Multireal (17 page)

"There's got to be more than that!" shouted Natch, pounding his
fist on one of the couch's throw pillows. "Why would someone put
together a strike team just to slip me a sleeping pill? If all they wanted
to do was prevent me from delivering that demo at Andra Pradesh, the
fucking code would have self-destructed by now."

Serr Vigal slid into a weary silence.

Natch lurched to his feet, balancing himself against the edge of the
sofa until he was confident he would not fall down. Vigal and Horvil
both offered him a helping hand, but the fiefcorp master waved them
away. "Where's Quell?" he grunted.

Horvil pointed wordlessly toward the balcony door. Natch clasped
his hands behind his back and strode in that direction. The balcony
door swished open as he approached.

Quell the Islander stood outside with his hands firmly clenching
the railing, as if he were about to rip it loose and hurl it into space. His
gaze was fixed on a small group of Council officers standing across the
road, exchanging hand signals with other teams in the vicinity. They
were clearly watching Natch's apartment, or at least pretending to.
One of the officers went so far as to brandish a dart-rifle ostentatiously
in Quell's direction, as if he might fire it at any moment. His fellows
laughed.

"Sorry," said the Islander to Natch under his breath. "I know you
want answers. But I don't have them."

Natch shrugged. "I believe you." He lifted his right hand up,
waving the glinting programming rings under Quell's nose. "Mind if
I keep these for a while?"

The Islander rubbed his chin for a moment, and Natch could see he was trying to decide if he should ask why. Finally he nodded. "Go
ahead. I've got another set back at Andra Pradesh." He reached into the
pocket of his breeches and withdrew a small black felt bag, which he
handed to Natch. Natch deposited the rings one by one in the bag and
then cinched its drawstring closed.

"Listen, Natch, I need to make something clear," continued Quell,
lowering his voice. "Everyone in this fiefcorp seems to think I understand everything about MultiReal. But I don't. Of course, I know a lot
more than you do ... but even sixteen years ago, MultiReal was already
bigger than any piece of bio/logic programming on the market. Some
of the pieces of that program are over a hundred years old, Natch. I've
seen routines in there dating back to Prengal Surina. I wouldn't be surprised to find shit written by Sheldon Surina. The Surinas, they invented
bio/logic programming. One family, unlimited resources, three hundred sixty years. Does anyone really know what they're capable of?"

Quell shook his head, angry at everything and nothing at once.
The taunting of the Council officer across the street caught his eye once
again. The Islander hefted an imaginary dart-rifle to his shoulder and
fired off a single round, with a click of his tongue as sound effect. His
white-robed adversary rattled his very real dart-rifle in the air and
shouted something insulting, unintelligible at this distance.

"You have to understand, Natch," continued Quell with more than
a little bitterness in his voice. "Those Surinas, they don't let you in.
Not even me, not even after twenty years."

Natch frowned. He knew the feeling all too well. Sometimes it
seemed like the entire world was nothing but a vast edifice designed to
keep him out. He caught a quick glimpse of Horvil and Vigal out of
his peripheral vision, still deep in conversation.

"Listen, Quell," said Natch. "I need answers soon. This can't wait.
The MultiReal exposition's a week from today, and I've still got Magan
Kai Lee breathing down my neck." He made an angry gesture at the
squads of Council officers below.

"So what are you going to do?" asked Quell.

"You're going to Andra Pradesh to see Margaret?"

The Islander nodded.

"Then I'm coming with you. No, don't say it-I've already tried to
multi there half a dozen times. Her idiotic security force won't even let
me in the compound. But if I show up there in person, with you, they'll
let me in. Then you're going to take me to the top of the Revelation
Spire, and I'm going to get some answers from Margaret."

"What if Margaret still refuses to see you?"

"Oh, she'll see me," replied Natch, his voice venom. "She'll see me,
or I'll tear that whole bloody compound down brick by brick."

12

Jara strode through the crooked hallways of the Kordez Thassel Complex cursing the chill. The Thasselians did this on purpose, she thought
bitterly, wondering if some fiefcorp with a warmth-generating program had thrown the creed a few credits to lower the thermostat. I
don't care if it is January in the Twin Cities-there's no excuse.

The analyst closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind. Fiefcorp
greed was a fruit that ripened in all seasons and could be found by the
bushel anywhere you looked. She needed to stay focused on the subject
at hand: the Patel Brothers.

Jara couldn't figure out what kind of playbook Frederic and
Petrucio were working from. Obviously they had shifted tactics since
their first MultiReal demo, which even the most Natchophobic of
drudges called an overproduced, underimagined failure. Today's demo
was an industry-only event. No creed officials or L-PRACG bureaucrats or curious onlookers would be on hand to provide distractions;
not even the drudges were invited, unless they specifically covered the
bio/logic programming beat.

What mischief were the Patels up to now? Were they really in
league with the Defense and Wellness Council, as Margaret suspected?

Jara followed Robby Robby's beacon, which led her from the
Thassel Complex's gateway zone through a drunken loop of frigid hallways and finally to a small clump of people outside the auditorium
entrance. She hung back for a moment, checking Data Sea profiles. You
never knew who was on the Council's payroll, and after her London
encounter with Magan Kai Lee, there was no level of paranoia to which
Jara would not sink.

