Multireal

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Multireal Page 32

by David Louis Edelman


  "Ridglee's gloating," said a jubilant Horvil to the rest of the fiefcorpers over ConfidentialWhisper. "Who would have thought that the greatest surge of momentum the libertarian movement has seen in years would come from a soft-spoken code pusher from the memecor ps?"

  Robby Robby was taming stray tufts of perm with his fingernails. "What'd I tell ya, Queen Jara?"

  "You're right," 'Whispered Jara. "You did tell me. I just didn't believe Vigal had it in him." She looked down at the neural programmer with new respect. He was responding to a diatribe by the Vault representative with reserve and polish.

  "Well, don't start celebrating just yet," said Benyamin. "Vertiginous is still pretty sour about our chances. Serr Vigal pitted the soft sentimentality of freedom' against the hard-edged realities of safety and security. I think the libertarians will find soon enough that the Blade is more than capable of slicing through those arguments. "

  Merri: "Anybody catch Natch's reaction?"

  There was a glum silence as the fiefcorpers took turns glancing at the entrepreneur, who appeared not to have moved or even blinked in the last hour. He might have been a marionette propped up in his chair, eyes fixed on nowhere and nothing.

  "Well, we have one thing to be thankful for," said Horvil a little while later as the company arose as one to stretch. The Prime Committee had just thanked Serr Vigal for his testimony and adjourned the hearing for the day.

  "What's that?" said Jara.

  "We're not going to get any more grief from those MultiReal exposition lottery winners. Captain Bolbund's just been arrested. Practicing law without a license."

  After observing the change of the guard at the Defense and Wellness Council's Melbourne complex, after annotating the transcript of Serr Vigal's remarks to the Prime Committee, after examining and reexamining the black code in his dart-rifle, after scouring through the voluminous document that was the Council's budget for the new year, Magan Kai Lee finally admitted he had nothing to do.

  He looked around the office-his home base in Melbourne-where he had chosen to while away the evening hours. It was a cramped space, an ill-advised and hastily constructed partition of an executive office meant for three. Moreover, the prospects for expansion were grim, considering there was no collapsible infrastructure here and you had to actually find people to move furniture. Rearranging stone walls was out of the question.

  And yet Magan much preferred this office to his more commodious quarters at Defense and Wellness Council Root. In Len Borda's fortress, you never knew precisely where you would find yourself when you stepped outside the door; things moved, walls moved, people moved. But here in Melbourne, geography was firm and unyielding. Stable. You could plan where you were going and expect that plan to stick.

  Magan turned his attention back to the budget document still floating on the window. It was the perfect example of the Bordaesque worldview, a labyrinth of ambiguously worded codicils and provisos, unnavigable to all but the initiated, designed to shift at a moment's notice.

  But the Prime Committee's attentions were focused on the MultiReal situation at the moment. So the budget had sailed through all the requisite subcommittees, and no one at the Congress of L-PRACGs had given it much scrutiny either. Thus the high executive's budget would go into effect without delay, as Borda had predicted, and the escalation of troops and materiel on the border of the Islander territories would continue unnoticed, as Borda had predicted. Even if someone wanted to object at this point, it was too late. Tomorrow was already January 15, the first calendar day of the new year's budget. Credits would start flowing to the designated Council Vault accounts in just over an hour.

  Lieutenant Executive Lee waved his hand and blanked out the window display. An empty stone courtyard embossed with a giant yellow star stared back at him.

  January 15.

  I give you until the fifteenth of January to take possession of MultiReal, Borda had told him, standing in that accursed naval SeeNaRee of his. If you do, we have an agreement. If you don't ...

  With all that had happened in the interim-the infoquakes, the protests, the death of Margaret Surina, Natch's change of fortunewould Len Borda insist on holding to this arrangement? Would he take such a narrow-minded interpretation of their agreement even now, when the Council was a mere handful of votes away from legal control of MultiReal?

  And if so, what would he do?

