Infoquake (19 page)

After the speeches, there would be private discussions with the
men and women who ran the local programming services departments.
Vigal would nod and listen earnestly to their ideas for hours on end,
and more often than not end the day receiving a pledge of capital or
the offer of a group subscription contract. Natch had always thought
most bio/logic programs were sold directly to consumers on the Data
Sea; now he discovered three-quarters of the code that ran human systems was "channeled" silently through deals with L-PRACGs and
creeds and other organizations.

As Natch learned all this, he also learned about Serr Vigal.

Vigal's professional life had always been an enigma to Natch. He
had spent more than thirty years right here at the same memecorp,
doing the same work. His products often didn't even have names;
instead, they were identified by long, dreary strings of numbers. He
had the respect of his colleagues and apprentices, but virtually no
social life. If he had ever taken a companion or a lover in the years since
Lora's death, he kept it well hidden.

The more Natch learned about Vigal, the more of a mystery the
man became. Natch had always dreamed about creating the kinds of programs that inspired raves from Primo's, programs that sparked
social revolutions like Sheldon Surina's had. He would have never
guessed that his own legal guardian had been doing that for years. In
their own quiet way, Vigal's programs had probably influenced the
world more than all of Figaro Fi's clientele put together.

But eventually, Natch grew restless. He wanted to stop analyzing
and start doing.

Month after month, he buried himself in his studies. He had barely
met his fellow apprentices at the memecorp and never even been given
a workbench. While Vigal had him cooped up in his apartment
studying the intricacies of the limbic system, Horvil and the rest of the
boys returned from initiation. Soon Horvil had set up shop near his
family's London manor and started building a reputation as a topnotch ROD coder. Other acquaintances from the hive were savoring
their first mentions in Primo's.

"How long until I start programming?" Natch snapped to Vigal one
day, a little over a year into his apprenticeship. "I haven't set foot into
MindSpace since I got here. If you expect me to learn the whole discipline of neurophysics before I pick up a programming bar, that could
take years."

Vigal simply smiled that maddening smile of his and shook his
head. "I've been studying the brainstem for almost forty years, Natch,
and I'm not even close to understanding the whole discipline of neurophysics. You are learning no more than the essentials you need to do
your job."

"And what is my job?"

"You know exactly what your assignment is. You're to update the
OCHRE software that monitors oculomotor signals to the third cranial
nerve."

"But I know the third cranial nerve backwards and forwards!"

The neural programmer let out a heavy sigh and plucked at the
white hairs sprouting from his chin. "I'm no fool," he said quietly. "I see that I'm not going to keep you here much longer under these conditions. Perhaps you're right. Let's get started in MindSpace tomorrow.
But keep in mind that we are going to proceed very slowly."

Natch had spent plenty of time in the hive tooling around with
bio/logic programming bars, but he had never coded anything of
importance. One could only do so much testing among a group of
upper-class hive children.

The 9971.6a software, by contrast, had a paying subscriber base of
thirty million. Its logic fueled one of the molecule-sized OCHREs
clinging to the cranial nerves. Natch's work here could conceivably
affect the vision of an entire city the size of Omaha. To have such influence, such power ... he was nearly shivering with anticipation.

Natch stood at his workbench-a hand-me-down that Vigal had
finally procured for him from a departing apprentice-and summoned
a MindSpace bubble. The bubble was nothing more than a translucent
shimmer, a void yearning to be filled. Natch called up 9971.6a. The
diagram that appeared was a constellation of purplish blocks held
together by thin strands of green.

It was obvious why Serr Vigal had slated this program for revision.
Even someone as inexperienced as Natch could see that the code was
several years out of date. Many of the green strands were looped around
each other in a figure-eight formation that had been officially deprecated by Dr. Plugenpatch, and the program passed off information in
a format that was incompatible with newer standards. But more than
that, the program, for some indefinable reason, just looked wrong.
Natch could practically feel it crying out in pain like an animal
trapped in a thicket.

Natch reached for the satchel hanging off the side of the workbench and withdrew a plain metal rod from its sheath. Then he extended his arm into MindSpace and got to work.

Bio/logic programming bars looked like plain metal in ordinary
space. Hollow tubes of silver labeled with Roman letters, the forearms
of some mythical robot. But inside MindSpace, the bars blossomed
into their true forms. Some looked like pincers, others pliers, others
lariats or hammers or gloves. Each tool represented a specific logical
operation that could be applied to a virtual structure. For instance,
where a programmer of old might have written:

If color = blue Then ChangeEyeColor(blue)

Else If color = red Then ChangeEyeColor(red)

End If

-a bio/logic programmer could achieve the same effect by grabbing
the red and blue strands in MindSpace and hooking them up to a
ChangeEyeColor connector with a pincer-shaped programming bar.

Bio/logics was a science, but it was also an art form. One had to
create the right number of connections in the right places. Too few
connections would leave gaping holes in the program that could be
exploited by malicious black coders; too many might produce
unwanted side effects, or sap the body's computational system of precious resources.

Natch tore into the OCHRE software with the zealotry of the
newly initiated. He completed his first round of modifications in three
days, but spotted so many imperfections and inefficiencies along the
way that he couldn't leave the program alone. Every connection he
reassigned contained a logical flaw somewhere if he traced back far
enough. And each of those flaws would lead to still other flaws.

For a week, Vigal left his apprentice to his own devices while he
attended to other memecorp business. During that week, Natch barely
ate or slept.

