Jump 255 - Multireal Part 25

Al stand and wait for a presence, a person of gravitas worthy of honoring the last daughter of the Surinas.

That person emerges from the gates of the Surina residences, fol owing the path recently cleared by the pal bearers. He is a short man by Western standards, an African with a nose like a miniature fist. His skin is black enough that the folds on his black-and-white-swirled robe might be a form of camouflage, while his kink-curled hair is white enough to match. The crude metal scepter in his hand marks him as the bodhisattva of Creed Objectivv.

The bodhisattva makes his way to the platform containing the coffin. Al present give him a wide and respectful berth. He bestows a beatific smile on the a.s.sembly and clears his throat to speak.

The world is clouded, but never more so than today. Today our tongues are confused, and we stand on queer geography. We are here to mourn this woman, Margaret Surina. This woman, this beacon. Seeker of truth, inventor of miracles.

But today we are here to mourn something more. We mourn the Surinas, whose direct line ended a few days ago. The Surinas brought us not only science but enlightenment. Their coming heralded the dawn of a new age. Where do we go from here? To soar or to fal ? Wil their pa.s.sing signal an end to the Reawakening? Wil the human spirit slumber once more, or wil it rise to glorious deeds?

Natch feels the words bounce off him like rubber. He cannot move or speak.

Standing before him is Margaret Surina, and she is alive.

She's ghostly, almost insubstantial. She floats through the bodies in the crowd and comes to rest a meter away, occupying nearly the same s.p.a.ce as a fat man who wears the Plugenpatch uniform. Her hair is slightly darker than the corpse on the platform, but her eyes are as luminous as they ever were.

She is staring at Natch; she is trying to speak. No words come from her mouth.

Natch closes his eyes and flees.

He feels himself sinking into the travertine. Sinking through it. Pa.s.sing down through the rock and soil of the mountain, the flesh of the Earth. There are civilizations down there in the rock, civilizations completely oblivious to the travails of the Surinas and Andra Pradesh, volcanic races of the almost-was and never-were. Natch pa.s.ses through them.

Farther, farther down.

He emerges in an endless subterranean network of pipes. Pipes that form the core of the world. They are just tal enough for a man to stand in. Natch stands there in a crossroads, a nexus of pipes that extend in a mil ion directions.

Somehow he knows, he sees that these tunnels extend throughout the Earth. They extend into every city and every home, into the orbital colonies, through time and s.p.a.ce, in universes alternate and improbable. And down here in the nexus, there is a hatch for each tunnel, clearly labeled with the names of every man, woman, and child who has ever, or wil ever, live.

Spiderlike creatures scramble in the shadows. They have the hands and heads of men, which they use to dig, dig, dig. Always digging. They are constantly at work building these tunnels in a never-ending construction project. Natch hears them snickering at him.

He picks a hatch at random and draws it open, if only to escape the infernal laughter. The tube sucks at him like a pseudopod, and he flies through the roots of the world. Hours it seems he is flying. Then final y, an ending. A door. Natch opens the door.

It's a gathering. An L-PRACG building outside of Vladivostok, a center of civic activity and urban planning. There are raised voices. A memo floats in the air above the floor, its sentences underscored and highlighted by many different hands. The L-PRACG administrator stands and raises her fist in defiance, shouting the official government slogan over and over until the a.s.sembled lawmakers join her. A resolution is proposed cal ing for the immediate resignation of Len Borda from the Defense and Wel ness Council; it pa.s.ses unanimously.

Natch dives down and secures the hatch behind him. He travels many kilometers to another door (he hears the spiders' laughter) and opens that.

The financial exchange in Beijing. A man in a crisp gray suit sitting at a desk and examining a long string of facts and figures. There are distressing rumors, conflicting reports. The a.n.a.lysis programs and pattern-recognition algorithms he employs advise caution. He consults with his human partners, and they agree as wel . And if the memo real y is a forgery? he asks. It doesn't matter, answers his partner. We get paid to safeguard our clients' money, not to play politics. If you think the company's headed for a fal tomorrow, it's headed for a fal tomorrow. The man in the gray suit nods, sighs. Sel s off a cornerstone of the portfolio with a wave of his hand.

