Multireal

by David Louis Edelman

  "You assured me that Frejohr wouldn't be a problem," growled Borda. "You told me this libertarian uprising of his would die on the vine."

  Magan Kai Lee banished the text with a hard blink of the eyes and stared glumly at the sea, which was barely visible through the thickening veil of fog. "So I thought, a month ago," he said.

  "So you thought," replied Borda caustically. He bent to pick up a small chunk of wood, a splinter that must have been torn from the rail by French cannons. "Frejohr's only been in office for two weeks, and already he's got the Congress of L-PRACGs holding hearings."

  "They're meaningless," said Magan. "The Congress has no authority over us."

  "No, but the Prime Committee does. And these infoquakes give Frejohr the impetus to put ideas in their heads." Borda angrily threw the painted wood chip off into the mist, where the sea swallowed it without a sound.

  "Papizon will find out what's causing the infoquakes," announced Magan. "It's only a matter of time."

  "How much time?"

  "I don't know."

  The high executive snorted his contempt. "Papizon is usually not so vague."

  Borda's pessimism was starting to grow tiresome. Magan thought the time had come for a quick knife thrust. "Papizon usually doesn't get distracted by your useless side projects."

  Borda paced calmly across the deck of the ship. Magan noticed that the Ionic column of the high executive's body was immune to the rules of physics governing the rest of the SeeNaRee; instead of Borda swaying with the tide, the sea itself appeared to be rotating around the fulcrum of Borda.

  "If you have something to say," rasped the high executive, "then say it."

  Magan widened his stance, flaunting his lack of intimidation at Borda's presence. "You're going about this MultiReal situation all wrong," he said.

  "Oh?"

  "Natch thrives on anger. Every blow you strike against him only makes him stronger. So send another strike force to Shenandoah, start your onslaught. Not only will you fail to get control of MultiReal, you'll have the Congress in full-scale rebellion. You'll have people on the streets shouting their support for Natch and Margaret Surina."

  Borda's face remained impassive, but the sea began tossing steep breakers against the ship, as if trying to send Magan plummeting overboard. The fog thickened, further obscuring Magan's mental compass. But the lieutenant executive had done plenty of time on Council naval vessels and knew how to react to the choleric moods of the sea. He kept his feet.

  "You forget I've been through this before," said Borda in a voice like molten rock. "I know how to deal with entrepreneurs. And with Surinas." His words were punctuated by the crackle of cannon fire from the enemy juggernaut still hidden somewhere off in the chop.

  Magan recalled the iconic video footage that had swept across the Data Sea almost fifty years ago, footage that could still be found just about anywhere you looked. The smoking hulk of a shuttle half-buried in the sands of Furtoid. A charred and mangled hand arching out of the wreckage.

  But then there was the other footage, the secret footage squirreled away in the depths of the Defense and Wellness Council archives. Marcus Surina, having miraculously survived the blast, blackened, gasping, eking out the last fifteen minutes of his life on a Council stretcher with Council dartguns aimed at his head and Council hoverbirds whirring in the background. Denied access to the soothing balms of the Dr. Plugenpatch databases, lest someone discover he had not perished instantly in the wreckage. Cursing Len Borda to the very end.

  "He should have compromised," muttered the high executive, gripping tightly onto the railing. Whether he was speaking to Magan or to himself was unclear. "He didn't have to come to such an end. But these Surinas, they're all the same. Too full of pride, too nearsighted to see what's right in front of their noses. I tell you, it must be something in the curry." He leaned on the railing and peered out to the sea, but his attention was not on anything visible there. The British sloop began to pick up speed, causing the few remaining hairs on Borda's head to flap in the wind.

  Magan stood his ground, icy silent, and made no reply.

  "It was a choice I had to make!" yelled Len Borda suddenly, snapping his fingers and wheeling on his lieutenant executive. "What should I have done? Let Surina hand out teleportation to every man, woman, and child? Assassins zapping onto the floor of the Prime Committee! People teleporting into walls! Millions dead! Would you have that blood on your hands?" The high executive aimed one finger straight at Magan's chest. His voice was a thunderbolt, a primal and electric force of nature. "Consequences? Yes! There were consequences, Magan. Strong actions always have them. A new TeleCo board willing to listen to reason. A board smart enough to apply the appropriate safeguards. It was a necessary change. And if such a change required a-a market adjustment ... then ..."

  Len Borda slipped into a troubled silence, which Magan Kai Lee made no effort to fill. The high executive was not blind. He had seen the millions wandering the streets for years with nothing but worthless TeleCo stock to their name. He had seen teleportation technology crawl back into the marketplace a stunted and crippled thing, too expensive for the masses to afford, too unreliable for the moneyed to trust.

  And now Len Borda stood on the prow of his SeeNaRee ship, not just the most powerful man in the world, not just the master of the Council's invincible armies-but an old man with a fractured mind, a man who had sacrificed some crucial chunk of his mortality fifty years ago in a shuttle explosion on Furtoid.

  Short-term plans, long-term problems.

  Magan Kai Lee pressed his advantage. "You made a mistake," he said. "I can't allow you to make the same mistake again."

  The high executive's voice was a croak. "And what say do you have in the matter?"

  Magan steeled his spine and summoned all the repressed rage buried in his soul. "You gave me your word, Borda, and I intend to see that you keep it. You will announce your retirement from the Defense and Wellness Council in four days, and turn this crisis over to me. As we agreed two years ago." When I stood here in this office with a loaded gun pressed to the back of your neck. When I swore to you that I would not be stung by an assassin's dart like the other lieutenant executives before me. When you convinced me that it would be better to take your seat as a chosen successor and not a mutineer.

  "You don't have the experience to handle this," scoffed Borda quietly. "Marcus Surina-"

  "Marcus Surina was a buffoon. He hid behind his family name and his reputation with the drudges. But this man, this Natch-he has no family to lose. He has no reputation to uphold. This man will outthink and outplot your armies until the end, Borda. No, there is only one person capable of defeating Natch."

  "And who is that?"

  "Himself."

  Len Borda slumped perceptibly and turned back to the sea, looking old and careworn-but not before Magan caught the briefest shimmer in the high executive's eye.

  Magan felt a sudden nibble of doubt at his ankles. All his experience with Borda had taught him that the high executive was a creature of passion rather than forethought, a short-term planner. But why then did he occasionally see that knowing glimmer in Borda's eye? Was it just the nostalgia of the grizzled veteran watching the young protege come into his own? Or could it be that Borda's ardor was merely artifice? Was that how Borda had bested all his would-be supplanters over the years?

  The high executive stood for a long time without speaking. His ship had returned to calm seas, but the fog around them had only thickened. There was no sound but the soft, rhythmic lapping of oars on seawater, the distant cry of a gull.

  Finally, Borda spoke. "I would like to offer you a compromise."

  Magan said nothing.

  "New Year's Day is just a convenient symbol," continued Borda, his voice disarmingly matter-of-fact. "We chose that day to protect the markets, didn't we? To cushion the financial impact of the announcement. But the real financial impact won't come until the new year's budget goes into effect on the fifteenth of
January." The high executive stood up straight, brushed something off his collar. "So I'll give you two and a half weeks. Prove to me you can handle this crisis, Magan. Bring MultiReal under the Council's control by the fifteenth, and I will abide by our agreement."

  Magan could feel his mind whirling like a difference engine, calculating odds, extrapolating possibilities. "And how do I know I can trust your word this time?" How do I know I won't end up at the bottom of a river, like the last lieutenant executive who tried to bargain with you for succession?

  "What choice do you have?" said Borda.

  "Don't delude yourself," said Magan, his voice keen and deadly as a razor. "This decision isn't yours to make, not anymore. You don't think I'm the only one eager to plant a black code dart in your skull, do you? The only reason you sit in the high executive's chair to this day is because I allow it."

  For the first time in the conversation, Len Borda smiled. It was a horrid expression, the hungry grin of a carnivore. "Spare me the pity of Magan Kai Lee," mocked the high executive. "I don't need it."

  And then, without warning, the SeeNaRee dissolved away. Magan found himself standing no longer on an ancient British sloop-of-war, but in a modern office arranged with the strictest military discipline. Two tables, a smattering of chairs, windows with a view of the globe below. Standing in a semicircle around him were four Defense and Wellness Council officers who had been hidden in the virtual mist. Their dartguns were drawn and aimed at Magan. As the lieutenant executive regarded them with a cool eye, he felt the barrel of another dartgun press into the back of his neck.

  "I give you until the fifteenth of January to take possession of MultiReal," said Len Borda, his voice larded with triumph. "If you do, we have an agreement. If you don't ..." The officer behind Magan pressed the dartgun barrel deeper into his flesh.

  Magan kept his face neutral, determined to show no trace of emotion or hesitation. "You're not giving me anything, Borda. The Council will have control of MultiReal by the fifteenth, and you will relinquish the high executive's chair-one way or the other."

  He turned without being asked, and the officer with the dartgun at his neck turned with him. Magan strode calmly to the elevator. Four of the officers sheathed their weapons as he passed, but the one at his back never let the nozzle of the dartgun stray from Magan's skin, even as he accompanied the lieutenant executive onto the lift.

  When the doors closed and the elevator began its ascent to the main level, Magan fired off a secure Confidential Whisper to the man at his back. "Keep that dartgun right where it is until I'm off the elevator," he commanded. "Then send someone to find Papizon and Rey Gonerev. Tell them I need to see them."

  Ridgello nodded. "As you wish, Lieutenant Executive."

  5

  On the way back to the hoverbird docks, Magan took a detour to see the statue of Tul Jabbor. The atrium where the statue resided was the one place in DWCR whose location never changed. The statue itself was a small-scale replica of the one standing in the center of the epony- mously named Tul Jabbor Complex in Melbourne. A thick man with mahogany skin atop a tall pillar. No matter where you stood, some holographic trick caused Jabbor's gaze to always meet you head-onand left you constantly standing in his shadow. This was as unsubtle an architectural metaphor as Magan had ever seen.

  The founding father of the Defense and Wellness Council needed no caption, but bold block letters at his feet did pose a question.

  DO YOU ACT IN JUSTICE?

  The locution had always seemed peculiar to Magan. Acting in justice, not for or with justice. As if justice were merely a vehicle you might ride to a particular destination, and the terrain you trammeled to get there was nothing more than dirt under your wheels.

  Certainly Tul Jabbor had treated justice that way. He had dramatically expanded the Council's power by going after erstwhile supporters like the OCHRE Corporation; some even suspected he had signed Henry Osterman's death warrant. Then again, Jabbor had come to power in a world without precedents, a world simultaneously drunk with the possibilities of bio/logics and desperate to avoid repeating the horrors of the Autonomous Revolt.

  But Len Borda? Borda had two hundred years of Council history to guide him, with every manner of high executive from Par Padron the Just to Zetarysis the Mad as object lessons. He should have known better. Instead, Borda was ever willing to sacrifice principle for pragmatism, ever ready to steer justice down the muddy, unpaved path.

  And you? the lieutenant executive asked himself, kneeling in silence before the statue of Tul Jabbor. Are you forcing Borda to step down because he's made a mockery of Par Padron's ideals? Or are you just afraid to wake up at the bottom of a river?

  Magan Kai Lee was a man of reason and principle, or so he told himself. He had been drawn to the Defense and Wellness Council by its discipline, its rigidity, and its stability when compared to the life of the diss-or so he told himself. Now, after watching Len Borda use the Council as a blunt instrument of self-preservation for years, Magan was contemplating the ultimate move against the very discipline, rigidity, and stability that had brought him here in the first place. And that contradiction sat in his mind like a poisonous flower with everexpanding roots.

  But Magan couldn't allow Len Borda to repeat the mistakes he had made with Marcus Surina, could he? Wasn't there a higher principle at work here that needed defending?

  Do you act in justice?

  Papizon and Rey Gonerev caught up to him in the hallway, no simple feat in an orbital fortress whose constantly shifting corridors rendered geography meaningless.

