Multireal (51 page)

"And what has Natch chosen to do with that freedom?

"At the age of fifteen, he got into a quarrel with another boy
during initiation. Did he settle his differences with words and arguments? No, Natch got his revenge by leading an enraged bear into his
camp. Three boys died as a result, and a fourth was horribly maimed.

"At the age of eighteen, Natch masterminded a scam to steal customers from a rival programmer by impersonating government officers. The Meme Cooperative was unable to gather enough evidence to
prosecute him. Instead, his rival was convicted of these crimes and the
rival's license was suspended.

"At the age of twenty, Natch received his first-but not his lastfine from the Meme Cooperative for possession of black code. A petty
crime and a negligible punishment? Yes-but the result of a plea bargain with authorities who were once again unable to find enough evidence to make any charges stick.

"By the age of twenty-four, when he founded the Natch Personal
Programming Fiefcorp, this man was regularly violating the rules of
the Meme Cooperative. To date, the Defense and Wellness Council has
cataloged a list of a hundred and twenty such violations. And believe
me, those are only the ones we have sufficient evidence to prove before
an arbitration board.

"At the age of twenty-eight, Natch made a suspicious deal to
merge his fiefcorp with a shell company of Margaret Surina's. Even
though he was younger and less experienced than his rivals-even
though he had little money to bring to the table-Margaret gave
Natch a fifty percent stake in her revolutionary MultiReal technology.
Why? What would drive a woman to spend two decades researching and developing a product, and then blithely hand it over to someone
she had just met? We can only imagine.

"Within days of his arrangement with Margaret Surina, Natch
made a large cash payment to Creed Thassel. Creed Thassel, an organization notorious for secrecy and deceit.

"Within six weeks, Natch tried to blackmail the Defense and
Wellness Council by threatening to auction off MultiReal on the Data
Sea to the highest bidder.

"Within hours of that performance, Margaret Surina, bodhisattva
of Creed Surina and creator of MultiReal technology, was dead.

"And within hours of that, a member of Natch's own fiefcorp
launched a preemptive attack on Lieutenant Executive Magan Kai Lee
as he was gathering evidence at the scene of Surina's murder.

"And by sheer luck-by the merest coincidence-there was a
worldwide outbreak of libertarian unrest last week, just when public
opinion began to turn against this man. A memo began to circulate on
the Data Sea, and not even the Council's most ardent critics claim to
have any evidence for its authenticity. This unrest sparked into violence at the funeral of Margaret Surina, the very emblem of the
freedom that our libertarian colleagues revere.

"Does Natch revere the accomplishments of the Surinas, or does he
mock them?

"Natch's legal guardian stood before you the other day and proposed we give this man the ultimate freedom. He made a very shrewd and
clever speech where he tried to put the struggle for MultiReal in a
larger libertarian context.

"So let's do as he bids! Let's put this man permanently beyond the
power of the Defense and Wellness Council-because with MultiReal at
his command, no Council officer will be able to restrain him. Let's put
this man beyond the power of any government authority-or didn't you
notice that MultiReal doesn't require approval from Dr. Plugenpatch
and the Meme Cooperative? Let's make sure this man isn't even account able to the marketplace that the libertarians so venerate-because with
the money he'll make from MultiReal, he won't even need to submit his
programs to the Primo's bio/logic investment guide.

"Serr Vigal proposes we strip this man Natch of all restraints and
limitations, just to see what he does. A little experiment, if you will.

"So I ask the esteemed members of the Prime Committee: what
does Natch plan to do with the ultimate freedom that MultiReal provides? What do you think he'll do? Will he try to lift the diss out of
poverty? Will he pursue diplomacy between the Islanders and the
Pharisees? Will he set up a charitable fund for orphans?"

Rey Gonerev paused for a moment to let the point sink in. Jara
looked around and noticed that the atmosphere in the Tul Jabbor
Complex had grown irretrievably gloomy since the chief solicitor
began her speech. The smiles that had adorned the faces of her fellow
fiefcorpers a mere hour ago had all but disappeared. Across the floor,
the bodhisattva of Creed Libertas looked worried, and Khann Frejohr
looked downright grim.

The Blade struck a humble pose as she continued in a less emphatic
tone of voice. "So what does the Defense and Wellness Council propose
we do about this man?" she said. "What does the Council want with
this technology?

"Some believe that Len Borda seeks to lock up MultiReal forever
or put a permanent moratorium on it. They claim the Council wishes
to use it as some kind of doomsday weapon. They speak as if there are
no shades of gray in the argument-as if our only choices are for the
government to enact a total ban on MultiReal or for MultiReal to be
distributed to every man, woman, and child from here to Furtoid.

"As you ponder the situation we face, I want you to remember this.
It's the libertarians who want to limit your options, not High Executive Borda. Not the Defense and Wellness Council.

"But before we come to the point where you must make a decision
about the fate of MultiReal, I believe the time has come to demon strate what's at stake. I think the men and women of the Prime Committee should see the power of MultiReal firsthand.

