Infoquake (32 page)

Jara snorted loudly. Was this clod actually serious for once, or was
he just being sarcastic? She couldn't tell which option was worse. The
fact that Horvil had absolutely no taste or personal style whatsoever
only compounded the problem. Then again, Jara thought bitterly, why
would you need to have fashion sense if you've got enough money to buy it
instead? She remembered the rare ceramic sculpture Horvil had
hanging on his wall with a stray glob of peanut butter encrusted on its
bottom edge, and she cringed.

The analyst forced herself to stop this dreadful internal monologue.
She couldn't blame Horvil for her failure to carve a home out of this
tiny apartment. She could only blame herself. And that was why Jara
had decided she was going to order a new garden and wall hangings
today. Who cared if she could ill afford them on her apprentice's salary.
She had to draw the line somewhere. "I'm going with violets," she said
between tense grinding teeth, and gave the viewscreen a silent command.

In the blink of an eye, the living room wall shifted back a meter to
make room for a row of holographic violets that slid up from the floor.
Horvil yelped and quickly scooted out of the way. As Jara searched for
a suitable layout, he took a seat at the kitchen table and watched the
shifting kaleidoscopic patterns on the floor. "Maybe you could try
layout 57, with a few daisies sprinkled in to match th-"

"Horvil, please."

He shut up. Jara settled on a slight arc that spanned the length of
the room, and confirmed the order. Delivery tomorrow at 3:25 pm, the
system told her. Somewhere on the Data Sea, computational agents for
the tenement building cut a thick slice out of Jara's Vault account.

This was all a diversion anyway, a way to pass the time until they
could squeeze some information from Natch about what was going on.
He had promised to explain everything in a fiefcorp meeting at seven
o'clock. But by the time eight-thirty rolled around with no sign of
Natch, the three apprentices decided their fiefcorp master wasn't
coming. The same thing had been going on for a week. Horvil tried to
get in touch with Serr Vigal, but the neural programmer had predictably prived himself to incoming communication, probably off
fundraising. So Horvil and Jara spent the next few hours in Jara's
apartment listening to Merri explain what little she knew about the
Phoenix Project. The three tossed improbable theories back and forth,
and got nowhere. Eventually, Merri decided to cut her connection so
she could spend some time tending to her companion Bonneth, who
was bed-ridden with another one of her crippling fevers.

Jara was ready to kick Horvil out and get some sleep, when she felt
an incoming multi request.

Natch appeared in the room, looking as bothered and beautiful as
always. He was already pacing the length of the room before he had
completely emerged from the haze of multivoid. "Horv, I'm going to
need you to interview some new engineers and programmers," he said,
as if they had been discussing the topic for hours.

"Are we expanding?" asked Horvil.

"What does it look like?"

Horvil shot a glib look at Jara. "How many do we need?"

"I don't know," replied Natch without missing a beat. "Two. Five.
Ten if they're stupid."

The engineer stood with arms akimbo and sucked in his stomach
as if girding for battle. "I hear and obey, brave commander," he said,
and vanished.

Natch swiveled on the ball of his left foot and stopped directly in
front of Jara. The analyst felt the familiar hollow sensation in the pit
of her stomach as the entrepreneur locked eyes with her. Sapphires, she
thought. "And you," said Natch in a feathery voice. "Why don't you
tag along with Merri. She's meeting with Robby Robby to get him up
to speed on how we do things around here."

Jara gulped. "Who's Robby Robby?"

"Our new channeling partner. He's a bit of a character, but he's got
a staff that could sell you the clothes on your back while you're still
wearing them."

The analyst nodded. Her own clothes seemed uncomfortably tight
and constricting at the moment. "All right, I'll do that." Then, seeing
that Natch was about to cut his multi connection, asked: "So what do
you think-violets or daisies?" She tilted her head towards the holographic arch that the fiefcorp master had plowed straight through several times now.

Natch turned and studied the flower arrangement for a moment.
"I'd say daisies," he announced, and then severed his multi projection
without another word.

Jara cancelled the violets and ordered daisies instead.

Natch's thought processes had always been a mystery to Jara, but she soon began to wonder if he was losing his grip on reality. That night,
he went on a titanic shopping spree. Natch bought everyone in the fiefcorp a new workbench with expanded MindSpace capabilities and the
fanciest set of bio/logic programming bars on the market. He let
Horvil loose on the Data Sea to pick out the best code optimization
routines and analysis algorithms. He set up a permanent account at the
Surina Enterprise Facility so he could commandeer an office or a conference room at a moment's notice.

Where he got the money for all this, nobody knew. Jara was intimately familiar with the fiefcorp's Vault accounts, and she knew they
couldn't withstand this kind of pummeling. True, the jump to number
one on Primo's had provided them a good financial cushion. But
Natch's reckless spending would soon put them into bankruptcy.

Somehow this prospect cheered Jara up.

So instead of protesting, Jara did as she was told. Over the next few
days, she accompanied Merri to several meetings with the channeler
Robby Robby. If anything, the man was even more insipid than
Natch's description. He dressed in whatever ludicrous fashion the high
society brats were wearing at the time-this week it was kimono pants
and open-collared silk shirts-and went through programmable
accents like other people went through socks. The cost of these silly
peccadilloes went on the tab of the Natch Personal Programming Fiefcorp, of course.

