Infoquake (40 page)

The engineer was trembling. "Why?"

"Because he wants MultiReal all for himself," he rasped. "And he
doesn't want anybody to get a piece of it-especially his old friend
Horvil, who will understand how it works much better than he does."

Natch had had enough. He stalked around the workbench and
stood toe to toe with his old rival, causing Horvil to scurry across the
room for cover. Brone was at least ten centimeters taller than the fiefcorp master, but the ferocity in Natch's eyes lent him a presence that
dominated the room. "All right, this little business arrangement ends
right here," he hissed.

The bodhisattva arched an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"I mean I'm ready to pay off your loan in full, right here, right
now. And then you can get the fuck out of my apartment and never set
foot in here again."

Brone pursed his lips like a proctor considering the request of a
dim-witted pupil, then sidestepped Natch's glare and took a seat in the chair that Horvil had so recently vacated. Within seconds, he had
retreated back into his detached emotional fortress. "Margaret Surina's
money."

"Of course."

"I predicted you would do this," said Brone, crossing one leg over
the other. "But I will admit I did not expect you to hit Margaret up
for money to pay me off so soon. I thought you would be smart enough
to let bygones be bygones and recognize a potential alliance when you
saw one."

"You really think I'm going to stay in debt to you one minute
longer than I have to?"

Brone shook his head in that maddeningly supercilious way of his.
Natch suddenly wished the man were here in the flesh so he could
muscle him outside and toss him over the balcony. "Where is the mind
I used to respect so? Where is the killer intellect Figaro Fi used to speak
of? Natch, that pittance of a loan I gave you was an act of trust. It was
a foundation on which to build.

"Think, Natch! You know how much trouble you had finding
investors. The drudges despise you across the board, and you can certainly imagine what the Defense and Wellness Council thinks of you
right now. What happens when Margaret Surina grows tired of you, as
she surely will? Who will you turn to then? Or are you naive enough
to think you can do all this alone?"

Natch had retreated back to the safe fortification of his workbench,
where he stood silently and wondered how much of this he could take
before he severed Brone's multi connection. Why hadn't he done so
already? Horvil stood in the corner and watched their tete-a-tete with
a miserable look on his face.

"Natch, when are you going to realize that you're in over your
head?" continued Brone in a completely even tone of voice. "You must
know by now that Margaret isn't dealing with you in good faith. I can
see it in your eyes. You don't know what she's up to, do you? What makes you think you're not being made a fool of?

"And here sits Brone, the man whom you wronged all those years
ago. He is angry. Yes. He hates you and would love to see you dead.
Yes. Indisputable facts. But when you get into a tight spot, Brone
shows up with Creed Thassel money to bail you out, and offers you a
loan at Vault standard rates. He may insult you, but at least he puts all
his cards on the table.

"I cannot be any more forthcoming, Natch. I want to throw the
past aside and start a new business. You should be asking yourself one
question now: Why trust your fate to a woman whose motivations you
don't know, instead of trusting your fate to an old enemy whose intentions are written all over his face?"

Natch tightened his grip on the metal bar and slowly advanced
towards his old enemy. A miasma of fury was radiating from his every
pore, clouding his vision and blocking out the sound of Horvil's whimpers from the corner. "I don't trust my fate to anyone but me," he said.

He reached the chair and took a crushing swing at it with his
bio/logic programming bar. But it was too late; Brone had already cut
his multi connection and vanished.

"You lied to me," Natch growled like a hunted tiger.

"I was planning to tell you about it when things calmed down,"
replied Margaret.

The words Brone had spoken a little over an hour ago still burned
in the pit of his stomach. What makes you think you're not being made a
fool of? "Don't split hairs with me, Margaret. You should have told me
everything from the start."

The bodhisattva merely yawned and continued sorting through her
notes for the presentation she was about to give to Creed Surina. The
presentation had nothing to do with MultiReal or business mergers or bio/logics; it bore the aggressively mundane title Revised 4th Quarter
Budget for Diss Technology Distribution Program. Even a fleeting glance
over Margaret's shoulder at the formation of integers lining the spreadsheet columns was enough to make Natch drowsy. He looked out into
the audience of the small auditorium, where a few sluggish creed
bureaucrats had begun to take up residence. In the fifth row sat an old
woman who had dozed through the ending of the last meeting and
looked like she might snore through this one too. Margaret was
handing control of MultiReal over to Natch so she could conduct
tedious seminars like this?

"I'm waiting for an answer," said Natch.

Margaret frowned. "An answer to what? Would it have made the
least bit of difference if I had told you all about the Patel Brothers'
license in the first place? No, it would not have. If you hadn't reacted
so strongly to Len Borda's involvement, I might have told you at the
beginning." She tapped on a header in the spreadsheet and then craned
her neck as a video clip of a lethargic diss child filled the viewscreen
behind her.

"The least you could do," he said under his breath, "is tell me the
details of your agreement."

"Frederic and Petrucio have a limited license. They can release
MultiReal products, but they will be subordinate to yours."

"Subordinate how?"

"The Patel products will have a limited number of choice cycles,
whereas yours will be infinite."

"And exactly what is a `choice cycle'?"

