Geosynchron

by David Louis Edelman

  The lieutenant executive does not sound angry so much as weary of games and half-truths. "You know full well that this memory rollback isn't going to work. Erase every memory of MultiReal since Margaret unveiled it to the public? Wipe out every trace of every discus sion, every discourse, every poem and song and Data Sea posting? Every private message? No. Even if the failsafe finds every qubit of data on the Sea, there's still treepaper in the world that's not connected to the grid. It may be difficult to find, but it exists. There are still Islanders without connectible coins. There are Pharisees like your friend Richard Taylor who have no OCHREs and still know something about MultiReal. It's a testament to the genius of the Surina family that your friends believe this story at all. No, Margaret's goal of wiping the idea from the world forever-it's utter foolishness. And what's more-you have known this all along."

  Natch takes a moment to corral his wayward thoughts. If he has known from the beginning that Margaret's memory rollback is destined for failure, some part of him has also known that Magan Kai Lee would share his doubts. "I think Margaret's failsafe will be much more effective than you give her credit for," he says. "Despite what the drudges say, the program has really only affected most people's lives in a very superficial way. I think the vast majority of the public-the billions who have only followed the MultiReal debate from a distance-they'll forget. Their minds will patch right over the gap as if it's not there."

  "But it won't be one hundred percent effective."

  The entrepreneur sighs. "No. Of course not. If nothing else, Brone will still be out there. You, Horvil, Jara, and the Patels will still be out there. MultiReal has taught everyone that memory is volatile. You'll know right away that something's wrong. I'm willing to bet that Brone has already foreseen that something like this might happen and laid down a stack of treepaper just for this purpose."

  "He would not be the only one."

  "You?"

  "Papizon has a team that's fanatically transcribing everything they see with ink, in longhand." Magan sniffs in amusement. "He has been trying to reconstruct one of the ancient machines that automatically print ink on treepaper, but it's more difficult than he anticipated."

  Natch chuckles. The thought of Magan's peculiar engineer tinkering with antediluvian computer printers was amusing indeed. "I suspected as much."

  "So you are not actually planning on activating Margaret's failsafe then?"

  "Oh no. I will."

  Something in Natch's assured tone has finally broken through the lieutenant executive's wall of equanimity. He can hear a strange note of emotion in Magan's voice that he can't quite identify. Fear? Misgiving? Doubt? "For process' preservation ... why? You'll be sacrificing your life, and all for nothing."

  "Nothing?" Natch snorts through nonexistent nostrils. "You've never seen the MultiReal code, have you? It's thousands of times more complex than any other bio/logic program on the market. It took the Surinas hundreds of years to get to this point, even if they had the assistance of the Autonomous Minds."

  "The Autonomous Minds? What are you talking about?"

  Natch tells him about Richard Taylor's message and his theory of what this "path to Perfection" might be.

  Magan does not seem to give the story much credence. "Do you really believe this Taylor?"

  "Regardless. Whether the Surinas were transcribing ideas from some advanced machine intelligence or whether they built it all themselves-the code is massive. I'm confident that Margaret's failsafe will cut off all access to those databases, if nothing else. They'll be gone. How long do you think it would take to rebuild all of that? Even if you had seen the MultiReal code in action and studied it in MindSpace- like Brone or I have-it would take at least fifty years to reengineer it. And you wouldn't be able to use the secret back doors and programming hooks that Sheldon Surina put into the bio/logic system either. You'd need to do extensive testing. There would be a million regulatory hurdles in your way. It would take a long, long time."

  "But still," says Magan, insistently. "Krone is a young man, and he's determined. In fifty years, he'll rebuild MultiReal and we'll be in the same situation."

  "Not Brone," says Natch. "He'll be sitting in an orbital prison cell for the rest of his life, for murder."

  "Whose murder?"

  "Mine."

