Multireal (24 page)

This was a slightly more worrisome development. Natch should
have figured that if the Council could find enough to soil his apprentices' reputations-if they could even dig something up on Merri and
Serr Vigal-surely they could find the buried skeletons of the Meme
Cooperative board too. A little push here and there, and a slap on the
wrist becomes a bash with a shovel.

Natch leaned back in his chair and threw his arms behind his head,
causing Ridgello to back up a step. "So you suspended our licenses," said
the entrepreneur breezily. "That just puts MultiReal back where it started.
On top of that spire in Andra Pradesh. Good luck getting in there."

"Maybe you've been too preoccupied to hear the news," replied the
Blade, walking around the table once more. "Margaret has been
declared mentally unfit. Procedures are under way to remove her as the
head of Creed Surina, and the Meme Cooperative has acted to suspend
her business license as well."

Natch hadn't realized how dire the situation in Andra Pradesh was;
now he understood Quell's apprehension. Those slippery cousins of
Margaret's must have finally tired of chafing under her mercurial leadership and taken action. With the Council's support, of course. It was
barely worth mentioning that Islanders were nonentities to the Meme
Cooperative; Quell could earn an apprentice's wages but was legally
unable to make any binding decisions for the company.

Natch ran his hand over his forehead and rubbed a spot on the
bridge of his nose. "You're stupider than I thought," he said, shaking
his head. "Didn't you think this through? You can temporarily decapitate the fiefcorp.... You can convince those inbreeds at Andra
Pradesh to push Margaret out of the way.... You can bribe my analyst
to go along with a fat sheaf of credits." Jara leaned forward to make an
objection, her expression confused and angry, but Natch didn't give
her the chance to speak. "But you still don't have access to MultiReal.
Don't you of all people know the law? Even if you throw us in prison,
the Possibilities program stays in receivership. It just floats out there on the Data Sea for years until the courts have had their say. You can't
touch it. Len Borda can't touch it. Meantime, the rest of us pay a twothousand-credit fine to the Meme Cooperative, and we get our licenses
back in thirty days."

Magan seemed utterly unfazed. Natch got the impression that he
was still following the Council's preprepared script. "It's you who
doesn't understand," said the lieutenant executive. "The Defense and
Wellness Council has no intention of seizing MultiReal. The program
rightfully belongs to the new master of the Surina/Natch MultiReal
Fiefcorp-and there it will stay."

"New master?"

"The only member of the company whose business license hasn't
been suspended. The Meme Cooperative has handed control of the fiefcorp to your analyst, Jara."

Natch could feel the black code creeping across his flesh, biting,
gnawing, envenoming him with each breath. He remembered feeling
this way when he had discovered that Margaret had kept the Patels'
MultiReal license secret from him. He had felt this way during the
horror of the Shortest Initiation. But now, his emotions were amplified
somehow by the black code inside him, or the MultiReal code inside
him, or both.

Magan's face reflected a look of workmanlike satisfaction, like
someone who had just completed a vexing puzzle. "You will be
receiving an official notification from the Meme Cooperative at any
moment," he said. "The Cooperative is compelling you to hand over
core access to the MultiReal code to Jara."

"And if I refuse?" said Natch.

The lieutenant executive gestured at the troops surrounding
Natch's chair, who were suddenly placing their hands on their dartgun holsters. "We are authorized to take you to an orbital Council prison
until you comply," said Magan.

Along the sides of the table, the fiefcorpers were subtly recoiling
from Jara. Horvil had a look of concentration as if he were factoring
polynomials in his head. Had Jara really made a deal with the Council
to seize control of the fiefcorp? Or was this just part of Magan Kai Lee's
vicious game against them? Jara's emotions were hunkering down
behind a perfect PokerFace, but her nervous fidgeting told Natch that
she was tremendously conflicted.