The neural programmer was completely unprepared for the sight that awaited him when he showed up the next week to inspect Natch's
work. He was expecting to see a more polished version of 9971.6a, a
purple constellation seen on a clear night. Instead, he saw a formation
that might have come from another galaxy altogether. 9971.7 was
arrayed in MindSpace with an almost military precision, each block
tied to its fellows with a tight net of green strands. The offending
figure-eights were nowhere to be seen.

"I suppose you were ready, after all," mumbled Serr Vigal, flabbergasted. "This is ... this is ..."

Natch stood in the opposite corner of the room with a grim smile
on his face. This is extraordinary? This is exceptional? This is aweinspiring?

"This is-too much," stuttered Vigal.

Natch let out an explosive snort. "What do you mean, too much?"

The neural programmer turned as if he had just noticed his
apprentice in the room. Twitching cheekbones bore evidence to the
struggle going on in his head between the memecorp master and the
parent. "Perhaps you are right," he said slowly, parental instincts in
control. "I don't want to be critical, but at the same time ...

"You don't want me getting too far ahead of the other apprentices."

"Don't be a fool!" Vigal snapped with the tone of the memecorp
master. "I was going to say, I want you to actually launch something
while you are here in my apprenticeship."

Natch couldn't think of anything pertinent to say. In Vigal's countenance, the battle of responsibilities began anew, and he quickly
found some excuse to sever his multi connection.

The next month was one of the most intense times in Natch's life.
Vigal did not repeat his earlier criticism; instead, he encouraged Natch
to submit 9971.7 to Dr. Plugenpatch at the earliest opportunity.

Plugenpatch approval was an absolute necessity to get the program
listed on the bio/logics exchanges, and most OCHRE systems would
refuse to obey any program that didn't carry at least a preliminary clearance from the public health agency. But just as importantly, the
approval process provided an objective yardstick he could use to
measure his progress. Vigal's motivations were transparent: he wanted
to both get his point across and avoid confrontation.

Natch worked confidently towards Plugenpatch submission. He
stood at his workbench for days on end, and the bio/logic programming bars just seemed to leap into his hands. The pain of the incomplete program was a visceral thing to Natch, a burning sensation that
began in the tips of his toes and shot through his calves, sending his
legs to pacing and his hands to searching for the cool balm of a
bio/logic programming bar. But he was making progress. Little by
little, he was liberating this mathematical beast from its confinement.

He finally submitted the program to Dr. Plugenpatch on a dry
June afternoon.

The medical programming review system rejected it without comment.

Vigal took a cross-town tube over to Natch's flat that evening. He
bore on his face the nervous look that foretold an approaching speech
as surely as dark clouds foretold rain. Natch immediately started to
lead his mentor towards his workbench, where 9971.7 hung in MindSpace. But Vigal called him back and had him sit down on the couch
facing the living room viewscreen.

"Let us talk a little bit about change in a memecorp," he began
slowly, eyes focused on the carpet. "Natch, no bio/logic program is an
island. It has complex interdependencies, relationships to other programs." Vigal waved his hand at the viewscreen, causing it to broadcast a holographic blueprint of white, red and green squares that filled
the room. Natch recognized this vast three-dimensional abacus on
sight; it was the standard OCHRE engineering map of the human
brain. Yet it represented only one small portion of the whole human
programming schematic, which might have encompassed two or three
square kilometers at this level of detail. "You will notice that these relationships are particularly dense in this area, the area of brainstem
software." He pointed to a cluster of beads near the center of the diagram.

"I suppose the one you've highlighted is the cranial nerve software," mumbled Natch, tilting his head towards a blinking circle in
the center of the cluster.

"Precisely," replied Vigal. "Now let me show you the programs
with a direct relationship to 9971.7-programs that will explicitly
rely on the information from your work." The neural programmer
pulled back the focus and let a whole new level of the blueprint slide
into the room. A disparate group of perhaps twenty beads began to
blink. "Now, if we add in the components of the system that rely on
information from those programs ..." The focus pulled back even farther. Hundreds of beads were now flashing in perfect synchronization.
"And so on and so on," concluded Vigal, waving a jittery hand at the
exponential explosion of blinking beads.

Natch could feel the impatience swelling within him. He began
drumming his fingers on the side table. "All right, I get it. There's a lot
riding on this program."

"Any neural program."

"Fine. But I don't see what you're worried about. My code meets
all the standards. It produces consistent results."

"I have no doubt of that," replied Vigal somberly. "If I ever had any
doubts about your programming abilities, Natch, this has certainly
dispelled them. It's not you I worry about-it's the companies working
on all these other programs whose skills I question." He flipped the
back of his hand at the pinpricks of light that had replicated
throughout the room like a cancer.

"Why should I care?" said Natch through gritted teeth. "That's
their problem."

"But Natch, you must understand ... you're not working with
skin moisturizers or, or, breath fresheners. This is neural software. One major discrepancy between any two of these programs could cause a
massive brain hemorrhage. And that is an unacceptable result. That's
why we have to work slowly and with careful coordination."

"That's why we have Dr. Plugenpatch standards-"

"The standards are only one small part of the procedure," said
Vigal with a tinge of sadness in his voice. "For process' preservation,
Natch, why do you think I'm always going off to speak at all these conferences? It's so those of us in neural programming can keep on top of
what the others are doing. Certainly, it's costly and time-consuming,
but it's also effective. We have a higher standard to live up to here in
the memecorp sector."