"But even if you do get everyone to agree," said Natch, "there's something else you're not taking into account. Once one person uses MultiReal to do two things at the same time, everyone else has to keep track of those alternate realities too."
Brone shrugged. "So?"
"For process' preservation-think about the baseball example. Hit a baseball two different ways, you've just doubled the number of alternate realities. Then for every hit, you've got an outfielder making two different catches. Quadrupled. The umpire makes two different calls for each catch. The guy on base runs or doesn't run.... This whole thing would spiral out of control in an instant. Sixty billion people creating alternate realities at the drop of a hat and banging them up against each other? Fuck, where would you store all that data? How would the computational system handle it? You give everyone the ability to permanently double or triple realities-we'd get pummeled all day long until our OCHREs gave out. We're getting bombarded with infoquakes as it is."
The bodhisattva of Creed Thassel took a long, loud slurp of coffee. He leaned back and hung his good arm over the back of his chair, staring at Natch with eyes narrowed. "And do you think that's a coincidence?"
Natch felt a sudden fear grip his sternum. "You mean-"
Brone shook his head in befuddlement. "I can't believe I need to explain this to you, after everything you've learned about Len Borda. Borda knows that Possibilities 2.0 is within our grasp, Natch. Remember, he's the one who funded the project in the first place. He knows better than anyone what this program can do. He knows the Data Sea can handle the load. So what better way to keep us from pursuing it than to frighten us?"
Natch remembered the explosion of darts at the Tul Jabbor Complex, the ferocious precision of the Defense and Wellness Council officers. Hundreds of darts striking him within his mind, hundreds of merciless public executions, averted only through the magic of MultiReal. He remembered the shrewd visage of the high executive before the demo at Andra Pradesh. Len Borda was a man who knew what he was doing.
"After the first infoquake, what did Borda do?" said Brone, his voice lowering in volume even as it increased in intensity. "He pressured the Prime Committee into giving him the authority to shut down any bio/logic program on the Data Sea that crosses his path. Do you think he wants to lose that power?
"He will. And soon.
"Because we can take down the Defense and Wellness Council, Natch! We can bring government back into the hands of people's freely chosen L-PRACGs, where it belongs. With a fully functioning MultiReal network in the hands of every man, woman, and child, the Council will instantly become irrelevant. How could you possibly tyrannize people armed with multiple realities?
"Think of all the revolutions throughout history. Bloody, wasteful, expensive, full of needless suffering. We can avoid all that, Natch! With MultiReal, we can change the world without firing a single shot. A perfect, bloodless revolution. An instant, irreversible gift of freedom to humanity!"
Brone had begun to raise his voice again, to metamorphose into the same zealot who had set the Thasselian devotees aflame last night. By the time he finished his little speech, the bodhisattva was standing once more and pounding his fist on the tabletop. The diss watched with guarded expressions on their faces, but Natch would not make the mistake of calling them indifferent again. These people were clearly vested in Brone's success. They believed in the Revolution of Selfishness, and they were ready to fight for it.
"Look around you, Natch!" said the bodhisattva, sweeping his arm in an arc at the makeshift cafe. "Multi connections are weak out here in the diss cities. Council surveillance is a farce. The Meme Cooperative, the Prime Committee, and the drudges don't exist out here.
"We have everything we've ever dreamed of in Chicago! The flexibility to do whatever we want, to follow our ideas to their ultimate conclusion, and fuck the rules! We have some of the best bio/logic engineers in the business at our disposal, and a network of anonymous devotees spread throughout the world. And virtually unlimited funding, courtesy of the creed.
"You'll have to disappear for a while, Natch. We'll wait until the whole affair at the Tul Jabbor Complex has died down, until Len Borda's infoquakes have gone into remission. Meanwhile, we'll be out here, carefully perfecting our code. And then, just when the world is convinced you're dead and buried-when even Borda believes that you've vanished for good-we'll strike! We'll release Possibilities 2.0 onto the Data Sea and bring humanity to the next stage of evolution."
