Part 34 (2/2)

”So you want to use MultiReal to end the zero-sum game,” said Natch, doing his best to ignore the watching diss. ”How?”

”Let's start at the beginning,” replied Brone. ”What makes MultiReal so revolutionary?

The ability to dodge darts and hit basebal s? No, of course not.

Those are parlor tricks-gimmicks to get people's attention. Margaret's real breakthrough was figuring out how to unharness the brain from the bridle of real time. Mil ions of possible outcomes mapped out in the s.p.a.ce of an instant. Loget's told me al about it: a giant grid stretching out in every direction.

Infinite possibility is only a state of mind!

”Now here's where you need to abandon linear thinking. With infinite possibilities at your disposal-with al those realities ripe for the plucking-why stop at just outputting one?”

Natch snorted. ”Because there's only one you,” he said. ”I'm not an idiot. I know what you're getting at. Throw two coins, catch them both. But you can't catch them both. You've only got one set of hands. We proved that back at the hotel.”

Brone dril ed Natch with his intense stare. ”One set of real hands, yes. But what about in multi?”

Natch pursed his lips but said nothing.

”Clearly our little demonstration at the hotel proved one thing,” continued the bodhisattva. ”Our minds have more than enough processing power to run several tracks of consciousness at the same time. Consciousness is itself little more than a parlor trick, a low-bandwidth il usion. We've known this since ancient times. Yet we've never been able to duplicate it, until now.

”You say multiple simultaneous realities are useless in a world where we only have one set of flesh and bones,” said Brone. ”Fair enough. But how much time do we actual y spend in that world of flesh and bone anymore? This is a programmable world, Natch! We live sixty percent of our lives in virtual environments. Your Vault account is just a row on a stratospheric database table. The layout of your apartment is mal eable and subject to change with a thought. The postings you make on the Data Sea, the music you listen to on the Jamm, the bio/logic programs you tinker with in Minds.p.a.ce: al virtual.

The physical world doesn't hold us back anymore. The only barrier is that single consciousness-and Margaret's MultiReal program shatters it.”

The entrepreneur's head felt bloated, too clogged with contradictions to respond properly.

”But what good is it? Why would you want to live multiple lives like that?”

”What good is it? What good is any technology?” Brone was getting too agitated for the chair to contain him, so he stood and leaned on its back like a lectern. ”Technology expands choice,” he said. ”It liberates us from cause and effect, just like Margaret promised. Don't you remember her speech a couple of months ago? I remember every word of it. What would our lives be like if we had made different choices? In the Age of MultiReal, we wil wonder no more-because we wil be able to make many choices. We wil be able to look back at checkpoints in our lives and take alternate paths. We wil wander between alternate realities as our desires lead us.

”Just imagine it! Two roads diverge in a wood. Why choose between them when you can take both? You can sp.a.w.n separate multi projections to travel them and give each one a separate consciousness to experience them. Who's to say you can't choose two different jobs, two different companions, two different Vault accounts? And if one of these lives leads to bad consequences-wel , then wipe it out! MultiReal can erase your memories, Natch, and the memories of those around you! Don't tel me you've lived your entire life without regrets.”

”Of course not,” said Natch, ”but-”

Brone abruptly yanked off his prosthetic arm and slammed it on the table. Al conversation in the cafe ceased. ”Don't tel me you've never made a choice you wanted to take back,” he snarled, his voice br.i.m.m.i.n.g with sudden rage.

Awkward and embarra.s.sed silence held sway in the room as everyone watched the pale limb sitting on the wrought-iron table. Natch took a sidelong glance at the middle-aged card players, who were staring at him with open contempt. He doubted that the diss knew the story of the Shortest Initiation, but clearly they understood the inference of Brone's gesture. Natch cursed the bodhisattva silently. How funny that his handicaps only seem to be an inconvenience when it suits him, he thought. He remembered how Brone had used the limb to similar effect during their meeting last month.

The silence continued for another minute, and then final y everyone turned back to their mugs of coffee as if by unspoken consensus. The bodhisattva reached over and quietly reattached his appendage without a word.

”Listen,” hissed Natch. ”I see what you're trying to do, but this Possibilities 2.0 would never work. You'd have to get governments to rewrite laws. The Vault and the Data Sea engineers and Dr. Plugenpatch and who knows who else would have to buy into it.”

”I never said it would be easy,” replied Brone blithely, taking his seat once more. His anger seemed to have dissolved as quickly as it had appeared. ”I never said it would happen overnight.”

”But even if you do get everyone to agree,” said Natch, ”there's something else you're not taking into account. Once one person uses MultiReal to do two things at the same time, everyone else has to keep track of those alternate realities too.”

Brone shrugged. ”So?”

”For process' preservation-think about the basebal example. Hit a basebal two different ways, you've just doubled the number of alternate realities.

