Part 11 (1/2)

Stair after stair disappeared behind them. Banners and ceremonial plaques and eclectic sculptures marched by. Natch a.s.sumed there had to be an elevator somewhere along the way; not even bio/logical y enhanced legs could be expected to climb half a kilometer of stairs unaided.

It wasn't aching muscles that caused him to stop for a breather ten minutes later but the glacial cold permeating the soles of his feet. Natch supposed he should be grateful that the magic of modern architecture kept the Spire from turning into a giant wind tunnel. He scowled, not feeling grateful for anything today. ”How do you stand the cold?” Natch complained.

”You get used to it,” grunted Quel in response.

The fiefcorp master reached out to the Data Sea and located a program cal ed NumbSoles 85. The program was prefaced with a lengthy warning about the dangers of nerve-enhancing software, which Natch ignored. He quickly revved up the bio/logic code until he could sense his toes again, and the two pressed on.

Final y, some ten stories up, Natch and Quel found themselves standing in front of a bank of elevators. Translucent shafts extended from the top of the elevators into the distance like the pipes of some ma.s.sive organ. Natch couldn't begin to guess which one led to the Spire's summit, and the troops stationed nearby weren't volunteering any information. Quel strutted into the third elevator from the left without hesitation. Natch fol owed.

The ride up was a fifteen-minute exercise in tedium. After the first couple dozen floors, the building's architects had abandoned any pretext of utility; the upper levels of the Spire were al but empty, except for the occasional platform of troops aiming heavy weaponry out the windows.

Just when the monotony was growing unbearable, a sixth sense prompted Natch to look up. He saw a large gray ma.s.s approaching through the elevator's gla.s.s ceiling, a ma.s.s that could only be the underside of the Spire's top floor.

Carved on that surface was an enormous basrelief sculpture showing an emaciated figure with impossibly long fingers clawing at the elevator shaft.

Natch took in the supercilious stare and the hawkish nose, and realized that this was Sheldon Surina. THERE IS NO PROBLEM THAT CANNOT BE SOLVED BY SCIENTIFIC INNOVATION, read the inscription beneath him. Natch s.h.i.+vered as the elevator capsule slid between the talons of the father of bio/logics and came to a stop.

The door opened. Natch, overwhelmed, let out a gasp.

An enormous observation deck with s.p.a.ce for perhaps sixty or seventy people. Sofas and divans spread languorously about the room. Several original Topes in al their psychedelic glory; the armless and legless torso that was the last remaining piece of the Venus de Milo perched precariously on a display table. Wal s and ceiling made completely from flexible gla.s.s, giving the impression that the room floated in the clouds.

”Is he gone?” came a timorous voice from the other side of the room. ”Is it safe?”

Margaret Surina.

Natch replayed their last encounter in his mind. It had been a month ago, shortly after the first infoquake and shortly before his runin with the blackrobed a.s.sailants. He remembered the bodhisattva of Creed Surina as a nondescript woman with raven-black hair and fierce blue eyes.

A bio/logic scion struggling to maintain her grace under pressure. But nowNow Margaret, inventor of MultiReal and heir to the Surina fortune, huddled in a cavernous chair with a dart-rifle in her trembling hands. The gray that had been making slow inroads on her hair had become the dominant color. Her preternatural y large eyes loomed even larger through black rings of sleeplessness that tested the limits of OCHRE technology.

”Is who gone?” said Quel gently, threading his way across the room toward the bodhisattva.

Margaret double-checked that her rifle was c.o.c.ked and loaded. ”Gorda,” came her hoa.r.s.e reply.

The fiefcorp master exploded. He could barely restrain himself from kicking a meticulously crafted vase that might have been ancient even in the days of the Autonomous Revolt. ”Is he gone?” shouted Natch. ”Len Borda's been gone for a f.u.c.king month, Margaret. If you would answer my messages, you'd know that. While you've been sitting up here doing nothing, we've been putting on demos and planning expositions and trying to appease everyone who's expecting a ful y functioning product next week.” He gestured wildly out the window at the somnambulant clouds. Their indolence seemed like part of a conspiracy against him. ”Of course, it's not going to be a ful y functioning product, is it?

No. Because I've been dodging the Defense and Wel ness Council for the past four weeks, and you've been up here, refusing to help us.”

Quel reached Margaret's side and slowly untwined the bodhisattva's fingers from the rifle.

The gun slipped to the floor and made a m.u.f.fled thump on the Persian rug. ”Are you okay?” he said in a low voice.