Yet another door.

Transportation workers for TubeCo, underpaid, underutilized, their jobs insecure. Multi has become ubiquitous and taken away their livelihood. They stand in a tube train depot, yel ing their displeasure at the labor boss who stands atop a parked tube car above them. Is Len Borda going to seize the tube or isn't he? one yel s. What's that mean for our jobs? shouts another. The man atop the tube car makes placating gestures, urges calm. Calm? says the workers' resident agitator. f.u.c.k calm! You've got a.s.surances from the company-but what if they're wrong? We could have a government takeover in a matter of days. If you're not going to do something about it-we wil . Moving as one, a large chunk of the uniformed workers marches out of the building.

An uneasy Defense and Wel ness Council officer, patrol ing the streets in the orbital colony of Al owel . A pack of private security guards fol owing.

Jeering. A tense confrontation in an al eyway. Darts firedLaughter.

Men and women in a station near Sao Paulo, donning the white robe and yel ow star in a panic. s.n.a.t.c.hing loaded dartguns and disruptors off the racks, along with canisters of black code needles. Positioning themselves on the balcony in a phalanx and aiming weapons at the approaching mobAn engineer on the underground transfer system lifting a metal wrench in the air, striking down at a hol ow pipe that plummets into the bowels of the Earth. He strikes again and again until the pipe cracks. The conveyors shudder to a halt; a cheer arises from his col eaguesThen Natch is back in the courtyard at Andra Pradesh.

The bodhisattva of Creed Objectivv is long gone now, and the litter carrying the dead woman has been taken to the ceremonial grave inside the Revelation Spire. The crowd is surging in every direction at once; the blue-and-green Surina security officers are on the move. A brawl has broken out somewhere, and the group of Islanders is at the center of it. A trio of white hoverbirds can be seen in the distance, heading this way.

Stones. There is a mob gathered outside the Center for Historic Appreciation, and they are throwing stones at the representatives of the Defense and Wel ness Council. The Council contingent forms a tight phalanx and shoves its way toward the gates of the city.

Natch stifles a smile and runs for cover.

4.

MADNESS.

AND FREEDOM.

28.

January 12,Year 360 of the Reawakening Natch, I wil try to make this message relatively brief, though you must be aware such a feat is beyond my means. Plan accordingly. One might suppose that during the course of a rigorous education in brain stem programming and engineering, a certain prestigious Lunar university might have endeavored to teach its pupils how to write-but alas, they did not.

However, I digress. (You smile knowingly. Perhaps fear of my digressions is what's caused you to ignore my messages for the past few days.

Perhaps you wil ignore this one as wel . Al I can do is press on and a.s.sume that I am reaching you on some level.) Let me get my typical sententious blather out of the way first.

Natch, you have won many victories in your life. Digging yourself out of the troubles at initiation and climbing to number one on the Primo's bio/logic investment guide was quite an achievement. Arranging the transition of MultiReal from Margaret's fefcorp to yours was another. Surely the popular outcry during the past few days over this disputed Defense and Wel ness Council memo counts as a third.

(Yes, despite what the drudges have cal ed the largest spontaneous outbreak of public protest since the Melbourne riots" [John Ridglee, January I I], this unrest certainly does not seem spontaneous to me. It has not escaped my attention that the major events of this crisis-the street protests in Beijing, the government walkouts in Cape Town, the formal statements of dissent by the creeds and the L-PRACGs-were coordinated very closely with the drudge news cycles. Your new friend Khann Frejohr denied any involvement, of course, but his denial arrived just in time to make Sen Siw Sors evening report. Yet the most incriminatory piece of evidence is the fact that the tube line between Cisco and Seattle through the redwoods remains operational, despite an ongoing TubeCo operators'

strike in North America. Quod erat demonstrandum.) So you have won another victory. The Prime Committee has cal ed for a special session to resolve the question of MultiReal and promises to debate the issue for as long as it takes"They have issued subpoenas to you, the Council, and the Congress.The public, at least, seems wil ing to put its ire on hold for a few days and submit to the judgment of the Committee.