The slick, square-jawed individual blathering away in the group's
epicenter was, of course, Robby Robby. He had abandoned his cubed hairdo at some point this past week for a frizzy style that would have
looked at home on a clown or a cultist. Next to Robby stood Phranco-
liape, one of the Data Sea's most respected channelers, his distinguished white beard making a vibrant contrast with his rich African
skin. Three quick pings to the public directory tagged the youths
standing in Phrancoliape's shadow as his junior apprentices. So far, so
good. Then Jara spotted the last member of the group and nearly
bolted for the exit. Xi Xong, the Patel Brothers' dowager channeler
extraordinaire.

Jara hadn't quite decided what to do when Robby Robby spotted
her. "Watch out, Twin Cities!" bellowed the channeler in a voice loud
enough to warp time and space. "The official Surina/Natch delegation
is now assembled!"

Her cover blown, Jara walked up and gave a polite bow to the
group. "Keep it down, Robby. I'm not supposed to be here,
remember?"

"Eh, don't worry your pretty little head," replied Robby. "'Trucio
knows you're here, and he doesn't care. Right, Xi?"

Xi Xong's face was painted as heavily as a Kabuki mask. "Of
course, darling," she said in that faux high-society accent of hers. "The
Patels always keep things aboveboard and out in the open. Not like
Jara's boss." She turned toward the analyst with a vicious smile that
revealed too many teeth. "Speaking of which ... tell me, how is Lucas
Sentinel these days?"

Jara could feel the blood flowing to her face unbidden. "I-I work
for Natch now, Xi," she stuttered. "I haven't had anything to do with
Lucas for, what, almost five years." And you know it, too.

The Patels' channeler emitted a whooping crane laugh. "I'm sorry,
dear, you're right. I always get those two confused. Natch, Lucas.
They're so much alike, don't you think?" Robby bobbed his head idiotically, always on the lookout for a stray opinion to agree with. One
of Phrancoliape's apprentices chuckled. "Well, duty calls," said Xong. "Perfection to you all." And then she whirled around on one knobbed
stalk of leg and disappeared into the auditorium.

Jara bristled. How long were people going to browbeat her about
her association with Lucas Sentinel? And what did she have to be
ashamed about anyway? Lucas had been the one who demolished their
working relationship with his fumbling attempts at seduction. All Jara
had done was spurn his advances. So why did it still feel like a moral
failure on her part?

Trying to regain her equilibrium, she turned to Phrancoliape. "So
who're you shilling for these days, Phranc?"

"Oh, Pierre Loget, same as always," replied the channeler in a
warm baritone. He either did not notice the tangled barbs on Xi's
words or was purposefully ignoring them. "Now that you and the
Patels have stopped worrying about Primo's, somebody has to keep Lucas
and Bolliwar out of the top spot." The latter referring to Bolliwar
Tuban, whose reputation for nastiness was on par with Natch's.

"So where is Pierre these days?" said Jara. "I read something about
him on the drudge circuit the other day. John Ridglee says he's missing."

"Yeah, what do the drudges know?" one of Phranc's apprentices
blurted out, a little too quickly.

The channeler himself let out a good-natured laugh. "Your boss has
a tendency to disappear for weeks at a time too," he told Jara, waving
his hand in dismissal. "Pierre likes his privacy, but the instant Sentinel
gets within spitting distance of number one, he'll be back. Trust me."

And at that moment, a delicate bong echoed throughout the atrium
of the Kordez Thassel auditorium, signaling the imminent start of the
Patel Brothers' presentation. Phranc bowed to Jara and gave Robby
Robby a comradely clap on the shoulder. Then he vanished along with
his understudies.

Jara turned to Robby, who seemed blissfully ignorant of the entire
concept of subtext. "You ready?"

Robby lit up like a sparkler. "As I'll ever be, Queen Jara!" he crackled.

Standard procedure at an event like this dictated that all multi
projections should materialize inside the auditorium and stay there.
But this crowd was evidently too small to bother with such rules. Jara
turned to walk through the double doors and was assaulted by a garish
billboard advertisement across the way.

Try Woo/Coat 95 by the BolliwarTuban Fiefcorp

She scowled, and resigned herself to the cold.

Robby and Jara hustled through the crowd and found seats in the
upper reaches of the auditorium, where they would be safely anonymous. Fearing another outburst from Robby, Jara covertly masked her
lips with one palm in the manner of someone engaged in a ConfidentialWhisper. The channeler left her alone.

So the analyst sat and watched the audience file in. The carnival
atmosphere that had plagued the first two MultiReal demos was distinctly absent today. This was an exclusive and drearily dressed gathering of bio/logic professionals: thirteen thousand of them, to be precise, crammed into a space that could have seated perhaps ten thousand
live bodies. The crazies and the zealots were nowhere to be foundunless you counted the devotees of Creed Thassel, whose members
were undoubtedly here under their cloak of secrecy.

And what about the officers of the Defense and Wellness Council,
standing grim and barren of emotion? Jara didn't recognize any of the
faces of the officers near her, but that didn't mean she wasn't being
watched. After all, the Surina/Natch MultiReal Fiefcorp's big exposition was in seven days. When would Magan Kai Lee make his move?
What was he waiting for?

After a few minutes, the lights dimmed and a hush settled on the
crowd.

Smoke began to curl around the foot of the stage until it covered the entire floor. A soundtrack heavy on the bamboo flute echoed across the
auditorium. The spotlight speared a circular platform that rose about a
meter out of the smoke. Standing atop the platform was the jowly Frederic Patel, forehead furrowed, a pair of dartguns at hand. Seconds later,
another platform rose on the opposite side of the stage carrying a similarly decked-out Petrucio. His waxed mustache practically glistened.