Multireal (25 page)

Natch had never seen a team shift tracks as quickly as the Defense and
Wellness Council. A moment ago, the fiefcorpers had been surrounded
by armed stormtroopers wearing the white robe and yellow star; now
they were alone in the precipitous mountain SeeNaRee. Even the
clouds had abandoned them.

Margaret Surina dead? Last month, Natch would have wondered
how any assassin could possibly get to the top of that tower with all
those guards around. But he had seen the condition of the Surina security forces not twelve hours ago. Penetrating that protective shell of
troops around the Revelation Spire wasn't such a daunting task-especially if one had inside help.

Still, if someone could get to the bodhisattva of Creed Surina that
easily, why didn't they come after Natch first?

Natch looked around the SeeNaRee and took in the stunned
expressions flitting across the brows of his apprentices. Any thought of
MultiReal and fiefcorp licenses had vanished from their faces. Natch
didn't know whether to feel relieved to be free of the Council or frightened to be without their protection. What he wanted more than anything was to retreat home, or to Omaha, or to the redwoods. Safe
places.

And then his thoughts came circling back to Andra Pradesh. Margaret, lying dead at the top of a heavily fortified building, surrounded
by a large private security force. There were no safe places anymore.

"I'm going over there," he announced, rebelling against impulse.

A skeptical pause from the fiefcorp. "Where?" said Jara. It was the
first word she had spoken since her abrupt curse when Natch arrived.

"Andra Pradesh," said Natch. "To find Quell. Find out what's
going on."

"Are we sure there is anything going on?" said Serr Vigal. Everyone
looked at him. "I mean, do we know Margaret's death was foul play?"

Jara snorted. "What do you think it was-'natural causes'?"

Horvil suddenly dashed over and gripped Natch by the elbow.
"You can't go," he protested. "What if it's a trap? What if-what if the
people who killed Margaret are still there?"

"Horvil's right," said Benyamin. He folded his arms across his
chest. "How do we know the Blade was even telling the truth? Sounds
like a perfect setup. Get everyone in a panic, lure you to Andra
Pradesh, and then-"

Merri shook her head, despondent. "The bodhisattva of Creed
Objectivv just issued a statement offering his condolences. Rey
Gonerev wasn't lying." The channel manager stopped and parsed her
thoughts carefully. "Well, she wasn't lying about that, at least."

The entrepreneur noticed that none of the fiefcorpers suspected
Magan Kai Lee had dreamt this up on the spur of the moment, to prevent the release of MultiReal. But on further reflection, Natch realized
that it didn't matter. Whether Margaret Surina was really dead or not,
the news would completely overshadow everything else on the Data
Sea within seconds. No amount of sales wizardry on Robby Robby's
part would entice people to buy Possibilities in the next two hours.

"All right," said Natch. "Where's the closest multi facility?"

The multi gateway at the Surina compound was closed. The network
dumped him at a public terminal a kilometer away instead. Natch
hiked the rest of the way through the city, studying the compound on
the mountain the whole time for any signs of violence. He saw none,
although he did see a number of egg-white Council hoverbirds
touching down. As for the citizens of Andra Pradesh, word of Margaret's death had obviously not reached them yet.

When he reached the iron gates at the base of the hill, Natch was
surprised to find them already guarded by troops in white, not blue
and green. A crowd of curious onlookers began to coalesce across the
street. What if they don't let me in? Natch asked himself.

The Council officers gave the fiefcorp master a long, probing look,
and then let him in. With an armed escort.

Natch couldn't remember if he had ever seen the Surina courtyard
empty. Even in the early-morning hours, after the Center for Historic
Appreciation shut its doors and Gandhi University wrapped up its academic semester, there were always people wandering around. Fiefcorpers liked to lounge here between midnight meetings in the Enterprise
Facility, and there was always a pair of lovers or some forlorn poet
staring reverently up at the Spire.

Now the only feet treading on the mountaintop belonged to Natch
and his two Council escorts. The men were shaky and silent as junkies
as they led the way to some unannounced destination; Natch could
only hope they were going to the scene of the crime. What happened to
Surina security? he wondered.

At that moment, as if responding to Natch's thoughts, the doors
to the auditorium burst open and a gang of Surina officers came
sprinting their way.

They were moving too quickly and chaotically for Natch to count,
but he figured the number to be about twenty. Some of the Surina
troops threw apprehensive looks over their shoulders, as if expecting an
imminent pursuit. At the front of the blue-green wedge was a familiar
figure.

Quell.

The Islander came to a halt mere centimeters from the Councilman
on Natch's left. The man gulped audibly as he took in Quell's bulging
chest and untamed ponytail. "We'll take those guns," declared the
Islander, his voice gravel.

The Council lackey shot a glance at his compatriot. They exchanged grim frowns of courage. "I'm sorry, Islander," he said.
"We're not allowed to do that."

Quell made no signal to the crowd of security officers gathered
behind him; nevertheless, their dartguns all leapt into their hands
simultaneously. The Islander slowly unsheathed a metal bar of the
darkest obsidian from his belt, a long nightstick sizzling with bottled
lightning. "I said we're taking those guns."

The Council officers winced, and Natch did too. He had heard
plenty of stories about Islander shock batons. A crack on the skull with
one of those things could splatter the guards' brains all over the travertine, OCHREs or no OCHREs.

The men in white robes handed over their weapons.

"What's happening?" asked Natch as he trotted across the courtyard, trying to keep up with Quell's massive strides.

"I don't know," grunted the Islander. "The Council swooped in.
Caught us all off guard. They started herding everyone into the auditorium like fucking sheep." He glanced behind him at Borda's lackeys,
who were being muscled toward the Center for Historic Appreciation
by a subset of the blue-and-green troops. "Jayze Surina just waved the
Council in."

