Infoquake (53 page)

"Fine, let's."

Petrucio rolled his eyes. "I've already told you, Natch. We don't do
business like that anymore. I've gone through a lot in the past year.
This whole MultiReal opportunity has turned the company upsidedown. I've been far too busy preparing for our presentation-which, in case you've forgotten, starts in two hours-to worry about you. My
companion died-"

"Please, Petrucio, spare me the sad stories. You slept with half the
channelers in the eastern hemisphere behind that woman's back. Don't
tell me you've had some kind of eleventh-hour conversion."

The elder Patel's nostrils flared and his moustache twitched in
rage. Natch thought Petrucio would definitely cut his multi connection now, but instead the man stayed and slowly mastered his anger.
"After my companion died, I made some changes in my life," Patel said
in a low voice, whipping aside the lapel of his jacket to reveal a small
pin in the shape of a black-and-white swirl.

Natch blinked hard and took a step back in surprise. Petrucio Patel
a truthteller? "Anyone can wear a pin," Natch gulped.

"Check the membership rolls-it's public information. I took the
oath a few weeks after she was gone. The Bodhisattva of Creed Objective himself administered it to me. You know what that means, don't
you? It means I would be honor-bound to tell you if I knew anything
about any black code."

"How come this is the first time I've heard anything about it?"

"The creed has several hundred million members. Not all of us
who pledge are crass enough to advertise it on our chests, like your
friend Merri."

Natch paced back and forth on the icy plain, his eyes tracing the
patterns their footsteps made in the snow. It was not outside the realm
of possibility that Petrucio was making the whole thing up, although
the details of his story were easily verifiable. More likely he simply
planned to not get caught telling lies. According to the drudges, Creed
Objectivv's enforcement of the truthtelling oath was only slightly
more effective than the Meme Cooperative's enforcement of fiefcorp
business ethics.

"So let's say I take you at your word," said Natch frostily. "You had
nothing to do with this black code attack. You're a devotee of Creed Objective now. You're an honorable businessman. What about Frederic?"

A look of stupefaction dashed across Petrucio Patel's face until his
features abruptly morphed into a perfect PokerFace. "And exactly what
are you suggesting?" he said.

Natch narrowed his eyes to slits as he strode up to his rival's face,
close enough to take a bite out of his hawkish nose. "I know all about
those Objective tricks," said Natch. "You pledge to always tell the
truth, so you play subtle word games. `I had nothing to do with this.
I didn't hire anybody to ambush you in the street. I've been far too busy
preparing for our presentation.' But listen carefully, Petrucio. Until
you can prove to me that both you and Frederic are playing on the
level, the Patel Brothers are number one on my hit list. And you
haven't seen how I do business when I'm really pissed off. I'll tear you
to pieces. I'll use every fucking trick outlawed by the Meme Cooperative. I'll throw that MultiReal license to the dogs without thinking
twice about it, and fuck the consequences."

Petrucio nodded almost imperceptibly, the look on his face a
hybrid of amusement and respect. Then he was gone.

Shortly after the conclusion of the Patel Brothers' presentation, the
Surina/Natch MultiReal Fiefcorp held a meeting. The apprentices all
arrived at the conference room with their belongings in tow, since they
were planning to head home immediately afterwards.

Natch was surprised to discover that Margaret Surina had not come
down from her perch in the Revelation Spire after the Council's departure, although most of the guards had already been redeployed around
the compound. The scuttlebutt among the security staff was that Margaret was busy right now moving her office to an alcove in the spire's
peak. But whatever the reason, the bodhisattva had not responded to any of Natch's ConfidentialWhispers. Instead, she sent a token message of congratulations to the entire team, the same kind of pro forma
civility they had received from Lucas Sentinel, Prosteev Serly and Billy
Sterno, among others.

As for Frederic and Petrucio Patel, their product demo did not go
well.

Their misfortune was partly the result of a breaking news story
that quickly occluded any other topic on the Data Sea. The Speaker of
the Congress of L-PRACGs had been caught in a major embezzlement
sting involving a group of highly placed TubeCo lobbyists. That, along
with Borda's heavy-handed and highly unpopular speech, had caused a
groundswell of support for the libertarians. Opponents were clamoring
for a vote of no confidence in the governmentalist Speaker. The
drudges were now predicting that, within the next twenty-four hours,
control of the Congress would fall to rabid libertarian Khann Frejohr.

But the Patel Brothers could not completely blame their failure on
bad timing. They had compounded their misfortune with a number of
poor choices of their own. They had no hands-on demonstration to
show the crowd. The PatelReal 1.0 program schematics floated,
unused, in an enormous MindSpace bubble above the stage, while
Petrucio prattled on about raging waters and safe shores. Frederic wore a
hideous chocolate-brown suit that offended the sensibilities of even the
most fashion-challenged members of the audience. Afterwards, the
drudges spent hours comparing notes on the rampant headaches caused
by the thumping bass drum of the Patels' soundtrack. Even those commentators who had been overtly hostile to Natch a day earlier had to
admit that the Surina/Natch MultiReal Fiefcorp had clearly beaten its
rival to the punch.

Thus, Natch and his apprentices were in a celebratory mood.

Horvil arranged for a platter full of margaritas to be delivered to
the conference room and made a big production of turning off his
alcohol-metabolizing OCHREs. He clinked glasses loudly with Jara, Merri, Benyamin and Quell in a show of solidarity. Even the multi-
projected Vigal sipped an illusory drink from a virtual glass. Natch
had never cared for the unsatisfying sensation of multi food; all taste
and no substance. Yet, he too had a confident smile on his face, and his
tranquil mood inspired the room to summon a cozy New England
SeeNaRee. The conference table sat on a bearskin rug in the midst of
an old-fashioned ski lodge, while a fire crackled on the hearth behind
them.

