Multireal (41 page)

"So I suppose you're wondering why we're sitting here," said Jara
finally, when Petrucio's shtick had lurched to a halt.

The Patel brothers gave each other opaque looks across the table.
"Of course," said Petrucio. "But I'm not sure I really want to know, to
tell the truth."

"Funny you should mention truth," said Jara, inhaling deeply. "It's
truth that brings me out here. Fairness. Justice."

Petrucio rolled his eyes. "So I guess Natch told you that I pledged
to Creed Objectivv," he said, seeming irritated but not particularly
surprised. "I didn't really want everybody from here to Furtoid to
know about it."

Jara leaned forward and placed her hands on the table, palms
down. "The Defense and Wellness Council is trying to destroy our
business, 'Trucio. They're going around intimidating our friends and
business partners. We need to take a stand against this. We all doeveryone in the bio/logics industry. We need to show Len Borda and
Magan Kai Lee that they can't just get away with this."

Frederic chewed his nails apathetically. Petrucio's face had dissolved back into the normal vacant smile. "And how do `we all' do
that?" said Petrucio.

"You can do your part," said Jara, shoring up her foundering
courage as best she could, "by testifying to the Creeds Coalition on
Merri's behalf. Help her get reinstated as an Objectivv and clear up
this nonsense about her pledging under false pretenses. I don't know
what lies the Blade has been spreading around, but-"

"Please, Jara. Please." The elder Patel vented his frustration with a
vigorous tug of his mustache. "Stop mangling the creed philosophy. It's
just painful. You're almost as bad as him." He indicated the portly Frederic with a hitch of his thumb, causing Frederic to erupt into a toothy
grin. "The Bodhisattva's definition of truth has nothing to do with fairness
or justice. They're entirely different concepts. The Bodhisattva said that
truth is as heavy as a club and as sharp as a knife. I pledged to tell the truth,
but that doesn't mean I have to go around spreading peace and love. I'm
under no obligation to spread truths that negatively impact my business."

"But we're talking about another Objectivv devotee here,"
protested Jara. "It doesn't bother you that she's been suspended from
the creed because of a lie?"

Petrucio shook his head. "I don't care for Merri. She's too pious. It
gets irritating after a while."

Jara removed her hands from the table, sat back, and rubbed her
haunches. Her raised eyebrows asked the question So what does that have
to do with anything?

Frederic was thumping his fingers on the tabletop, a mad pianist
practicing scales in a discordant key. "Don't forget, there's two Patels in
this fiefcorp," he said. "Maybe Merri's suspension from the creed works
to our advantage. Maybe we like seeing your company go under. Ever
think of that?"

"In the short term, sure," replied Jara without missing a beat. "For
the next few months, you'll have all the momentum. But come on,
follow the logic, Frederic. You don't have to be clairvoyant to see what
happens if the Surina/Natch MultiReal Fiefcorp goes under. Len Borda
will sic the Meme Cooperative on you too."

"Doubt it," grunted Frederic. "We got plenty of protection from
the Meme Cooperative."

"But do you have protection against an army with white robes and
dartguns?"

The younger Patel's protest withered and died on his lips.

Petrucio gave his bottle of ChaiQuoke a dexterous double-squeeze,
causing it to form the shape of an arrow. He held it before him and
aimed the tip at Jara's nose. "So answer me one question," he said slyly.
"What do you think Natch would do if the tables were turned?"

"For process' preservation," snapped Jara, her patience a brittle vessel
with deepening cracks. "Do I even need to answer that? He wouldn't
help you, not in a million years." She took a deep breath and decided to
just take that perilous leap before she lost her nerve. "But Natch isn't in
charge of the fiefcorp anymore, 'Trucio. I am. Natch has left the company
for good. And in case you haven't noticed, I'm not him."

Neither Patel appeared particularly surprised at Jara's declaration.
In fact, something about her statement struck Frederic as humorous.
His nose emitted a shrill whistle of amusement. "I think I'm starting
to like this woman," he said.

"Good," said Jara, turning to face the younger, fleshier Patel.
"Because I have something to ask you too. I want you to stand up for
Horvil in front of the Bio/Logic Engineering Board next week. I want
your help clearing his name and getting his credentials restored."

Frederic seemed much more amenable to this suggestion. "Now
what they did to Horvil, that's a real shame," he said, chin balanced on
one hand. "Everyone knows Horvil does good work. He was framed,
plain and simple. If he wasn't working for that asshole-"

"He's not," Jara retorted. "Let me say this one more time. Horvil
doesn't work for Natch. He works for me." She furrowed her brow and
clasped her fingers together on the table, careful not to make it seem
like a gesture of supplication. She fired up Earnest Xpression 35 and
dialed it to a low setting. "Listen. Both of you. I'm not asking you to give up your business. All I'm asking is that, as a personal favor to me,
you go to Melbourne in person and make a couple of quick statements.
Merri has integrity; I've never seen her lie, the charges against her are obviously
untrue. Horvil's one of the best biollogic engineers in the business; he was
framed. It'll take you a few hours, and I'll pay for the hoverbird fare.
We'll both get good publicity out of it.

"Come on, Frederic ... Petrucio ... I don't know what kind of
arrangement you made with the Defense and Wellness Council. But
this is a brand-new world. Margaret's gone. Natch is out of the picture.
I'm running the Surina/Natch MultiReal Fiefcorp now. It's just our two
companies in the MultiReal space, and we don't have to play by the old
rules anymore. Sixty billion potential customers. We don't need to go
at each other with guns blazing all the time."