  "We spotted Natch an hour ago," said Papizon as he moved into step behind Magan like a hoverbird merging into traffic. "He's on a tube train, headed north out of Cisco."

  The lieutenant executive ground his teeth together. "And you didn't think to look there before we raided his apartment?"

  Papizon shook his head. He was immune to criticism. In fact, he seemed to have been inoculated against most forms of human expres sion altogether. Sometimes Magan wondered if Papizon was really some sublevel engineer's attempt to circumvent the harsh Al bans in place since the Autonomous Revolt. If so, one couldn't have picked a more peculiar vessel: lanky, storkish, brown eyes not quite symmetrical and permanently half-lidded.

  Rey stepped up to Papizon's defense. "We did check there, Magan," she said. "We swept half the tube trains in the Americas yesterday. Natch was definitely not on that tube line."

  Magan gave the Blade an appraising look. She had pointedly not fallen half a step behind him like Papizon, but walked at his side like an equal. A message meant not so much for him as for the other Council officers in the hallway-the ones she would be jousting with someday when it was Magan's turn to step down from the high executive's seat.

  Papizon: "So are we going to try to pick him up again?"

  "No," said Magan, shaking his head. "Just keep an eye on him for now-and make sure he knows we're doing it. Make his life unpleasant."

  "Unpleasant," his subordinate echoed with a nod, then slipped down a side corridor and disappeared. Making Someone's Life Unpleasant had been honed to a science at the Defense and Wellness Council, and Papizon was a true authority on the subject. Unpleasantness meant snooping programs that left clear traces of their presence. It meant ghostly figures that followed you on the periphery of your vision. It meant a few unexplained transactions in your Vault account, too small to be of consequence yet too large to go unnoticed.

  "And me?" said the Blade.

  "You," replied Magan, "will be planning the main attack on this fiefcorp master. I don't care how much you spend-you have the coffers of the Defense and Wellness Council at your disposal. We need unprecedented coordination. Propaganda, logistics, regulatory, personnel, finance. This man has weaknesses, Rey. I want to know what they are, and I want your plan for exploiting them."

  Gonerev nodded sagely with the look of someone taking notes in her mental log. "What about Margaret Surina?"

  "Let her rot in her tower f
or now."

  "And our time frame?"

  "Two and a half weeks. MultiReal must be in our hands when the new year's budget goes into effect."

  The Blade didn't blanch at the urgent timetable; if anything, she seemed to relish the challenge. Magan thought briefly about the day when he would find himself with Rey Gonerev's dartgun pressed into the back of his neck. That day would surely come, but it was still decades in the future. Would he go quietly? Or would he cling to power far beyond his time, resisting oblivion with every last breath in his body, like Len Borda? And if he resisted, how far would she be prepared to go to take him down?

  2

  THE NOTHINGNESS

  AT THE CENTER

  OF THE UNIVERSE

  6

  Geronimo: twenty-two years old, heterosexual, Caucasian, xpression board player for the Dregs of Nitro. A self-styled dissident, a philosopher, a poet, a lover. Or so his profile on the Sigh network claimed.

  Jara wondered who he really was.

  In the more prosaic world offline, the sullen man across the room wearing the CALL ME GERONIMO T-shirt might really be a diplomat or a black code junkie or a fugitive from the law. There was no way to tell for sure. Some sociologist had recently published a formula that purported to describe the ratio of truth to falsehood in Sigh profiles. Jara couldn't make heads or tails of it, but apparently the formula had something to do with Fibonacci numbers.

  "Geronimo" spotted her and threw her a look. Jara could feel the incandescent knife of lust twisting in her abdomen. He rose from the purple couch and began strutting toward her through the crowd.

  From a distance, the resemblance was uncanny. Average height, hair sandy and slightly tousled, physique trim yet not quite muscular. Eyes a vivid sapphire blue. If only science could provide a way for Jara to have him at a distance before he opened his mouth.

  "Perfection," said Geronimo as he approached, in that incongruous half-lisp of his. "How you doin', Cassandra?" Of course, Jara didn't use her real name here on the Sigh; few people did. But at least she projected her own pixyish body onto the network instead of some idealized substitute, which was more than most could say.