Multireal (27 page)

The administrator contemplated the shape arrayed before the
assembly. The number of patterns stored in the Oversight Board's catalog was in the trillions of trillions, but this particular pattern fell into
the sparse category of unknowns.

More information, commanded the administrator.

A second wave of data began accumulating on the pile, refining its
shape. The presence of certain buzzwords and warning signs on public
financial boards. The heart rates and blood pressures of the Prime
Committee's voting members. Rainfall reports from the Environmental Control Board. OrbiCo shipping schedules, hoverbird flight
patterns, TubeCo ridership figures. Membership and cancellation
numbers from the Jamm and the Sigh. The throughput of quantum
channels between the orbital colonies. Len Borda's cholesterol level and
platelet count. The reported whereabouts of the bodhisattvas of the
major creeds.

If the administrator knew anything about Margaret Surina, it
knew her as a convergence point of data on the eternal sea of information. A confluence of trends both macro- and microeconomic.

If the administrator knew anything about death, it knew that
death was a transformation, a final resolution of variables that had
heretofore been in flux.

The general economic pattern might not have been comprehensible to the administrator, but certainly there were scattered fragments
it could grasp. The sudden and unexpected death of a highly influential figure. Anger and distrust at governmental authority. Fear, agitation, change. The administrator took these fragments as it had been
designed to do, analyzed them, cobbled them together like some mad
virtual Frankenstein.

And now, what to do about it?

The administrator checked its core tables, the baseline values
engraved in its memory by the Makers themselves. The goals were clear
and succinct: preserve existing assets; encourage stasis; smooth the
jagged edges of human activity into manageable probability curves.

The administrator began to put together a plan. Hurricanes could
be ameliorated and tides could be manipulated. But so could human
behavior, given enough time and sufficient data points.

Decision after decision flowed from the administrator to the full
body of the Oversight Board, and each decision required the okay of
the full board. Haggling erupted among the assembly as data agents
darted from member to member, carrying proposals and counterproposals, modifications and amendments and official objections. Conflicting agendas laid themselves out like stones on a Go board, with the
administrator holding the final token.

A few billionths of a second later, the plan was ratified.

Make it so, the administrator commanded.

And so the agents of the World Economic Oversight Board streamed
across the Data Sea, where things were not so simple. Billions of pro grams sailed out there, many with aims in direct contradiction to those
of the World Economic Oversight Board.

But the Board's agents were government troops on a sacrosanct mission. At every crossroads, priority credentials were presented and emergency overrides were given. In most cases, lesser programs stood down
and gave the Board's emissaries the right of way. But there were countless holdouts and instances of stubborn resistance. Maverick programs
eager to waylay the centralized government. Rebels. Spies. Proxies of
monomaniacal self-interest. And at every juncture, the Board's emissaries had to decide where to fight and where to make exception. Where
to call reinforcements. Where to brutally stamp out dissent.

The Board's edicts were quickly implemented across informational
space. Banking programs that had been aggressively raising interest
rates and trading shares were overridden by the implacable agents of
the Vault. Transactions were actually reversed in a few isolated locations; other strategic crossroads were lined with transactional roadblocks to slow down the rate of exchange.

All was proceeding according to the administrator's plans. And
then something unexpected happened: delays.

The trouble began on the Vault. They were only small delays at
first, microscopic stutters in the fluid dialogue of economics-a
picosecond of blank time where action did not meet with reaction.
Soon there were phantom authorizations arising from nonexistent
accounts and credits moving to places where logic dictated they could
not go. In the deeper waters of the Data Sea outside of the Vault's
shoals, such things could be dealt with. Messages could be recalled;
contingency plans could be executed; holds could be placed. But the
world of the Vault was a world without creative alternatives, a world
where a must follow b without fail.

Delays snowballed into an avalanche of inefficiency.

Bio/logic systems that depended on a smoothly functioning financial engine queried the Vault for payment and received no response. The appointed digital guardians of hearts and lungs were suddenly
stranded, unable to obtain authorizations for their services. Without
payment, dependent subroutines could not be invoked; third-party
functions would not accept commands. One by one, the strands on the
network of the bio/logic system began to fray.

