Infoquake

by David Louis Edelman

  She thought of all the wild and unverifiable rumors she had heard about Len Borda over the years. The secret interrogations ... the hidden fortresses ... the pitiless military strikes ... the all-pervasive network of spies and snooping programs. And now that face was directly in front of her. Were the firm grooves on the man's brow a manifestation of evil intent, as the libertarian drudges contended, or merely the chiseled remnants of nature's implacable forces?

  The High Executive barely noticed her presence. "I will speak to the crowd," he said to Natch in a gravelly basso profundo. "You have ten minutes."

  Jara glanced at the fiefcorp master. At first glimpse, Natch appeared calm and collected, dressed in a sharp navy-blue pinstripe suit. Only someone who had studied his every pore and wrinkle ten thousand times could tell he was tottering on the brink of collapse. She detected traces of the stimulant program QuickPrep 49q on his face. "I need twenty," Natch said firmly.

  "Twenty then." Borda's tone of voice left the impression that twenty minutes was what he had been after all along. He waved a hand, and the door to the arena stage slid open, bathing him in the spotlight.

  Jara mustered all of her courage and spoke to the retreating high executive. "What about all those troops out there?" she cried.

  Borda paused and gave her an unyielding look. The look of a man who could pinpoint her precise location, down to the minutest degree, in the orgchart of the universe.

  The analyst felt a hand on her shoulder, and turned to find Serr Vigal. "Jara, the Council is here for our protection," he said gently. "It was Natch's idea."

  She gaped at the neural programmer, uncomprehending. "And ... Margaret?"

  "She'll be fine," replied Borda. "Unfortunately." The high executive continued through the doorway and disappeared onto the stage. The door closed behind him.

  Natch was already huddled with Horvil, listening intently to the engineer's instructions on how to operate the MultiReal program. There was no time to break down all that complexity into bite-sized pieces; Horvil was speaking pure calculus at this point. Natch gave no sign he understood the formulas his old friend was reeling off.

  Jara turned to Serr Vigal. The neural programmer looked exhausted, and his eyes were full to the brim with concern for his protege.

  "Natch was hit with black code," said the neural programmer in response to her unspoken question. "He just woke up a few hours ago."

  "The Patels?"

  "Maybe, maybe not. He doesn't remember very much."

  The fiefcorp master and the engineer were now dashing around trying to find a conference room with SeeNaRee capabilities. Quell happened to show up at that precise moment, and he quickly led them to an out-of-the-way door under the stage. Natch, Horvil, Jara, Quell and Serr Vigal rushed in and found themselves standing at home plate on the baseball diamond again. Horvil conjured up a ball and a Kyushu clubfoot, then tossed them to the fiefcorp master. Natch took a deep breath, threw the ball skywards, and swung.

  He missed.

  He picked up the ball, chucked it in the air, and missed again.

  On the fifth attempt, Natch finally connected. But the bottom edge of the bat barely nicked the ball, causing it to limp towards first base and roll to a stop in the infield.

  "I can't get this fucking thing to work, Horvil!" cried Natch, flush with rage. "Didn't Ben's people hook those programs together? What the fuck have you all been doing these past few days?"

  "Benyamin's team got the job done," said Quell, doing his best to ignore the fiefcorp master's slight. "I tested the program myself."

  The engineer patted his boss's virtual shoulder. "Just as you begin the swing, you've got to reach out with your mind towards the Possibilities interface and make sure you don't-"

  "Never mind," Natch said gruffly. "There's no time. I'll figure it out. Jara, show me the script."

  She did. Let me do the presentation instead, she almost said. I'm ready, I've had a chance to experiment with Possibilities 1.0 in the past few days. But Jara could see the iron resolve in Natch's eyes, the single-minded insanity that kicked in whenever he was backed into a corner. Her little catharsis at the museum withered, wormlike, into the dust. It was inevitable. Natch would never turn down a chance to perform in front of an audience of this size. As she had predicted, he would either deliver a perfect presentation, or die trying. Jara wondered fleetingly how the living, breathing audience upstairs compared to the invisible audience Natch had been playing to in his head all those years.

  "Jara, tell me whether the auditorium can handle all these calculations," said Natch suddenly. His eyes were yellow and coyote hungry. "Tell me we're not going to cause a hundred more of those infoquakes."

  "Well, the Surina people think that-"

  "I don't want to hear it! Tell me yes or no."

  The bio/logic analyst pursed her lips for a full three seconds in thought. She had never hated Natch more. She had never found him so irresistibly sexy. "Yes."

  "Good! Now go find Ben and Merri. The three of you comb the crowd and find the most sickeningly sweet little girl on the face of the earth. I'm talking five years old, pigtails, the whole thing."

  "They don't allow anyone younger than eight on the multi network, remember?"

  "Fine, eight years old then. But not a day over eight. Tag her spatial coordinates with a beacon so I can find her. Horvil!" The engineer saluted briskly, looking as if he were ready to give his life for the cause. "Go find a workbench. I need you to do the quickest programming job you've ever done in your life. We've got a couple of alterations to make."

  "What did you have in mind?"

  Natch spouted off a few polynomials. Horvil turned to the Islander, who nodded. "It can be done," muttered Quell. "Maybe." Seconds later, the three of them bolted out the door and down another hallway.

  "I've never seen him so frightened, Jara," said Serr Vigal, as the two of them walked back towards the stairs and a door that would take them into the audience. "I don't think I've ever been so frightened for him either."

  Jara wrapped a comradely arm around the neural programmer's waist. Nobody would have mistaken Vigal for a young man, but he seemed to have aged twenty years in the past few weeks. "I'd be frightened too if I got shot full of black code," said Jara. "But don't worry, Vigal. He's already survived one attack, and with all those Council officers swarming through the arena, I doubt anyone would be stupid enough to try another."

  Vigal gave her a curious look. "I don't think you understand. Natch isn't afraid of another black code attack. He's still worried about the first one."

  "You mean ... ?"

  "Natch is still infected. The program didn't self-destruct after it knocked him unconscious. In fact, we think it was the code that woke him up."

  "Well, what does the code do? What's it waiting for?"

  "We don't know. That's what we're afraid of."

  Anyone who might have suggested two weeks ago that half a billion people would be standing in the Surina auditorium awaiting a product demonstration from Natch-Natch the scoundrel, Natch the upstart, Natch the arriviste-would have been roundly denounced by the bio/logic pundits on the Data Sea who Clearly Knew Better. Now the drudges were asking themselves, if an unknown businessman could jump to the top of the hierarchy with such stunning swiftness, if one man could leapfrog generations of accepted practice and standard operating procedure, then was anything safe anymore?

  High Executive Len Borda emerged from the stage door and the crowd went silent. The audience, which had just watched a second incursion of Council troops with good humor, suddenly clouded over with gloom.

  The high executive marched to center stage and swept the auditorium with his piercing gaze. Half a billion onlookers waited expectantly without uttering a single word. A minute passed.

  Finally, the Council chief spoke in a voice like rolling thunder. Borda's words were unhurried, untouched by focus groups, and spoken with a formality that might have been labeled pompous if the labelers did not fear hav
ing their Vault transactions scrutinized to the last decimal point by men in white robes. "My word is the will of the Defense and Wellness Council, which was established by the Prime Committee two hundred and fifty-two years ago to ensure the security of all persons throughout the system. The word of the Council is the word of the people."

  A shudder whipped through the crowd like electricity. Those words had rarely been known to precede a happy occasion.

  "Last week, thousands of lives were lost in the orbital colonies due to a new computational disturbance on the Data Sea known as an infoquake," continued Borda gravely. "The Council and the Prime Committee have been studying this phenomenon but have yet to draw any conclusions as to its root cause.

  "The epistemological implications of this phenomenon may be uncertain, but the duty of the government remains unchanged.

  "It is the solemn obligation of the Defense and Wellness Council to prevent any such disturbance from happening again. Towards that end, the Council has proposed to the Prime Committee a number of temporary measures designed to curb the risks of computational disorder. I have just been informed that the Committee has unanimously approved those measures."

  The crowd's silence was broken by a low murmur from contingents of hard-core libertarians. Even though the High Executive still followed parliamentary procedure, everyone knew that the final word belonged to Borda and Borda alone. Who could recall the last time the Prime Committee rejected one of the Council's military "recommendations"? Remember the statues in the Center for Historic Appreciation, whispered the dissidents in the crowd. Remember that flimsy excuse they conjured up last time to advance their agenda.

  "These are the strictures that the Prime Committee has enacted into law as of eight p.m. Melbourne time," said Borda.

  "Until further notice, multi attendance will be capped at 500 million persons in any one location.

  "All persons assembled at tonight's event will have their access to the Data Sea severely limited.

  "And in the case of an infoquake or another eruption of black code, the Council will enforce its right to shut down programs on the Data Sea at its sole discretion."

  The murmurings of unrest from the libertarians flared into full-out yells of protest. High executives had always had the ability to shut down certain programs deemed harmful to the public welfare-as long as they ran their decisions through the Prime Committee and the Congress of L-PRACGs first. But now, had the infoquake given Borda license to act unilaterally, without consultation?

  A vocal element of the crowd began stomping its feet. Dire headlines appeared in drudge columns throughout the Data Sea. Chants of Borda must go echoed in one corner of the arena, until a rash of Council officers stormed in that direction and began conspicuously fingering the triggers of their multi disruptors.

  Borda was unmoved. He stood and waited for the commotion to simmer down before proceeding. "The mandate of the Defense and Wellness Council-the entire reason for its existence-is to preserve the safety of every citizen in the civilized domains, from the four corners of Earth to Luna, Mars and the furthest orbital colonies," said the High Executive dispassionately. "Should the infoquake be deemed a natural occurrence, then the Council will continue to take measures necessary to prevent it from happening in the future.

  "But if it should be determined that the infoquake was an act of war by rogue elements of society ..."

  Borda's words hung in the air for a moment.

  "... then let it be known that the Defense and Wellness Council will not stand idle. Our armies are poised, on high alert, around the globe and throughout the human territories. The Council is ready to take action against any group-any group-that tries to take advantage of a sudden lapse in Data Sea integrity.

  "We are prepared to act, immediately and irreversibly, without appeal or exemption.

  "Whether the Council acts or not is up to you."

  Borda extended one long, bony talon from his fist and aimed it into the midst of the crowd. The audience grumbling instantly came to a halt, as 500 million people held their breath. And then, without any more formalities, the High Executive cut his multi connection and vanished.

  Natch had woken up from his mysterious slumber four hours earlierwoken up alone and in one piece, lying mummylike on his own bed with no recollection of how he had gotten there. Vague and incomprehensible images hovered in his head, just beyond the reach of his irises. He could not say whether they were dreams or memories or something in between.

  For advice, he had turned first to Serr Vigal, reaching his old mentor on an emergency message protocol the two had used for urgent communications since Natch's days in the hive. It had taken them less than half an hour to conclude that the black code was still active in Natch's system, and that only one man had the clout to scare off any potential attack. By the time Natch and Serr Vigal materialized in the Defense and Wellness Council's administrative offices barely three hours before the presentation, the fiefcorp master was ready to agree to almost anything that would buy some time.

  So Natch had promised Len Borda access. Access to MultiReal in exchange for protection from the black code.

  But what exactly did access mean? The term had come from the High Executive's mouth, not Natch's, and so he really had no way of knowing what subtle shades of meaning Borda applied to the word. How did access differ from cooperation? And did it also imply control? Did it at least fall short of the wholesale thievery that Margaret had been trying to prevent?

  Or had Natch just given Len Borda the very thing Margaret Surina had been trying to keep from him for all those years?

  If he had not been so pressed for time, perhaps Natch could have dickered with the Council over subtle interpretations. Once again, Margaret's words arose from the graveyard of the mind to haunt him: You find yourself capable of strange things when you run out of choices. Hadn't Natch indeed run out of choices? Anyone who would go to the trouble of assembling a strike force like the one that had ambushed him in Shenandoah certainly had the power to put together a lethal piece of black code.

  Lethal black code. The implications made Natch's bones tremble. A program that could tear through his bodily defenses like rice paper and cause his OCHREs to run amok. Who could predict what would happen? A jolt of electricity into the brain? Blockage of the main arteries leading to his heart? Or perhaps something slower, more insidious, more painful?

  But it wasn't cowardice that had driven him into Borda's office. I'm not a coward, Natch had insisted to himself, over and over again like a mantra. I'm not a coward. There's a lot more at stake here than my own life. The High Executive had provided all kinds of rationalizations for Natch's actions. After all, who could say what his black-robed assailants were after? Perhaps they wanted Natch to go onstage in front of 500 million people and unleash a ferocious black code attack. Perhaps they wanted to gain control of him so they could unlock access to MultiReal or kill one of his colleagues.

  Or maybe these people in black robes wanted Natch to kill you, Vigal had mused out loud in Borda's direction, oblivious to the seven or eight Council disruptors that suddenly spun towards his sparsely carpeted head.

  Borda himself had not expressed the slightest inkling of fear at the neural programmer's suggestion. I'd like to see them try it, he had said, his amusement registering on some subconscious level of the conversation.

  And now, as Natch stood at the stage door watching Borda wrap up his impromptu speech, another possibility came streaking to the forefront of Natch's mind. What if the thugs who had assaulted him in that Shenandoah alleyway were working for the Defense and Wellness Council?

  He thought about the offhanded way in which Len Borda had tossed him an additional twenty minutes of speech prep time while pretending to give him only ten. The High Executive was a man accustomed to getting what he wanted. What if this entire episode was some kind of trap? What if the assailants in the black robes had been sent to push him straight into Borda's clutches-and Natch had unwittingly done their
bidding?

  After the High Executive cut his multi connection and vanished, Natch looked at the millions in the crowd and tried to will himself to take those last few steps to center stage. But doubts weighed at his heels like shackled cannonballs. What if he had made the wrong decision to enlist the Council's help? What if he couldn't get MultiReal to work? What if his demonstration caused another infoquake?

  The anxiety crescendoed to a mind-splitting intensity-and then suddenly switched off.

  The presentation did not matter. None of this really mattered.

  Natch was already doomed.

  Black code prowled his system like a merciless reaper, relentless, insatiable, and ready to mow him down at any time. Even if the Council was dealing honestly with him-even if they had no involvement with the shadowy figures in the black robes and sincerely wanted to protect him-Natch doubted that Borda could act swiftly enough to stop the rogue program from taking his life. The black code had become a part of him. An internal attack could happen at any moment, between one breath and the next. It could happen now.

  He took the first tentative step up the narrow ramp towards center stage. It was a straight path, without detours or alternate routes. Natch could either walk away, or he could soldier on and trust that he would get through the presentation in one piece. He would have to trust that Borda would abide by his promise; he would have to trust that Jara's script would wow the crowd; he would have to trust that Horvil and Quell's engineering had done the job, that Benyamin's assembly-line shop had performed as advertised, and that Merri and Robby had wedged open enough minds in the audience to give him a chance.

  Natch reached center stage an empty husk.

  Millions upon millions of people stood arrayed before himpeople of all shapes and sizes and colors and creeds swirled together. Chattering insects. The temporary organic effluence of the Null Current, dredged from the water for a brief flickering instant between tides, an aspect of the endless sea of nothingness that surrounded them all.