Part 7 (1/2)
”It's been an interesting twenty-four hours,” she allowed at last. ”Did you have a chance to work on the file I sent you?”
”Since your call, I have worked on nothing else, Sharon,” he told her. She felt a twinge of guilt at that.
Any time he spent helping her was an hour he couldn't devote to his beloved cars, but this was important.
”Did you learn anything?”
Agarwal nodded. ”First of all, I conclude that something very important, and very unusual-unheard of, I might say-has been happening in the corporate culture. For one thing, the activity on the stock exchange has been . . . abnormal, to say the least. Over the last two days, perhaps more, there has been a great deal of reshuffling of corporate affiliations. Megacorporations have been attempting hostile takeovers of smaller corps that had been, until now, considered off-limits because of their a.s.sociations with other megacorps. Do you understand the significance of that?”
After a moment's thought, Sly had to shake her head. ”Not really,” she admitted. ”Economics isn't my strong suit.”
He sighed. ”Economics is everything in this world, Sharon, you should know that.” He paused for a moment, re-ordering his thoughts. ”All the major corporations walk something of a tightrope when it comes to compet.i.tion. Each megacorp is competing with every other corp for market share, for money it can extract from the market. Since the market is, in most sectors, mature, that means that we have a zero-sum game. Any gain by one corporation is a loss for a compet.i.tor, or compet.i.tors. Thus, success comes to the corporation that can compete best.
”Unfortunately, there is a downside to, shall we say, overzealous compet.i.tion. If one zaibatsu were to openly war on another, the aggressor might improve its market share considerably. But the chaos such major conflict would cause in the financial markets and elsewhere would mean that the potential market was reduced. As an a.n.a.logy, the aggressor corporation might get a bigger slice of the pie, but the pie would be made smaller by the disruption. On an absolute level, the aggressor's revenue would be diminished.
”That's why the megacorporations play by the rules of the Corporate Court and by the unwritten laws that all successful executives understand instinctively.”
”But corps do pull raids on each other,” Sly pointed out. ”Frag, Agarwal, you did enough of them.”
Agarwal chuckled. ”So true,” he agreed. ”But the shadowruns that one corp commissions against another are small matters.” He waved his hand airily, indicating the building around him. ”Oh, not for the likes of me or you. But for a zaibatsu with annual revenue in the trillions of nuyen, our efforts are no more than a pinp.r.i.c.k to a dragon.”
Sly digested that in silence for a moment. ”Those 'unwritten laws' you're talking about,” she said finally, ”they're being broken? That's why those takeovers are important?”
”Exactly. Something has happened to spur the megacorps into more direct compet.i.tion. There are even reflections of this on the street. Have you noticed an increased presence of corporate security forces in the metroplex?”
”Not really,” she said. ”I guess my mind's been on other things.”
”Yes, quite. And very understandable. My searches through the databases show that there are many people looking for you. my friend. Denizens of the shadows, informants, street ops, and the a.s.sets of several corporations.”
That shook Sly. ”Several?” she blurted. ”Not just Yamatetsu?”
Agarwal's face grew serious. ”Several,” he repeated. ”Granted, Yamatetsu seems at the forefront, but there are others. Aztechnology, Mitsuhama, Renraku, DPE, plus other smaller players. All are interested in learning your whereabouts.” An edge of concern came into his voice. ”I trust you are taking adequate precautions?”
She nodded distractedly. ”I'm taking care of myself.”
She paused for thought. ”What's going down, Agarwal?”
”It seems like the prelude to a corp war,” Agarwal intoned grimly, ”an all-out corp war. Though I pray not, for the concept terrifies me.”
”What's that got to do with me?”
”I could say, a lot, as it will affect everyone in Seattle. But I understand your meaning. My guess would be that one of the corporations-perhaps Yamatetsu, perhaps one of the others-has lost something. Something of immense value, not only to them but to all the other corporations in Seattle. Of so much value that they're willing to risk corporate war to get it for themselves.
”Further, I would suspect that the corporations have somehow decided that you have what they seek or know where it can be found.” His voice was suddenly impersonal, totally noncommittal. ”Would you have any idea about that, Sharon?”
Involuntarily, Sly shot a glance at the sophisticated computer sitting on Agarwal's desk-the machine he'd have been using to decrypt the file she'd sent him. He saw the movement of her eyes, nodded gently to himself.
”Did you crack the encryption?” Sly was disgusted to hear a faint quiver in her voice.
”Have you kept current on the mathematical theories of data encryption?” Agarwal asked elliptically. ”Some,” she answered.
”Then you understand public key encryption?”
”A little. Enough to get by. That's what was used on the file?”
”In part. There are multiple levels, which leads me to believe that the file is something highly significant. The primary level of encryption uses the Milton paradigm and a seventy-five-bit key.”
Sly pursed her lips, whistled soundlessly. ”How fast's your computer?”
”On the close order of five hundred teraflops.”
Five hundred teraflops. Five hundred trillion floatingpoint operations per second. A very fast machine. She closed her eyes, ran through the math in her mind. Then she cursed under her breath. ”It's unbreakable, then,” she p.r.o.nounced. ”Even at five hundred teraflops, that machine's going to have to chew on it for a thousand years before it can break the code.”
”Closer to fifteen thousand years,” Agarwal corrected gently. ”If I use simple brute-force computation. Are you aware of Eiji's research into recursive series?”
She shook her head, then said quickly, ”Don't bother to explain it to me. Just cut to the chase.”
He bowed his head with a smile. ”As you wish. Eiji developed techniques that can be applied to public key encryption, and yield certain . . . short cuts.”
”You can break it, then?”
”I believe so. It will take time-a day, maybe more- but significantly less than fifteen thousand years.”
”And the other levels of encryption?”
He shrugged. ”I doubt they would be anywhere near as complex as the primary level.”
She nodded. A day, maybe a couple of days . . .
”What will you do in the interim?” he asked, echoing her own thoughts.
”Pull a fade,” she answered immediately. ”Keep my head down and wait.” She paused. ”Maybe do some digging on Yamatetsu, find out if there's anything in the Matrix ...” She saw his eyes widen in alarm, quickly rea.s.sured him. ”I wouldn't ask you to do that, Agarwal, you know that. I'll find somebody else.”
The tension melted from his face. ”Yes,” he said quietly, ”yes, of course. Forgive my reaction, but ...”
”Nothing to forgive,” she told him. ”Remember who you're talking to.”
He sighed. ”Of course. I ... of course.”
”Do you have the time to work on it now?”
Her friend nodded. ”I've already put aside all my other projects. There will be no distractions.”
”About payment ...”
He raised a hand to stop her. ”If we are seeing the prelude to a corp war, averting it would be payment enough.”