Multireal (39 page)

Speaker Frejohr stepped slowly around the daisies and put his hand
on Natch's shoulder with another one of those Vigalish touches. "We
need to release MultiReal so people can defend themselves," he said,
voice low and sinuous. "With all that manpower at the Defense and
Wellness Council-Natch, once they get ahold of it, this might be our
only chance."

Natch sniffed. "Don't worry, they won't get ahold of it. Not once
we've executed my plan."

"What plan?" said Frejohr suspiciously.

A grin spread across Natch's face like a malignant creeper. "I'm
glad you asked."

The program hung in MindSpace, a spiky pyramid the color of a poisoned apple. Natch dimmed the lights in his office, causing a greenish
hue to suffuse the room and reflect off every forehead.

"Black code," somebody whispered.

The entrepreneur didn't respond. Of course it was black code. Form
didn't necessarily follow function in the bio/logics world-Natch had
worked on plenty of innocuous routines that looked like fairy tale horrors in MindSpace-but the fact that this program exhibited no name
or pedigree was indicator enough.

One of the L-PRACG politicians scratched her head. "So what does
it do?" she asked. The rest of the politicians hung back near the door
and peered over her shoulder, afraid to get any closer.

"It communicates," replied Natch.

"With whom?"

"With everyone. Every single person from here to Furtoid, if you
want. If the Council lets it run that long." The entrepreneur reached
inside the MindSpace bubble with a bio/logic programming bar,
hooked the nameless black code on its tip, and swirled it around like a
magician trying to summon something verminous from his hat. "But
the ability to send a message to anyone isn't that special. It's the ability
to send a message from anyone-individual, business, government."

"A forgery machine," said the speaker pensively, nudging the
L-PRACG politician to the side so he could get a closer look.

"The forgery machine," said Natch. "The best one there is. It's not foolproof, of course-it's next to impossible to get foolproof forgery on
the Data Sea anymore-but this is about as close as you can get." He
spun the program around with the bar until it was nothing but a
rotating blur.

"You've used this program before," said the bodhisattva.

Natch parsed his words carefully. "Let's just say I've seen it in
action."

"So could we forge a message from the Council with this?" said the
Islander with a little too much eagerness. "Could we report false troop
movements, or-or-"

Natch cut the woman off before she short-circuited. "No. The program's not that good. The Council doesn't use normal Data Sea communications protocols."

Speaker Frejohr walked up to the gyrating blob and scrutinized it
as the virtual friction of MindSpace began to slow its spin. How much
the speaker knew about the intricacies of bio/logics, Natch had no
idea. But at the very least, he was staring at the program's important
junctures and not at its distracting ornamentations. "So you've got the
ultimate forgery machine," he said in a dubious tone of voice. "What
do you propose to do with it?"

"Let's start at the beginning," said Natch coyly, stepping back
from MindSpace. He tossed his programming bar on the side table and
began circumnavigating the workbench. "All those tens of thousands
of people at the Defense and Wellness Council. All those officers in
that hidden fortress of theirs. What do you think they do all day?"

No one answered. Natch could feel the impatience radiating off
them like heat waves.

"They analyze," he continued. "They plot, they strategize. They
conduct war games. Right?

"So somewhere in the Council databases, there has to be a whole
collection of memos about the MultiReal situation. Plans for how the
Council can take hold of MultiReal. Plans for what the Council should do after they've taken hold of MultiReal. Far-fetched scenarios. Hardline scenarios. Apocalyptic scenarios. What would these memos say?

"Let's pretend there's a memo that says, We need to use MultiReal
quickly to subdue our enemies.

"Who are the Council's enemies? The libertarian L-PRACGs. The
Islanders. The Lunar tycoons who've been chafing against central government regulation. The creed that's been stirring public sentiment
against the Council." Natch looked over each political representative
in turn, fixing them with a stare that was almost accusatory. "Once Len
Borda gets his hands on MultiReal, he's going to go after each and
every one of you. Or so the memo says."

The Islander frowned and shook her head, clearly disappointed that
Natch didn't have anything more substantial up his sleeve. "So we leak
this memo to the drudges, and the public goes berserk," she said. "Isn't
the Council going to deny it?"

Natch smiled. "Of course they're going to deny it. Of course they'll
call it a forgery. But isn't that exactly what they'd do if it were a real
memo in the first place? Their denials are meaningless. Besides, the
brave soul who risks his life to leak this memo isn't going to just use
his own signature, is he? He absolutely won't pass it on through traceable communications protocols. No, he'll do his best to anonymize the
memo.

"So we've got a memo of dubious authenticity. Nobody's going to
believe the Council. The Prime Committee gives Borda his marching
orders-in theory-so they'll stay out of it. Who's left? Guess who the
public will look to for validation?"

Everyone turned to Khann Frejohr, who had stepped to the office
window with a faraway look, as if reading small type on a distant
viewscreen. His posture signaled his irritation that the meeting had
taken such a detour. "And you expect the Congress of L-PRACGs to
authenticate this message for you?" he asked with a sigh.

"Absolutely not," said Natch. "Come on, don't you know how this works? You tell the drudges you don't know the first thing about this
memo. Who can tell if it's real. All you know is that nobody's seen any
plan from the Council about what they intend to do with MultiReal
once they get their claws on it. If this isn't the real memo ... then
where the fuck is it? Why hasn't Len Borda told anyone what he
intends to do with MultiReal? What does he have to hide?