  Magan fired off a secure ConfidentialWhisper to Ridgello. Ridgello, the dependable. Ridgello, the antithesis of mercurial Borda- ism. "Double the guard at the Tul Jabbor Complex," said Magan. "I need you ready for anything tomorrow."

  The commander responded within seconds, despite the late hour. "It's done. What should I be anticipating?"

  "Anything."

  Natch, lying on the mattress of some anonymous Melbourne hotel, slick with sweat, fighting a turbulent battle against sleep with half a dozen invigoration programs as confederates. Grappling with slumber and exhaustion.

  The guardian and the keeper.

  You'll resist Len Borda to your dying breath. You will resist the winter and the void.

  Hack the body, and the mind will follow.

  He flailed himself out of bed, threw on a dressing gown as insulation from the world, and reeled over to the red square tile in the corner. The lights instantly shifted to candle strength, throwing the shadow of the desk onto the tile and turning it a harsh crimson.

  Then he was on the tile. Then he was falling, plummeting into multivoid.

  His apartment looked different somehow through the prism of the multi network. All his accoutrements were precisely where he had left them, down to the bio/logic programming bar that had fallen on the floor and the partially filled glass of water he had set on the counter two days ago. Still, there was some indefinable thing missing: an aura, a presence, an element that lay just below the threshold of corporeality.

  No time.

  Natch stumbled into his office and waved his hand over the desk to summon the MindSpace bubble. It expanded out from the tabletop at not-quite-instantaneous speed until it had swallowed up the desk, swallowed up him. Hovering in the middle of it, as always, the stray MultiReal code Horvil had found in his neural system. The yellow jacket.

  Black code, sucking out his life blood ounce by ounce. MultiReal, warping his mental facilities. The one either sheathed or entombed within the other.

  The nothingness at the center of the universe.

  He reached for the rings, Quell's golden rings, the programmers' pick and shovel, math's household staff. Buried in the confines of his robe pocket. Impossible for a multi projection to reach? Not tonight. Natch felt his ethereal multied fingers take on essence and solidify in the crisp night air, motes of dust made flesh. He clasped the programming rings, and they responded.

  Thaumaturgic energy crackled inside the bubble as his ringed fingers entered MindSpace. Threads of data leapt to his fingertips.

  Natch attacked.

  He bombarded the blob of code with sudden swoops and dives, contorting his fingers into torturous configurations. The data strands obeyed his commands. Arcane formulas pounded against the surface of the yellow jacket like flak as Natch sweated on, minute after minute, hour after agonizing hour. Day cloaked itself in night, night burst from day's cocoon, over and over again. And then, as he was on the verge of losing hope, it happened ... the slightest hairline crack in the surface of the mysterious code... .

  Blackness.

  He came to on the floor of the office, dazed, angry. Still in multi, or maybe he wasn't-what did it matter anymore? Day/night, meat/multi, awake/asleep: he no longer had confidence in such dualities.

  The illicit code mocked him from MindSpace. It mocked him with the voice of Petrucio Patel, telling him he was not worthy to join the elite ranks of Primo's. It mocked him with the voice of Captain Bolbund, telling him he did not have the finesse to attract customers. Brone, pitying him for lagging so far behind in the fight for MultiReal. Margaret, tricking him into signing a def
ective contract. Magan Kai Lee, brushing him off as irrelevant.

  Standing behind the workbench was a boy. Sandy hair. Ocean blue eyes.

  Who are you? Natch asked the youth. How did you get in here?

  The boy shook his head and smirked. Physically he was on the cusp of adulthood-perhaps fifteen years old-yet he carried an air of childish vulnerability that belied the cocksure expression on his face. Come on, even you can figure this one out.

  Natch found his feet and brushed himself off. So what do you want?

  The boy made a slow, sweeping gesture around the office as if unveiling a key exhibit at a crucial juncture in trial. Natch followed the fingertips and took in the sturdy bio/logic programming bars sprawled across the workbench where he had dropped them the other day; the stool with the notch on one leg, lolling drunkenly in the corner; the viewscreen with its permanent display of chaotic financial exchanges; the ersatz Persian rug that Horvil had solemnly presented to him as a housewarming gift.

  They walked into the bedroom, where the boy performed a similar clockwork motion at the tasteful portraits of Very Influential Persons arranged neatly on the walls; the window tuned in to a gentle Himalayan snow; the armoire that held the small assortment of clothing he had purchased over the years.

  The living room was next, with its familiar chair-and-a-half and sofa; its luxurious garden of daisies and buttercups dividing the room like a moat; its glass balcony door facing the snow-carpeted hills; its Tope and Pulgarti paintings bracketing the small foyer and front door.

  Finally came the kitchen, scene of a thousand late-night mugs of nitro and early-afternoon bottles of ChaiQuoke; the camouflaged white tile of the sink; the access panel to the building's communal larder and its high-class variety of foodstuffs; the small range he had purchased, at great expense, for the sole purpose of heating pots of Serr Vigal's peculiar British tea.

  Natch turned to the youth, wondering if there was some lesson to be learned here. His apartment bore no mysteries, and he liked it that way. If there was an epiphany to be found taking inventory of life's unremarkables, it had bypassed Natch entirely.

  So what was all that for? he said.

  Hope you got a good look, replied the boy, brushing a strand of hair from his forehead. You're never going to see any of it again.

  33

  Jara slept well that night, for the first time in who knew how many weeks. The rest of the fiefcorpers apparently did too. Serr Vigal's surprising performance hadn't completely reversed their fortunes in the struggle for MultiReal-for their company-but at the very least, the neural programmer had put the brakes on their downward momentum.

  Things aren't worse today than they were yesterday, Jara reflected as she led the Surina/Natch contingent past the giant holograph of Tul Jabbor. Not much of an accomplishment, but I'll take it.

  They arrived early and took the same seats in the petitioners' ring they had occupied yesterday. While they waited, Jara consulted the drudge alerts, which were predictably fragmented in tone this morning. Benyamin and Horvil discussed soccer scores.

  The participants to the hearing trickled in over the next fifteen minutes. On the libertarian side of the ring, there were smiles, laughs, and the occasional back slap. Frejohr and his supporters were ruddy with confidence as they congratulated Serr Vigal on his speech yesterday; the delegation even took the extraordinary step of scooting a few seats closer to Natch. Vigal made sure to deliver a warm wave in the fiefcorp's direction, which Jara returned.

  So if things are going so well for us, thought the analyst, how come the Council doesn't look worried?

  Jara swept her gaze through the auditorium at the officers in the white robes and yellow stars. There seemed to be more of them today, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. It wasn't the attitude of the rank-and-file that bothered her, but the attitude of their superior officers. Lieutenant Executive Magan Kai Lee didn't look perturbed in the slightest by the libertarians' jovial mood. On the contrary, Magan remained as mysterious and aloof as ever. The tactician Papizon lurked behind his right shoulder, ungainly as a heron, with his head tilted and his mouth splayed open. Only Rey Gonerev expressed any recognizable human emotion-and that emotion, Jara noted with a shudder, was pure disdain.

  As for Natch, his demeanor was even more vacant than yesterday, like a man standing on an active multi tile. He neither saw nor acknowledged Jara's tentative wave hello.

  Moments later, the lights dimmed as the twenty-nine members of the Prime Committee solemnly filed in to their exclusive ring with retinues in tow. After a smattering of ceremonial niceties, the moderator stepped forward and called the Defense and Wellness Council's chief solicitor, Rey Gonerev.

  The quiet rustle of audience noise died as the Blade stepped into the center of the auditorium. She stood in the floor's exact focal point for a moment and gathered her thoughts, looking as slim and deadly as a needle. And then she opened her mouth and let the words march out like some rumbling army of justice.

  "My word is the will of the Defense and Wellness Council, which was established by the Prime Committee two hundred and fifty-three years ago to ensure the security of all persons throughout the system. The word of the Council is the word of the people."