Margaret sputtered out a sigh and rubbed her forehead. "It's complicated. Quell will explain everything to you."

Natch crossed his arms petulantly over his chest. He paced to the
edge of the stage from which Margaret would be delivering her soporific report in half an hour. Everyone from here to 49th Heaven was
discussing this mighty new technology and speculating about the kinds of secrets Margaret and Natch were exchanging; in reality, however, Natch could barely catch her attention.

"So you didn't tell me because you thought I would back off," he
grunted.

"It occurred to me, yes."

"That means you basically lured me into this deal on false pretenses, knowing I wouldn't say no, that I would have to jump at this
kind of opportunity. And now that the word is out, you know I won't
back down."

Margaret turned towards the fiefcorp master with haunted eyes.
"You find yourself capable of strange things when you run out of
choices," she said, as if she had been condemned to watch a gruesome
execution over and over again.

"Tell me why," Natch demanded. "You owe me that. Why Frederic
and Petrucio Patel, of all people? You had to know they hate me with
a passion."

The descendant of Sheldon Surina leaned her elbows on the
podium and delicately parked her chin on her palms. "I went to Pierre
Loget first. But he was evasive and I didn't trust him. So then, almost
nine months ago, I approached the Patel Brothers. They sat down with
me and swore up and down that they wanted to bring MultiReal to the
public, that they could see a glorious new age of opportunity arising."

"So what happened?"

"Someone bought them off."

Natch inhaled sharply. Everywhere he turned, he saw a place
someone else had long since scouted out and claimed for his own.
"How do you know?"

"I suppose I don't really know at all," said Margaret with a weary,
far-off look. "The Patels deny that they're in collusion with anybody.
But sometimes we can just sense these things, can't we? Too many
coincidences, too many nosey questions, too little fear of the consequences. The entire Patel Brothers Fiefcorp got onboard a hoverbird a few weeks ago and disappeared for two days, I don't know where.
They've clearly been bought by someone."

"So why don't you just break the license? Cancel the agreement."

"Believe me, I've tried." She pulled one hand out from under her
chin and extended a bony finger off to the east. "Dozens of legal experts
have been working around the clock in the Enterprise Facility trying
to find loopholes in the contract. We've got lobbyists rubbing elbows
with the Prime Committee, and delegates in the Congress of LPRACGs pushing legislation. That contract is ironclad."

Natch shook his head in disbelief at the morass Margaret had made
out of the whole affair. Did this woman completely lack an imagination? "Listen, Margaret," he said, "it's just a contract. They're just
words. Cut the Patel Brothers off from the MultiReal databases and
put the burden of proof on them. They'll have to file something with
the Meme Cooperative or the L-PRACG courts. Getting a final decision could take years."

The bodhisattva sighed and turned back to her presentation. "And
give Len Borda the perfect excuse to send another legion of Council
troops here? I don't think so."

Natch threw his hands up in the air, a despondent plea to the halfempty auditorium. Down in the fifth row, the old woman flopped over
with a loud snort while Natch looked on in contempt. Margaret had
foisted her problems off on him, but he had no such luxury. If someone
needed to take action to keep the Phoenix Project out of the Council's
hands, that someone would have to be Natch.

You find yourself capable of strange things when you run out of choices.

On Saturday morning, Natch was the first to arrive at the Surina
Enterprise Facility, and so his mood dominated the conference room
SeeNaRee. The fiefcorp apprentices found themselves sitting at a table
in the middle of the African veldt. But this wasn't the modern veldt
any of them knew, that bustling metropolis crammed full of
autonomous business clusters, tube tracks and Sudafrican suburbs; it
was the veldt of some mythical African past. Giraffes chomped at lofty
tree limbs. Lions roared their displeasure through a thin tissue of mist.
Ghosts and spirits floated past in ethereal majesty.

By a quarter past noon, there was still no sign of Quell or the MultiReal programming code. Horvil and Ben would have been content to
gossip about family business all day, but Natch had no use for idle
time. "Let's just get started," the fiefcorp master snapped. "We can't
afford to wait for Quell anymore. Has everyone seen the Patel Brothers'
promo?"

His question was met with an uncomfortable silence. All the
apprentices had seen it, but their critical faculties were so dulled by
weeks of constant surprises that nobody knew what to make of it.

"I don't understand, Natch," began Jara. "Margaret just unveiled
this MultiReal technology three days ago. And now the Patel Brothers
are already selling it?"

"They had a nine-month head start," put in Merri.

Jara let out a guttural curse. "Nine months-that's when everyone
started catching up with them on Primo's," she said. "I just knew there
had to be a reason why their programs were such easy targets."

"I don't understand this whole fucking thing!" cried a frustrated
Horvil, banging his fist on the table hard enough to send a flock of
marabous scurrying. " 'Multiple realities' ... `safe shores' . . . It sounds like voodoo to me! Does anybody understand this MultiReal
stuff? What the heck would you need an alternate reality for? Has the
whole world gone entirely offline?"

"Well, apparently Frederic and Petrucio understand it," muttered
Benyamin.

Natch had been listening to his apprentices' jabber with eyes
closed, as if participating in an internal dialogue with an unseen consultant. "How do you know?" he said.