Multireal (16 page)

"How do you know it's the same thing?" said Natch, delicately probing
his skull with both hands as if it were a precious vase he might crack.

"We took a few samples from your head and plunked 'em into
MindSpace. Then we did a side-by-side comparison with some of the
structures from Possibilities. An exact match."

Natch could feel his hands trembling. "Show me."

They all walked into Natch's office and stood next to the workbench, over which Possibilities floated in a translucent bubble. The
program looked ridiculous crammed in such a small space. "There,"
said his old hivemate. "Look at that right there." He dipped the end of
a bio/logic programming bar into MindSpace, causing a beam of light
to sweep across the bubble. Masses of MultiReal code turned transparent as the beam hit them. The light stopped on a yellow-and-blackstriped module that looked like a mutant insect of some kind. A
yellow jacket, maybe. "Now here's a copy of the same thing in your
neural system...." With a flick of the wrist, Horvil switched the display to a small chunk of Natch's OCHRE schematic. The resemblance
was unmistakable.

The entrepreneur studied the two blocks of programming logic
carefully. He switched back and forth several times. Horvil and Vigal
had been correct; the chances of such a structure appearing in two disparate programs by accident were dangerously close to nil.

"So what is it?" asked Natch.

Vigal shrugged. "We're not entirely sure," he said. "It's a pretty
obscure subroutine, buried quite a ways beneath the surface of the program. We can't seem to get inside. It's locked up somehow. I'm guessing
this is just a library of logarithmic functions. I don't think it does anything important-Horvil just happened to recognize it, that's all."

"But if Horvil recognized this subroutine, there might be hundreds
more in there that he didn't."

"I think the question we need to ask is how long that yellow
jacket's been in your head," said a frustrated Horvil. "Was it there
before those goons hit you with black code? Did it come from the
black code darts? Or did it show up later?"

Natch noticed that he hadn't heard a peep from the Islander since
he had woken up. He turned his focus on Quell, wishing he had a function that could see through people as easily as code. The Islander had
removed himself to the doorway, where he was staring at the yellow
jacket with arms folded and eyebrows furrowed.

Natch eyed him with sudden suspicion. "Is there anything you
want to tell me?" he snarled.

Quell emitted a gruff tssk and shook his head. "Like what?"

"Were you behind that group in the black robes? Did you attack
me in that alleyway and put MultiReal in my system?"

The Islander burst into laughter. "Don't be ridiculous! Why would
I go to all that trouble when I could plug you right here in your apartment? And why would I do something like that in the first place?"

The fiefcorp master did not back down. "Margaret said the Patels
sold out to the Defense and Wellness Council." He aimed one accusatory finger at the Islander. "Maybe you did too."

Quell clenched his fists and lowered them to his sides. All traces of
humor were swept aside by a red rage swirling in his eyes. "You think
I'm working for Len Borda?" he growled. "Me working for Len Borda."
The Islander flexed his biceps again and studied Natch as if trying to
determine the best way to eviscerate him. Horvil and Vigal backed
slowly to opposite sides of the room, nervous, unsure what to do.

But the moment was brief. Quell soon bottled up his fury and stuck
his hands in his pockets. "Do you want to know how my father died,
Natch?" he said, his voice simmering down to a mumble. "The Council
shot him. Len Borda's people shot him. The war of '34, skirmishes near
Manila. I watched my father fall facedown in the sand with a pair of
black code darts poking through his eyeball. Couldn't even-couldn't
even get his connectible collar off before the Null Current took him."
Quell let loose a few snorts, his thoughts directed inward. "I know
you're under a lot of stress right now, Natch. But if you ever suggest
I'm on the Council's payroll again, I'll crush your fucking windpipe."

Natch lowered his chin to his chest, conceding the argument. He
still knew much too little about the Islander for his comfort, but he
felt confident now that Quell was not working for Borda. Besides, the
Islander had had ample opportunity to plant Natch with black code,
or even slit his throat.

But if Quell hadn't put that yellow jacket inside him, then who
had? Outside of the fiefcorp, the only ones who had access to MultiReal were Quell, Margaret Surina, and the Patels. Pierre Loget had
briefly been involved with the project before Frederic and Petrucio, but
Margaret hadn't made it clear whether he had even actually seen the
code. Still, why would Loget ambush him in the street like that? Or
Margaret, for that matter? The Patels had plenty of motive, but
Petrucio had disclaimed any knowledge of a black code attack while
under the Objectivv truth-telling oath. That left Frederic Patelthough Natch's gut told him that an ambush wasn't quite Frederic's
style.

"So what the fuck is going on?" said Natch, throwing his hands up
at the ceiling.

More uneasy silence.

"All right," grunted the fiefcorp master after a few moments. "I'm
not going to just sit here and let this MultiReal code run rampant.
Start that OCHRE probe again. Get that fucking thing out of there."

Quell shook his head. "Natch, that yellow jacket is everywhere.
See?" He walked over to the workbench and stuck his hand in the
MindSpace bubble. Natch noticed for the first time that Quell's fingers
were adorned with his Islander programming rings, allowing him to
manipulate the virtual blueprint without metal bars. He panned the
schematic to a few key intersections where globules of code hung
unobtrusively like parasites. "We could spend a year hunting those
snippets down and still not find them all," said Quell. "And if we try
to just yank everything out without taking precautions-serious precautions-it could be catastrophic."

"Maybe and maybe not," said Natch, eyeing the black-and-yellow
blob. "We need to crack that son of a bitch open."

"I've tried," moaned Horvil. "Believe me."

"Yeah, but did he try it?" Natch reached out, grabbed the Islander's
wrist, and held his hand up in the air. The programming rings twinkled. "With these?"