Margaret twitched her nose and blinked in confusion, as if she had been unaware of the Islander's presence until that exact moment. ”Is it-is he-is everything okay?” she said, desperation mounting with every syl able. ”Why did you come back? Tel me everything's fine. Please, Quel . Tel me he's okay.”

The Islander clasped one of her hands between his gargantuan paws. Natch had never imagined that Quel was storing such tenderness inside that bricklike exterior. Once again, the fiefcorp master found himself wondering exactly what kind of relations.h.i.+p the Islander and the bodhisattva had shared for al those years. ”Everything's fine,” said Quel . ”Everything's okay.”

”You're-you're sure?”

”Yes.” A pause. ”Margaret ... have Jayze and Suheil been up here?”

Margaret gave a hesitant nod. ”Yes, they're-they're helping out. Just for a bit, until things ... calm down.”

Quel fired a murderous look out the window at the Indian sky, and Natch was very glad he wasn't Jayze or Suheil Surina at that moment.

But Natch had enough to worry about without getting ensnared in Surina family politics.

A half-operational product, the high executive on his back, renegade MultiReal code in his head. He could spare no pity for this cowering shel of a woman. Natch marched across the room and grabbed a straightbacked chair. Then he dragged it in front of the bodhisattva and sat down. Quel shot him a look of disapproval, but Natch would not be deterred. He stared intently into Margaret's face. ”I need some answers,” he rasped.

Lucidity sparked in Margaret's face. ”Natch,” she replied evenly. ”You're stil -Borda hasn't taken control of MultiReal, has he?”

”No, of course not.”

”He's going to put pressure on you. You know that, Natch, right?” Margaret's words were slow, methodical, as if she were struggling to remember how to use them. ”He'l do to you what he did to my father. Or worse. Borda, he's on some kind of crusade against my family and everything we've touched ...

But Natch, you need to know this-he can't take MultiReal away from you. He can't. I've made sure of that.”

Natch grabbed hold of himself, realizing that he was dangerously close to the point where rage overcomes reason. He switched on Soothelt 121.5 and waited a few seconds for the mild sedative to buff over his rough nerve endings. ”I'm not afraid of Len Borda,” he said. ”I can handle him. But I need to know why there's MultiReal code in my head, Margaret. I need to know what you did to me. ”

”That's what I'm trying to tel you.” Margaret's hands were waving in the air in ever-widening circles. Quel watched those hands like a bird guarding its chick, ready to lash out the instant she got too close to the rifle on the floor. ”MultiReal is becoming a part of you. You're not just its owner anymore, Natchyou're the guardian and the keeper.”

”What the f.u.c.k are you talking about?”

The Islander clasped both of the bodhisattva's hands to his own. ”You're afraid of something, Margaret. What is it?”

Margaret col apsed in on herself, despondent. ”The nothingness at the center of the universe,” she muttered. ”The decisions I need to make. I-I'm afraid to make them.”

The entrepreneur shot up and began pacing in tight concentric circles of his own, around the chair he had dragged across the room. Quel let go of her hands and made his way to the nearest window, where he glared at the outside world with scarcely concealed contempt. Every few seconds, he would turn back in Margaret's direction to make sure she hadn't picked up the rifle again.

”Listen,” said Natch to the bodhisattva. ”Let me explain something to you. I can't have mystery code hiding in MultiReal. If the program's interacting with something in my head, I need to know that. This is a scientific discipline, Margaret-we need to have the ground rules. You can't expect my engineers to ignore al these questions.”

”But you'l have answers. You'l have access to al the answers, when you need them.”

”What answers?”

Margaret's eyes were whirlpools spiraling down to an immeasurable depth. ”Answers to help you make the crucial decisions.”

Natch found a velvet couch nearby and folded himself into its welcoming embrace. Quel was right; this entire trip was a pointless exer cise. Perhaps Serr Vigal could sift through Margaret's gibberish, if indeed there were any nuggets of sanity left to be panned from that muddy psyche, but Natch could make no sense of it. He resolved to simply col ect her words and keep them handy for later a.n.a.lysis.

As for Quel , he seemed to have abandoned the mission of discovery he had undertaken the other day. His eyes were tinged with a peculiar mixture of concern, compa.s.sion, and incandescent rage. He retreated back to the bodhisattva's chair and sat on its arm. Margaret immediately col apsed against him like a mannequin.

But the bodhisattva had not finished her rambling. There was a struggle going on behind her eyes, a final wrenching effort at clarity. ”Listen to me, Natch,” she said. ”You stil have options. Don't let them tel you otherwise. The Council, your fiefcorp, anybody. MultiReal is yours now, Natch.

”I was foolish to have held on to it for so long. I am not my father. I'm not strong enough to make these decisions. But you ...