  There is another pause. Natch gets the impression that Magan has actually turned his attention elsewhere for a minute. That impression is confirmed when the lieutenant executive returns and announces that he has instructed Papizon's team to begin collecting evidence of Brone's culpability and writing it down in their treepaper notes. It won't be a simple case, and Brone will have the money to hire some very capable defense attorneys. But Magan is certain they'll be able to convict him one way or another after he no longer has MultiReal at his disposal.

  "So we have the means of dealing with Brone," says Magan. "But there will be others. Certainly the drudges will not rest until they've gotten to the bottom of the sudden memory erasure that's swept the world. It might take years, but they'll eventually rediscover the idea behind MultiReal, and they'll publicize it."

  "Precisely. Don't you see? The next time, MultiReal won't be developed in secret and unleashed on an ignorant and unprepared public. You'll have fifty years to prepare. You'll have fifty years to discuss and debate and think up countermeasures and laws and social structures to contain it. Fifty years to beef up the computational infrastructure. Next time, MultiReal will launch on the Data Sea when humanity's ready for it-not on Brone's timetable. Not on the fucking Autonomous Minds' timetable."

  "You're not trying to eradicate MultiReal at all."

  "No. What would be the point? If it was dreamt up once, it will be dreamt up again. You can't stop the human race from striving towards perfection any more than you can stop a hurricane. I'm not trying to keep Possibilities 2.0 out of the public's hands. I'm just buying the human race some time to get it right. Fifty years of time, maybe longer."

  Magan sits silently and considers all of this for a minute. Hard to fathom that only a few months ago, they were sitting across a table at the Kordez Thassel Complex in much different circumstances. Back then, it was Natch trying to release MultiReal to the world in an unfinished state and Magan working to stop him.

  "So what if you're wrong about me?" says the lieutenant executive finally. "What if I have the Defense and Wellness Council reconstitute MultiReal in secret after you're gone?"

  "Then someone will rise up to stop you."

  "Who?"

  "Fuck, I don't know. You don't think this is just about me, do you? The world put me here, Magan. Time, history, fate, the confluence of events-call it whatever you want. If you or Rey Gonerev or the next high executive after her turns into another Len Borda, someone will be around to stand in your way. You can count on that."

  Merri, again.

  "The Council can't guarantee Bonneth's safety," says Natch. "There are just too many unknowns. But that doesn't mean you're powerless. What you can do is help her get somewhere that she'll be insulated from the chaos."

  "But there isn't any such place."

  "Sure there is. An OrbiCo medical freighter."

  A thoughtful pause. An audible burst of optimism. "That-that might work."

  "Of course it'll work. Once Bonneth gets situated, she'll be safer than anyone down here on Earth. Those ships are totally isolated and self-contained. They're prepared for a complete bandwidth cutoff. And if worse comes to worst, she'll be surrounded by doctors."

  Merri's voice vanishes without another word as she goes off to book passage for Bonneth on an OrbiCo medical freighter. Not five minutes later, before anyone else can take up the communication channel to talk to Natch, she's back, her voice ratcheted into the hysterical range again.

  "There's a freighter leaving literally in an hour from Einstein," says Merri. "But it's all booked up-everything but the VIP suites. And those cost a fortune."

  "Define a fortune."

  Merri names a
number that does, indeed, meet the definition.

  "Horvil and Benyamin have that kind of money."

  "I can't reach them, Natch. They're with Quell. They've locked themselves in a room with a bio/logic workbench to try to get you out of there, and I can't even get a message through.... What am I going to do?"

  Natch ponders the question for a moment, and a solution quickly presents itself. Remarkable how easy the answers come when the world has narrowed the scope of your resources. "My Vault account," he says. "Empty it."

  The channel manager gasps aloud, clearly taken aback. "Empty it?"

  "Every single bloody credit, if you have to. Get her a personal attendant. I'm certainly not going to need that money anymore."

  Natch can sense Merri's unease with the idea. He's fairly certain that if her and Bonneth's roles were reversed, the channel manager would gladly ride out a thousand infoquakes rather than ask such a favor for herself. But somehow, asking on behalf of a loved one changes the equation. "I don't have authorization to spend from your Vault account, do I?"

