Part 37 (2/2)

People wil wonder what happened to MultiReal. The drudges wil have heated debates about it, and some of the bigger fie/corps wil attempt to dupli cate it-unsuccessful y, of course. Some wil conclude that the whole thing was a hoax to begin with.

And then-once the rumors have died down, once the subject has become nothing more than a myth, once even the Defense and Wel ness Council has concluded that MultiReal is lost in the deep eddies of the Data Sea-Creed Tha.s.sel wil emerge. We'l launch Possibilities 2.0 and proclaim an end to the tyranny of cause and effect, forever.

An end to the Council. An end to centralized authority. A new beginning.

It is a strange thing, speaking the words of another. Natch feels the vibrations of his vocal cords, the swaying of his tongue-the idea of his vocal cords, the idea of his tongue-but he knows indisputably that the sentiments behind the words belong to someone else. And yet, the mere act of stringing together such words in his memory is causing him to reverse engineer the sounds back into their component thoughts.

The voice continues.

I hoped that we could work together, Natch. I real y hoped that we might put aside our differences and launch Possibilities 2.0 as a team. I wasn't lying about that. It would have made for great symbolism-two enemies joining forces to announce the end of the zero-sum game! And it wil take much longer to finish the programming without you. Maybe years longer.

But I see now that it's not fated to be. I was right to send that strike team after you. I was right to take out this little piece of insurance. You'l never wil ingly join my Revolution of Selfishness; as long as you live, you'l be a hindrance. I would simply keep you cooped up in this prison of mine until the launch of Possibilities, but I'm not that foolish. You would figure a way out of here eventual y.

And so we come now to the final choice. Your last choice.

Don't think I take any pleasure in this, Natch. No sane human being enjoys taking the life of another But you must agree that sometimes it's necessary.

Sometimes we must sacrifice our own lives in order that others may be free. And that's what you'l do. Your gift of MultiReal to the world wil engender a future of boundless freedom for al . You can take some consolation in the fact that you'l be a hero, a martyr for humankind.

Natch feels the raw fury inside him. It's threaded through every cel in his body, and now he summons it al . Anger. The righteous, white-blazed inferno of need and struggle and drive, shaped into a dagger of wil power. The terrible madness of the Shortest Initiation. The humiliation of Captain Bolbund's poetry. The sting of being outmaneuvered by Magan Kai Lee. The howl of frustration he feels at locking horns with Jara. Al concentrated and compounded to the utmost degree.

Natch reaches out and wrenches control of the voice. What's kil ing me going to accomplish? he says. You can't be that stupid. Without me, MultiReal is gone forever. It'l float out there on the Data Sea for al eternity-and even when you find it, your little piece of black code won't give you core access.

What happens to your f.u.c.king Revolution of Selfishness then?

There is a moment of considered silence. He can almost feel the pitying smile on Brone's face, the wretched shake of the head.

I don't think you quite understand, says the voice. You're lying completely defenseless on a street in Old Chicago. There's no one out here but the disc for kilometers. And I have here the gateway to pain beyond your imagining.

Unadulterated pain that's al the more potent because it doesn't go through the intermediary step of the nervous system.

You have one last choice left to make, Natch. And I already know what your decision is going to be. When you're racked with anguish beyond anguish and you're given the opportunity to end that suffering-of signing over core access to MultiReal to me and earning a swift death you'l make the only logical choice. I know you wil .

Natch tries to reach out and steady himself against something, but there is nothing to steady himself against. He feels the primal fear wash over him, the fear of emptiness, of loneliness, of pain. He yanks away control of his voice one last time. You have no f.u.c.king idea what I'l do, he says. Torture me for a thousand years. I'm stronger than you. I'm the most stubborn son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h who ever lived. I'l never hand over MultiReal. Are you listening? Do you hear me? Never. I'l never do it. Never.

He waits for the inevitable retort, for Brone's perfidious last word, but it never comes.

Brone is correct. It is pain beyond imagination, pain reduced to its purest essence and served raw. The snapping of bones in their sockets, the laceration of flesh, the jab of a mil ion simultaneous stabbings, weeks of thirst and starvation, al concatenated into one infinite instant-and Natch can feel it bearing down on him like a tsunami.