The Prime Committee in its bureaucratic wisdom had long ago
considered this possibility and passed legislation to deal with it. This
legislation required every critical bio/logic system to have multiple
redundancies, so that no failure of communication (or lack of credits)
would ever stop a beating heart. So the bio/logic programs turned to
governmentally mandated backup routines hardwired into the very
OCHREs themselves. Routines that had not undergone the same rigorous real-world trials as the bio/logic programs themselves. Routines
that had not received the same level of intense scrutiny from Primo's
and the drudges. Routines that, despite the best Dr. Plugenpatch
screening and verification, did not always function as advertised.

Routines that could fail when put to the test.

A boy in Sao Paulo was engaged in a vigorous game of pelota with his
comrades. Suddenly he experienced a massive embolism and collapsed.

Within ten minutes, the infoquake had claimed a thousand lives.

19

The drudges edged as close to the tube tracks as they dared. One
woman leaned her head out too far and tripped-or was pushed by a
rival-directly into the path of the oncoming train. She stumbled,
turned to face the juggernaut bearing down upon her, and let out a
piercing shriek. The train car barreled forward without slowing. Half
a second later, the multi network's automatic pain overrides cut the
woman's connection.

Laughter trilled through the crowd.

"Animals," groaned Horvil from inside the train. He pulled his
forehead off the window and used his shirtsleeve to wipe the oily
smudge he had left there. "Barbarians. Philistines ..."

"Drudges," concluded Benyamin from across the aisle.

As the tube slid to a quiet stop, Jara rose from her chair at the head
of the car and surveyed her fellow fiefcorpers. Ben was slumped in his
seat, picking sullenly at a rough edge on the armrest. Merri had been
red-eyed and misty for most of the past hour. Serr Vigal was kneading
his temples like a man trying to remember some vital piece of information he had forgotten twenty years ago. And Horvil, with his hair
sprouting in twelve different directions like an ebony spider plant,
simply looked confused.

I hope this wasn't a colossal mistake, thought Jara with a grimace. But
with Natch incommunicado, the drudges closing in on the Thassel Complex,
and infoquakes happening left and right, we couldn't just stay there forever.

The analyst puffed up her chest and spoke. "Okay, we need to pull
ourselves together. We've gotta act like a fiefcorp here. Ben, stop that
sneering."

Benyamin threw her a sour-apple look. "Do you really need me
here for this stupid little pantomime?" he groused. "You want everyone to see us walking to my mother's estate. Fine, I understand
that. But I don't need to walk there with you. My body's already at the
estate. All I need to do is cut my multi connection."

"You look at that platform, and you tell me," replied Jara. She gestured out the window at the crowd of drudges eyeing the tube car like
a giant flock of vultures. A flock of agitated vultures. "We all have to
put in an appearance, Ben, even if it's just a quick appearance. Otherwise these people are going to crucify us. And what they say over the
next twenty-four hours could very well affect your career-all of our
careers-for at least a decade."

The young apprentice buried his chin in his chest and shook his
black hair until it covered his forehead, mop-style. "I don't care what
Magan Kai Lee says," he muttered. "You don't run this company."

For ten seconds, nobody took a breath.

Inside, Jara was trembling. She could hardly blame Benyamin for
being suspicious. Everyone else in the fiefcorp was tangled in some
government web, while Jara alone remained unblemished and
untouched. And yet she was the one standing here giving orders. How
could Jara explain that she didn't know any more than they did? How
could she convince them she had made no deal with Magan Kai Lee,
and this predicament had descended upon her as quickly and unexpectedly as it had upon them?

Merri leaned forward and put a consoling hand on the young
apprentice's shoulder. "Benyamin," she said, "let's just ... get indoors,
get to a safe place. We can talk about this later."

Ben thought a moment, nodded, then stood.

Jara tried to give Merri a silent look of thanks, but the channel
manager would not meet her gaze. Even Horvil was keeping his eyes
glued to the floor. I'm on your side! she felt like screaming. I'm one of you!
Instead, Jara locked her spine and activated the look of distress she had
purchased twenty minutes ago off the Data Sea. Then she walked
through the doors of the tube car.

And nearly collided with John Ridglee, who was hovering outside
like a bird of prey.

"The last heir of Sheldon Surina is dead," said the drudge without
even a Towards Perfection. "Four hundred years of noble scientific tradition is gone. Another devastating infoquake. Why choose today of all
days to conduct a hostile takeover of your company, Jara?"