"As for the rest-well, that's easy. The public's primed and ready.
They're waiting for someone to stand up to Len Borda. So you all fan
the flames, stir up your constituencies, call for boycotts. The reaction
to this memo is going to be explosive. With the public in a frenzy, and
the Congress of L-PRACGs locked in a battle of words with the
Defense and Wellness Council, who's going to step in to calm things
down? Who's got to step in eventually?"

"The Prime Committee," offered the Islander.

The entrepreneur gave the most pedantic nod in his repertoire.
"Exactly. The Prime Committee will intervene. Hopefully they'll call
for some kind of special session to deal with the MultiReal issue. But
we can't coerce them. They need to come up with the idea on their
own, or it won't happen."

The bodhisattva of Creed Libertas was shaking her head in vehement objection. "You're jumping to too many conclusions. How do
you know what the public's going to think? You have no idea how
people will react to that memo."

"Sure I do," said Natch. "It's going to be an explosive reaction
because we have a catalyst."

"Which is?"

"Margaret Surina's funeral, about eighteen hours from now."

Silence engulfed the apartment.

Natch looked around his office at the politicos who had multied to
his foyer so smug and self-satisfied. Now they all looked defensive,
unsure if Natch's plan would work and unsure if it would be a good
thing if it did. Funeral ceremonies for the unexpectedly deceased-the unPrepared-were melancholy affairs and exceptionally rare. The
funeral ceremony for the richest and most revered woman in the world
would be even more so. Natch could see the mental calculations going
on around the room: was it right to hijack such an event for political
purposes?

Frejohr's reaction was really the only one that mattered. Behind
those eyes, Natch could see a wrestling match going on between
predilection and pragmatism. He didn't know what had really happened during those Melbourne riots back in 318. He didn't know if
the speaker was actually responsible for those atrocities or not. What
Natch did know was that Frejohr had not felt the full impact of the
MultiReal situation until just a few minutes ago; even Natch's mind
control trick on the balcony yesterday hadn't jolted him so hard. This
was a crisis every bit as portentous as the Melbourne riots, and what he
decided here today would have just as much impact on the libertarian
movement-not to mention on his career.

"I can't participate in this," said Frejohr after several moments of
silence. "I won't see Margaret Surina's funeral turned into a circus. I
stand by what I said earlier. You need to release the MultiReal code on
the Data Sea, Natch-every last gigabyte. That's the only way."

Natch gave them all a wry smile, then shut down the MindSpace
bubble. He grabbed a bio/logic programming bar from the side table
and began tossing it up and down nonchalantly. "Well, it's too late,"
he said. "The memo's already out there."

Another poisonous silence. "What do you mean?" whispered the
labor leader.

"I mean I sent it to the drudges about two hours ago, shortly before
you all arrived. But wait-I wouldn't be in too much of a hurry to cut
your multi connections. The drudges know you're here. In fact, they
think you've gathered here to discuss how to respond to this memo."

"And why do they think that?" thundered Frejohr indignantly,
looking as if he might throw something.

"Well, I told them, obviously," replied Natch, matter-of-fact. He
flipped the programming bar in the air and let it make a full three
rotations before catching it again. "I'm sure they've noticed all those
Congressional security officers hanging around outside anyway."

The labor leader stepped forward and planted his clenched fists on
the workbench with a thump, but Natch did not flinch. "So what happens when someone finds out this memo is a fake?"

"Oh, someone will figure it out eventually, and the Council will
probably shut the program down for good. But by then, it'll be too
late. I'll already have had my day in front of the Prime Committee.
And don't worry, no one'll be able to trace it here. I'm positive of that."

"And if they do?"

The entrepreneur shrugged and plopped into the chair next to the
side table where Horvil usually resided. "Then tell them the truth.
Hang me out to dry, it won't matter. The memo's not signed, it's not
attributed to any particular person on the Council, and I'm not the one
that's trumpeting it to the skies. What would I be guilty of? Nasty
rumors? Conducting a thought experiment?" He grinned. "They can
add that infraction to the hundred and twenty I've already got."

Natch could practically see the turbines whirring inside their minds.
The politicos would have to make a choice when they cut their multi connections and stopped priving themselves to the world: to go along with
the ruse or to deny it. If they intended to deny it, then the clock was
ticking. Every minute elapsed was another minute they would have to
explain away. Besides which, revealing the nature of the plan was tantamount to revealing that they had been duped. In the hard-knuckle world
of libertarian politics, such an admission could be highly damaging.

And what was the alternative? Natch had already made it perfectly
clear he didn't expect anyone to confirm the memo's authenticity-in
fact, he expected them to do the exact opposite, to cast doubt, to stir
up suspicion. They would reap the benefits in the end without taking
much of the risk. Wasn't that the easier course?

Khann Frejohr was clearly incensed. He had not moved from the
window, preferring to glare outside with palpable rage on his face. He
had come to this apartment to strong-arm Natch into releasing the
MultiReal specs on the Data Sea. Instead, he was being strong-armed
into convincing the Prime Committee to put their foot down.

"Listen," Natch told the speaker. "You've got to understand. What
you're suggesting-releasing the MultiReal code on the Data Sea-it
wouldn't work."

"And why not?" growled Frejohr.

"Let's say I do what you're asking. Let's say I release the technical
specs to MultiReal on the Data Sea. Don't you think the Council is
going to be waiting right there with a thousand engineers to
weaponize it? Two hours after I release those specs, Len Borda or
Magan Kai Lee will be back with ten thousand troops that you won't
be able to run away from. Do you really think you can out-engineer the
Council? No, I'm sorry, Khann. The Council can't get hold of those
technical specs. They can't ever get hold of them. MultiReal has to stay
in private hands."