Multireal (3 page)

Margaret stirred. Omens? A strange word coming from the lips of
her father, the quintessential man of science.

The omens of death, continued Marcus. Plans that wander from their
steady paths. Appetites that suddenly grow cold. Thoughts that lose their ballast in midsentence and drift off to places unknown. Her father stopped suddenly and turned his hyper-focus on a dented segment of the hoverbird
wing no bigger than a finger. Three aides-de-camp hovered a meter
away, anticipating a word of command or dismissal. Some people, you can
look in their eyes and see that the Null Current is about to pull them under,
Margaret. You can see the inevitability. Just like you can see the stalk of wheat
as the thresher approaches, and know that the time's come for a newer, stronger
crop to bask in the sun. Marcus made a gesture, and the aides scattered
like duckpins.

Then he was striding off again, and it was all Margaret could do to
keep up with him. She shivered as she ran, whether from the cold of
encroaching winter or from the strangeness of the man before her she
could not tell. Lusterless pearls? Wheat and threshers? His clattering
metaphors made her teeth ache.

The girl resolved to be patient. In less than twelve hours, her father
would be gone, off to the distant colony of Furtoid with the rest of the
TeleCo board, and routine would slink out from the alcove where it
had been hiding these past few days like a bruised animal.

She called him Father, but it was mostly an honorary title. Marcus
had spent four years of the last twelve on the road, and here at Andra
Pradesh he was constantly fenced in a protective thicket of apprentices, scientists, business associates, capitalmen, government officials,
drudges, bankers, lawyers, and freethinkers that even a daughter could
not penetrate. He would stop by her quarters unannounced, cloaked by
the night, and quiz her on schoolwork like a proctor checking up on a
promising student. Sometimes he would speechify as if Margaret were
the warm-up audience for one of his scientific presentations. Other
times he would assign her outlandish tasks and then vanish to some
colloquium on Allowell or some board meeting in Cape Town.

Prove Prengal's universal law of physics for me, he told her once. It took
Margaret three months, but she did.

Margaret had no doubt that she did not have a normal upbringing.
But how far off-kilter things were she had no way of judging. The
Surina compound was a cloistered and lonely place, despite the crowds.
Her mother was dead, and she had no siblings. Instead she had distant
cousins innumerable, and a team of handlers whose job it was to confine her life in a box and then call that order.

But there were some things the Surina family handlers could not
shield her from. Lately Marcus's face had grown sterner, the lines on his
forehead coagulating into a permanent state of anger and anxiety. Margaret suspected there were new developments in her father's battle
with the Defense and Wellness Council. Len Borda wanted TeleCo. He
wanted her father's teleportation technology either banned outright or
conscripted for military purposes; nobody was sure which. And now,
this past week, tensions seemed to be coming to a head.

Margaret couldn't quite comprehend what the fuss was about. She
had watched a dozen trials of the teleportation process from unobtrusive corners, and it wasn't anything like the teleportation she had read
about in stories. You couldn't zap someone instantaneously from one
place to another. The procedure required two people of similar biochemical composition to be strapped into a metal container for hours
on end while particle deconstructors transposed one body to the other,
molecule by agonizing molecule. Margaret wondered why High Exec utive Borda found the whole idea so threatening. But whenever she
asked one of the TeleCo researchers about it, he would simply smile
and tell her not to make premature judgments. Marcus had big plans
up his sleeve. Give the technology a chance to mature, they said-and
generate much-needed revenue for the TeleCo coffers-and she would
one day see wonders beyond her imagining. The world would change.
Reality itself would buckle.

She took the TeleCo scientists at their word.

That look of inevitability, said Marcus, wrenching Margaret back to
the present. They were taking the long, silent lift to the top of the
Revelation Spire, where her father had his office. That look of death. I've
seen it, Margaret. I've seen it on Len Borda's face. The high executive knows
that the thresher is coming for him.

Margaret shook her head. But he's not that old, is he? You're older than
he is and-

Age has nothing to do with it.

The girl wasn't quite sure what to do with that statement. How to
make her father understand? How to pierce that veil of myopia and
arrogance that kept Marcus Surina from the truth? But-but-I was
talking to, jayze, and. jayze said that you've got it all wrong. She said that the
Council's coming for you. The high executive's going to bust down the gates to
the compound any day now and take TeleCo away-

Marcus Surina laughed, and the worry lines on his face broke like
barricades of sand washing away with the tide. At that moment, they
reached their destination, and the elevator doors opened. Marcus put
one brawny arm around his daughter and led her to the window.

You see that? he said.

Margaret wasn't entirely sure what she was supposed to see. They
stood on top of the world in a very visceral and literal sense. The Revelation Spire was the tallest building in human space, and built on a
mountaintop, no less. Far below, she could see the Surina compound
and a blue-green blob that could only be the Surina security forces con ducting martial exercises. Sprawled in every direction outside the walls
was the unfenceable polyglot mass of Andra Pradesh, city of the
Surinas, now getting its first taste of the seasonal snow. Margaret could
think of no safer place in the entire universe.

You see that? Marcus repeated. It's winter. Everything is shrouded in
snow, and the world seems bleak and hopeless, doesn't it?

The girl nodded tentatively.