  "Serr Vigal does. If you have any trouble, see him. Is he still around?"

  "Yes, he's here. But what if he doesn't believe me?"

  Of all the things Vigal has to worry about, Natch suspects that Merri embezzling money is rather low on his list. He laughs out loud. "Merri, you're a Creed Objectivv truthteller. You've never sullied that oath. Everyone knows that you've always stayed true to the letter and the spirit of your promise. Of course Serr Vigal will believe you."

  A pause. More tears. "Natch," she says, "I ... I don't know how to what 1 can ... Thank you."

  And then she's gone.

  42

  It was all too much to absorb at once. Memory reversal, upheaval, death: Jara felt like there was some jagged truth buried at the bottom of it all, and her brain was doing its best to keep her in a state of disorientation to protect her from its barbs.

  "So what do we ... do?" she said, always focused on the practical.

  Petrucio seemed dejected. "I don't know if there's anything we can do. Horvil says he's made up his mind."

  Technically the fiefcorpers were still operating in the war room at the top of the Tio Van Jarmack building. But ever since Natch's signal had gone dead, things had gotten increasingly surreal up here. The Defense and Wellness Council officers were still patrolling the hallways outside, but the mood had noticeably shifted after the news of Len Borda's surrender had made its way through the ranks. Loud, jubilant conversations and even the occasional celebratory snippet of song drifted into the war room now, while Jara, Petrucio, and Robby stared glumly at the walls and prepared for the apocalypse. Petrucio decided to open the bottle of burgundy Brone had given him, but nobody had a taste for wine at the moment. Merri had left to make preparations for her companion's OrbiCo shuttle, and Serr Vigal had retreated back to his hotel room for some rest. Quell, Horvil, and Benyamin were locked away in a room on the twenty-third floor trying to free Natch from Brone's black code. Richard Taylor was still flitting around somewhere, nobody was quite sure where.

  Jara leapt out of her chair and began pacing back and forth in front of the viewscreens, which were still showing nothing but solid gray. "I'm not just going to sit here and do nothing while the world comes to an end," she scowled. "There's got to be something we can do to prepare for the failsafe."

  "Like what?" said Petrucio, leaning back in his seat and rubbing his tired eyes.

  "I don't know. But the stakes are just too high. Those drudges are going to be voting on whether to release Possibilities in the next five or ten minutes." She gestured at one of the viewscreens that was showing the scene inside the Kordez Thassel Complex: Ridglee and Sor in full yellow journalism mode, Council operatives seething, Brone resplendent. "We've got to warn sixty billion people from here to Furtold to hunker down and stay indoors. We've got to tell them to stay away from MultiReal if Brone releases it. And we need to do it in the next two hours, before Natch activates the failsafe."

  Petrucio grinned. "That would be the greatest communications coup in the history of humanity. How the fuck do we do all that?"

  Robby Robby abruptly stood up with a look so solemn and free from hipster sarcasm that Jara had to look twice to make sure it was the same man. "Leave that to me," he said, his voice brimming over with purpose. "Where's Rey Gonerev?"

  Jara and Petrucio turned to each other with a look and a shrug. If anyone could accomplish a miracle like this, it was Robby.

  The channeler did not disappoint.

  Within five minutes, they had reached the Blade via a secure communications channel at DWCR. She quickly prived herself to all other incoming messages and gestured for Robby to go ahead.

  Robby Robby posed a tripartite solution. Magan Kai Lee would immediately send out as many Council hoverbirds as he could spare to hover over humanity's most populous cities blaring out warning klaxons. Council troops would march through the city streets side by side with security forces from the Congress of L-PRACGs, weapons sheathed, along with as many representatives from the creeds as they could gather. And urgent messages would be sent through every LPRACG in the world urging people to get indoors and set a green beacon on the multi network when they had reached a place of safety. Anyone who found themselves in some kind of extreme danger or distress would change their beacon to red. Robby thought that this arrangement would reach the maximum number of people without causing massive panic, and discourage people from flooding the Data Sea with frantic message traffic.