Then for every hit, you've got an outfielder making two different catches. Quadrupled.

The umpire makes two different cal s for each catch. The guy on base runs or doesn't run.... This whole thing would spiral out of control in an instant.

Sixty bil ion people creating alternate realities at the drop of a hat and banging them up against each other? f.u.c.k, where would you store al that data? How would the computational system handle it? You give everyone the ability to permanently double or triple realities-we'd get pummeled al day long until our OCHREs gave out. We're getting bombarded with infoquakes as it is.”

The bodhisattva of Creed Tha.s.sel took a long, loud slurp of coffee. He leaned back and hung his good arm over the back of his chair, staring at Natch with eyes narrowed. ”And do you think that's a coincidence?”

Natch felt a sudden fear grip his sternum. ”You mean-”

Brone shook his head in befuddlement. ”I can't believe I need to explain this to you, after everything you've learned about Len Borda. Borda knows that Possibilities 2.0 is within our grasp, Natch. Remember, he's the one who funded the project in the first place. He knows better than anyone what this program can do. He knows the Data Sea can handle the load. So what better way to keep us from pursuing it than to frighten us?”

Natch remembered the explosion of darts at the Tul Jabbor Complex, the ferocious precision of the Defense and Wel ness Council officers. Hundreds of darts striking him within his mind, hundreds of merciless public executions, averted only through the magic of MultiReal. He remembered the shrewd visage of the high executive before the demo at Andra Pradesh. Len Borda was a man who knew what he was doing.

”After the first infoquake, what did Borda do?” said Brone, his voice lowering in volume even as it increased in intensity. ”He pressured the Prime Committee into giving him the authority to shut down any bio/logic program on the Data Sea that crosses his path. Do you think he wants to lose that power?

”He wil . And soon.

”Because we can take down the Defense and Wel ness Council, Natch! We can bring government back into the hands of people's freely chosen LPRACGs, where it belongs. With a ful y functioning MultiReal network in the hands of every man, woman, and child, the Council wil instantly become irrelevant. How could you possibly tyrannize people armed with multiple realities?

”Think of al the revolutions throughout history. b.l.o.o.d.y, wasteful, expensive, ful of needless suffering. We can avoid al that, Natch! With MultiReal, we can change the world without firing a single shot. A perfect, bloodless revolution. An instant, irreversible gift of freedom to humanity!”

Brone had begun to raise his voice again, to metamorphose into the same zealot who had set the Tha.s.selian devotees aflame last night. By the time he finished his little speech, the bodhisattva was standing once more and pounding his fist on the tabletop. The diss watched with guarded expressions on their faces, but Natch would not make the mistake of cal ing them indifferent again.

These people were clearly vested in Brone's success. They believed in the Revolution of Selfishness, and they were ready to fight for it.

”Look around you, Natch!” said the bodhisattva, sweeping his arm in an arc at the makes.h.i.+ft cafe. ”Multi connections are weak out here in the diss cities. Council surveil ance is a farce. The Meme Cooperative, the Prime Committee, and the drudges don't exist out here.

”We have everything we've ever dreamed of in Chicago! The flexibility to do whatever we want, to fol ow our ideas to their ultimate conclusion, and f.u.c.k the rules! We have some of the best bio/logic engineers in the business at our disposal, and a network of anonymous devotees spread throughout the world. And virtual y unlimited funding, courtesy of the creed.

”You'l have to disappear for a while, Natch. We'l wait until the whole affair at the Tul Jabbor Complex has died down, until Len Borda's infoquakes have gone into remission. Meanwhile, we'l be out here, careful y perfecting our code.

And then, just when the world is convinced you're dead and buriedwhen even Borda believes that you've vanished for good-we'l strike! We'l release Possibilities 2.0 onto the Data Sea and bring humanity to the next stage of evolution.”

Natch's head spun like a whirligig from one incoherent thought to the next. Was this real y what Margaret Surina had envisioned, real y what she had planned for? How did this differ from what Khann Frejohr had proposed? What would Serr Vigal say about this? Reeling with ethical vertigo, he slumped down in his chair, ducked his head, and clasped his hands behind his neck.

”So what if you're wrong?” he managed faintly. ”What if Margaret was wrong? What if those infoquakes aren't coming from Len Borda, and MultiReal total y floods the computational system? Possibilities 1.0 was resource-intensive enough-Possibilities 2.0 is on a whole different scale altogether.

Everything could break down. Bil ions of people could die.”

Brone sat back and folded his hands in his lap. The entrepreneur looked at him only to find himself staring at the nacreous green mechanical eye.

”Now you see the dilemma,” he said. ”If we don't act-if we deliver MultiReal into the hands of the Defense and Wel ness Council -the carnage would be incalculable. The consequences? A totalitarian regime without end. A regime that cannot be overthrown. And then how many bil ions would die?”

39.

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