"Anybody been scouting around the Data Sea for reactions from
the drudges?" said Horvil.

"Of course," replied Jara. "Everyone is totally polarized over your
demonstration, Natch. Some people are wondering if you released
some hallucinogenic black code on the audience. And there's an
amusing debate going on about whether or not you actually swung the
bat 500 million times."

"Did you?" asked Ben, a little uncertainly.

Natch laughed. "Not even close! Five hundred million possible
swings, but only one actual one. You want to take a stab at explaining,
Horv?"

"It's simple, really," began Horvil. "Once MultiReal has reduced
the swing of the bat into a formula, you just plug in parameters and
create a mathematical progression of realities. So, you swing the bat at
90 degrees and then 91 degrees and then 92 degrees and on and on ...
and then you don't actually have to do them all."

"Then you'd have an infinite number of baseballs," Benyamin
pointed out in confusion.

"No no no." Horvil conjured up a virtual calculator on the conference table and began drunkenly plugging in numbers. "See, if you convert the field of vision into a grid of Cartesian space and calculate the
coordinates of each audience member, then you can plug x, y, and z
values into the MultiReal program and work backwards to generate a
baseball hit to that point. Then, of course, you have to factor in wind resistance and gravitational pull-"

"Enough, Horv!" interjected Jara. "We get the point. What I want
to know is why everybody remembered those discarded realities. Quell,
you told us nobody would remember them unless they were using
MultiReal themselves."

"Right," said Quell. "That was the alteration Horvil made at the
last minute."

"I wasn't even sure it was going to work," mumbled the engineer.
"Just lucky it did, I guess."

"The important thing is that few people seem to doubt that the
demonstration was genuine," said Serr Vigal. "Billions of people
watched the whole thing over a video feed, and most of them accept
what they saw as the true and actual version of events."

Quell stretched his beefy arms out behind his head and leaned back
in his chair, looking well pleased. "I can't imagine a better way to
introduce MultiReal to the world," he said. "A little girl holding a
baseball. You don't get much better PR than that."

"Natch, who is Magan Kai Lee?" blurted Merri out of nowhere.

The fiefcorp master's visage darkened. A sudden gust of wind
caused the cabin door to slam open, and a SeeNaRee coyote started
baying off in the distance. "Why?"

"Someone by that name keeps sending me urgent messages,"
responded the channel manager sheepishly. "Four times in three days.
He even showed up at my apartment the other day and scared Bonneth
out of her wits. He won't say what it's about, but I assume it has something to do with MultiReal."

Serr Vigal planted his chin on his fist with a look of exhaustion. He
exchanged a dark glance with Natch, who passed him some silent
signal to proceed. "Magan Kai Lee is Len Borda's number two man at
the Defense and Wellness Council," said the neural programmer. "He
was there with the High Executive during our meeting this morning.
We think Borda has put him in charge of dealing with MultiReal."

"Lee ... is he the guy who's been speaking at the Council news
conferences lately?" said Horvil, scratching his head. "He's real short.
Chinese, I think."

Natch gave a weary nod. "That's him."

"I don't understand," said Jara. "What do they want from us? If
Borda's so worried about infoquakes, why are they terrorizing Merri?
We didn't have anything to do with that disturbance during Margaret's speech. Shouldn't they be talking with the Data Sea architects?"

"Haven't you figured it out yet?" said Natch. "These infoquakes-
if they even exist-are the least of Borda's concerns. MultiReal is dangerous, Jara. Think of an assassin who can fire a black code dart that
hits its target every time. That's scary enough. But imagine what an
army of people running MultiReal could do."

Nobody said anything for a good two minutes.

"So yes, Merri, we're going to be hearing a lot more from Len
Borda and Magan Kai Lee," said Natch. "You can count on it. They're
going to be our biggest hurdle from here on out."

All trace of levity had vanished from Benyamin's face. "Our biggest
hurdle? What other hurdles are there?"

"Don't be naive, Ben! It's a big world. All kinds of fanatics are
going to decide MultiReal is the solution to their problems. Do you
think everyone's going to sit patiently and wait for us to go through the
product development process?"

"Someone has already decided not to wait," interjected Merri in a
hoarse whisper.

Silence shrouded the room once again.

"Have we made any headway on the black code problem?" said
Jara. "Do we know what it does?"

Vigal shook his head. "I've taken a few cursory scans of Natch's
system, but I haven't been able to come up with much. It's capable of
putting him to sleep. That much is clear. All I can say is, be patient.
There are thousands of OCHRE machines in the human body. It may take some time to examine them all."

"How do you know the code is still there?" asked the bio/logic analyst.

"Programs have signatures, Jara," explained Horvil. "They leave
traces." His alcohol-inhibiting OCHREs were back on in full force; the
engineer was now stone cold sober. "Your typical piece of black code
self-destructs after it's done all its dirty work. No incriminating evidence, right? But there's so many safeguards against erasing OCHRE
programming that you usually know it if a piece of black code selfdestructs inside of you."

"That is often the only way people know they've been infected at
all," added Vigal. "They don't notice the insertion, but the selfdestruct they can feel."

"So who are the prime suspects?" asked Jara.

Natch muttered something noncommittal.

Jara tugged at a few stray curls of hair in frustration. "Well, who
do you think did it? The Patel Brothers? Lucas Sentinel? This other
bodhisattva you've been working with? Who?"

The fiefcorp master's face suddenly twisted into a rictus of fear,
anger and pain. His right fist flew out and slammed into the conference table with a reverberating thump that caused everyone to gasp in
astonishment. "I don't know!" he cried out. "I just don't know, Jara! But
it's my problem-not yours! Leave me the fuck alone!"