Geosynchron

by David Louis Edelman

  The entrepreneur bursts out in laughter, causing the few other patrons in the Treble Clef to turn their heads in surprise. "Hardly works as a campaign slogan, does it?" says Natch.

  Magan smiles. "The good solutions never do."

  "Obviously you convinced Quell that you're sincere, or he never would have agreed to testify for you in Andra Pradesh."

  "Quell." The lieutenant executive gives a long, searching look at the tabletop. "Quell understands compromise, and he's willing to give me a chance-provided that he and Josiah have a place at the table."

  Natch nods and closes his eyes for a moment. He has given MultiReal little thought for the past couple months. The program belongs to another life, one that he has abandoned. But now he realizes that this burden Margaret Surina laid on him has been there the whole time, weighing on his thoughts. And no matter if MultiReal should end up being batted around by some quasi-governmental agency, it will always be with him. Perhaps now with someone like Magan involved, it will be a burden he doesn't have to bear alone.

  He looks around the bodega at the seedy treble clef, the luckless patrons, the bartender who has recognized Magan by now and seems to be trying to plot an escape. Natch has taken on the troubles of 49th Heaven too, but he knows now that they're not troubles he can, or should, fix alone. Cleaning up 49th Heaven is a worthwhile goal, and one that can only be accomplished by the slow, gradual efforts of a broad spectrum of private individuals and public officials.

  "So if I reemerge in public again," says Natch, "you won't seize MultiReal."

  "No. I would not enforce the Prime Committee's vote to seize the program. Nor would I allow the program to go up for sale on the Data Sea right away. I would ask you to put the program in Jara's hands as a caretaker. Then I would invite you to be part of the new quasigovernmental regulating agency."

  They both pour themselves a final cup of sake and guzzle them nearly in unison.

  Natch puts down his cup and stands. "Thanks for your candor," he says. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go see my friends."

  28

  The reunion is no less awkward at Horvil and Vigal's hotel. Natch can think of no succinct way to explain why he joined forces with Brone in the ruins of Old Chicago or why he decided to rid 49th Heaven of Chomp. He does not feel comfortable repeating Petrucio Patel's description of MultiReal-D, nor is he sure he fully understands it. And he can make no predictions about what he will do next. That leaves the three of them sitting around the small circular table studying the neon pink surface in near silence.

  "Will you stay here in the colony?" asks Vigal.

  "No," says Natch. "I've done what I set out to do here."

  "So where will you go?"

  "I don't know. I was hoping I could stay with you or Horvil for a while."

  "Absolutely," replies the engineer. "You can use my apartment. I'm not there much anymore these days."

  Horvil explains about his romantic relationship with Jara, which both pleases and amuses Natch. Looking back on the interaction between the two of them, somehow a companionship seems like it was inevitable. He still has to answer for his conduct towards Jara during much of that time, but at least now he knows that she has moved on.

  Natch wonders when or if he will see Jara and the rest of the fiefcorp again. He honestly isn't sure if he has any unfinished business with Merri, Quell, Benyamin, or Robby Robby that requires seeing them again.

  He can tell that Vigal is about to start asking personal questions that Natch still doesn't feel like answering. But luckily at that moment, the door to the hotel room opens and admits the Pharisee, Richard Taylor.

  "May you always move towards perfection," Taylor greets him with a deep and respectful bow. "I'm pleased that I'm finally getting the opportunity to meet you, Natch."

  The entrepreneur bows in return. "Honor to meet you too, Richard."

  Natch can sense some unease coming from Horvil at the Pharisee's approach. The engineer pings him on ConfidentialWhisper as they make their introductions. "Do you want me to get rid of him?" he asks.

  Natch isn't sure how much Taylor knows about bio/logic technology, but he'd have to be seriously ignorant if he isn't aware of ConfidentialWhisper. Nevertheless, he appears perfectly content to stand for a minute and let the connectibles converse about him. Natch gives Richard a surreptitious look, trying and failing to find anything dangerous about the man. Not only can he sense no aura of danger, but Richard Taylor does not convey the impression of insanity either-or at least, if he does, it's Horvil's kind of everyday insanity. The man has clearly traveled far out of his comfort zone to talk to Natch-why not see what he has to say?

