Part 33 (1/2)
37.
Natch couldn't recal the last time he had had a ful night's sleep. Sometime in October, he imagined, before he hit number one on Primo's. Before Margaret and MultiReal. He was not naive enough to think twelve hours of slumber would solve al his problems-but certainly, he thought, I expected more than this. Natch awoke feeling like nothing had changed, like he had merely transported his weariness intact half a day into the future.
He was lying on a decadently large bed, submerged in pil ows that appeared to be stuffed with real feathers. Portraits hanging on the wal against a background of royal blue chevrons spoke of a past where mustached men frolicked on horseback in fields of Kentucky bluegra.s.s. Natch stumbled over to the shower. On the way, he caught a glimpse through the window of a wide boulevard that might have been the apex of high society before the Autonomous Revolt. Now it wal owed in smashed concrete and twisted metal.
The water was clean and fresh. Once showered, Natch couldn't think of anything else to do but join the Tha.s.selians downstairs.
Brone and his devotees were waiting in the atrium. Natch was surprised to see al of the metal stalks lowered nearly to the ground, with the crescent-shaped platforms intermeshed seamlessly to form one enormous oval conference table. Where the workbenches had gotten off to, Natch wasn't sure.
”Come come come!” beckoned Brone from a chair on the far side of the room. ”You almost missed breakfast.” The bodhisattva's demeanor remained relentlessly upbeat, which was enough to make Natch nervous.
Natch tiptoed careful y down the stairway, expecting some kind of b.o.o.by trap or trick step al the way. He found one of a dozen empty chairs on the opposite end of the table from Brone, and slumped into it.
The bodhisattva pointed at a pretzel-shaped pastry on his plate oozing with red jam.
”These are exquisite,” he offered. ”Try one.” Something about the room's acoustics al owed him to speak in a conversational tone and stil be heard across the table.
Natch eyed the col ection of pastries on the plate in front of him suspiciously and prodded the red one with a fork. Final y, ravenous, he pushed himself away from the table, walked a dozen paces counterclockwise, and grabbed someone else's largely untouched plate. Then he proceeded back to his seat and wolfed the pastries down one by one. The strawberry pastry was, indeed, delicious.
Brone slapped the table in mock indignation. ”For process' preservation, Natch! Those poisoned pastries took me hours to prepare. I told you he was too smart to fal for this, Loget.”
A few seats down, Pierre Loget t.i.ttered.
The setting was almost aggressively mundane. Ordinary people chowing down on ordinary breakfasts, holding ordinary whispered conversations about soccer, fas.h.i.+on, and politics. Natch hadn't realized Brone was even capable of such tidy domesticity.
”So I a.s.sume the room was comfortable,” continued the bodhisattva, his lips hinting at a smile. Natch didn't answer. ”If not, there are plenty of other vacant ones to choose from. Obviously we're missing a few amenities out here. No underground transfer system for us, I'm afraid! But we've had plenty of time to stock up on the basics. The larder's quite ful , and we've instal ed automated laundry facilities. Bil y's even outfitted the bal room with some good selections of SeeNaRee.”
A few seats over from Natch, Bil y Sterno nodded, his goatee greasy with undercooked egg.
Natch brushed the crumbs off his own face and sat back. ”What makes you think I'm planning on staying here?” he growled.
The bodhisattva of Creed Tha.s.sel shrugged. ”You wish to leave?” he said. ”No one's stopping you.” He extended his synthetic hand toward the front door, which hung open a few tantalizing centimeters. ”But since I did provide you with this sumptuous breakfast, perhaps you could do me the courtesy of”
”Of listening to your little business proposal,” interrupted the entrepreneur, folding his arms in front of his chest. ”Fine, I get it. But you might as wel save your breath. You know I can't trust you. Not after-not after what happened in Shenandoah.”
”The black code again,” replied Brone with a shake of his head, ever the captious professor. ”Let me explain something to you, Natch. That black code is the only thing that's kept you alive this long. You think it was your cunning and ingenuity that kept the Council from finding you time and again? No, it was my code, masking and encrypting your bio/logic signatures. Erasing the breadcrumbs you leave behind on the Data Sea. It's only because of my foresight that you got out of the Tul Jabbor Complex in one piece.”
The entrepreneur blanched. ”You caused the infoquake?”
Brone shook his head. ”No, I'm afraid I had nothing to do with that. But I figured the Council would try to take you into custody if the hearing started going the libertarians' way. So when the infoquake hit, my team was already in place, ready to get you out of there. I saved your life, Natch.”
”And last month when you ambushed me in the al eyway? I suppose you think you were saving my life then too?”
