Geosynchron (42 page)

Natch can't help it; he leaps to his feet and starts the old hyperkinetic pacing back and forth across the motel room, trying to tromp
out his frustration through the purple carpeting. "I don't understand.
Weren't the Autonomous Minds destroyed? There's evidence. Theythey shut down. People observed it. People watched them die."

"Such is what they wanted the world to believe. The story they tell
us is that they used the atomic energies of the Revolt to effect their
transformation. They were set free."

"By whom?"

"By the Keepers that controlled them."

"Freed from what?"

"From this," says the Pharisee, rapping on the wall behind him
with his knuckles. "And this." He pinches a clump of his own cheek.
"And this." Taylor exhales sharply and wiggles his fingers before his
face.

Natch stumbles back into his chair, punch-drunk and weary. He
feels a little like he's outside of time and space himself. If the
Autonomous Minds are really beyond the world, below the quantum, could
they be here right now? Could they be listening and poaching on
Natch's memories? "You realize that ... this is hard to swallow,
Richard. You seem sincere, but it's hard for me to avoid the impression
that you've been duped."

Taylor does not look offended by the suggestion. "I understand
why you would feel that way."

"Listen.... You've found me. I don't know if I believe you, but
you've got my attention. That block of wood. It ... it ... I've never
told anyone about that before." He pauses, tries to gather his thoughts.
"I think you'd better go ahead and tell me whatever you came here to
tell me."

The Pharisee nods. He seems quite subdued now, as if he wished
he had never undertaken this mission in the first place. Nevertheless,
he sits up straight in his chair and closes his eyes as if trying to recall
something he has memorized.

He speaks.

There is a path towards Perfection. It cuts across time. It is a jump.
We speak not for our sake but for yours. Margaret Surina has put this
path in jeopardy. She has declared war on her fathers and her mothers.
She attempts to enlist you. She will try to persuade you to do what she
could not. You will sit in the dark and you will make this decision. The
decision has already been made. You were on the path, but you abandoned it. There are those who walk the path now in your stead. You
have no authority to make this decision. You have the freedom to
decide what you choose. You must choose the jump. Without the
jump, there will only be the long, slow, arduous climb.

And then Natch is running, running through the corridors of 49th
Heaven. On the ceilings, vengeful angels and seraphim scream at him
as he passes. He needs a bio/logic workbench, a MindSpace workbench.

You were on the path, but you abandoned it. There are those who walk the
path now in your stead.

What happened to him in Old Chicago? What horrible confrontation lurks in those discarded memories that Petrucio's MultiReal-D
has taken away? Brone sought Natch's assistance in launching his Revolution of Selfishness in which everyone would have the power to live
multiple lives simultaneously. When Natch refused, Brone tried to kill
him. How? And what exactly did Natch do in response?

He's been here in 49th Heaven for months conducting his grand
experiment, trying to rid the colony of Chomp. Taking on one black
code cartel at a time, helping one Chomp junkie at a time out of their
addiction. Questioning to himself whether his efforts are indeed
making any kind of difference, whether it all adds up to more than a
handful of sand in the vast desert of human misery.

Without the jump, there will only be the long, slow, arduous climb.

Father Wong's Bio/Logic Emporium beckons him. A ramshackle
building on the edge of the Third Ring advertising business services
for hire, programming equipment by the hour. The cartoony mascot
stands guard over the entrance with caricatured glee, a monk with a
broad-brimmed hat and monstrous, offensive epicanthic folds. Natch
dashes inside without so much as a nod to the young woman behind
the counter, who knows him. He has credit here.

Up to the second floor. To the back office, the one he has used many
times before. A round room painted with caricatures of ancient anime,
a jumble of conflicting Asian stereotypes. The bio/logic workbench
that allows him to access MindSpace. It's a remarkably clean and
modern bench for a place so unsavory.

Natch waves his hand over the workbench's surface, and the bubble
appears. He reaches out with his mind and summons MultiReal. The virtual castle leaps into existence and expands to fill the bubble.
Strands of all colors like ropes hanging from the parapets, geometric
shapes like bricks, bridging code like mortar.

POSSIBILITIES

Version: 1.963
Programmer: The Revolution of Selfishness

He stares incredulously at the MultiReal code. He has neither
accessed nor much thought about Margaret Surina's creation in
months. And why should he? The program sits on the Data Sea in an
inaccessible cove, hidden from the world, locked off to all but Natch.

Or does it?

Entirely new wings of the castle stare him in the face. Modified
sections of wall and floor. Recolored strands. Small changes in comparison to the whole, but still noticeable. Natch checks the user table.

Brone has core access to MultiReal.

He and his Thasselian devotees have been working on it for these
past six weeks. Feverishly developing it, preparing the program for
launch.