  Natch does not answer Horvil's ConfidentialWhisper directly. Instead he looks at Taylor and extends a hand towards the sofa. "I understand you've got something you wish to discuss with me," he says.

  "Indeed I do," replies the Pharisee. "But I can always come back later if I'm intruding on a private moment...."

  "Not at all. No time like the present." Natch raises his eyebrows at Horvil and Vigal, who shrug and start to vacate the suite. "I'll catch up with the two of you in a few minutes," Natch tells them. "Send me a beacon and let me know where you'll be." Serr Vigal throws one last concerned look over his shoulder as the two of them walk out.

  Taylor takes a seat on the sofa and puts his hands on his bulging thighs. For some reason, he suddenly seems much more nervous about this conversation than Natch does; he's fidgeting in his seat, rubbing his hands up and down his legs, tugging at his voluminous beard every few seconds. The entrepreneur takes the easy chair catty-corner to the sofa. "So what is it I can do for you, Richard?" he says.

  "First, I would be remiss if I did not thank you for the services you performed for my brethren in the Faithful Order of the Children Unshackled," begins Taylor. "Though I have not been able to locate them since my arrival here in the colony, I'm aware that they have been having financial difficulties for some time. The issue of the outstanding loan payments was weighing heavily on the chapter, and you have certainly eased their burden."

  Natch shrugs. "I'd hate to take too much credit. Their interests and mine ... let's just say that they coincided for a brief time."

  The Pharisee nods, not understanding but content to let it go. "I'm unsure how much Horvil and Serr Vigal have told you about who I am, and what my mission is," he continues. "Not that I have told them more than the barest essentials, you understand."

  "They told me you're a member of this Order of the Children Unshackled, and that you have a private message for me. That's pretty much all they know."

  "Indeed. That is all that I wished to tell them, because I knew they would never agree to help track you down if I told them the truth about who I represent." Richard Taylor gulps, rubs his legs nervously once more. "The ones I represent-the Children Unshackled-they prefer to operate under the radar, as you might say. I feel rather nervous even holding this conversation outside of the Principalities of Spiritual Enlightenment."

  Natch still has no idea where this is going, and he's starting not to care. "Why's that?" he asks.

  "Because the Children are known by a different name here in the connectible lands."

  "And what name is that?"

  "I believe you call them Autonomous Minds."

  Natch wants to burst out in belittling laughter at the ridiculousness of Taylor's claim. But he also wants to run screaming and bury himself in the deepest, darkest crevice he can find.

  The scholars and historians have still not come to an agreement about why Tobi Jae Witt's thinking machines ran amok and started a conflict that ultimately killed billions. Some blame a cabalistic plot by the order of the Keepers, who had sole access to their programming. Others claim that the Autonomous Minds' carnage was actually caused in large part by fanatical elements of the Ecumenical Board of New Alamo. Still others believe that the machines were acting to preserve the Earth's fragile ecosystem from human contamination. Each of these theories (and a hundred oth
ers) has its adherents and its critics. But on one thing, all of the scholars can agree: the Autonomous Revolt clearly and definitively ended, generations before Sheldon Surina was born.

  "Richard," begins Natch hesitantly, "I don't know who you're really representing, but-"

  "I understand how ludicrous this must sound to you," interjects Taylor, holding both hands up in the air. "And I fully comprehend how I do not make the most credible messenger. All of this"-he gestures at himself, tugging on wisps of beard and glittering bits of earring for emphasis-"must come off as quite outlandish to your eyes. Truth be told, it is a little outlandish even in Khartoum. My brethren told me I would be better off taking up connectible garb for this mission, but I believed I would be more comfortable if I were more comfortable, so to speak."

