Infoquake (34 page)

Natch eyed the circle with embarrassment. "So why aren't you
wearing that thing instead?"

Margaret's Islander gazed at Natch with an unspoken accusation of gullibility hovering just behind his eyes. "Because wearing these collars is the law if you're an Islander," he sneered. "And if you don't obey
the law, you get visits from the Defense and Wellness Council and the
Prime Committee and fuck knows who else." Then he slipped the disc
back into his tunic and kept climbing the stairs.

Natch trotted alongside the big man as they crossed a covered
walkway over the courtyard and into the Surina Enterprise Facility. A
hoverbird bearing the Council insignia zoomed across the skyline
directly in front of them. "Where are we going?" said Natch. "That
message I got this morning ... Are you taking me to Margaret?"

"No. Margaret's locked herself in the residence, preparing for the
speech. You'll see her afterwards-if there's anything left to see."

"So what's this `performance' you need me to do? Or was that it
down there in the courtyard?"

The Islander shook his head. He had led them to the end of a wide
corridor and an imposing set of double doors. "The performance is in
here," he said grimly. "Just be yourself. Stick by me and make sure
everyone sees it. Speak if you have to, but don't say anything memorable." The doors slid open of their own accord, but not before the man
thrust one hand forward and slammed it against the metal with a bang.
"And one more thing you'll need to know: my name is Quell."

Beyond the doors was a large bowl-shaped meeting room. A lavish
bouquet stood in the center of the room, underneath a revolving
banner that flashed HAPPY 400TH BIRTHDAY, SHELDON
SURINA over and over in ten-second intervals. About four or five
dozen guests congregated in small clusters around the room, all of
whom had turned their attention to the sudden and noisy arrival of
Natch and Quell.

It's the whole biollogics industry, Natch thought with a quickly stifled
gasp.

If it wasn't quite the entire industry, the guest list for this little
reception certainly encompassed its top tier. Natch saw hated rivals and fierce competitors in every corner. Jara's old boss Lucas Sentinel
was camped near the bouquet with a group of well-known channelers
and capitalmen. A pasty man with a mop of black hair, Sentinel did
not tower over his companions so much as sway awkwardly in their
midst like a tree. The drudges Sen Sivv Sor and John Ridglee were
holding court on opposite sides of the room. Libertarian rabblerouser
Khann Frejohr sipped chaff alongside the shrewish programmer Bolliwar Tuban. Natch felt a hand clap him on his shoulder, and turned
around to face Billy Sterno. "Nice entrance, pal!" chirped the fiefcorper
before scuttling off, his Chinese eyes glinting with mischief.

I need a licensee who can generate enough ripples on the Data Sea to make
the Council stay its hand until I unveil the technology, Margaret had said.

I guess that's what we're doing, thought Natch. Generating ripples.

Natch and Quell began a slow stroll around the periphery of the
room. The fiefcorp master put on a haughty look and did his best to
forestall any conversation. For the most part, it worked. The members
of the bio/logics elite seemed content to stay in their balkanized clusters and throw scandalized looks at the fiefcorp master and the Islander
from afar. After ten minutes of this, however, Natch started to get restless. Everyone in the room had noticed them already, and the crowd
would soon be gathering in the auditorium to await Margaret's speech.

"Okay, have we made enough of a show?" he muttered in a low
voice, unsure whether an Islander could respond to a ConfidentialWhisper.

"Not yet," replied Quell calmly. "I want to catch one of the stragglers."

Natch frowned. "Stragglers?" Then he heard a violent cough
behind him, and turned to see the bulldog face of Frederic Patel.

Natch did not bother with formal greetings, because he knew he
would receive none from Frederic. The short, barrel-chested programmer had not inherited the slick mannerisms and sharp fashion
sense that made his older brother Petrucio so popular among the drudges. If they had not inherited the same olive complexion and lithe
moustache, one would be hard-pressed to identify the two Patels as
brothers. But even during the worst days of their vitriolic competition,
Natch had to admit that Frederic was one of the few engineers in the
business whose skills stood up to Horvil's.

"Well, if it isn't the thief," snarled Patel.

The fiefcorp master laughed scornfully. "Watch who you're calling
a thief. Looks like you've stolen your number one slot back, for a little
while at least."

"Primo's." Frederic gave a dismissive flip of the hand, leaving
Natch to wonder what else he had stolen from the Patels recently. "A
little while. What's that mean?"

"That means, sometimes history repeats itself."

Frederic made a whistling sound with his nose that, after a
moment, Natch realized was laughter. He swept his gaze to the
Islander, who stared back with an impenetrable glare. Natch suddenly
remembered Quell's instructions to say as little as possible, but the big
man no longer seemed to care. "You heard your boss's speech yet?"
Patel said, addressing Quell.

"No," replied the Islander.

"We're not gonna be bored to death, are we?"

"The world might be a better place if you were," Quell said,
deadpan.

Again the whistling sound. "So that's the game you two are
playing, eh?" Patel rasped. "Well, fine with me. But now it's our
move."

The level of conversation in the room had dipped noticeably since
Frederic's approach. Lucas Sentinel had wandered close and kept
taking discreet peeks at the confrontation like a nervous hyena. John
Ridglee was not even trying to disguise his blatant attempts to read
lips.