"What about-"

Quell cut him off with a snarl. "I said I don't know. But we're going
to find out." Natch noticed that he had not sheathed his shock baton,
opting to curl it like a barbell instead. That stick had to be pretty
heavy to strain Quell's massive biceps.

Surina security officers began to trickle out the side doors of the
auditorium and join the small group marching on the Revelation
Spire. So far there was no sign of any Council reinforcements, but
Natch knew it was only a matter of time. He could feel adrenaline
spiking his veins and started to reach for a bio/logic tranquilizer, then
decided to let his body chemistry handle itself.

The Surina troops flattened themselves against the base of the Spire and hid in shadow. Quell crept up to the double doors, then cracked
them open and lobbed something into the atrium, grenade-style.
There was a dull fwump. The Islander counted to three under his breath
and then pushed inside, yanking Natch through the doors with him.

Natch saw white-robed figures lying all over the floor, hands
clutched to their faces. A few were actually mewling in pain like puppies. It wasn't as large a contingent of Council officers as Natch had
expected, but still more than enough to hold up the party of Surina
troops until backup arrived. An egg-shaped device was rolling on the
floor, not too far from the marble statue of Marcus Surina. The thing was
burning heat circles in Natch's vision even now during its cooling cycle.

"Did you blind them?" cried the entrepreneur incredulously. He
glanced at the pockets of Quell's jacket, wondering what other thaumaturgic surprises the Islander had stowed away there.

"For about ten more seconds," said Quell. "Hurry."

They weren't heading for the staircase Natch had ascended the
other day. Instead, Quell was making for an inconspicuous side door
behind one of the museum exhibits. THE AUTONOMOUS MINDS AND
THEIR KEEPERS, read the holographic sign hovering over a group of
mannequins in paisley uniforms. The nearby Council officers were just
beginning to claw the floor for their dart-rifles when Quell, Natch, and
a dozen other officers streaked through the side door and barricaded it
behind them.

A narrow staircase, awash in the red glow of emergency lighting.
Another door, invisible to the naked eye, that glided open at the touch
of Quell's hand. A lift large enough to fit fourteen.

Nobody said a word during the long, drab climb up the interior of
the spike. This clandestine elevator car didn't offer an interior view of
the Spire's scaffolding like the one Natch had ridden the other day, so
there was nothing to see but shuddering wall. Instead he watched the
Surina officers slide new canisters of black code darts into their guns.
Quell had chosen his crew well. These were hardened professionals, seemingly unafraid of a dustup with the Defense and Wellness
Council.

What if this is all just an elaborate ruse to get me alone? thought
Natch. What if Magan Kai Lee is preparing to do me in here, away from the
rest of the fiefcoa p?

The elevator slipped into its berth at the top of the shaft. Quell was
snorting like an angry bull. The doors opened.

Natch had no idea what a real murder scene looked like. The entire
concept belonged in the realm of things only seen on viewscreens. He
half expected to see overturned furniture or shattered glass or copious
amounts of blood, but nothing of the kind was in evidence. The room
looked exactly as it had less than a day ago. The same elegantly cushioned seating bookended by priceless sculpture; the same windows letting in the glum cumulus of the Indian sky; the Venus de Milo.

Magan Kai Lee and several of his officers were there, along with a
number of unarmed officials from different government agencies. They
displayed no hint of surprise at seeing Quell and the rest of his party,
and despite being outnumbered, Magan's face showed total unconcern.
The tall, awkward officer who had interrupted them at the Kordez
Thassel Complex was sniffing at the furniture like a bloodhound. A
distraught woman in a serving uniform was being questioned at the far
end of the room; Natch could only assume she was the one who had
discovered the body. There was no sign of Rey Gonerev or Ridgello, or
of Len Borda for that matter.

Quell stepped forward. His eyes blazed hot crazy. "You had no
business forcing us into the auditorium like that," he said through
gritted teeth.

One Council officer gave an inquiring look in Magan's direction
and made the slightest of gestures toward his well-stocked rifle. The
diminutive lieutenant shook his head. "I'm sorry," said Magan, though
his face exhibited no such emotion. "We had to make sure the people
who did this weren't still up here."

"What did you do with-?" Quell didn't finish his sentence. His
jaw rocked back and forth uncontrollably as he caught sight of the desk
across the room and the inert figure slumped in a chair before it.

Margaret Surina.

The Islander bounded to her on unsteady legs, letting his shock
baton drag on the floor in the process. He slumped to his knees and
buried his face in the dead woman's tunic. The bodhisattva's shoulder
muffled his sobs.

Natch sidled toward the window and found an unobtrusive spot
where he could observe the body. There was no sign of violence that
Natch could see. It looked to him like Margaret had just slumped over
in place with no provocation. Her luminous eyes of opal blue were still
open and staring back as if across an unimaginably vast distance.

I was foolish to have held on to it for so long, she had told him. I am not
my father. I'm not strong enough to make these decisions. But you ...

The world is new each day, every sunrise a spring and every sunset a
winter. I know you'll understand this. You will stand alone in the end, and
you will make the decisions that the world demands. The decisions I can't make.

"Any sign of a dart, Papizon?" Magan asked the ungainly Council
officer.

Papizon scuttled to the desk and leaned over to scrutinize Margaret's pale face. He seemed to either not notice Quell's anguish or not
understand it. "No," he replied. "Not that I can see." He might well
have been studying bacteria under a microscope.

"Dissolving dart?" one of the government officials chimed in.

Papizon narrowed his eyes and sniffed gingerly in the air. "Usually
leaves a faint trace of sulfur. Could be, but I don't smell anything. The
forensic team can verify when they get here."