Multireal

by David Louis Edelman

  The flush in Jara's skin quickly turned to nausea. Police intimidation: it was a ritual as old as time, invented by the ancients with their primitive firearms and consecrated in a million crime dramas ever since. Jara felt like she could recite every line before it was uttered, but the familiarity did not stop her knees from shaking.

  She didn't even hear what nefarious deeds the last few were up to. "Why are you showing me this?" she said quietly when the Council solicitor had finished her little presentation. "Am I supposed to be scared that you're following Natch around? Don't you think he already knows that?"

  Magan gave the row of officers an almost imperceptible nod. One by one, the team disintegrated into the multivoid until just four members of the Council remained-Papizon, Ridgello, Rey Gonerev, and Magan Kai Lee.

  "I'm showing you this to deliver a message," said Magan. His demeanor was almost polite, his hands folded on the table like an ordinary plebeian at teatime. "MultiReal is the Defense and Wellness Council's top priority. As long as Natch refuses to cooperate with us, the Surina/Natch MultiReal Fiefcorp is my top priority."

  "I don't understand why you're hassling us," Jara said, pinching her temples in an effort to stanch the ache. "You want access to MultiReal? Go talk to Frederic and Petrucio Patel. I'm sure they'd be happy to sell you all the access you need."

  Magan shook his head. "You know that the Patel Brothers are only licensees, Jara. Limited access. I suppose we could learn a lot from someone with master engineering privileges, like your friend Horvil. But what good would that do when Natch could lock us out of the program without notice? No, I'm afraid only Natch and Margaret Surina can give us what we need."

  "Listen, I don't know who you think you're dealing with, but Natch is more than capable of st-"

  "No," said Magan, cutting her off without raising his voice. "Don't be naive. Your fiefcorp master is canny and resourceful-I'll give him that. He caught us off guard the other day. But there are only seven of you. The Defense and Wellness Council has millions of officers at our beck and call. We have unlimited resources. We will bury Natch. "

  "And those foolish enough to stand with him," added Gonerev. Unlike Magan, she appeared to be enjoying herself.

  Again the slight disapproving grimace from the lieutenant executive. "Len Borda's agents are tailing Natch day and night," he said. "We are exploring every transaction your fiefcorp has ever done, every piece of code you've ever launched onto the Data Sea. This MultiReal exposition you are so diligently preparing for will not happen."

  The analyst slouched down in her chair, wishing she could slip between the cracks and disappear unnoticed. After everything Magan had revealed, why should it be a surprise that the Council knew about the MultiReal exposition? But it hadn't even been twenty-four hours since Natch came up with the idea, and as far as Jara knew, nobody had said a word about it to anyone outside the fiefcorp yet.

  Jara looked to the steaming mugs on the table for relief. The drizzle had found its way under the awning to the side of her face, but it hadn't done much damage to the nitro yet. She reached for the closer mug and took a quick gulp, hoping that her beverage wasn't poisoned. They ordered my nitro just the way I like it, Jara thought with a shudder. Extra dark, extra bitters.

  The Blade came close and crouched down until she was almost whispering in Jara's ear. Jara could have gotten lost in those long braids of ebony hair. "You don't think Natch is the only one Papizon and Ridgello are following, do you?" said Gonerev.

  Commander Papizon merely stood there, squinting at the rain. Ridgello might have been a carven effigy.

  She knew from watching the dramas that this was the point when she was supposed to crack. But somehow the thought of Council goons tailing her on the street helped Jara rally her courage. "This little act of yours is getting old," snapped the analyst. "If you were really so confident you could bury Natch, you wouldn't be sitting here playing these little games. You'd just go ahead and do it."

  Again the insignificant raising of the lips on Magan's face. "And if you were so confident in Natch, you wouldn't be sitting here listening to us."

  Jara said nothing. Rey Gonerev retreated to stand beside Papizon, her task done.