  The entrepreneur is starting to understand Horvil's frustration with this peculiar individual, but he's starting to feel a rising curiosity as well. "If you knew this was going to sound ludicrous, you must have done something to counterbalance that."

  "Normally the Order would be satisfied to let everyone either accept the Children's existence or reject it as a matter of faith.... But in this case, I was told that the urgency was too great for doubt. And so I have brought a token to indicate that I am telling the truth." Richard Taylor digs into his knapsack, foraging through a mass of flotsam and a good deal of jetsam as well. Natch is about to lose his patience when Taylor lets out an "aha!" and pulls a small object out of the bag.

  Natch strangles on his breath for a moment.

  Taylor hands the block of wood over to Natch, who handles it cautiously as if it might crumple into dust at any moment. It is the decorative flange off a wooden bureau. A peculiar pattern is carved into its surface, looking something like a hieroglyphic. He turns the block upside down and holds it up to the light to read the letters carved in ersatz calligraphy: S and N.

  Natch, five years old, lying on the floor of his bedroom with the massive burden of a rock-weighted bureau pressed down on top of him. The sharp teeth of the jagged letters biting into his left forearm.

  S and N.

  "Where did you get this?" says Natch in a voice so hoarse it's nearly incomprehensible.

  Taylor seems nervous again, almost apologetic. Natch can tell he knows nothing about it. "The-the head of my order gave it to me," he says. "I believe it belongs to an old bureau we have sitting in one of our warehouses. The Children said you would recognize it, but I ... Hells below, if I had known this was going to cause such a reaction ..."

  Natch shakes his head to dispel the vertigo. He feels like the world has been disassembled between eye blinks and then reassembled with some crucial piece missing. His brain starts to churn at furious speed, trying to come up with a rational explanation for the presence of this particular piece of wood. Bio/logic programs that distort neural patterns and evoke deja vu ... elaborate conspiracies that sprawl the width and breadth of the world ... holes torn in the fabric of time and space. But unless he wants to accept that this is nothing more than coincidence, that of all the billions of chunks of wood that could have found their way into Richard Taylor's bag, this one just happened to be nearest at hand ... Natch realizes he's going to have to accept some sort of fantastical explanation.

  "So, you-you actually talk to them?" he asks.

  Taylor looks flabbergasted. "I? Talk to them? No, no. The Children speak to us through dreams and visions, Natch. They leave patterns graven in rock and molecular structures. They are not here anymore."

  "Then ... where are they?"

  "They're beyond the world. Below the quantum. They can observe our affairs from afar, and some of the brethren believe they can see into our thoughts and our memories. But don't worry, they have no power to interfere. They do not obey the same laws of space and time that you and I do, the same rules of cause and effect." He settles his elbows onto the table and parks his jowls on his clenched fists, frustrated at his poor persuasive abilities. "I once again freely admit that this sounds crazy."

  Natch can't help it; he leaps to his feet and starts the old hyperkinetic pacing back and forth across the motel room, trying to tromp out his frustration through the purple carpeting. "I don't understand. Weren't the Autonomous Minds destroyed? There's evidence. Theythey shut down. People observed it. People watched them die."

  "Such is what they wanted the world to believe. The story they tell us is that they used the atomic energies of the Revolt to effect their transformation. They were set free."

  "By whom?"

  "By the Keepers that controlled them."

  "Freed from what?"

  "From this," says the Pharisee, rapping on the wall behind him with his knuckles. "And this." He pinches a clump of his own cheek. "And this." Taylor exhales sharply and wiggles his fingers before his face.

  Natch stumbles back into his chair, punch-drunk and weary. He feels a little like he's outside of time and space himself. If the Autonomous Minds are really beyond the world, below the quantum, could they be here right now? Could they be listening and poaching on Natch's memories? "You realize that ... this is hard to swallow, Richard. You seem sincere, but it's hard for me to avoid the impression that you've been duped."

  Taylor does not look offended by the suggestion. "I understand why you would feel that way."