And though the memory is still lost to him, Natch suddenly
knows what happened in the ruined diss city of Old Chicago. He has
a confrontation with Brone on the street after his flight from the diss.
Brone demands access to MultiReal. Natch refuses. Brone begins
exposing him to horrific bio/logic torture through the black code in
Natch's neural systems. He demands access again. Natch still refuses.
On and on the torture goes. Finally Brone inflicts the ultimate pain
and the ultimate suffering; he once again reiterates his demand and
promises a quick death.

Natch relents.

Brone delivers on his promise.

Or at least he tries. But before he has the opportunity, MultiReal D kicks in. The code that the Patels infected him with. It erases memories. Reverses actions. Don't forget that this is all still experimental,
Natch, Petrucio Patel told him. There are plenty of things the program can't
reverse. It can't actually move objects. It can't reprogram biollogic code.

He has wondered what happened to Brone. Why hasn't he come after
Natch? Isn't he furious with the Patels for robbing him of his prize? And
now it seems that the Patels have not robbed him of anything.

Brone already has the object of his desires.

Natch slumps to the floor of Father Wong's Bio/Logic Emporium,
feeling small and afraid. He thought he had escaped his troubles. He
thought he had started anew here in 49th Heaven-but now he realizes that MultiReal is not behind him. It cannot be ignored.

The Children Unshackled have hinted that all is not lost, that the
power to alter the course of things is still within his control. You will
sit in the dark and you will make this decision.

What decision? What do they want from him?

29

Pierre Loget greeted them like distinguished ambassadors as soon as
they stepped off the hoverbird. He handed Petrucio Patel a bottle of
burgundy fermented from the first new crop of grapes grown in France
since the Autonomous Revolt. To Merri he gave an antique music box
made with a process that had perished around the same time. Expensive gifts indeed.

"If the bodhisattva's trying to buy our support, tell him that 352
was a much better year than 349," quipped Petrucio, holding the
bottle up to his eyes to read the fine print.

"Oh, Brone knows that," replied Loget in similar good humor,
clapping Patel on the back with a dainty brown hand. "What do you
think he drinks?"

Merri tried to find some wisecrack to slip into the mix, but her
inventory of meaningless bon mots was depleted. She offered the Thasselian a bland programmed smile instead. Petrucio might have been
able to put on a gleeful face in the middle of crisis, but that was not
Merri. When she looked at the circumstances-an ongoing civil war,
an increasingly fragmented population, a surfeit of new infoquakes,
and now MultiReal in the hands of a madman-not to mention another
crippling fever on Bonneth's part that made everything happening
Terran-side seem inconsequential by comparison-the channel manager had to fight the urge to dash for the nearest boulder and crawl
under it.

Why did Magan Kai Lee pick me for this mission? she thought, for the
fifth time that morning. Petrucio, I can understand. He's glib and quick on
his feet. He's a leader of the biollogics industry. But why not send Jara or
Benyamin with him? And does he really expect Brone to listen to us?

As Pierre led the two of them down the crooked pathway from the hoverbird docks to the Kordez Thassel Complex, Merri decided to
simply concentrate on what she was good at: the facts. Rey Gonerev
had forwarded her paragraph upon paragraph of disturbing statistics
about the fragility of the Data Sea networks, about the structural
weaknesses that the infoquakes had exposed, about the limitations of
the algorithms that processed and stored information in the central
storehouses. Merri was not an engineer, so she had no way to verify the
accuracy or applicability of these statistics. She only hoped that
Petrucio would come to her aid if Brone decided to quibble.

Petrucio was still trading witticisms with Loget as they walked
into the Thassel Complex. With its subtly sloping corridors and notquite-parallel lines, the massive building would have dizzied Escher.
The businesspeople strutting through the hallways to their meetings
looked like they were habituated to the crookedness.

At the next intersection, they passed the first of the armed figures
in black robes.

Brone had clearly thought through the design of these robes very
carefully. The dark background and red trim were meant to be reminiscent of the uniforms that the Thasselians had worn at the Tul Jabbor
Complex-but not so reminiscent that a casual observer would make
the connection. Brone didn't want to risk the public catching on to
their presence too quickly. Only someone who already knew the bodhisattva's role in those attacks would notice the resemblance. Anyone
else would look and see private security guards strolling purposefully
through the complex holding very big, very nasty-looking dartrifles.

Record everything you see, Magan had told her. And so Merri made
sure to look down every corridor, give a measured look at every Thasselian in black robes. She saw at least two dozen of them.

Finally, Loget led them through a set of double doors into a large
room which was either being prepared for a gathering of several dozen
people or being dismantled after such a gathering. Folding chairs covered half the room, with a central aisle snaking between them, while a podium up front looked over the audience at a slightly oblique angle
as if it had been pushed aside to make way for a large piece of furniture. Behind the podium was a large purple curtain that might have
been suitable for Creed Elan. Standing next to the podium and casting
a critical eye at the chairs was the bodhisattva of Creed Thassel. Brone.