But like al your victories, Natch, this one brings you no resolution. It only qualifies you for a more intricate chal enge.

I hardly need tel you the Defense and Wel ness Council should not be underestimated in any circ.u.mstance, and especial y not when they have been backed into a cornerYou have already met Len Borda's chief solicitor, Rey Gonerev, but I'm afraid you have never seen her in front of an audience. I had the misfortune of witnessing a public hearing on orbital colony subsidies several months ago in which Gonerev proceeded to slash her opponent's sensible and practical arguments to shreds.There is a reason the drudges cal her the Blade.The Prime Committee wil al ow Borda to choose someone to provide an opening statement for the governmentalist position, and I have no doubt that Rey Gonerev is the one whom the high executive wil cal .

Now I don't mean to sound defeatist-I have every confidence in your ability to sway a crowd-but you must be aware that you are fighting an uphil battle to regain control of this technology. In fact, matters may be more precarious than everThe Prime Committee is effectively the final court of appeal, beyond which there are no more legal avenues to which you can turn.

Moreover, I'm sure you know that the governmentalists stil hold a substantial majority on the Committee, and governmentalists rarely contravene the word of High Executive Borda.

So it's an uphil battle, you tel yourself. It's always been an uphil battle, from the very beginning.

But there is no such thing as an ordinary battle for you.You tend to wrap your feelings of self-worth into your battles, Natch. I've observed you doing this ever since you were a child, and perhaps if I had been better schooled in the art of parenting I might have done something about it when I stil could.You believe that the outcome of this fight for MultiReal wil determine the success or failure of your entire life just as you believed the same thing about your quest to achieve number one on Primo's, and your fight to win in the ROD coding market, and so on.

I know I risk sounding like a tedious public service announcement from Creed Conscientious when I say this, but I wil say it anyway: you are not the work you do in life.

I shal repeat this and isolate it in a separate paragraph, like a professor emphasizing an important point before final exams.YOU ARE NOTTHE WORKYOU DO IN LIFE.

We do not often get to declare victories, Natch, and most of them do not remain victories for very long. Ultimately when you reach my age you realize that victories are temporary, and in al the years of human history there is one final battle which n.o.body has ever won.Time has a way o f changing the terms of your victories over the years, until you begin to wonder precisely what it was you fought for so viciously, so uncompromisingly. You begin to see that victory and defeat are but alternate reflections from the same prism.You see that the measure of a person real y might be the integrity with which he fought his battles and not their ultimate dispensation, just like your elders have been tel ing you al along.

That old book of the Pharisees expresses it best: seasons come and seasons go, but the Earth remains forever. (Obviously Ecclesiastes had never heard of Hubble's law or gravitational singularities, but you get the picture.) Again, I digress. (Cf. paragraph 2, above.) Let us move on to more practical matters.

I have spent many long hours pondering the chal enge you face in swaying the Prime Committee, and I have concluded that what you need is a trusted voice. The Council wil seek to put your face on the libertarian cause. They wil highlight your admittedly uncompromising nature, your personal foibles, and your shortcomings; a vote for MultiReal is a vote for Natch, they'l say.You need the Committee to see your situation not as a conflict of brash personalities, but as an ideological struggle. You need someone to present the libertarian position on MultiReal in a measured, persuasive, and objective way.

It seems to me the ideal person to put forth such an argument to the Prime Committee is Speaker Khann Frejohr. And so-I hope you are not upset with me-I approached his office intending to convince him to speak on your behalf.

Unfortunately, the speaker refused to see me, and his senior aides informed me that Frejohr would not make such a speech under any terms. I don't know what sort of disagreement you have with the speaker that would cause him to lie low in this conflict (his office laughably claims a desire to "maintain impartiality"), but he has indeed made that decision. Frejohr had a.s.signed a midlevel Congressional solicitor to make the libertarians' opening statement. I made it my duty to observe the man in court, and the most charitable conclusion I can come to is that Khann Frejohr is not invested in your success.

So I offered to deliver the libertarian opening statement before the Prime Committee instead.The speakers office agreed.