  "What if someone doesn't have time to change their beacon from green to red?" protested Jara. "What if someone has a massive coronary and dies in a split second?"

  "When you die, the multi network automatically cuts off any beacons you've set," replied a sanguine Robby Robby. "Red beacon or no beacon-either way, if you check on someone and there's no green beacon, you know you've got trouble."

  "But what about pranksters, or people clamoring for attention, or people who refuse to obey-"

  "I never said it was perfect," said Robby. "Just the best we can do in two hours."

  Rey Gonerev was pensive. "Krone will try to counter it," she said. "He's a quick thinker. As soon as he realizes we're trying to get out a warning to the public, he's going to try to spread a countermessage accusing us of intimidation."

  "And let's not forget that he's got tens of thousands of anonymous devotees out there to help him," put in Petrucio Patel.

  Robby was unfazed. "That's why we get the Council officers to march on the streets with weapons sheathed, together with the creed and Congressional forces. So people don't think this is just some sinister trick by the Defense and Wellness Council. Anyone who thinks the Council and the Congress and the creeds are all in bed together ... well, they're not going to listen to us no matter what we say, right?"

  "Authenticated messages don't travel quickly enough," objected Petrucio. "It'd be impossible to get a verifiable message out to sixty billion people in time."

  "So we'll send unauthenticated messages."

  Jara could feel a switch go off in her head. "Natch's black code forgery machine," she said. "The program that looks like a green pyramid in MindSpace. The one he used to get to number one on Primo's, and then to spread the word about that fake Council memo. That thing can do the trick."

  Robby flashed a set of enormous teeth so white they could practically serve as a light source. "Whoever said that was Natch's forgery machine, Queen Jara?" he said. "Who d'you think told him where to find it?"

  The Blade listened silently to this interchange with a look of intense concentration. Jara suspected that she was relaying the pertinent details to Magan Kai Lee. After half a minute, she lifted her head and gave a nod. "Magan says to make it happen. Robby, you stay right there so we can coordinate logistics. We've got five minutes to put this in motion."

  Jara blanched. "Five minutes?"

  "In case you hadn't noticed-the drudges have voted. They voted for Brone to release Possibilities 2.0
."

  "Do you think the world is going to forget who I am once Natch activates the rollback?"

  "I doubt it. Grand Reunification really doesn't have much to do with MultiReal. Did you even mention MultiReal in that manifesto you wrote?"

  "I can't remember. I might have."

  "Well, even if the manifesto gets completely wiped off the Data Sea, one look at that nose of yours and the world will figure out who your mother is soon enough."

  "If I stay in the public eye. I've been thinking, Da-this could be an opportunity for a failsafe of my own. If the world forgets that there's another Surina, then I could slip back into relative anonymity in the Islands. I could go back to just being the elected representative of ward four."

  "Is that what you want?"

  "I don't-I don't know."

  Laughter. "You get that uncertainty from me. It's not something I would have chosen to pass on to the next generation. Do what you want, of course. But you're too much like your mother to stay out of politics. And once Natch activates this failsafe-well, you'll have a freedom that she never had."

  "What do you mean?"

  "You've got all the advantages of being a Surina, but you're not tied down to Andra Pradesh. You've got four hundred years of history behind you, but you're not burdened with the weight of the past. It's a gift, in a way. Whether the world remembers you or not, you'll be free to follow your own path like Margaret never was."

  "And you? What are you going to do?"

  "I'm going to go back into that room and try one more time to break Natch out of that infernal black code. I think I'm close to a breakthrough."

  "Can't you leave that to Horvil and Benyamin?"

  "No, I kicked them out. Horvil wasn't much help, honestly, so I sent him to go take care of Jara. Benyamin's just going to hunker down here in the Van Jarmack building."

  "What I really meant to ask was, what are you going to do after that? After this MultiReal crisis is over."

  Pause. "After that, I have no idea."