Horvil merely shrugged. He extended his open palm toward the
workbench as if to say, Be my guest.

The Islander eyed the bubble warily and removed himself from
Natch's grasp. Then he plunged his hands into the bubble and began
weaving a peculiar cat's cradle with the diffuse strands of data. His face
flushed with concentration.

Natch gritted his teeth and clutched the windowsill, expecting
another blackout at any moment. He felt a hand on his shoulder.
"Maybe you should ... sit down?" said Serr Vigal. Natch shook his
head.

He watched Quell's fingers with a vulture eye, trying to translate
the Islander's finger phrases into the programming bar idioms he knew
so intimately. Some of the moves looked familiar, but others were completely alien. Natch reminded himself that Sheldon Surina and the
original bio/logic programmers had coded this way-though they had
used a much smaller set of rings and a rudimentary form of MindSpace
that hardly deserved the name. Surina had built the foundations of
bio/logics using such primitive tools. Certainly, it seemed to Natch,
the best way to break into code locked by the Surinas was to use the
same methods they had used to seal it.

The diagram panned out, swiveled, and changed colors many times.
Yet despite Quell's best efforts, the mutant yellow jacket remained sealed.

"Maybe we should try to find a different subroutine from MultiReal to crack into," offered Horvil, who had crept closer to the workbench to watch Quell's performance. "We might have better luck." No
one answered.

Natch could feel his mind revving up, blasting pistons at a phenomenal rate. Something was hovering just beyond his perception. An
arcane destination, off the main road-something peculiar-

"Quell," he snapped. "Give me those rings."

The Islander stepped back. "My rings? What-"

"Just do it."

Quell looked to his fellow engineer, dumbfounded, but Horvil
didn't have any better idea what Natch was up to. Finally Quell
shrugged, slid the gold bands off one by one, and handed them to the
fiefcorp master.

Natch slipped the still-warm rings onto his fingers. He hadn't realized quite how large Quell's hands were. When he finished donning
the programming rings, he felt like a child playing dress-up with his
mother's jewelry. Even the notoriously thickset Islanders couldn't have
standard ring sizes this big.

Natch stepped up to the workbench and raised his hands. The code floating in MindSpace seemed to exert a slight magnetic pull on his
fingers, much as it did on a set of programming bars.

As Quell, Horvil, and Vigal looked on, Natch began conducting a
data symphony with his digits. It started as a delicate tune that hovered in the middle registers. But as the fiefcorp master gradually
gained confidence in his technique, he began to make more daring
moves. Sudden staccato bursts all over the imaginary orchestra, glissando stretches from one end of the scale to the other.

After fifteen minutes, Horvil began to grow restless. "If you don't
need me," he said, "I think I'll get back to work...."

"Not yet," barked Natch. The engineer stayed put. Serr Vigal retreated to the chair in the corner and parked himself anxiously upon it.

Natch zoomed in on the peculiar bee-shaped structure and began
twisting at it with his fingers, over and over again. The coil spun
around like a lump of clay under the hands of a skilled potter. Every
few spins, Natch would stab at the coil with his fourth finger.

"What's he doing?" mumbled Horvil, leaning in until his face was
neatly bisected by the edge of MindSpace and took on a pinkish glow.

Quell squinted at the bubble dubiously. "Are you sure you know
what you're doing?" he said. "If you keep doing that, you might-"

"Break it?" Natch grinned like a demon and made one final stab
with four fingers at once.

And then the darkness spilled out.

Natch didn't know how long he lay there before the refreshingly prosaic voice of Horvil came meandering out of the blackness. "I can look
after him for a bit, Vigal. You really need to get some sleep."

He tried to sit up, to respond, but his eyelids felt tied down and
he could not open them. His body simply would not respond to his
commands.

"I'm not leaving until I know he's okay," said Vigal. The neural
programmer was almost within arm's reach. "When is Quell leaving?"

"Dunno. I keep telling him he should go to Andra Pradesh already
if he's going to go, but you know how stubborn he is. I think he's
trying to put it off." Horvil emitted a long, rattling noise of impatience through his sinuses.

Natch attacked the thorny thicket around his eyelids with every
gram of strength he had. Pain flooded down his spinal cord and then
abruptly subsided. He bolted upright to find the concerned faces of
Horvil and Serr Vigal staring down at him on the living room sofa.
Vigal's expression was clouded with gloom, while Horvil looked like
he had aged a year. Natch noticed that the sun had almost disappeared
behind the jagged Shenandoah skyline. How long had he been under?

"You okay?" said Vigal gently.

The fiefcorp master struggled with the snares around his tongue.
After a few minutes, he managed to croak out a reply. "I don't think
I'll be doing that again for a while."

Horvil plopped down on the chair-and-a-half. "I'm sorry, Natch,"
he muttered. "We were hoping to find some answers about the black
code. But looks like we just made things more complicated."

"Complicated doesn't bother me," said Natch, stretching his neck
muscles in an effort to unstiffen them. "I don't mind a complicated
answer, as long as I have the answer. Is MultiReal the black code? Or
are they separate programs?"

Horvil shook his head despondently and said nothing.

"Come on, Horv!" yelled Natch. "No clues? Nothing at all? Vigal,
you know neural programming. You have to have some idea."

His old mentor frowned from the kitchen, where he was running his
finger aimlessly across the countertop. Natch noticed the remains of a
dinner that the three of them must have eaten while he was unconscious.
"I don't think they're the same thing. I think there's another illicit program hidden in your OCHRE system. But that's just an opinion."

Natch, petulant: "So how did the MultiReal code get there?"

"I don't know," replied Vigal.

"Then what's it doing?"

Vigal rubbed his chin and stared at the wall, pensive. "Well, we
know that it can put you to sleep for several days...."