nodded perfunctorily. She had already made the
mental leap to the next case. "The Cooperative will be in touch with
you if we need any further information." She added another litany of
bureaucratic language and was about to cut the multi connection when
she had a sudden thought. "This Bolbund-what is he a `captain' of
anyway?"

Natch shrugged. "I have no idea."

And that was that.

Natch never heard another word back from the Meme Cooperative about the investigation, but was pleased to discover via the drudges
that Captain Bolbund had received a stiff fine and a ninety-day suspension of his license to sell programming code on the Data Sea. Ninety
days was an aeon in this business. Natch breathed a sigh of relief, and
not only because he had vanquished his competitor; now Horvil could
drop his silly role-playing and Natch could do business in earnest. For
months afterward, Natch kept waiting for a reprisal to come his way
from the Cooperative or some other legislative body, but none ever
appeared.

The final chapter of the Bolbund saga occurred the night of the
Meme Cooperative visit, when Horvil took Natch on a whirlwind tour
of the London bars to celebrate. Natch was still earning less in a month
than the top fiefcorps paid their apprentices as a daily wage. But he had
halted his downward slide. He had proven that, by sheer force of will,
he could bring the world in line with the visions in his mind's eye.
Natch never drank or used alcohol simulation programs, but was content to watch Horvil get pleasantly sauced. At the end of the night,
Natch fired off a parting message to Captain Bolbund with Horvil's
enthusiastic backing: