Geosynchron

by David Louis Edelman

  So, chess.

  Jara had begun two weeks ago a surprisingly lousy player. Apparently, skill in chess was neither genetic nor did it transfer by osmosis. She had endured humiliating defeat after humiliating defeat, trying to keep her grandfather Herschel's words close at hand.

  You just have to figure out what's important to you. Do that, and you're golden. Win, lose, it's all the same.

  Only now, two weeks into her chess odyssey, was Jara beginning to see the truth to that advice. The stringy-haired girl across the table was busy eliminating the last defenses around Jara's king. But suddenly the fiefcorp master noticed that her opponent was still zealously guarding her queen, beyond the point of good strategy or even rationality. This was something she could use in the future, and she would not have discovered it if she had managed to eke out a victory. This was her key to winning the next match with this young upstart, and the next one, and maybe the next one after that.

  Jara handed over her king with a nod and a smile.

  She left the clubhouse of the West London Grandmasters' League and quickly found herself surrounded by drudges, in much the same way her king had been surrounded on the chessboard by pawns.

  "Towards Perfection!" said John Ridglee, merging smoothly into step beside the fiefcorp master. His fingers danced across a crisp black van dyke that might have taken him two hours to groom. "Nice day for a stroll, isn't it?"

  "It was," replied Jara, eyeing Ridglee's competitor Sen Sivv Sor, who was flanking her other side. With his shock of white hair and angry red birthmark on his forehead, he might have been the yin to Ridglee's yang. Or the Tweedledee to his Tweedledum, thought Jara sourly.

  "Interest you in a cup of chaff?" said Sor.

  "You're buying?" said Jara.

  "Of course."

  The fiefcorp master shrugged. "All right then."

  There had to be some urgency to Ridglee and Sor's mission if it had inspired the hated rivals to join forces. A few scant weeks ago, she would have bolted at the sight of either one, possibly stopping to deliver a kick to the crotch first. There had been so many inquisitive media types hounding the fiefcorp then that Jara had been able to use them as a shield from the Defense and Wellness Council. But that was eons ago, back when the Surina/Natch MultiReal Fiefcorp was a real, functioning company. The drudge attention had all dissipated when Natch disappeared. Now she could stroll around London at her leisure without being accosted by a single frenzied drudge or menacing figure dressed in the white robe and yellow star.

  Meanwhile, the company name had become something of a joke: Margaret Surina was dead, Natch had turned phantom, and MultiReal had evaporated with him. All the fiefcorp had left was a handful of bad bio/logic products they had purchased from Lucas Sentinel, and a lawsuit against them by the Surina family that was already growing so tangled and pointless it verged on the Kafkaesque.

  Perhaps if both John Ridglee and Sen Sivv Sor were seeking her attention, there might be some news worth hearing. Maybe even some news about-

  "Natch," said Ridglee five minutes later, sliding a steaming mug of chaff across the table at the local pub.

  Jara wafted the cinnamon towards her face and inhaled deeply. "What about him?"

  "Have you seen him?"

  "No. You?" The fiefcorp master lifted the mug with two hands and sipped delicately. "John, you asked me the same thing last week and the week before. What makes you think anything's changed?"

  "Come on, Jara," said Sor, "we all know that Natch hasn't had an unchoreographed moment his whole life. You expect us to believe he didn't plan that circus at the Tul Jabbor Complex?"

  Jara frowned. It was truly bizarre how much cachet Natch's name had acquired during his absence. It was only a month ago that drudges like Sor and Ridglee were ranting about Natch's shady business tactics and accusing him of murdering Margaret Surina. Now, it seemed, Natch had become some sort of demigod. Suddenly he was the man who had topped the Primo's bio/logic investment guide faster than anyone in history, the man who had taken on the Patel Brothers and the Defense and Wellness Council, the man who had shrugged off an assassination attempt by Len Borda and disappeared right under the noses of a billion spectators. The drudges were starting to spout phrases like as cunning as Natch and a problem only Natch could solve, which made Jara want to retch.

  "Sen," said Jara, "you really think Natch planned that attack at the Tul Jabbor Complex? Boy, he must really be a masochist. Go ahead, tell me why he would possibly goad the Council into trying to murder him."

  "You know why," said Ridglee, his voice hinting at a friendly familiarity that he and Jara didn't share.

  The fiefcorp master caught the attention of the woman behind the counter, mouthed the word scone, and pointed to the tabletop. "No. In fact, I don't know why at all."

  Sen Sivv Sor gave a furtive look around at the bar patrons who couldn't have been paying less attention. He opened a ConfidentialWhisper channel. "The lawsuit," he said, using a melodramatic stage whisper even over silent mental chat.

  Jara laughed, barely refraining herself from spraying the drudge with a mouthful of chaff. "Suheil and Jayze Surina's lawsuit?" she said aloud, making no effort to modulate her voice. "Are you serious?"

  "Absolutely," replied the drudge, unfazed by her ridicule.

  "Sen, they just want money. You've met those two, haven't you? The only reason Jayze is trying to recover the funds that Margaret poured into the company is because she's vindictive. And Suheil is just playing along because he has no spine." The scone arrived. Jara smiled at the waitress and pointed in Sen Sivv Sor's direction to indicate that he'd be handling the bill. "Natch doesn't care about money. He wouldn't pay any attention to this dumb lawsuit, even if he was still running the company."

  "Ah, but this lawsuit isn't really about money, is it?" interjected Ridglee, leaning forward over the table for emphasis. "It's about"-he repeated Sor's conspiratorial glance at the surrounds, and tried to switch the conversation back to Confidential Whisper-"MultiReal."

  "We don't have access to MultiReal anymore," replied Jara in her natural voice, refusing to follow the drudge's lead. "Natch ran off with the databases. The Surinas know that, and so do you. Even if we did know where to find MultiReal, it's been seized by the Prime Committee." She dug into the pastry on the plate in front of her. Dry. Flaky. Good.

  Ridglee and Sor shared a look that hinted at a list of confidential sources being exchanged and compared. As Jara polished off her scone, the knowing glimmer in their eyes only seemed to increase. The fiefcorp master felt the first twitches of doubt.

  "Try this on for size," said Ridglee over the silent channel, sitting back in his seat and folding his arms brashly across his chest. "Natch stages a disappearance at the Tul Jabbor Complex to draw Len Borda off his scent."

  "To draw everybody off his scent," put in Sor.

  "He lets the Surinas proceed with their trial and build up a big head of steam. He waits until they're at the very edge of victory. Then he shows up as a surprise witness after the Surinas have rested their case with a ton of exculpatory evidence. The court rules in the fiefcorp's favor, establishing a legal precedent. So when Magan Kai Lee finally overthrows Len Borda-"

  Jara made a dismissive noise under her breath. "That's a big leap."

  "-Natch is in a good position to appeal the Prime Committee's ruling. Once Borda's gone, the Committee won't be under the high executive's thumb anymore. They might reverse their decision to seize MultiReal. That leaves Natch as the sole supplier in the marketplace of MultiReal products." John Ridglee gave a self-satisfied nod in Sor's direction, which Sor echoed right back. "So what do you think?"

  The fiefcorp master lifted her cup of chaff and slurped the last few centimeters down. Then she placed the cup firmly on the table and stood. "I think you owe the pub twenty-five Vault credits," she said. "Towards Perfection, gentlemen."

  "Do you want to know the most annoying part?" said Jara.

  Horvil chose to ignore her and conce
ntrate on his dive instead. He stood at the edge of the platform in a plaid robe, loosely sashed, with his hands over his head and fingertips pressed together. He counted to three and made a surprisingly graceful leap off the side. Jara propped herself up on one elbow and watched as Horvil did a pair of loop-deloops through the air beneath the transparent platform. He landed on the opposite edge, did a tuck-and-roll, and flopped down beside her on the pile of cushions. "No," he said. "What is the most annoying part?"

  Jara knew that the engineer was angling for a laugh, or at the very least, a playful look of exasperation. She gave him a half-smile instead and pressed on with the conversation. "It's the way the drudges treat Natch like some kind of miracle worker. When Natch was around, they couldn't stop pointing out what a monster he was. Now that he's gone, they fawn over him like he's Sheldon Surina."

  Horvil grinned and lay back with his hands behind his head. "Natch did do a good job of manipulating everyone for a few months," he said.

  "Of course. But the drudges can't even conceive of the idea that someone might have finally gotten the better of him. You should have heard Ridglee. Natch stages a disappearance at the Tul Jabbor Complex to draw Len Borda off his scent. " She puffed herself up and stroked an imaginary goatee in caricature. "Like Natch is capable of just snapping his fingers and rearranging the world."

  The engineer shrugged and put one arm over her shoulder. Jara wondered fleetingly if she had offended him. Horvil wasn't the type to take offense easily-but then again, they were talking about Natch, his oldest and best friend. Even when Natch had threatened Horvil's career a month ago, Horvil had had nothing but excuses for the entrepreneur's behavior.

  "Do you think that Ridglee and Sor might be on to something?" asked Horvil.

  "Come on. Natch can't just stage manage Len Borda like-"

  "No, no, forget about Natch for a second. I'm talking about the lawsuit. This isn't the first strange thing we've seen with this case."

  "You mean the Pharisee?"

  Horvil made a noncommittal sound, but Jara could tell she had struck home. She had only met two or three Pharisees her entire life, even through the whole MultiReal experience. But now some representative of the Pharisee tribes had evidently taken an interest in the case. He had attended every day of the preliminaries so far, sitting in the back of the chamber like a shaggy harbinger of doom. He was a bulky man, almost Horvilesque, this representative of the unconnectible tribes living beyond the edges of civilization. But unlike Horvil, who bore such an air of humor and civility that he threatened no one, this Pharisee was a cipher. His body language betrayed nothing. He simply sat in his seat and stared for hours from beneath his tremendous curly hair and beard, tugging irritably at the connectible collar that the Prime Committee mandated he wear in public. It was unnerving.

  "Yeah, there's the Pharisee," said Horvil. "But that's not the only odd thing about this lawsuit. Jayze and Suheil have been acting strange too. Did you see the way that their legal team suddenly doubled in size overnight?"

  Jara nodded. "Then there are all those Council officers marching in front of the building day and night."

  "Listen, Jara. Ridglee and Sor might be idiots-but you can't deny they've got sources. Lots of sources. They didn't come up with this idea on their own. Somebody put this bug in their ears."

  "So what do you think is going on?"

  Horvil had no answer.

  The fiefcorp master lay back against Horvil's collarbone and tried to fit the pieces together in her head. Some of the oddity could be attributed to the aura of chaos that surrounded everything the Surina clan touched. Undoubtedly people were curious how Jayze and Suheil were going to run the family's affairs now that Margaret had passed on. People were curious how long their uneasy truce would hold. Yet that didn't explain the presence of factors beyond the Surinas' sphere of influence: the Council, the Pharisee, the drudges.

  "It feels like I've stumbled into one of my grandfather's chess games," said Jara. "I'm standing there on the board watching the players execute all these complicated strategies. But I can't even figure out who's playing. There are higher powers out there trying to change the outcome of this stupid lawsuit. Why? For a pile of money and the title to a program that's technically already been seized by the government. So who are these higher powers? And should I be fighting them, or helping them?"

  "There's only one thing to do," announced Horvil somberly.

  "What's that?"

  The engineer burst into a goofy grin. "Forget about it for another half hour, and spend more money on the Sigh." He flicked his fingers into the air, causing an enormous text box to appear before them. CHOOSE AN ENVIRONMENT, said the box. Horvil tapped the drop-down arrow, causing the list to scroll through thousands of absurdly named Sigh environments at ludicrous speed.

  Jara suppressed a giggle. Only Horvil could find his libido roused by a discussion about chess. But maybe he was right; angsting about the problem without any data was only likely to produce more angst.

  She turned her attention to the list of virtual environments. Remarkable how much fun the Sigh could be if you had a tender and creative partner. For Horvil and Jara, sex could be awkward in the world of flesh and bone. Even though the engineer had taken off almost ten kilograms in the past two months, he was still twice her size. But here on the Sigh, Jara could be a hundred meters tall if she wanted. She could be the pop star Jeannie Q. Christina or a porpoise or a swarm of bees, for that matter.