  Perhaps it was Rey Gonerev's height, which allowed her to address the Committee members without craning her head too far; perhaps it was the fifteen years of security and intelligence briefings that had taught her the nuances of the auditorium; perhaps it was a genetic trait common to all high-ranking Council officials. Whatever the reason, the Blade took to the floor of the Tul Jabbor Complex as if it were her natural habitat.

  "The libertarians say they want to give you freedom," began the Blade, her diction precise, her words carefully crafted. "What you will get is madness."

  A murmur swept through the audience. Let the slicing commence, thought Jara.

  The chief solicitor walked the marble floor with a dancer's grace, long braids swaying hypnotically behind her. Throughout her speech, she found occasion to lance each one of the Prime Committee members with her glare-and without exception, Jara noticed, Gonerev was never the first to turn away.

  "Margaret Surina stood before the world and declared that the future would be an age of MultiReal," continued Gonerev. "It was just a few weeks ago, at her auditorium in Andra Pradesh. Margaret stood in front of several hundred million people, and she promised us the ultimate freedom. She promised us the ultimate empowerment. She promised to deliver us from the tyranny of cause and effect.

  "Our libertarian colleagues have bought into this vision wholesale. They've trumpeted Margaret's words up and down the Data Sea without bothering to examine them closely. And why should they? It's a simple argument, after all. What's wrong with freedom? Everybody wants freedom! How can you have too much freedom?

  "The esteemed neural programmer Serr Vigal put an even finer point on it yesterday, right here in this auditorium. Gravity pulls things down. Water flows to the sea. And knowledge flows to freedom, he said. MultiReal will flow freely, whether you wish it or not. That decision is not yours to make. "

  Across the auditorium, Vigal stroked his goatee and nodded, lost in contemplation.

  "So then let's all exercise our complete freedom and give in to the wants of the world!" said the Blade. "Is the person sitting next to you wearing an expensive coat? Why not just take it? Obviously, the world wants you to have it, because a hundred thousand generations of human evolution planted that lust for acquisition in you. Go ahead; take whatever you want. The offended party can always seek redress from the law.

  "Some of you in the Committee members' ring roll your eyes, and I hear a few groans from the audience. That's fine. It's a childish example. Then again, complete and unrestrained freedom is a childish idea. It's an embarrassment that I even have to stand here and explain it.

  "Why don't you steal that fancy coat? Is it fear of punishment and retribution that keeps you honest? No. You don't steal because you can't always be a s
lave to your desires. Desire isn't the only instinct we've inherited from our ancestors; that tug of conscience in your gut was planted there by a hundred thousand generations of human evolution too.

  "Humanity abandoned complete and unrestrained freedom thousands of years ago. Instead we chose the social contract. We chose to deliberately set aside our personal wants for the good of the group. Do not steal. Do not kill. Do not cheat. Why abide by these restrictions on personal liberty? Because we've seen the alternative, and we've chosen stability.

  "Yes, we've deliberately chosen this path, time and time again. Hundreds of years ago, the Autonomous Minds liberated us from the rule of the nation-states. A chance to start over! A chance to reshape society! Humanity had a choice between the anarchy of radical individualism and the constancy of the lawful society. What happened? The globe descended into chaos for a while-and then, acting independently without coordination, our ancestors chose the social contract once again.

  "The concept is very simple, and it works every time. We put aside personal ambitions that are harmful to the group.... Society benefits by becoming a more stable and predictable place.... And then we each reap the benefits of that stable society.

  "The result? Bio/logics. The Data Sea. The multi network. Teleportation.

  "Not only did we choose the social contract-but we expanded it and codified it with the creation of the L-PRACG. We set those compromises down in explicit government contracts written in clear and simple language. Here is what you are giving up. Here is what you are gaining.

  "Is society moving towards personal freedom? Yes, I believe it is. History and technology prove Margaret Surina's point that there is an undeniable curve towards liberty. Freedom of movement, freedom of expression, freedom of government. Yet societies do not adapt as quickly as individuals do. We must consider change slowly and examine its costs carefully.

 

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