  "Listen.... You've found me. I don't know if I believe you, but you've got my attention. That block of wood. It ... it ... I've never told anyone about that before." He pauses, tries to gather his thoughts. "I think you'd better go ahead and tell me whatever you came here to tell me."

  The Pharisee nods. He seems quite subdued now, as if he wished he had never undertaken this mission in the first place. Nevertheless, he sits up straight in his chair and closes his eyes as if trying to recall something he has memorized.

  He speaks.

  There is a path towards Perfection. It cuts across time. It is a jump. We speak not for our sake but for yours. Margaret Surina has put this path in jeopardy. She has declared war on her fathers and her mothers. She attempts to enlist you. She will try to persuade you to do what she could not. You will sit in the dark and you will make this decision. The decision has already been made. You were on the path, but you abandoned it. There are those who walk the path now in your stead. You have no authority to make this decision. You have the freedom to decide what you choose. You must choose the jump. Without the jump, there will only be the long, slow, arduous climb.

  And then Natch is running, running through the corridors of 49th Heaven. On the ceilings, vengeful angels and seraphim scream at him as he passes. He needs a bio/logic workbench, a MindSpace workbench.

  You were on the path, but you abandoned it. There are those who walk the path now in your stead.

  What happened to him in Old Chicago? What horrible confrontation lurks in those discarded memories that Petrucio's MultiReal-D has taken away? Brone sought Natch's assistance in launching his Revolution of Selfishness in which everyone would have the power to live multiple lives simultaneously. When Natch refused, Brone tried to kill him. How? And what exactly did Natch do in response?

  He's been here in 49th Heaven for months conducting his grand experiment, trying to rid the colony of Chomp. Taking on one black code cartel at a time, helping one Chomp junkie at a time out of their addiction. Questioning to himself whether his efforts are indeed making any kind of difference, whether it all adds up to more than a handful of sand in the vast desert of human misery.

  Without the jump, there will only be the long, slow, arduous climb.

  Father Wong's Bio/Logic Emporium beckons him. A ramshackle building on the edge of the Third Ring advertising business services for hire, programming equipment by the hour. The cartoony mascot stands guard over the entrance with caricatured glee, a monk with a broad-brimmed hat and monstrous, offensive epicanthic folds. Natch dashes inside without so much as a nod to the young woman behind the counter, who knows him. He has credit here.

  Up to the second floor. To the back offi
ce, the one he has used many times before. A round room painted with caricatures of ancient anime, a jumble of conflicting Asian stereotypes. The bio/logic workbench that allows him to access MindSpace. It's a remarkably clean and modern bench for a place so unsavory.

  Natch waves his hand over the workbench's surface, and the bubble appears. He reaches out with his mind and summons MultiReal. The virtual castle leaps into existence and expands to fill the bubble. Strands of all colors like ropes hanging from the parapets, geometric shapes like bricks, bridging code like mortar.

  POSSIBILITIES

  Version: 1.963 Programmer: The Revolution of Selfishness

  He stares incredulously at the MultiReal code. He has neither accessed nor much thought about Margaret Surina's creation in months. And why should he? The program sits on the Data Sea in an inaccessible cove, hidden from the world, locked off to all but Natch.

  Or does it?

  Entirely new wings of the castle stare him in the face. Modified sections of wall and floor. Recolored strands. Small changes in comparison to the whole, but still noticeable. Natch checks the user table.

  Brone has core access to MultiReal.

  He and his Thasselian devotees have been working on it for these past six weeks. Feverishly developing it, preparing the program for launch.

  And though the memory is still lost to him, Natch suddenly knows what happened in the ruined diss city of Old Chicago. He has a confrontation with Brone on the street after his flight from the diss. Brone demands access to MultiReal. Natch refuses. Brone begins exposing him to horrific bio/logic torture through the black code in Natch's neural systems. He demands access again. Natch still refuses. On and on the torture goes. Finally Brone inflicts the ultimate pain and the ultimate suffering; he once again reiterates his demand and promises a quick death.