Natch admitted that the Council's plot against him was indeed an
elegant one. Rope off MultiReal, keep it in an isolated area where he
could touch all he wanted but was unable to make a profit from it. Put
the company in the hands of Jara, who was certainly much more pliable than Natch and predictable to a fault. Summon the drudges to a
press conference and get the ball rolling right away.

And what could Natch do about it? He supposed he could use
MultiReal to escape from the Kordez Thassel Complex. Would even
MultiReal be enough to evade the dartguns of all the guards standing
around here? But after that, he would be a fugitive. And escaping the
Council's notice this time would be much more trying, since the Meme
Cooperative had given them the legislative cover to freeze his Vault
account, seize his apartment, even put a price on his head.

Yet there was something missing. If Magan was looking for an
empty suit that Len Borda could intimidate into handing over MultiReal, wouldn't Merri or Vigal have been better choices? He gazed
across the table into the eyes of the Council lieutenant, chestnutcolored and mysterious. Natch knew the look of a man who had something to hide.

Within the cusp of an instant, Natch felt himself looking at the
world from Magan Kai Lee's perspective. And in that moment he knew
where Magan had made his crucial mistake.

The entrepreneur grinned, leaned farther back in his chair, and propped his feet up on the table. "Horvil," said Natch with a mad glint
in his eye, "have you cleaned out the dock lately?"

The engineer looked around the mountaintop as if he expected to
find another Horvil who would understand why his boss had abruptly
switched gears. The fiefcorp dock? he mouthed silently. Benyamin
offered him a perplexed shrug. So Horvil pursed his lips as he cast his
mind out to the Data Sea and scanned the company's program launch
space. "All clean now," he said.

"Good. Load Possibilities 1.0 on the dock. We're releasing it right now."

A cyclone of gasps came blustering across the table. Magan Kai
Lee's jaw clenched, and Natch could almost hear the grinding of Rey
Gonerev's teeth. Jara leaned over and grabbed Merri's arm out of
instinct. Natch could feel the Council officers encircling him tense up
and give one another looks of confusion.

"The Meme Cooperative voted to yank our licenses," said Natch.
"But that notice says it doesn't take effect until January third."

"That's today," protested Horvil.

"Here it is. At the Meme Cooperative's offices in Melbourne, it is.
But on the orbital colony of Patronell, at the headquarters of the Meme
Cooperative, it's still January second, isn't it? It won't be the third for
another"-Natch squinted his eyes and consulted the time-"two and
a half hours. Which means I'm still the master of the fiefcorp until
then. And I say we're releasing MultiReal now."

"But-"

"Merri, get ahold of Robby Robby. Use an emergency protocol if
you have to. I'll bet he can sell at least a few hundred thousand copies
of Possibilities in two hours."

Magan, Gonerev, and Ridgello appeared to be having a furious
exchange over Confidential Whisper, punctuated by arching eyebrows
and flaring nostrils. Seconds later, the Blade's right arm shot up in the
air. "Radium!" she shouted, and a dozen dartguns snapped into Council
hands in unison.

Ben let out a high-pitched wheeze. "Natch, we haven't run Possibilities through Dr. Plugenpatch yet. What-what if it doesn't work?"

"It worked just fine at that soccer stadium the other day."

"But my mother's assembly-line floor ... The rollback ..."

Natch laughed with a serenity he hadn't felt in weeks. "Running
it through the Plugenpatch system won't do any good," he said. "There
isn't a validator out there that knows how to deal with a program as
radical as MultiReal. And don't worry about the rollback right now.
They haven't had enough time to do any significant damage. The cus-
tomers'll just have to take their chances. But just in case ...
Benyamin, you've got sixty seconds. Write me a quick disclaimer that
basically says `Buyer Beware."'

"Launch that program," rasped Magan, "and it'll be the last thing you
do." He was now completely thrown off his script and improvising wildly.