"And so before I take any questions, I'd like to call one of the few
people who has experienced the power of MultiReal firsthand to give
us a brief demonstration.

"If it pleases the Prime Committee, I'd like to ask Petrucio Patel,
master of the Patel Brothers Fiefcorp, to step forward."

Jara made an audible hiss, though she wasn't sure why she felt so surprised. Had she really thought the only other company marketing
MultiReal products would be able to avoid testifying before the Prime
Committee?

As Petrucio Patel emerged from a door on the governmentalist side
of the auditorium, Jara had to admit that the fiefcorp master looked all
too prepared for this summons. The shoulder pads of his robe filled out
his otherwise lanky frame, transforming him from a lean alley cat into
a sultry, confident panther. Petrucio smiled, nodded briefly at the audience, and gave his mustache a final grooming stroke as he reached Rey
Gonerev's side. In his right hand, he held a baseball bat. Under his left
arm, a box.

The Blade whispered something inaudible to Petrucio, and by the
way his shoulders tensed Jara could tell he wasn't pleased. Seconds
later, he removed his scarf to reveal a prominent pin featuring the
black-and-white swirled logo of Creed Objectivv. So the Council still has
its daggers in the Patel Brothers, Jara thought.

The muttering among the libertarian sympathizers in the audience
rose several decibels, and Jara could see one of the Council guards
nearby tense up. Khann Frejohr and his libertarian allies looked perturbed. Natch did not seem to care one way or the other.

Horvil and Benyamin, meanwhile, were having an intense back-and forth about parliamentary rules of order. "Can Gonerev even do that?" said
Ben in a heated whisper. "Can she just call forward her own witness?"

"It's a hearing, not a trial," replied Horvil, gesturing at the Vault
representative in the row directly below them. "And it doesn't look
like any of the Committee members are about to object." In fact, some
of them were craning forward in their wrought-iron chairs to get a
better look.

The analyst thought back to her meeting with the Patel Brothers
and desperately tried to remember the exact wording of their discussion.
Had Petrucio said anything about helping or hindering the company's
pursuit of MultiReal? Jara had purposefully kept the wording of their
brief agreement vague. Would a demonstration of MultiReal before the
Prime Committee violate that agreement in any way? What if Petrucio
had already made a conflicting agreement with the Council several
months earlier? The analyst took a sidelong glance at Merri, feeling a
new appreciation for the difficulties of the Objectivv truth-telling oath.

"Towards Perfection," said Petrucio to the Prime Committee, his
poise recovered. He set the box down on the floor and made a sweeping
bow that encompassed all 360 degrees of the circle. "It's an honor to be
called before the Committee."

Rey Gonerev reached down into the box and pulled out a classic
league baseball. "Before we get into more extensive demonstrations, I'd
like to start by reenacting Natch's performance at Andra Pradesh last
month," she said. "Petrucio, why don't you tell us what you're doing."

Patel nodded and moved into a batter's crouch, which looked quite
absurd in such a loosely tailored robe. "I'm going to hit the ball into the
fourth ring of the auditorium, three rows above the gentleman from the
orbital colonies," he said, arching his chin in that direction. "I'm now
reaching out to the MultiReal interface and preparing to activate it."

A rumble.

The Blade stepped back several paces and made an underhanded
pitch to the bio/logic programmer.

Petrucio got ready to swing. "Activating-"

And then Natch was out of his seat, hurtling through the small
passage under the Committee members' ring onto the floor of the auditorium. His eyes screamed insanity; his arms signaled panic.

The ball connected with Petrucio's bat, and the infoquake was
upon them.

34

The baseball arced into the audience somewhere above Jara's head. She
never thought about it again.

Such was the force of the infoquake that even the fleet-footed
Magan Kai Lee was tossed hither and thither like a pinball. Jara gaped
in disbelief at the purple bruise mushrooming on the Council lieutenant's forehead, then found herself sucked down into Benyamin's lap.
She hadn't even realized she had stood up in the first place. Within seconds, the entire fiefcorp was tangled in a confused pile, and Robby
Robby's bony ass might have been the only thing that kept a falling
spectator from snapping Jara's neck in two.

Voices in her head. Deep gouges in her mental databases. OCHREs
furiously pinging Dr. Plugenpatch. Notices warnings screams ConfidentialWhispers-

Jara clambered to her feet and managed to bring her internal systems
to something a few rungs down from normalcy. The trick was to avoid the
reflex to fire up bio/logic relief and to shut down as many programs as possible instead. She clutched the railing and looked around the auditorium.

In the few minutes since the infoquake began, the Tul Jabbor Complex had descended into pandemonium. Prime Committee members and
their retinues were ducking, cowering, fleeing through side exits. Jara
recognized the staid Plugenpatch representative standing on his chair,
yelling an indecipherable plea for calm. Down on the auditorium floor,
the Blade had found her way to the wall and was wobbling against it on
unsteady feet. Meanwhile, a confused Petrucio Patel was staring at the
baseball bat in his hands in shock. The end of it was stained red from his
own bloody nose, though how he had acquired that was unclear.