You gasp.You frown. I admit that I am no politician, and my speeches have been the b.u.t.t of many jokes around the fefcorp. It's true that I have no experience swaying government officials for their vote, and yet I do have decades (and decades) of experience swaying government officials for something even more precious and inseparable: their money.

My reputation has shown some tarnis.h.i.+ng lately, as have al of ours in the fefcorp. But I submit to you that I am stil one of the world's preeminent authorities on brain stem programming and a much sought-after expert on neurotechnological issues. I have been stockpiling this reputation for many, many years, and at my age one begins to wonder exactly what one is stockpiling such a thing for. So now I offer this reputation to you in the hopes that it might be of some service.

You wil , of course, get the opportunity to make your case before the Prime Committee in person. Nothing I do or say in my opening statement wil change that. Al I can hope to do is to make your task somewhat easier.

One last piece of business: Jara has informed me that she has also been cal ed to testify before this hearing, or special session, or whatever the Prime Committee is cal ing it at this hour. She wil be bringing the rest of the Surina/Natch MultiReal Fiefcorp with her. Since you have not been answering her messages either, Jara asked me to tel you that she does not see any benefit in broadcasting your differences to the world at such a perilous time. She has asked me to relay her a.s.surances that her testimony wil be both fair and impartial to the best of her ability.

And now I have succeeded in relaying her message, in this long-windedeven-by-my-own-standards way.

Rest a.s.sured, Natch, that wherever you choose to go or whatever you choose to do-and whatever becomes of this execrable MultiReal technology-from now until the moment they drag my creaky bones and aching joints off to join the Prepared, I wil always, always be with you.

Sincerely, SerrVigal

29.

Lucco Primo once said, Size up your enemy by studying his approach.

Defense and Wel ness Council troops usual y approached their enemies with the thunderclap of a hundred disruptors and the sonic boom of a hundred hoverbirds in their wake. Such was the Council's edge in technology that Len Borda's officers rarely needed the element of surprise, and their ghostly white robes openly mocked the idea of camouflage.

But when the Council unleashed its legal army, the standard rules of engagement did not apply.

None of the drudges had noticed any unusual activity at the Council's Terran headquarters recently. No streams of departing hoverbirds, no sudden influx of advisors. So when a torrent of white hoverbirds landed at the Melbourne facilities on the thirteenth of January and let loose a merciless tide of lawyers, the public was caught completely by surprise. Sen Sivv Sor and John Ridglee were among the drudges who could be seen das.h.i.+ng out of public multi gateways soon after the procession began. Even staunch governmentalists like Mah Lo Vertiginous were spotted in the crowd in various stages of dishabil e or disarray.

The procession continued for over an hour. There were nearly two hundred attorneys, technical specialists, legal programmers, a.n.a.lysts, and researchers dressed in matching suits of crisp gray with a muted version of the five-pointed star embroidered on their chests. They fanned out across Melbourne's broadest boulevard and began a slow yet disciplined march toward the Defense and Wel ness Council's administrative offices. Somewhere along the way, they picked up an accompanying scrim of military officers with dartguns drawn and disruptors charged. Half a dozen Council hoverbirds swooped over the street in perfect synchronization. (A dry run, some muttered, for the inevitable pogrom that awaited them al .) By the time this bureaucratic army reached the Council's undistin guished slab of a building, a sizable crowd had gathered to witness the coming of history. Children sat on the shoulders of their parents. Politicians elbowed each other aside in a struggle for prime positioning. Vendors, advertisers, and salespeople fed off the crowd like leeches, while on the Data Sea, a menagerie of video feeds captured the Council's approach from every possible angle.

At the last minute, several libertarian activists emerged from the crowd and linked hands, cordoning off the steps leading to the Council building. A hush fel upon the crowd. There was a tense standoff between the commander of the white-robed officers and the leader of the libertarians. Several minutes pa.s.sed, with their arguments growing more heated by the second. Final y, the irritated commander turned his back on the activists and made a gesture to his troops.

The officers shouldered their rifles as one and did not hesitate.

