Multireal (45 page)

"All the ones who aren't dead, accused of murder, or in prison,"
replied Horvil, deadpan.

Benyamin jabbed his cousin in the side. "What about Serr Vigal?"

"He works in a memecorp, doesn't he?" said Horvil. "I call that prison."

Jara allowed herself a smile. "Glad you could come," she told the
channeler, and for once she meant it. If anyone knew how to whip up
a dish of false confidence for the drudges, politicians, and pundits
awaiting them, it was Robby. The fact that he had taken several days
out of his schedule to come to Melbourne spoke volumes about his faith in the cause. The channeler took a seat next to Merri as the train
got under way again. Soon he had sucked the fiefcorp apprentices into
a low-stakes game of holo poker.

Jara found an empty section of train and tried to prepare a statement
for her Prime Committee testimony, but it was hopeless. What did she
have to say about MultiReal that hadn't been said a thousand times
already? It was a powerful and potentially dangerous program. It could
make her fiefcorp a lot of money. Didn't the whole world already know
this? Jara stared glumly at the changing landscape, writing nothing, and
hoped the Committee wouldn't actually need her testimony after all.

As for Serr Vigal-what was he thinking? Jara had no doubt the
neural programmer's heart was in the right place. She had no doubt his
opening statement before the Committee would be cogent and
foursquare and thoroughly respectable. But Vigal just did not possess
the gift of oratory. His politics were moderate. Having him usher in
the libertarian side of the MultiReal debate with one of his dry, meandering speeches was an unmistakably bad idea.

But who else is there? thought the analyst. Who else is going to stand up
before ten billion people and testify that MultiReal belongs in Natch's hands?
There was Khann Frejohr, of course, except Frejohr had thoroughly
rebuffed Serr Vigal's overtures. Jara wondered what Natch had done to
antagonize him. She figured it had something to do with that obviously
forged Council memo, but she decided she didn't want to know. She had
already seen enough low-level forgery to last her a lifetime.

It only took Natch a week to make a powerful ally, use him, and then toss
him aside, she thought, shaking her head. That must be a new record.

The track from Cape Town to Melbourne was one long stretch of
undifferentiated seascape, punctuated by the occasional pit stop on dry
land or artificial crossroads. Waves, sun, sky.

Jara didn't remember falling asleep, but suddenly she was being
woken by a gentle hand on her shoulder. Horvil. "I thought you might
want to see this," said the engineer.

The analyst sat up and rubbed her eyes. "Thought I'd want to see
wha-"

Then she looked out the window.

The city of Melbourne lay sprawled out below them, a tapestry of
neatly arranged buildings and flickering lights. The tube train sat suspended on a ridiculously high track over Port Phillip Bay, like a roller
coaster of old, watching the city slide gracefully into dusk. Jara
remembered reading about this; some arcane procedure involving military security, or underwater transfer conduits, or something. Many
believed it was just a ruse by the Melbourne L-PRACGs to impress visitors with the majesty of the centralized government. Jara could buy
that. From this angle, the city looked so orderly, so perpendicular with
purpose, it might have been carefully laid there by some omnipotent
force in an era long before human confusion.

Then the tube abruptly plunged into Melbourne at breakneck
speed, and the illusion was shattered. The train came to a stop some
five minutes later.

By the time Jara shouldered her bag and made it off the train, the rest
of the fiefcorp was already waiting-as was a group of handlers in garish
purple-and-red robes, courtesy of Creed Elan. Horvil and Benyamin
seemed right at home in their midst. One of the men took Jara's bag with
a deep, respectful bow, as if she had entrusted him with crown jewels
rather than a few changes of clothing and assorted toiletries.

"Don't suppose anybody brought a thermos of nitro," grumbled
the analyst with a yawn.

"There's plenty at the hostel," replied one of the creed handlers.
"Lo-grade, hi-grade, you name it."

Jara nodded. "Then what are we waiting for?"

The purple delegation led the fiefcorpers through a vast maze of bureaucratic buildings, each more stodgy and architecturally unimaginative than the last. They passed the headquarters for OrbiCo, TeleCo,
and GravCo, the offices of major lobbying firms and political parties,
the Meme Cooperative's lone Earthside presence, creed bureaus, and
drudge organizations.

There was something strange and out-of-place about the cityscape
that Jara could sense but not name. Merri saw her perplexed look. "You
notice it too?" she asked.

"I notice something," said Jara. "I'm just not sure what."

"The buildings-they're not moving."

That was it. Melbourne's governmental quarter was entirely devoid of
collapsible buildings. At this hour, most downtowns would be exhibiting
a conspicuous ripple as the skyline rearranged itself for the night shift.
Melbourne did not budge. If Jara didn't know for a fact that the city had
been substantially rebuilt after the riots of 318, she might have guessed
it had been permanently frozen right before the Autonomous Revolt.

"Government buildings that don't move," said Horvil. "There's a
metaphor if I've ever seen one."