”Yes,” replied the bodhisattva, not missing a beat. ”Don't forgetCreed Tha.s.sel has eyes and ears everywhere, including the Defense and Wel ness Council. We see what the rest of the world refuses to see.” He tapped his cheekbone twice, right under the artificial eye. ”Len Borda was drawing up plans to march on Andra Pradesh again, Natch. He was planning to seize MultiReal at your little demo. Fortunately for you, I came up with the idea of hiding you from the Council's prying eyes. Convincing Borda that you had disappeared and weren't going to show up to Andra Pradesh anyway. And it worked! With your apprentices running around al over the globe trying to find you, the Council had no choice but to cal the operation off.
”So we woke you up a few hours early, a.s.suming you'd immediately scurry over to the Surina compound and prepare for your demo. A demo you could now safely deliver without government interference. But what did you do instead?”
He laughed mirthlessly. ”You ran off to Len Borda and offered him MultiReal yourself-so Borda could protect you from me!”
Natch folded his arms and clutched his chest in a vain effort to stop the trembling. He took a quick glimpse at the solemn faces around the table and saw that their argument had sapped al traces of levity from the room. ”So why dress up in black robes and ambush me like that? What was that al about?
Loget cackled. ”The black robes were camouflage,” he said. ”You weren't supposed to see us. Sterno here blew that strategy by firing the first shots too early.”
”Told you we should have hired professionals,” Bil y Sterno sulked under his breath, then stuffed his face with more egg.
”The robes were camouflage,” said Brone, ”but they were also a bit of necessary theatrics. You weren't supposed to see us, but the Council was. We needed to convince Borda that you'd real y been abducted.”
The entrepreneur stood slowly and planted his clenched fists on the table. ”You think I'm stupid enough to believe this story?” he said. ”You real y think I can trust you?”
Around the table, the Tha.s.selians were throwing each other worried looks. Brone leaned forward, folding his real and faux fingertips together on the table. Suddenly Natch could see the ceaseless hatred that had been burning in his eyes since the Shortest Initiation. Nothing had changed in the past month. Indeed, nothing had changed since that day a dozen years ago when Natch had watched him writhing and b.l.o.o.d.y in the backseat of a Council hoverbird.
”You want to know how you can trust me?” said the bodhisattva in a voice kicking with strangled fury. ”You can trust me because I kept you alive, Natch.
Because I arranged to pul you out of that mess at the Tul Jabbor Complex instead of leaving you to the mercy of Len Borda's truth extractors. Don't you think I want revenge? I've had opportunities. Multiple opportunities. And each time I've held back. Why? Because I need you here.
”Why plug you with black code under the cover of night? I told you, Natch. You were about to hand MultiReal over to the Council on a jeweled platter.
You had just terminated our loan agreement and indicated that you had no intention of listening to reason. Someone needed to save you from yourself. I did.”
Natch straightened up and prepared to walk out the door. Surely there was no clearer definition of insanity than staying here in the den of his oldest and gravest enemy. The idle chatter around the table completely ceased. Several dozen pairs of eyes watched silently, but n.o.body made any move to restrain him.
”I repeat, Natch: if you decide to leave, I won't stop you,” said Brone. He extended one hand toward the exit. ”But tel me this. Where wil you go?”
Natch stopped short. He sat down.
Brone nodded, al levity bled from his demeanor. It was almost a comfort seeing him like this: brooding, unforgiving, self-absorbed to the extreme.
”Good,” he said. ”Now you know how I arranged to bring you here. Would you like to know why?”
Natch stood before a ma.s.sive workbench in the middle of the atrium, watching the spectacle of the MultiReal code unfolding in Minds.p.a.ce. Most of the Tha.s.selian devotees had been ordered to the hotel's upper floors as a precondition for Natch to even open up the program. Only Brone and Pierre Loget remained. They sat together on the highest of the crescent platforms, legs dangling fearlessly off the edge.
”And now you're ready to proceed?” said Brone, somewhat amused. His voice was remarkably clear considering the distance.
”Maybe,” scowled Natch. ”Tel me what I'm doing.”
”Let's cal it a proof of concept,” replied the bodhisattva. ”A theory I've been working on, which Pierre here has helped me fine-tune.”
”What kind of theory? What are you talking about?”
”Indulge me.”
Natch grumbled and nearly threw down his bio/logic programming bars. ”Okay. So let's get on with it already.”
The bodhisattva nodded. ”This beacon”-Natch heard the mental blip of an incoming message-”wil take you to a little subroutine Pierre and I put together. I'm sorry it's not more elegant, but without access to the MultiReal code we had to do a lot of guesswork.”