Part 22 (1/2)
”If the Council doesn't release Quel soon, you know exactly what's going to happen,” said the Islander. ”You know how Josiah is.”
Natch had no idea who Josiah was or what he was threatening, but this insiders'
conversation was growing tiresome. ”You're both missing something obvious,” he said with a scowl. Heads swiveled around, as if the politicians had forgotten al about him. ”Why would the Council want to conduct another raid? They put Jara in this position. Magan Kai Lee did, at least. If he plays his cards right, Jara wil just hand it over to him.”
”How do you know?” asked one of the L-PRACG representatives. ”What if-”
”What if what?” Natch barked. ”Jara doesn't want the responsibility. She doesn't want MultiReal, and the Council knows that. Don't you understand?
Lee and Borda are going to convince her that it's in her best interest to work with them.
They'l grease the way so that giving the databases over is the easiest and most logical thing for her to do. She's very easy to manipulate.”
”But can't you prevent that?” said a Lunar tyc.o.o.n. ”Just use MultiReal against her. She won't be able to hand the program over.”
Natch flung a withering look in the tyc.o.o.n's direction. ”That's the stupidest idea I've ever heard. What if Jara's using MultiReal too? Besides-just because I can stop her from giving it away once doesn't mean I can stop her from trying again. Do you want me to stand guard over her for the rest of my life?” He remembered his mental tug-of-war with Khann Frejohr out on the balcony. The thought of another protracted neural battle so soon after the last one made his knees weak. ”Listen, this thing isn't hypnotism. It's not magic. You can't just use MultiReal to permanently change someone's mind. If that was the case, don't you think I would've used it on Len Borda already? Don't you think I would have ... have ...” The sentence wandered off, seemingly of its own volition.
The conversation lost its momentum at that point, leaving the libertarians to stare gloomily at the Tope paintings on the windows. Natch felt an irrational urge to just abandon them there and sneak out the front door. No, it's too late for that, he told himself. Get ahold of yourself. You set this up, and now you need to see it through.
Frejohr spoke. ”Then I think it's clear what needs to be done,” he said, his voice muscular with purpose. The speaker crossed his arms in front of his chest. ”If it's inevitable that Jara's going to hand MultiReal over to the Council, we need to do it first.”
Everyone gaped at the speaker, Natch included. ”Have you gone completely offline?”
sputtered the bodhisattva of Creed Libertas.
Khann Frejohr appeared to be enjoying the surprise in his col eagues' faces, and Natch recognized the glee of a fel ow showman in midperformance.
”This is what it al comes down to, isn't it?” he said. ”This is what it's always come down to, since the beginning. You stil have access to the MultiReal code, don't you, Natch?”
”Of course I do. She said ... she said it couldn't be taken away from me.”
”Jara said that?” asked the labor leader, perplexed.
”No, not Jara. Margaret. ” Nach felt his emotions rear up at the thought of the bodhisattva, at the thought of the MultiReal code inside his head and the crisis she had brought upon him. He closed his eyes for a moment, temporarily overwhelmed, and tried to mold his emotions into sentences. ”She said I was the guardian and the keeper. It can't be taken away. The nothingness at the center of the universe. Why don't you understand?”
He opened his eyes and saw the labor leader swal ow and sit back, obviously understanding nothing.
Frejohr was unmoved. ”We need to let Len Borda have MultiReal. Let Magan Kai Lee have MultiReal. Let the creeds have it, the fiefcorps, the drudges, the Meme Cooperative.” The speaker stretched his arm out to the balcony, which was facing the snow-engulfed eastern courtyard at the moment. ”Release the code and the specs onto the Data Sea, Natch. Everything. Give everyone in the world access.”
The room was starting to spin, and Natch could feel himself sliding down into the mental quicksand once more. No, not now, not now! He gave himself a bio/logic boost of adrenaline and a.s.saulted the nothingness until it released its grip on him. His eyes shot open, and he noticed that the L-PRACG politicians who were standing nearby had quietly scooted farther away. ”Let me get this straight. You're tel ing me I should take the most revolutionary product of our timemaybe the most revolutionary product in history-and just give it away?”