Natch ignored him, just as he ignored the ten Council officers who
rushed into formation around his chair and bull's-eyed him with the
barrels of their rifles. Merri was rubbing her knees and rocking back
and forth, deeply entrenched in ConfidentialWhisper with Robby
Robby. Vigal had one trembling hand raised as if waiting for a proctor
to call on him, and Jara was simply dead to the world.

"Okay, Horv," said Natch, "I've put a fore and an aft on the Possibilities program. Version set at 1.0. Ben, got that disclaimer?"

Benyamin looked as serious as a scorpion. "Yeah, I found a good
one in Billy Sterno's catalog. Should I-"

"Just throw it in the fore table. Horv, get ready to launch the program onto the Data Sea on my signal." Horvil sputtered something
multisyllabic and unintelligible. "Well? What?" snapped Natch.

"Price?" whimpered the engineer.

"Eighty thousand Vault credits," said Natch without hesitation,
choosing the first round number that floated into his head. "Unlimited
choice cycles."

Merri slumped to the table like a discarded puppet. Eighty thou sand was a gargantuan number, far beyond the reach of the average
Data Sea pedestrian. It wasn't the highest price tag a bio/logic program
had ever earned, but it certainly came close. "Robby wants to know
who's going to buy it at that price," said the channel manager weakly.

Natch's grin broadened. "Everyone who can possibly get their
hands on eighty thousand Vault credits. Lunar tycoons, L-PRACGs,
creeds, capitalmen, you name it. Make sure Robby spreads the word
that the Meme Cooperative is cutting off sales in two hours. Once
people realize this might be their only chance to get a taste of MultiReal, they'll spare no expense. Trust me, by the time dawn arrives on
Patronell, people'll be stacking multiple realities up like bricks. And
we'll all be so rich that we won't care what happens next."

The door burst open, and a dozen more white-robed officers
swooped into the SeeNaRee with dartguns primed and ready. But they
bypassed Natch altogether and headed straight for Serr Vigal. The
neural programmer yelped and tumbled off his chair, finally ducking
behind Horvil, who didn't exactly make inconspicuous cover. Above
them, the clouds had conquered the azure sky and looked ready to rain
down the fury of the gods.

"Y-you can't release that program," stammered the chief solicitor.
"The Prime Committee gave the Council the authority to shut down
any program on the Data Sea, just last month."

"Shut down?" said Natch. "Fine. Shut it down. Have you even used
that authority yet? You have procedures in place for this? Think you
can figure them out and cut through all the red tape in the next"-he
consulted the time-"two hours and eighteen minutes?" It was a bluff,
but it seemed to work. Was that actually fear in Rey Gonerev's eyes?

Benyamin started to say something, then stopped. Horvil stared
down the guards and puffed up his chest with sudden bravado. Merri
had gotten up from her chair and was backing toward the edge of the
stone slab as if she might make a break for it. Magan Kai Lee's eyes
were spotlights.

Natch raised a hand. "Everybody ready?"

Just at that moment, an improbably tall and gangly figure came
rushing through the door, white robe flapping in the mountain gale.
His eyes were saturated with sheer panic, but it wasn't a panic that
concerned the fiefcorp master or MultiReal. The man bolted straight
for Magan Kai Lee, grabbed his sleeve, and blasted some silent message
in the lieutenant executive's face.

Seconds later, the dartguns of the Council officers dropped. A few
rifles clattered noisily to the stone.

Without a word or a glance Natchward, Magan Kai Lee arose and
made for the door, his face coated with some military flavor of a PokerFace program. He made a quick gesture with his right hand, causing
the soldiers to abandon their aggressive positions around the fiefcorp.
Ridgello and his officers formed a tight cordon around the lieutenant
executive, and they all marched hurriedly out of the SeeNaRee.

Rey Gonerev was the last to leave. Natch leapt up from his seat and
grabbed her shoulder. "Give me one reason I shouldn't launch MultiReal right now," he said.

The Blade's expression was distant, disconcerted. "Because," she
said. "Margaret Surina is dead."

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