Multireal (70 page)

With his prospects for financial success dimmed by the Shortest
Initiation, Natch turns to a series of low-paying jobs at the bottom of
the programming world. Only gradually, after much Machiavellian
scheming against enemies such as Captain Bolbund, does Natch climb
to the top of his profession. But he hasn't achieved this alone. He's had his childhood friend, Horvil; his mentor, Serr Vigal; and his market
analyst, Jara, to aid him.

With Horvil's and Jara's help, he achieves one final coup. Natch
arranges a complicated con involving a fake black code attack on the
Vault banking system. This con allows Natch's fiefcorp to replace his
bitter rivals, the Patel Brothers, at the top of the Primo's bio/logic
investment guide rankings. Where Natch was once an outcast, now he
is a celebrity.

Furthermore, the scheme brings Natch to the attention of Margaret Surina, heir to her ancestor Sheldon's fortune. She's been working
on a technology to create "alternate realities" called MultiReal for
decades. But now she fears that Len Borda, the high executive of the
Defense and Wellness Council, is preparing to take this technology
away from her-and possibly kill her in the process. The Council sees
MultiReal as a weapon of potentially apocalyptic proportions, one too
dangerous to remain in private hands. It's the same conflict Margaret's
father, Marcus, went through with his teleportation technology many
years ago, a conflict that ended in a fiery hoverbird accident.

Margaret offers Natch an opportunity to license her new technology. He is to stir up enough trouble to keep Len Borda off balance
for the next week; then, after Margaret reveals the existence of MultiReal in a widely publicized speech, Natch needs to quickly put
together a prototype to show the world that the technology is real. The
fiefcorp master agrees.

Natch goes looking for a source to fund his company's new project,
but, partly due to his shady reputation, nobody will support him in
this new and undefined venture. Finally, with the help of his new
apprentice, Merri, he snags an appointment with the leader of Creed
Thassel, an organization dedicated to the power of selfishness. The
leader turns out to be none other than Natch's old nemesis Brone.
Brone, still smarting from the wounds of the Shortest Initiation, offers
Natch a quick loan and foretells a future where the two of them will work together to market MultiReal. The fiefcorp master, seeing no
other alternatives, accepts the loan from his old hivemate.

Armed with a new infusion of cash, Natch hires a new appren-
tice-Horvil's young cousin Benyamin-and forms a partnership with
sales channeler Robby Robby to help market the new product.

The day of Margaret's speech arrives, and with it comes an incursion into the Surina compound at Andra Pradesh by the troops of the
Defense and Wellness Council. As Margaret unveils her new technology before hundreds of millions of people, the Data Sea networks
explode with a strange new computational disturbance: the infoquake.
Thousands die in the tumult, but the Council does not follow through
with its implied threat to kill Margaret and seize MultiReal.

Natch gathers the fiefcorp for a meeting the next day, where he
informs his colleagues that a frightened Margaret has practically
handed over the reins of the company to him and allowed him to
rechristen it the Surina/Natch MultiReal Fiefcorp. Furthermore,
Natch will get a new apprentice, Quell. A longtime confidant of Margaret's, Quell is an Islander, a member of a society that has spurned all
but the most rudimentary forms of bio/logic technology.

For a short time, it appears that Natch has gotten the upper hand.
He is on top of the world and has even used his newfound partnership
with Margaret to pay back Brone and sever his ties with the
Thasselian.

But Natch's expectations are soon dashed when he discovers that
his dire enemies the Patel Brothers have also secured a MultiReal
licensing agreement with Margaret Surina. Margaret soon reveals that
Natch is in fact the third fiefcorp she approached. The first, programmer Pierre Loget, did not understand the import of the technology; the second, the Patels, she suspected of selling out to the
Defense and Wellness Council. Only after she despaired of working
with the Patels did she turn to Natch, who she knew would never give
in to pressure from Len Borda.

Natch immediately goes on the offensive to counter the Patels.
Frederic and Petrucio Patel have scheduled a demo in less than a week's
time; Natch decides that he's going to hold his demo first, in three
days. But after he commands his fiefcorp to prepare a quick-and-dirty
demo, a group in black robes ambushes him in the streets of Shenandoah. Natch is hit by their black code darts, falls unconscious, and
vanishes.

Meanwhile, unaware that Natch is missing, the fiefcorp goes about
preparing for their product demo. Quell and Horvil work to prepare
the MultiReal code for its first public appearance; Benyamin works
with his mother's assembly-line programming shop to complete all the
millions of programming tasks necessary for the program to function
in front of hundreds of millions of people; Merri works with the company's sales partner, Robby Robby, to generate excitement about their
product; and Jara struggles to put together a presentation that will
capture the public imagination.

It's only hours before the demo that the fiefcorp realizes Natch has
disappeared. The fiefcorpers frantically attempt to find him before the
demo as Len Borda's forces once again march on Andra Pradesh. Jara
makes a last-ditch effort to convince Margaret to deliver the product
demo in Natch's stead. Margaret refuses, choosing instead to retreat to
the top of her private tower as the forces of Len Borda once again
invade the compound. Jara decides that she will give the presentation
instead. Horvil catches up with her and attempts to dissuade her from
making this dangerous presentation, in the process confessing that he
has developed deep feelings for her. But Jara will not be deterred.

And then, at the last possible minute, Natch shows up. He had
awakened from his black code coma, in his apartment, mere hours
before. With him is Len Borda-who, as it turns out, has brought the
Council troops to Andra Pradesh at Natch's request, in an effort to
scare off any potential black code attack. In exchange for this intervention, Natch has hurriedly promised Borda access to MultiReal.

Natch delivers the product demo to an audience of five hundred
million. The demonstration involves using the power of MultiReal to
simulate hitting a baseball to all five hundred million spectators
simultaneously and goes off swimmingly. The audience reacts more
enthusiastically than anyone could have anticipated. (The Patels'
demo, meanwhile, is a disaster.)

As Infoquake draws to a close, it occurs to Natch that the attackers
in black robes could have been sent by the Defense and Wellness
Council as a ploy to get MultiReal under its control. There are, in fact,
any number of organizations out there that might be using the black
code inside him as leverage to get control of MultiReal. Brone, the Patel
Brothers, and even Margaret Surina are listed as potential suspects.

Natch is beginning to feel the deleterious effects of the black code
inside of him; but as he tells his mentor, Serr Vigal, he's up for all the
challenges ahead. He's come this far against all odds, and he won't back
down now.

For more comprehensive definitions and background articles on some
terms, consult the Web site at http://www.multireal.net.