Murderers! cried a few strident voices. Bloodthirsty tyrants! But the Defense and Wel ness Council's legal army continued up the steps with nary a pause and disappeared inside the building.

A few moments later, the libertarian activists struggled groggily to their feet, plucking darts from their torsos. They were dazed but otherwise al right.

The three fiefcorpers lined up against the wal of Jara's apartment like troops submitting to an inspection, their spines uncomfortably stiff and their eyes doggedly forward-facing. Jara marched down the aisle and bayoneted each one of them with a sharp stare. She insisted that Horvil comb his hair, that Merri stand up straight and project confidence, that Ben take control of his scowling or stay home.

Jara saw the reactions on their faces and almost backed off. Everyone was bone tired from the stress of the past few days-the disruptions in the tube lines, the demonstrations in the streets, the constant migraine of Council troops around every corner-and their att.i.tudes toward Jara were beginning to slide from mild distrust to outright resentment. She was just a short hop away from breakdown herself.

Natural y, it was Benyamin who chose to speak up. "Can't you give it a rest for once, Jara?"

The a.n.a.lyst walked up to the young apprentice and stood within spitting distance. "I've had just about enough of you," she said with a grimace. "There could be ten bil ion people watching us tomorrow at that Prime Committee hearing. Do you understand that? Literal y ten bil ion people. We need to look our best."

"They'l understand, Jara," said Merri, her voice stretched and hoa.r.s.e. "Everyone's feeling a little surreal right now. The audience is going to be dis...o...b..bulated too."

Horvil nodded. "She's right. We're not a theater troupe. You can't expect us to be onstage every day when we've got work to concentrate on. Do you realize how little we've gotten done this past month because of al this political c.r.a.p?"

Jara stared at the engineer, momentarily speechless. His words might have been harsh, but his tone was mel ow, almost supportive. She found her thoughts slipping, like fingers losing their grip on the rung of a ladder, fal ing back to that scene in the museum at Andra Pradesh. The feel of his chubby hand enclosing hers. The radiating concern. That warm, uncomplicated, perpetual y adolescent face beaming at her with an emotion raw and undistil ed.

Who wouldn't feel embarra.s.sed to be on the receiving end of such a look?

Ben cut through her reverie with a heavy sigh.

Jara only stopped herself from throttling Benyamin by a tremendous act of wil . She flipped through her mental library and dusted off GrimFace 202, one of the intense glares she had programmed for such an occasion. "Do you trust me?"

she said. "Al of you. Do you trust me?"

A pause. A few frowns. Merri, sheepish, answered. "Yes. Of course we trust you."

"Good." Jara walked up to Benyamin and stabbed his chest with the nail of her right index finger. "Then f.u.c.king listen and do what I say. Al right?"

The fiefcorpers nodded and fol owed her out the door.

Jara berated herself for that petulant little outburst al the way to the tube station. Isn't that exactly the kind of s.h.i.+t you criticized Natch for? she thought.

Yel ing at everybody for no reason. Refusing to explain yourself. She was practical y marinating in irony. One week in charge of a major fiefcorp, and al you can do is imitate Natch. Natch, the worst manager you've ever known. Pathetic. She debated making some kind of apologetic gesture to the rest of the fiefcorpers al the way to the tube platform.

She stil hadn't made a decision when the train arrived and everyone stepped aboard.

Moments later, they were off.

The fiefcorp maintained complete silence for several hours after the train whooshed out of the station, and there was no one else in their part of the car to fil the void. So they kept watch out the windows. The dilapidated tunnels and debris-strewn lowlands of Britain, practical y untouched since the Autonomous Revolt, soon made way for the comforting dul gray of the sea. After that, Africa. Sea became sh.o.r.e, sh.o.r.e became forest.

The silence was final y broken by the arrival of a freshly minted Latin accent during the stop at Cape Town. "Looks like the crew's al here!" said Robby Robby, oozing down the aisle with a jaunty grin.

"Al the ones who aren't dead, accused of murder, or in prison," replied Horvil, deadpan.

Benyamin jabbed his cousin in the side. "What about Serr Vigal?"

"He works in a memecorp, doesn't he?" said Horvil. "I cal that prison."