  Magan rose from his seat and turned in profile to face the advancing clouds. Jara knew that even a lieutenant executive of the Defense and Wellness Council was not exempt from the dictates of the weather, but he seemed strangely untouched by the rain.

  "What do you want from me?" asked Jara.

  "I've studied your record very carefully," said the Council lieutenant. "I've seen the people you've worked for over the years; I've seen the quality and integrity of your work. You can't possibly be pleased with the direction Natch is steering this fiefcorp. Dirty tricks, sabotage, rumor, innuendo-this isn't you, Jara. I know what you really want: you want out of this miserable apprenticeship. You want to wipe the slate clean and strike out on your own.

  "The Defense and Wellness Council can give you this.

  "Do we want something from you in return? Of course. We want your cooperation. The more cooperation we get from you, the fewer public resources we have to waste, the quicker we can move on, and the easier it will be for Natch."

  Magan turned and focused the full intensity of his glare on the fiefcorp analyst. It was not an unkind look, but rather a look full of hidden trapdoors and secret caches of information. In many ways, Lieutenant Executive Lee was Natch's antithesis: a man of hyperrationality, a man who scrupulously choreographed everything that happened in his presence.

  "Jara, I can compensate you for any shares you lose. Not only that, but I can set you up with your own company. A proper company, one run in accordance with the laws of the Meme Cooperative. A company that can earn the number one slot on Primo's honestly, through hard work.

  "Natch won't survive this, Jara. You can't change that. What you can change is whether you go down with him."

  With that, Lieutenant Executive Magan Kai Lee gave a bow and strode off into the fog. He seemed small enough to be swept away by the rainstorm. Rey Gonerev, Ridgello, and Papizon followed seconds later, leaving Jara sitting alone in the courtyard with a mug of tepid nitro. It was only after several minutes of doleful reflection that Jara realized Magan had not actually asked her to do ... anything.

  9

  Soccer was mainly an indoor sport in the Mid-Atlantic, especially during the wintertime. The regional L-PRACGs had a longstanding deal with the Environmental Control Board to accept the bulk of the season's snowfall in exchange for mild spring rains, and none of the politicians were willing to jeopardize that just to play soccer outdoors.

  Still, finding an indoor field to use for practice and demonstration was more difficult than Natch had anticipated. The eastern seaboard was awash in soccer stadiums large and small and all sizes in between, but few of them had a secure MindSpace workbench on the premises. As luck would have it, Natch found one a short tube ride away in Harper. He strode on to the field with Quell, Horvil, and Benyamin close behind. Then he stood for a moment in the center of the field, hearing the roar of a crowd that was still nine days in the future. Excited fans, stupefied drudges, indignant Patels: he could hear them all.

  Quell, meanwhile, was busy removing the tight metal collar from around his neck, which Natch supposed was only prudent for a game of soccer. He wondered if he should keep an eye out for any Council officers who might cite the Islander for failing to wear the uncomfortable contraption while in connectible territory. But Quell seemed unconcerned. He pinned a small, coin-shaped device to his lapel. Natch remembered seeing the device once before-a functional replacement for the connectible collar, almost certainly illegal. Natch shrugged. They were all here in the flesh this morning, so there were no multi projections for the Islander to miss. Besides, why should Natch care if Quell chose to skirt stupid laws?

  The Islander grabbed a ball from the cart and crouched in front of the Harper Bulldogs' net like a professional goalie. "Okay, Benyamin," he said. "Since
you got the short end of the stick last time we tried this, I'll let you be on the winning side." He tossed the ball underhanded at the younger apprentice, who had positioned himself for a penalty kick. "Possibilities loaded up?"

  "Yeah," said Ben, a wicked gleam in his eye. "All ready to go."

  "Then let's see what you've got."

  The two fiefcorpers squared off for a moment. Ben spun the ball in his hands like a gyroscope while Quell gave him a fierce stare. Then suddenly, Benyamin let the black-and-white sphere drop and lashed out with his right foot. The ball rocketed through Quell's arms and hit the net with a solid whuff.

  "Good shot!" shouted Horvil from a bench on the sidelines.