The gloom doesn't last, Margaret. It never lasts. Remember that.

But-

He gripped her shoulder firmly and turned her around to face him.
Marcus Surina's eyes shone brilliant blue as sapphires, and she could
smell the cinnamon of morning chaff on his breath. Listen, he said quietly. Don't breathe a word of this to anyone, especially your cousin Jayze. Len
Borda's lost. Our sources in the Council say he's spent too much time and money
coming after teleportation, and he's ready to move on. That's why the board's
going to Furtoid. To negotiate a settlement. By this time next week, it'll all be
over. Do you understand? We've won.

The girl blinked. If the victory bells were ringing, she could not
hear them.

Always remember this, Margaret. No matter how bad the winter, spring
is always right around the corner

The girl nodded, smiled, let Marcus Surina fold her in his arms for
a last embrace. Better to leave him with this memory of hope at the
top of the world than to shower him with cold truths. Spring might
always be right around the corner, she thought. But there's always another
winter behind it.

2

Lieutenant Magan Kai Lee stood at the window of a Falcon hoverbird
and watched the Potomac scroll away until it was lost in the snow.
December of 359 had proven an exceptionally good month for snow.

The pilot quietly veered off the established flight path, leaving the
sparse morning traffic behind while they plowed through the mist a
dozen meters above the river's froth and foam. Today, at least, the hoverbird's egg-white finish made decent camouflage.

Magan looked out the port window and saw the Shenandoah River
slide into view. "Ulterior admission," he said quietly. Full stop.

It was a small craft, designed by Defense and Wellness Council
engineers for first-response situations. Twelve could fit here with comfort, and today there were only three. The pilot could hear his superior
officer's command just fine. "Impulse open and locked," he replied in
acknowledgment. Full stop. Seconds later, Magan could hear the
decrescendo of engines shutting down and the ethereal whir of antigrav kicking in. The hoverbird came to rest twenty meters above the
treetops.

Within the space of a heartbeat, the illicit advertising began dribbling in to Magan's mental inbox. Guerrilla messages, automated,
probably keyed in to the whoosh of the hoverbird's vapor exhaust.

Affordable Prices!

Hoverbird in Need of a Boost? Read Our Special Report

THE MAKERS OF CHAIQUOKE SALUTE THE SHENANDOAH COMMUTER

The hoverbird's third occupant blocked the flow with an irritated
tsk.

Rey Gonerev, the Defense and Wellness Council's chief solicitor, rose from her seat and stood at Magan's side. She parted her long
braided hair to reveal a thin face with skin of deepest cocoa. Magan
could feel the neural tug of her ConfidentialWhisper request. "You
sure we're not overdoing this?" she asked, her words appearing silently
in his mind like adjuncts of his own thought process.

Magan ignored her and watched the skyline. His mind was sifting
through combinatorial possibilities in preparation for their mission.
Rey Gonerev had no place in his reflections at the moment.

The solicitor pursed her lips. "Lieutenant?" Receiving no response,
she shrugged and retreated to her seat, keeping the ConfidentialWhisper channel open just in case.

Magan turned his attention to the circular table that comprised
most of the hoverbird's rear section. He waved his hand over the surface, causing a holographic map to blink into existence. It was an
example of true Defense and Wellness Council austerity: the meeting
of two rivers reduced to a handful of intersecting vectors, with the hoverbird itself nothing more than a triangle of canary yellow. As Magan
studied the hilly terrain with a critical eye, four more yellow triangles
arced into the display and halted in formation alongside them. He
looked out the window and surveyed the line of sleek white hovercraft
floating above the Shenandoah, silent as vultures. The lieutenant noted
approvingly that the noses of the hoverbirds were in perfect alignment.

There was a momentary squawk of pilots confirming their rendezvous and their mission number. Then one craft broke off from the
rest and took a vanguard position. A blue dot on the map indicated the
presence of the team leader: Ridgello, a veteran from the Pharisee front
lines and one of Magan's most trusted subordinates.

The team leader opened a voice channel to the rest of the troops.
"Broad strokes imply a declension of purpose, and such things cannot
be ascertained with present information," he said. We commence operations in approximately six hundred seconds, after we receive the technical crew's
signal. Any questions?

"My question," said Rey to Magan over the ConfidentialWhisper
channel, "is whether this whole thing is overkill."

The skepticism in her voice would have earned a swift reprimand
had it come from anyone else. But Magan had learned long ago that
kowtowing to superiors was simply not part of Rey Gonerev's nature.
She would continue dropping little bombs of snarkiness all morning
until he had answered her. "If you insist on observing," replied Magan
over the 'Whisper channel, "the least you could do is follow standard
procedure and use Council battle language."

The solicitor made a dismissive shrug. "This isn't a military issue,"
she stated icily. "It's a policy question, and you know it."

"This policy comes from High Executive Borda."

"But Magan-nineteen dartguns, six disruptors, and three technical crew, just for one unarmed man? You've taken out whole Pharisee outposts with fewer boots on the ground."

Lieutenant Lee gritted his teeth, perfectly aware that he had no
cause to gainsay her. You know she's right, he told himself. And there's
nothing you can do about it. He seethed momentarily with ire for the
unsorted, for the unordered, for the chaotic and unplanned.