And then the nothingness at the center of the universe clasps hold of him, and Natch knows no more.

6.

NEW BEGINNINGS.

42.

Jara arranged to meet Geronimo the day after the disaster at the Tul Jabbor Complex.

She nearly canceled. The thought of letting a Natch look-alike inside her emotional barricades made her feel greasy in places where human beings were not meant to feel greasy. But Jara had spent the day fretting in the Creed Elan hostel, waiting for some sc.r.a.p of news about Natch, or barring that, information on what the Prime Committee was up to in their closed-door session. She needed a distraction. And she wasn't quite ready to get intimate with Horvil yet, despite the kiss they had shared in the anonymous bureaucrat's office. An afternoon in bed with Geronimo felt like a monumental y stupid thing to do, but it was a stupid thing she needed to do.

Merri wandered in to the common room at some point, looking tired and drained of energy. ”How's Bonneth?” Jara asked her.

”Stable for now,” replied Merri, propping a smile onto her face. ”Access to Dr.

Plugenpatch has been real y spotty up there for the past twenty-four hours. But she made it to the Objectivv facilities in Einstein. They're looking after her.”

Jara felt like the icy hand of death had just gripped her by the throat. She had asked the question as idle chatter; Bonneth's medical chal enges in the face of the infoquakes had completely slipped her mind, again. ”Are you-are you going back there?”

The blonde channel manager nodded. ”I'm booked on a Lunar shuttle this Sat.u.r.day.” She slumped down in the chair, searching for a comfortable position that remained elusive. ”Honestly, I don't think I'm ready to go yet.”

”But don't you miss her? You've been Earthside for, what, over a month now.”

”It's not that difficult, Jara. We have multi. We have messaging. We even have ... wel , we have the Sigh when we need it.” A blush tickled Merri's plump cheeks.

Jara thought of her own impending tryst with Geronimo, causing her to fidget in her seat like a teenage girl. Keep it together, she admonished herself.

”But it's not the same,” she told Merri. ”You can't eat meals together. You can't sleep in the same bed. Doesn't the intimacy get strained after a while?”

Merri closed her eyes for a moment as she considered the question. ”Of course things get strained after a while. And of course I miss her. But sometimes-sometimes I need a little break from Bonneth, you know? She understands.

She knows that sometimes I just need to do what I need to do. But when I'm ready, I'l always be back.”

The a.n.a.lyst nodded. ”Yeah. I know what you mean.” She debated asking Merri's advice about whether she should keep the appointment with Geronimo, but decided against it. In a sense, the channel manager had already answered.

So Jara retreated to her room at the hostel. She closed the door, scuttled into bed, and activated her connection to the Sigh. Within seconds, the real world melted away, and Jara was standing on a glittering patio of solid turquoise. The attendant who greeted her had a wolf's pelt and four tongues.

”What's up, baby?” came a voice. A hand touched her shoulder. Geronimo.

It was the first day that Len Borda had al owed public access to the Sigh since shortly after Margaret's funeral. Consequently lines were long and tempers were frayed. Jara listened to Geronimo describe Jeannie Q. Christina's latest celebrity gabfest in agonizing detail for fifteen minutes while they waited. He seemed completely unaware of the turmoil that had engulfed the world in recent days.

Things didn't get any better when they final y made it to their room. (Black leather, again.) Geronimo put on the sul en pout that had almost become a third partner in their s.e.x life and paid Jara little attention during the act some cal ed lovemaking. Jara stared at the ceiling, wondering if she was being watched by one of Rey Gonerev's flunkies. I don't care, she thought, hoping the defiance was visible on her face. I'm not afraid of her anymore.

Geronimo spent the remaining eighteen minutes of their reservation buzzing along to some hideous cacophony on the Jamm. The drudges cal ed it mocha grind, but to Jara it just sounded like clinking beads and falsetto yelps. Geronimo left with a clumsy squeeze of her a.s.s as farewel .

Jara proceeded to wipe her profile and cancel her subscription to the Doppelganger channel. Wel , that's done, she thought, and good riddance. The Sigh immediately sliced a fat wedge out of her Vault account for early termination.

The Prime Committee final y cal ed on Jara to testify the next morning.

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