  Quell, undeterred, flipped his long pale ponytail over one shoulder and tossed the ball back onto the field.

  Natch stood at midfield watching like a dispassionate referee as Benyamin nailed shot after shot through the Islander's hands. Inept kicks, clumsy kicks, sophomoric head butts, all sailed effortlessly into the goal despite Quell's best efforts. Ben flushed with satisfaction. The Islander seemed to be enjoying himself too, in spite of the humiliation.

  After a dozen such plays, the Islander finally tucked the ball in the crook of his elbow and stepped out from the net. "So that's pretty much the same demonstration we did before," said Quell. "A collaborative MultiReal process. Benyamin activates the Possibilities program, and we keep replaying the scene over and over again in our heads until Ben finds a scenario that's acceptable. He closes the choice cycle, outputs that `reality' to his motor system, and it happens." Quell touched a massive finger to his temple. "The alternate memories up here get erased instantly, and the guy who isn't using MultiReal-in this case, me-never even realizes what's happening. Now here's where things start getting interesting."

  The Islander threw the globe back to Benyamin. Ben palmed the soccer ball in his hands and prepared to score yet another goal. He pulled back his foot, let the ball slip through his fingers-

  And then both Quell and Benyamin slumped to the ground, exhausted. Ben barely had the strength to keep his head from slamming into the grass. Meanwhile, the ball rebounded off Ben's shin and went rolling toward the sidelines.

  "What happened?" said Natch.

  "That time," said Quell, panting, "we were both using MultiReal."

  Horvil's eyes did a full clockwise circuit as he sifted through the data points. "Okay, so you've got two MultiReal users working at crosspurposes," he said. "Benyamin keeps creating scenarios where he scores a goal. But as soon as he does, Quell takes that scenario and runs it over and over again until he blocks the kick. You get ..." The engineer's jaw rocked back and forth in confusion as he tried to reconcile the equations in his head with the bizarre performance he had just witnessed.

  "You get exhaustion," moaned Ben, still sprawled on the field trying to catch his breath.

  "They're at an impasse," said Natch. "An infinite loop, until someone gives up ... or his OCHREs run out."

  Horvil pulled his cousin to his feet and gave him a vigorous thwack between the shoulder blades. "Eh, you'll be okay," said the engineer. "Ready to take on the Harper Bulldogs in no time. So what did it feel like?"

  Benyamin bobbled his head and cracked his neck. Horvil's goodnatured clap on the back actually seemed to have helped him recover his equilibrium. "Pretty much like you'd expect. Just the same thing over and over. And over and over and over ..."

  "How many times?" said Natch.

  "I dunno. You lose track. Felt like hundreds, maybe even thousands. It's like an enormous grid that you scroll through in your head, but you have to expend this tiny bit of effort for every move. Doesn't seem that bad at first, but it adds up. I couldn't take it anymore. Finally just gave up and cut the whole process off."

  Quell did not bother to pick himself up off the grass, but simply lay there with his head propped up on one elbow. He had to be packing at least twice as much mass as Ben, and yet he seemed just as winded. "So here's our challenge," he said. "You've seen two instances of MultiReal running at the same time. But at our exposition, we're going to have twenty-three."

  Horvil's head slumped to his chest. "Oooh," he moaned.

  Natch stood with his arms folded. "Don't tell me that it never occurred to Margaret in the last sixteen years that something like this might happen."

  "Of course it occurred to her," replied Quell calmly.

  "And it's been tested?"

  "Sure, it's been tested ... just not with twenty-three people at the same time. Listen, Natch, don't get ahead of yourself. Let me show you the next demo. Horvil, take your programming bars over to the workbench, go pull up the common tools library...." A long and tortured series of mathematical formulas sprayed from his lips. Horvil soaked it all up, nodded, then dashed through a door in the stands to find the bio/logic workbench.