The Patels sat quietly for a few minutes, engaged in an urgent
ConfidentialWhisper discussion. Frederic's finger pounding grew in
intensity, while Petrucio gripped the ends of his mustache with great
ferocity. Finally she could see the two come to some sort of consensus.
Jara looked into Petrucio's eyes and tried to parse his thoughts. Was he
gearing up to employ the patented pretzel logic of the Creed Objective
truthteller, twisting some minor fabrication until it resembled truth?

"I'm sorry, Jara," the elder Patel said finally. "We can't do it."
There was no artifice in his expression; he really did look sorry, and
Frederic did too to a lesser extent.

The analyst summoned her most desperate stare and concentrated
on the ChaiQuoke bottle for a moment. "You don't understand how
badly we need this," she said.

"I understand," said Petrucio. "I'm sympathetic. I really am. But
we can't just do something like this as a personal favor."

Jara ruminated on this for a minute, her legs twitching with irritation. "What if I put something else on the table?"

Frederic grabbed the ChaiQuoke bottle and choked it until it
popped into a liquid boomerang. "This better be good," he grumbled.

"You remember the Equitable Choice Cycle Model we announced
for the MultiReal exposition? Limited choice cycles for everyone?"

"Yesss," said Petrucio hesitantly.

"We'll put it into effect the day we release the product, for a trial
period of six months. Everyone gets the same limited number of choice
cycles per month. That way, whenever one of our customers gets into a
MultiReal-versus-MultiReal conflict with one of your customers ... ours
won't be able to shell out an infinite number of choice cycles to win."

The mustached brothers blanched, their mouths agape. "How
many choice cycles are we talking about here?" asked Petrucio.

"I have no idea. What number makes sense?"

Jara, Frederic, and Petrucio all stared at the wall for several seconds.

"Well, I guess we'll have to pick one," said Jara. "It has to be a fairly
big number-enough that you could use it all day doing any number
of things without noticing the limitation. It would only come into
play when you're involved in a MultiReal conflict."

Frederic leaned back and grabbed a number out of the air. "A hundred thousand?"

"A hundred thousand choice cycles per day?"

"Yeah."

"Too many. How about fifty thousand?" put in Petrucio.

Jara extended her hands out to her sides. "Sounds good to me.
Except ..." She paused and tapped her foot in thought. "If I'm going
to put your products on a parity with mine, I'm going to need your full
cooperation in getting the whole fiefcorp's business licenses back. That
means testifying in front of the Meme Cooperative, Creed Objectivv,
the Engineering Board, L-PRACG courts-whatever it takes."

Another urgent ConfidentialWhisper conversation between the
Patel brothers ensued. Fifteen seconds later, Petrucio gave a strenuous
nod. "You've got a deal," he said, his voice hoarse with repressed
excitement.

"Good, it's settled," said Jara. She smiled and stood up from her
seat. "I'll draw up a quick contract and have Horvil put it into effect
as soon as it's signed."

Jara almost broke out into a cheer herself. No reason to tell the
Patels that she had already made this decision days ago. She would
have set Possibilities to limited choice cycles for all no matter how the
negotiations went today. Jara felt properly devious and Natchlike. She
had convinced the Patel Brothers to help her bring the fiefcorp back to
full legality, and she had given up nothing for it. Moreover, the Patels
seemed pleased too. Win-win.

The analyst brushed off her robe and prepared to cut her multi connection. Her next stop: an independent assembly-line programming
shop that had given her every indication that they were willing to take
on the fiefcorp's business.

"One more thing," said Jara to the Patels as an afterthought. "You
don't mind keeping that information about Natch under your hat for
a few more days, do you?"

Horvil and Serr Vigal were both enthusiastic about the deal.

"Nobody should have that kind of power," said the engineer,
lounging on the couch in what Jara had come to call her study. "Now
everybody'll be on an equal footing."

"I agree," nodded Vigal. "And-call me crazy-but I think Natch
would agree too. Eventually."

Jara stood at the window and watched the dwindling group of
drudges keeping vigil at the gates. All but a few had given up on
catching a glimpse of Natch emerging from the front doors. Everyone
else had left to prepare for Margaret Surina's funeral in Andra Pradesh
tomorrow morning. Jara had given the fiefcorp notice that they were
all expected to attend as well.

And where was Natch? Would he show up at the funeral? And if
so, what was he planning? Now she knew what the Defense and Wellness Council must have been feeling for the past several weeks. Natch
was out there, he was relentless, and he was beyond anyone's control.
Who's to say that he couldn't use that back door of his to sabotage her
agreement with the Patel Brothers?

The analyst felt a sudden shiver take over her spine. It seemed to
originate from some primordial portion of her brain, some center of
animal instinct locked off from higher reasoning. "Horv," she said,
"you remember that trick you did with DockManage 35? Tying up the
system so Natch couldn't launch Possibilities onto the Data Sea at a
moment's notice?"

"Yep," said the engineer.

"Can you do the same thing to the mechanism that controls the
choice cycles?"

Horvil gazed at the floor for a moment as his mind receded into the
alternate dimension of mathematics. "Well, not exactly ... but there
are other ways to accomplish the same thing. I think I could keep
Natch from disabling the daily choice cycle limit in a hurry. It
wouldn't be a permanent fix, but it should slow him down."

Jara nodded. "Then do it," she said. "And do it quickly."

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