Natch was trying to decipher Frederic's comments and formulate a response when a loud neutral tone sounded throughout the room. The
marquee displaying birthday wishes to the dead Sheldon Surina was
now announcing the imminent arrival of his descendant Margaret
onstage. Within seconds, industry mavens were cutting their multi
connections to the party and preparing to reconnect inside the nearby
auditorium.

Frederic Patel vanished without so much as a glance back in their
direction. Natch breathed a sigh of relief, following Quell out the same
doors they had entered through. The show was about to begin.

"I'm telling you, this can't go on forever. One of these days, the Data
Sea is just going to collapse."

"They've been saying that for a century."

"But come on, look at how much more bandwidth we're using
these days. Multi, the Jamm, the Sigh. Even quantum computing has
its limits."

"One point three billion multi projections at Marcus Surina's
funeral, and not a single glitch. That's all I have to say."

"Yeah, but-"

Jara stood and listened to the jabber of the couple beside her as she
waited for Margaret Surina to take the stage. Personally, she sided with
the doomsayer who feared the imminent collapse of the computational
system. She looked around at the thirty-five thousand visible spectators
filling the arena and tried to imagine the seraphic order of number
needed to describe the bandwidth requirements for so many people.

But the vertigo did not end there. The Surina auditorium statistics
told her there were actually 413 million multi projections here waiting
for Margaret to reveal the mystery behind the Phoenix Project. 413
million people whose brains were trying to maintain the illusion that
they were real bodies inhabiting real Cartesian space, when that was
clearly impossible.

The analyst summoned a calculator and wide-eyed her way
through the math. 413 million people wedged into a space designed
to fit thirty-five thousand real bodies. Which meant that right now
almost twelve thousand people from every corner of the solar system
believed they were standing in the exact same spot as Jara....

Then she noticed that the attendance had skyrocketed another 150
million spectators. Jara shook her head violently. Human minds could not comprehend such vastness. Better to swallow the sweet lotus of
multi and be done with it.

Especially when she had so many more urgent questions to contend
with. Like where was the rest of the fiefcorp? What was this "Phoenix
Project" that had so entranced the public's imagination and completely
absorbed the world's richest woman for years? How did Natch fit into
this whole puzzle? And how would this new technology affect her job?

Just then, a young woman in a green-and-blue Surina security uniform passed mere centimeters away from Jara's right side. The
woman-no, the girl-had her dartgun drawn and was clearly petrified. I'd be petrified too, thought Jara, if I had a few thousand Defense and
Wellness Council troops on my heels.

Which brought up the most perplexing question of all: What was
the Council waiting for?

Moments later, Margaret Surina took the stage. Jara hadn't seen
her arrive, so she couldn't say for sure whether Sheldon Surina's heir
had multied onto the stage. Margaret had chosen a formless robe that
draped across the floor like a tent and slowly changed colors from blue
to green and back again. Her frosted black hair lay across her shoulders. She seemed completely calm, like the commander who had
already greenlighted a battle plan and now waited for its outcome to
slowly unfold.

And just as the bodhisattva opened her mouth to speak, a hundred
doors slammed open at once, and the Council made its entrance.

With dartguns crossed over their chests and eyes fixed forward,
they came marching into the auditorium single file, like robots. The
crowd parted anxiously to make way for the soldiers. Some cut their
multi connections on the spot, but most quickly recognized that the
officers were carrying few disruptors. No, whatever High Executive
Borda's intentions were, sowing panic in the crowd was not one of
them. The lead Council officers stopped meters away from the stage.

If Margaret feared an imminent death, she did not show it. She regarded the intruders with an icy stare that said, Whatever you have
planned for me, you're going to have to do it in front of 700 million people. Jara
did not know much about Margaret Surina aside from the standard
drudgic platitudes and generalities, but at this moment she felt a great
surge of admiration for the woman.

The Council troops stood at attention, their rifles before them, and
did nothing.

A hush fell over the crowd as the bodhisattva began to speak.

"Once upon a time," said Margaret, "we believed in technology.

"Our ancestors were the original engineers. They discovered the
laws that govern the universe and learned how to master them. They
paved the earth with rock and sent wheeled machines to rumble across
it. They spread to the four corners of the earth and, not satisfied, flew
to the heavens. Still not satisfied, they flew to the stars.

"And somewhere along the way, they got lost.

"Somewhere between the first man to build stone tools and the first
woman to create an artificial intelligence, our ancestors became separated from their innovations. They stopped seeing their creations as
extensions of themselves, and started seeing them as external to themselves. Other. Distant. Remote.

"Science became an impersonal god, a grim idol beyond reproach
or appeal.

"And once technology was no longer a part of them, it became an
enemy to conquer.

"The god that had been embedded within them all became a force
to be chained and made to do their bidding. Instead of seeking communion with the god, instead of striving to understand the kernel of
truth that is within us all, they sacrificed their own skills to feed him.
Our machines will do more so we may do less, they said.

"And so, in the apogee of their folly, our ancestors created the
Autonomous Minds."