  Natch paced slowly up and down the sidelines, kicking at the grass with one foot as they waited for Horvil to complete the program modifications. He had been in possession of MultiReal for a month now, and yet he still knew so little about it. The most powerful work of bio/logics ever created, the pinnacle achievement of the Surinas. But there were still basic concepts about MultiReal he did not understand and simple questions he could not answer. Even Horvil had knowledge gaps large enough to pilot an OrbiCo space freighter through. Natch silently cursed Len Borda and Magan Kai Lee for keeping him on the defensive for the past few weeks, for keeping him on the run and away from MindSpace.

  Ten minutes later, the engineer emerged from the bowels of the stadium brandishing his programming bar satchel like a trophy.

  Quell arose and brushed himself off, then reached for the soccer ball that had rolled to a stop near his feet. "Again," he said, tossing the ball Benyamin's way.

  The young apprentice did a few quick stretches, trying to psyche himself up, unsure whether to be prepared for victory or defeat. He wound up for the kick-

  And found each kick thwarted by Quell's goaltending, time and time again.

  "Something's ... strange," said Ben, finally conceding defeat. "I'm using MultiReal, just like before-but it just stops at some point. It leaves me hanging there in midloop."

  "Limited choice cycles!" cried Horvil, rushing onto the field before Quell could utter a single syllable. "I think I get this now. We put a limit on the number of reality loops Ben can do at one time-but your version of MultiReal still has no limits."

  The Islander nodded. He strolled back to the cart with the ball clutched in one palm like another man might clutch an apple, then deposited it gently on the top of the stack. Apparently the demonstration was over.

  "So why would anyone buy a MultiReal program with limited choice cycles?" complained Benyamin. "It's useless. If someone else can always trump you-"

  "Not always," interrupted Horvil. "The other guy would only win if he's got MultiReal activated too-and if he's not running a limited version like yours. I suppose if you're both running limited versions, the person with the most choice cycles wins."

  Natch made his way to the bleachers and gripped the cold metal railing with trembling fists. One of his last conversations with Margaret began to unroll in his mind, and for a moment he felt like he was back in Andra Pradesh watching the bodhisattva prepare for one of her dull presentations.

  It had been an offhanded statement of Margaret's: Frederic and Petrucio have a limited license. They can release MultiReal products, but they will be subordinate to yours.

  Natch, puzzled: Subordinate how?

  The Patel products will have a limited number of choice cycles, Margaret had explained, whereas yours will be infinite.

  He had nearly forgotten about that snippet of dialogue, given that it had taken place during an argument about how the bodhisattva had lied to him. Only now did he understand what had transpired there. Natch seethed. This was good news, to be sure-but how many more of these moments would he have to endure? How many elements of this MultiReal affair would become clear only weeks or months after the fact?r />
  "So that's how Margaret decided to resolve conflicts among the MultiReal licensees," he said.

  "Margaret explored a lot of different ways to deal with these conflicts," said Quell. "She spent years, but never came to any definite conclusions." The Islander walked to the sidelines and found a seat on the bench normally reserved for the visiting team. "Actually, that's not quite the right way to put it. Margaret came to the conclusion that she shouldn't come to any definite conclusions."

  Ben frowned. "What does that mean?"

  "That means she wanted to keep the options open. Give the owners and licensees every possible scenario, and let them sort it out for themselves. Margaret thought there might be different flavors of MultiReal available from different resellers. Maybe each company would come up with its own a la carte pricing. So she built every possible solution she could think of into the program and made it easy for an engineer to flip them on and off." The Islander threw one arm over the shoulder of the chief engineer, who had just planted his sizable ass on the bench. "Horvil's already demonstrated how easy it is to select the options. The hard part is deciding which ones to choose."

  The engineer sat pensively, not speaking for a moment. "This exposition is going to be a nightmare unless we make some decisions before those lottery winners hit the field," he put in finally.

  "Then why aren't we consulting Margaret?" asked Ben, ever ready to pin words on the silent questions in everyone else's mind. "She already knows all the pros and cons. She's been working on this for sixteen years. Why don't we ask her for advice?"