  "How about this one?" said Jara, holding her finger over the list. "`Floating Tapestry of Love."' The listing burst into mock Arabic script as she pointed to it.

  "Hmm," replied Horvil. "I had my eye on `A Rut in the Mud."'

  "Or maybe `Romance in Durango."'

  "What about `Fawning Slave Girls of the Sultan'?"

  "`The Princess and Her Squire."'

  "`Contortionist Whores of 49th Heaven."'

  "`Aquatic Erotic Adventure."'

  "`Vat of Baked Beans."'

  "Horvil, we are not going to have sex in a virtual environment called `Vat of Baked Beans.' It's just not going to happen."

  "Okay, then what about `Chocolate Waterfall' . . . ?"

  In the end, they decided to do what they always did: let the shifting currents of the Data Sea choose an environment at random. They ended up floating on a cloud of metallic pixie dust while Valkyries did battle with tridents and spears all around them. No matter. Within seconds, their eyes were focused squarely on each other, and the outside world was safely forgotten.

  I0

  At its essence, Jayze and Suheil Surina's complaint was an old and familiar one. Margaret Surina had given fifty percent of one of the family's greatest assets-MultiReal-to an outsider. But this outsider wasn't just anyone; he was Natch, one of the world's most notoriously Shylockian businessmen. Margaret had spent the next few weeks shedding her sanity like clothing on a hot day and then died under suspicious circumstances, leaving MultiReal in Natch's hands. Obviously, claimed the Surina family's lawyers, her agreement with Natch should be rendered null and void.

  "Face it," Horvil had sulked after his first read-through of the complaint. "They've got a solid case."

  "But not airtight," Jara had replied.

  The complaint had been filed with Natch's freewheeling libertarian government in Shenandoah, where the judges were quite lax on matters of ceremony. It almost felt like you could stand up in court there and hash through disagreements in plain speech like civilized human beings. The judges felt more like friendly arbitrators than grim custodians of the distant and impersonal Law.

  But the fiefcorp quickly lost the battle for jurisdiction soon after Jara's run-in with the drudges. "Why try the case here in Shenandoah when Natch is nowhere to be found?" Suheil and Jayze's attorneys argued. "Nobody else in the courtroom has any connection to this city." Jara grudgingly admitted they were right, and unfortunately, Natch's L-PRACG agreed too. So the case migrated from Shenandoah to the Surina family's pet government in
Andra Pradesh. Jara and Horvil temporarily put all other fiefcorp business on hold so they could travel to Andra Pradesh and get this lawsuit out of the way.

  It soon became apparent that the courts in Andra Pradesh were not like those in Shenandoah. Horvil and Jara had to endure endless debate about trifling matters of ritual, like whether the plaintiffs should sit on the left side as customary in Western courtrooms or on the right as customary in modern Indian courtrooms; like whether they should impose a cutoff on the number of drudges allowed to view the proceedings; like whether the court should follow the Pevertz-Laubumi Disambiguation Procedure, which required witnesses to parse their sentences in three different ways to avoid any possibility of misunderstanding. It all felt like a transparent ploy by the Surinas to keep the lawyers jawing as long as possible and exhaust the fiefcorp's legal defense fund.

  Jara felt like she should bring this up with Martika Korella, their attorney. But she soon decided that she trusted the woman about as much as she trusted an Autonomous Mind. In short, not at all.

  It wasn't that Korella was incompetent. On the contrary, multiple sources had recommended her as a woman of principle, fierce intelligence, and thorough familiarity with the idiosyncrasies of the Indian legal system. In the days leading up to the trial, Korella had assured them this was a winnable case and seemed to be preparing a cogent defense. Then one morning she had appeared in court with the look of a woman who had not only seen a ghost but had invited that ghost for tea and chatted with it about the weather. Korella's enthusiasm for the case had simply dried up overnight.

  "I don't know how to explain it," Jara told Horvil. "It's like she knows she's in a fixed fight."

  "So shouldn't we fire her?" the engineer replied.