Natch's head spun like a whirligig from one incoherent thought to the next. Was this really what Margaret Surina had envisioned, really what she had planned for? How did this differ from what Khann Frejohr had proposed? What would Serr Vigal say about this? Reeling with ethical vertigo, he slumped down in his chair, ducked his head, and clasped his hands behind his neck.
"So what if you're wrong?" he managed faintly. "What if Margaret was wrong? What if those infoquakes aren't coming from Len Borda, and MultiReal totally floods the computational system? Possibilities 1.0 was resource-intensive enough-Possibilities 2.0 is on a whole different scale altogether. Everything could break down. Billions of people could die."
Brone sat back and folded his hands in his lap. The entrepreneur looked at him only to find himself staring at the nacreous green mechanical eye.
"Now you see the dilemma," he said. "If we don't act-if we deliver MultiReal into the hands of the Defense and Wellness Council -the carnage would be incalculable. The consequences? A totalitarian regime without end. A regime that cannot be overthrown. And then how many billions would die?"
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Natch worked out a complicated system for collaborating on the MultiReal code that evening. The Revolution of Selfishness notwithstanding, his stores of trust were still much too low for him to give Brone unfettered access.
And so Natch spent most of the night studying the virtual castle in MindSpace and partitioning it into logical subdivisions. It was a fiendishly difficult task, considering there were so many alcoves of the castle-no, entire wings-that Natch did not understand. He found buried structures constructed with a queer logic that defied all conventional wisdom. The further Natch delved, the more surreal it became. There were strange trapezoidal shapes and whimsical loop-de-loops programmed with methods dating back to Par Padron's time, if not further. There were subroutines that looked like the sloppy work of a hive child and yet accomplished the impossible nonetheless. There were repeating patterns, optical illusions, meta-referents to metareferents, echoes of genius or madness.
By the time the first devotee reeled down the stairs for the day, Natch had put together a rudimentary system of collaboration. He explained the whole thing to the group at their morning meeting.
The Thasselians would be allowed to work on MultiReal in teams of three for no more than two hours at a time. Each team would be given access to a different, mutually exclusive section of the castle. Natch would supervise everyone's activities at all times. There would be no discussing work with colleagues. The Thasselians would be restricted to a limited set of bio/logic programming bars and hand gestures. And when Natch closed up the program for any reason whatsoever, all activity would cease immediately.
"If anybody violates any of these rules, I'm gone," announced the entrepreneur. "Permanently. No appeals, no arguments, no warnings. Are we clear?"
A garden of PokerFaces bloomed on the devotees' faces to cover their irritation. Billy Sterne, gave a supplicating look at Brone, which the bodhisattva quickly stifled with an imperious look of his own
Natch knew perfectly well this was a ludicrous way to work. The Thasselians could only make so much progress in such confined spaces, and Natch could only accomplish so much himself without a fully cooperative team. But it would have to suffice until Brone and his disciples had earned Natch's trust.
Brone didn't put up a jot of resistance. Instead he hopped onto one of the nearby platforms and held his synthetic hand out palm down, like a preacher blessing his congre
gation. "You heard the man," he said. "Those are the rules of operation, and we're going to abide by them in letter and spirit. I'm counting on all of you. Keep on your toes, and keep each other compliant. Any questions?"
The devotees stood there mute, the very portrait of obedience.
"All right, Natch," said the bodhisattva, withdrawing a programming bar from his shoulder satchel and hefting it in his real hand. "When do we start?"
Natch eyed his old hivemate coldly. Brone's forced cheerfulness was really starting to burn him, and he relished the opportunity to douse it altogether. "You don't start at all," said the entrepreneur. "I still don't trust you. All you get to do is watch."
Pierre Loget sputtered out a mouthful of nitro, and a few of the devotees held their breath. Natch silently activated MultiReal just in case. He was still reeling from the chase at the Tul Jabbor Complex and doubted he could muster up the energy to use it effectively. But Brone doesn't know that, does he? thought Natch.
Brone did not seem daunted in the slightest; he took Natch's smackdown with uncharacteristically good humor. The bodhisattva nodded and jammed the programming bar back into its case. "Suit yourself," he said, hopping off his platform and striding down the corridor without another word.
And so Possibilities 2.0 stumbled into development.
It had been a long time since Natch had the leisure to stretch out in MindSpace, to rev up, to push his mental engines to redline. For the past few weeks, he had been so busy dealing with the various political and logistical roadblocks in his path-the Defense and Wellness Council, the Meme Cooperative, Jara's insubordination, the drudges-that his programming skills were beginning to rust. He would find himself staring at bricks of code, bio/logic tools in hand, unsure how he had gotten there or where he was heading next. Should he use the L bar or the N bar here? What was the point of this recursive function he had started?
But then Natch would feel himself unwind. He would stare at the milling Thasselians, the crescent platforms, the prelapsarian luxury of this Chicago hotel, and he would think, I'm safe.
Not completely safe, of course. Not completely without risk. But here in the demesne of the diss, he was sheltered from meddlesome drudges and politicians. Brone's black code made him invisible to the Council, and Brone's money freed him from economic pressure. Best of all, he had completely escaped the competitive grind of the bio/logics business. In Old Chicago, Primo's ratings were as inconsequential as moon dust; Frederic and Petrucio Patel were a universe away.
It was as Brone promised. Development with no interruptions.
There was still the question of how to deal with the Surina/Natch Fiefcorp. Natch berated himself once again for ever believing that he understood Jara. Now, because of his mistake, Jara had core access to MultiReal-which meant she had the ability to sabotage all the Thasselians' work. Was Natch doomed to spend his days in an endless catand-mouse game with Jara, each trying to undo the other's work? So far, the fiefcorpers had kept their hands off, but certainly that wouldn't be the case forever. Horvil had already erected enough roadblocks in the software to seriously slow things down.
As for the Thasselians, they were hewing to the tack Brone had set for them. Quiet and compliant, they did exactly what they were told without demurral. Even Billy Sterno and Pierre Loget, programmers whose skills equaled or exceeded Natch's own, carried out his instructions to the letter.
The atmosphere changed significantly at night. Some of the devotees would get a little rowdy on the upper floors after dark, drinking, singing at rafter-shuddering volumes, skulking off arm in arm for the occasional tryst. It reminded Natch of the hive. He could hardly blame them for their excesses, given that they were all stuck out here with nowhere to go and nobody to talk to. The diss showed up on occasion to take advantage of the Thasselians' engineering skills, but none of them were keen on socializing. Natch could only imagine how Brone's minions were feeling. Certainly some of them had left friends, colleagues, and loved ones behind when they decided to join the Revolution.
And Brone? Brone kept to himself. Natch had figured his old enemy would take every opportunity to study the intricacies of MultiReal, but nothing could be further from the truth. From time to time he would appear on the programming floor and stroll around slowly, saying nothing. Yet he hardly gave the program a second glance.
Natch still couldn't exclude the possibility that this was all just an elaborate ruse. Brone had waited more than a dozen years to exact his revenge for the Shortest Initiation; what was another week or another month? Perhaps he was trying to figure out how to mount a successful attack against Natch without failing miserably like the soldiers in the Tul jabber Complex. Luckily Brone knew nothing about the exhaustion that set in after running through thousands of continuous choice cycles, and Natch had no intention of cluing him in. Uncertainty was Natch's ally here.
The only time the two of them had any real interaction was during policy and strategy sessions. There were still hundreds of logistical questions that needed to be answered on the basic Possibilities 1.0 interface alone; Possibilities 2.0 would be impossible to master until they had answered these questions. How would the system resolve MultiReal conflicts? How many choice cycles could a user process in that split-second mental interlude? What would happen if the user failed to select any choice cycle? Natch had been too pressed for time to explore issues like these when he was still with the fiefcorp. Now he found it difficult to sift through them without Horvil's and Jara's help.
But those questions were elementary compared to the conundrums they would face in Possibilities 2.0. Philosophical questions, ontological questions, questions straight out of the science fiction stories Natch used to read as a boy. How many alternate realities could a person sustain at the same time, and how far should those realities be allowed to diverge? Under what circumstances could an alternate reality be abandoned, and what would happen then? Did alternate realities need to be filtered for the rest of the world, so that some people would see possibility x and some would see possibility y? If so, how would MultiReal handle the mechanics of that filtering? If not, what would happen if two of your alternate selves bumped into each other?
One evening Natch found himself discussing the limits of MultiReal with Brone. Astounding that they could progress so far without knowing answers to such basic questions. It was enough to make Natch's knees buckle.
"I'm not sure I understand which limits you're talking about," said Brone.
"Spatial limits, for one," replied Natch. "Let's go back to the soccer analogy. If a player on one end of the field can flip on MultiReal and catch a player on the other end of the field in a collaborative choice cycle ... where does it end? Where's the-where's the cutoff?"
The bodhisattva drummed his faux fingers on the tabletop as he mulled over the question.
"This is more than just a hypothetical," continued the entrepreneur. "I caught those Council officers in the Tul Jabbor Complex with MultiReal just by watching them on video. But what if those officers weren't even in the same auditorium? What if I was watching somebody in a totally different auditorium halfway around the world? Or-or on an orbital colony somewhere? Could you still open a collaborative choice cycle on them? Shit, does the other person even need to be there at all? Could I just catch Len Borda in a MultiReal loop right here, right now?"
Billy Sterno piped up from across the table. "We could limit a choice cycle to line of sight," he said.
Natch pushed himself away from his chair and paced over to Sterno with his eyes blazing. "So you're saying I can affect the outcome of a soccer game even if I'm just a spectator in the stands? Can I fly over the stadium in a hoverbird, look down on the field with a telescope, and make the goalie miss the ball?"
"We could base it on causation," said Brone. "There has to be a causal link between all parties involved in a MultiReal loop."
"Fine-but how do you measure that? How do you quantify it? Everything that happens on the field affects you in some way, even
if it's infinitesimally small. What if you've bet a hundred credits on the game-is that enough of a causal link to engage someone on the field in a MultiReal loop?"
Nobody answered, but several people started taking notes. Natch pressed on, his brain spinning at a furious pace.
"The other thing that's been bothering me ... We've been so focused on limits of space that we've forgotten about limits of time. So far we've only tested MultiReal on short interactions. Kicking a soccer ball. Deciding which way to turn. But how does the program determine how long a choice cycle can be? Can you keep the choice cycle open for a whole run down the field? Or heck, fire up Possibilities right when the opening whistle blows, and then just loop the whole game over and over in your mind until your team wins."
Sterno scowled. "But that means everyone would have to calculate all the interactions in the game instantly. I don't care how fast this thing works. No way is there enough time to resolve all those MultiReal conflicts between one second and the next."
"So you could buffer it," replied Natch. "Let's say it takes ten or fifteen seconds to go through all the choice cycles for a whole soccer game. That's probably enough time for millions of choice cycles. Maybe billions. MultiReal could just start outputting the first few seconds and spool the rest as you go."
"How fast does this program work anyway?" said Sterno. "How many choice cycles can you run through in a split second?"
Natch stopped short. He had no idea. The answer touched on advanced Prengalian physics and involved questions that even the world's greatest minds could not answer.
The bodhisattva touched his fingertips together under his chin. "Natch, you know the software better than any of us," he said. "Margaret had sixteen years to work these problems out. What did she conclude?"
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