Robby Robby's grin widened by a few degrees.

Jara felt the mental tug of an incoming ConfidentialWhisper.
"Don't look now," said Ben, sounding clipped and nervous, "but I
think we're being followed."

The analyst counted to ten, then took a casual glance around. The
streets were crowded with security officers from a hundred different
organizations striding this way and that, guarding every solid structure in sight. Pedestrians added a thousand more organizational
insignias to the mix. Everyone in Melbourne, it seemed, had some kind
of parliamentary affiliation.

And then she noticed them. Minions of the Defense and Wellness
Council on every corner, following the fiefcorp's progress with great
interest. Whenever the fiefcorpers lost sight of one group, another
would inevitably turn up on the next block to track them.

Before Jara could formulate a coherent reaction, they came to a culde-sac and passed through an immense set of double doors-the Creed
Elan hostel.

The place hardly fit Jara's definition of a hostel at all; it was enormous, richly furnished, and teeming with important-looking men and
women in purple. Jara felt like she was back at Berilla's estate. The
handlers who had met them at the tube station deposited their bags in
a parlor fit for a high executive. Rugs and viewscreens obscured every
surface, while flasks of wine sat on countertops for the taking.
Benyamin ducked down the hall to pay his respects to the hostel
administrator. Jara, meanwhile, found a thermos of piping nitro and
began filling up a mug.

Merri sunk into a plush suede couch. "So does anyone know where
Natch is staying?" she asked. Nobody answered. "Horvil?"

The engineer shrugged. "You know as much as I do," he said.
"Natch hasn't shown his face in public for almost a week, and you all
saw how strange he looked at the funeral. I don't know if he's up to testifying before the Prime Committee. Maybe ... maybe they won't
actually call him after all."

"Sure they will," said Robby, kicking off his shoes to reveal ten
huge prehensile toes. "Natch is a symbol now. The libertarians are rallying around him. This unrest won't stop until he gets his say in front
of the Committee."

"What about Vigal?" said Jara. "Where's he staying?"

Horvil: "With Natch, I presume."

"Do you think they're going to call on any of us to testify?" asked
Merri.

Robby shrugged. "Anything's possible," he said, channeler-speak
for no. He tucked his shoes under his arms and disappeared down the
hall, presumably to freshen up.

"Who knows what they're going to do," said Horvil, taking a seat
backward on a desk chair. "When was the last time the Prime Com mittee held a special session like this? Nobody even remembers the
protocol anymore."

Merri craned her neck to face the engineer. "What is the protocol?"

"No idea. I don't know if there even is one. My guess is they'll just
use some fancy version of Let's call people up to testify until we've heard
enough. Ben's the one to ask about this stuff, not me." He stretched and
groaned. "I just want this to be over already. I'm sick of the politics.
I'm sick of the infoquakes. I'm sick of looking over my shoulder and
seeing white robes everywhere. I just want to get back to the bloody
engineering."

Jara downed her second straight mug of nitro and took a seat in the
corner. "If you don't want to see white robes, you're in the wrong place.
Ben saw a bunch of them following us on the way here."

Benyamin returned at just that moment, his face pale as milk.
"No," he said, his voice cracking. "That's not what I was telling you,
Jara. Didn't you see? I wasn't warning you about the people in the
white robes. I was warning you about the ones in the black robes."

30

Horvil and Benyamin voted to stay at the hostel and let Creed Elan
security take care of them.

"We're just not getting paid enough for this shit," said Ben, his
voice rising to a panicked squeak. "There's Council officers every five
steps in this city. They've already taken Quell-has anybody even
bothered to look for him? People are rioting and making death threats.
Whoever killed Margaret Surina is still out there. And now we have to
deal with these lunatics in black robes?" He sat down firmly on an
ottoman and hugged his knees. "I don't even know why I came. I'm
still-we're all still suspended from the fiefcorp. What's the point?"

Merri leaned over and put a placating hand on the young apprentice's shoulder. "We won't be suspended for long, Benyamin. Don't
forget that Jara's arranged for the Patels to testify on our behalf-"

"The Patels. I forgot about the Patels." Ben tucked his chin down
and huddled into the fetal position. "I'd rather chew my own leg off
than trust them."

Jara knelt down on her haunches in front of the apprentice and
fixed him with a no-nonsense stare. "Are you sure those people you saw
were the same ones who hit Natch with black code?" she asked.

"There are a lot of groups that wear black," mused Merri as she
walked back and forth across the parlor in slow-mo imitation of
Natch's frenetic pace. "Creed Bushido's honor guard. The TeleCo
board. I think there's a Pharisee group that wears black too...."

Ben ignored her. "Of course I'm not sure they were the same
people," he said. "Fuck, I wasn't sure if I really believed Natch's story
until an hour ago. But these guys matched the description. Black
robes, head to toe. Some kind of red Asian lettering running down the
front."