Jara soon discovered what made Robby Robby so valuable, however: He was completely unperturbed by the idea of selling a mystery
product. "What do you think my channelers do every day?" he said,
walking them through a room of baby-faced salespeople holding ConfidentialWhisper conversations from their desks. There were perhaps
twenty in all, each impeccably dressed and relentlessly cheerful.
"Selling isn't about the product you're offering, Lady Merri. It's about
what the customer wants." Every time Robby Robby called her Lady
Merri, Jara wanted to give him a swift kick in the knees. But though she was a Creed Objectivv devotee, Merri got along with the slick
salesman just fine.

Meanwhile, Horvil worked feverishly through the weekend to find
capable engineering candidates who would fit Natch's high standards.
He managed to round up a dozen applicants. All had the credentials to
work in the top fiefcorps, and all were eager to sign on, which was no
small accomplishment in such a tight labor market. But Natch found
fault with every one of them. He even managed to send a top-flight
engineer from the Deuteron Fiefcorp fleeing an interview in tears.

Finally, an exasperated Horvil brought in his nineteen-year-old
cousin Benyamin for an interview. Horvil meant it as something of a
joke. Ben's only real-world experience was an apprenticeship managing
a floor of assembly-line coders, and he was the youngest son of Horvil's
dreaded Aunt Berilla to boot. But to everyone's surprise, Natch made
the boy an apprenticeship offer on the spot. Benyamin readily
accepted.

"I don't get it," Jara told Horvil after he had relayed the story to
her. "No offense, Horv, but Natch has been turning away everyone. How
did Benyamin convince that bastard to hire a nineteen-year-old kid
with no experience?"

Horvil shrugged. "I dunno."

"So how many hours was Natch grilling him?"

"Less than one. Ben says that Natch listened to his pitch without
saying a word, and then asked him just one question. You're not going to
go crying to your mother the first time I keep you up three days in a row, are
you?"

The outside world did not come to a standstill while the fiefcorp
beefed up its operations. In the midst of all the commotion, Pierre
Loget released a bevy of upgrades on the Data Sea that sent his PulCorp rocketing to the top of Primo's. Billy Sterno and Lucas Sentinel
quickly followed suit. For a couple of hours, the Patel Brothers sank as
low as number four before they managed to pump a few more bio/logic programs into the system and reclaim the top spot.

Natch mysteriously shrugged the whole thing off and seemed content to sit in fourth place for the time being. He spent all his time
reading the latest news about the Prime Committee and the Defense
and Wellness Council. Jara would multi over to his apartment to find
him meditating to the libertarian ravings of politician Khann Frejohr.
The craggy face of High Executive Borda stared back at her from every
window. When the story broke about a battalion of Council officers
bivouacking in China, Natch was glued to a map of the Orient for
hours.

Jara felt like a spectator in a game she didn't understand, played by
titans on a board she could not see. At least the days were passing
quickly now, bringing the elusive end of her apprenticeship contract
closer all the time.

On Monday morning, Jara awoke and slipped into her comfortable
routine like an old shirt. She had barely fired up Doze-B-Gone 91c
when she was assaulted by a screaming headline from Sen Sivv Sor:

Is This the Long-Awaited New Surina Technology,
or Just a Publicity Stunt?

John Ridglee's morning commentary quickly morphed to keep pace,
sending his fawning profile of Pierre Loget to an out-of-the-way side
column. Before long, the two drudges were engaged in a frenzied competition to see who could quote more unnamed industry sources
offering the wildest speculation about the Phoenix Project.

Within an hour, the entire world had shifted its focus to the
upcoming 400th birthday celebration of Sheldon Surina. Curious
onlookers from Earth to Luna to the farthest orbital colonies began
tracking the comings and goings at the Surina compound, hoping to
find clues to what Margaret had been up to for the past twenty years. Even those with little interest in bio/logics began streaming into
Andra Pradesh to soak up the electric vibe in the air.

Horvil and Jara camped on opposite sofas in the engineer's apartment and watched Surina mania overtake the Data Sea. L-PRACG
politicians stood up in open sessions to spout platitudes about the
impact of another breakthrough Surina technology. One after another,
the creeds released statements spelling out their positions on scientific
innovation. The Islanders raised their obligatory protest about technology being thrust upon them against their will; the orbital colonies
raised their obligatory protest about technology not reaching them
quickly enough. The bio/logics markets careened up and down as
investors decided the end was near or the best was yet to come. Even
the revered Bodhisattva of Creed Objectivv emerged from seclusion to
make some inscrutable pronouncement about the state of Universal
Truth in the wake of the Surinas' accomplishments.

"I don't get it," Jara said, throwing her hands up in confusion.

"You've been saying that a lot lately."

"Yes, but think about it for a minute, Horv. People have been
talking about this stupid Phoenix Project for years now. Natch was
just throwing around rumors about it a few days ago. Why is everybody so interested now? What's changed?"

Horvil bounced his arm off a stack of dirty laundry on the couch,
trampoline-like. "It's called public relations. The Surinas are masters
at it."

"You think all this hubbub comes from a few leaks to the
drudges?"

"That's exactly what I think."

"But-"

"Come on, Jara. Don't you remember what happened a month ago?
We've seen firsthand how this shit happens."

The analyst twirled a few stray locks of curly hair, trying to mask
her sudden embarrassment. Horvil was right. They had personal expe rience with the capriciousness of the public imagination, and with the
ways a few, choice power brokers could channel the energies of sixty
billion people to their cause.

Horvil fixed her with a narrow-eyed stare. "What's wrong?" he
said.

"If what Merri says about us licensing the Phoenix Project is true,
then all this publicity is going to be really good for business."

"But?"

"But once Natch gets in the spotlight, who's to say someone's not
going to hijack all this attention and turn it against him?"