Frejohr was unrepentant. His silver hair glistened in the reflected sunlight from the window. ”That's exactly what I'm saying.”
”Why the f.u.c.k would I do that?”
”Studies show that free bio/logics products are more functional and secure,” insisted one of the Lunar tyc.o.o.ns, sliding into lecture mode with one finger in the air.
”Plus free bio/logics creates demand,” the other tyc.o.o.n chimed in. ”In fact, that's actual y how I made my first-”
”I'm not an idiot,” yel ed Natch, causing the tyc.o.o.ns to shut up instantly. ”Don't try to teach me hive-level economics. I know it backward and forward.
Why would I open up the MultiReal code? To create demand? To speed adoption?
Ridiculous. My product's got one hundred percent demand. Everyone in the solar system is going to be using MultiReal a month after we release it. You think opening up the program wil make it more functional and secure?
That's laughable. There's subroutines in this program that could kil you in a second if they're mishandled. People can't deal with that kind of freedom.”
The entrepreneur found himself alone on the other side of the garden, though he didn't remember walking there. Khann Frejohr stood across the room with his libertarian posse cl.u.s.tered in their chairs behind him. Suddenly Natch scanned the eyes of the Lunar tyc.o.o.ns and realized that Frejohr had planned this. He had brought the libertarians to Natch's apartment for the specific purpose of convincing him to release MultiReal on the Data Sea. The thought gave Natch a perverse sort of amus.e.m.e.nt. Some of them had obviously known the agenda ahead of time, while others, like the bodhisattva, were just now coming around to the idea.
Speaker Frejohr stepped slowly around the daisies and put his hand on Natch's shoulder with another one of those Vigalish touches. ”We need to release MultiReal so people can defend themselves,” he said, voice low and sinuous.
”With al that manpower at the Defense and Wel ness CouncilNatch, once they get ahold of it, this might be our only chance.”
Natch sniffed. ”Don't worry, they won't get ahold of it. Not once we've executed my plan.”
”What plan?” said Frejohr suspiciously.
A grin spread across Natch's face like a malignant creeper. ”I'm glad you asked.”
The program hung in Minds.p.a.ce, a spiky pyramid the color of a poisoned apple. Natch dimmed the lights in his office, causing a greenish hue to suffuse the room and reflect off every forehead.
”Black code,” somebody whispered.
The entrepreneur didn't respond. Of course it was black code. Form didn't necessarily fol ow function in the bio/logics world-Natch had worked on plenty of innocuous routines that looked like fairy tale horrors in Minds.p.a.ce-but the fact that this program exhibited no name or pedigree was indicator enough.
One of the L-PRACG politicians scratched her head. ”So what does it do?” she asked.
The rest of the politicians hung back near the door and peered over her shoulder, afraid to get any closer.
”It communicates,” replied Natch.
”With whom?”
”With everyone. Every single person from here to Furtoid, if you want. If the Council lets it run that long.” The entrepreneur reached inside the Minds.p.a.ce bubble with a bio/logic programming bar, hooked the nameless black code on its tip, and swirled it around like a magician trying to summon something verminous from his hat. ”But the ability to send a message to anyone isn't that special. It's the ability to send a message from anyoneindividual, business, government.”
”A forgery machine,” said the speaker pensively, nudging the L-PRACG politician to the side so he could get a closer look.
”The forgery machine,” said Natch. ”The best one there is. It's not foolproof, of course-it's next to impossible to get foolproof forgery on the Data Sea anymore-but this is about as close as you can get.” He spun the program around with the bar until it was nothing but a rotating blur.
”You've used this program before,” said the bodhisattva.
Natch pa.r.s.ed his words careful y. ”Let's just say I've seen it in action.”
”So could we forge a message from the Council with this?” said the Islander with a little too much eagerness. ”Could we report false troop movements, or-or-”
Natch cut the woman off before she short-circuited. ”No. The program's not that good.
The Council doesn't use normal Data Sea communications protocols.”