Geosynchron (43 page)

"Towards Perfection!" he said amiably when he saw Merri and
Petrucio. "Right on time."

Loget gave the bodhisattva a jaunty salute before exiting the room
the way he came in. Brone, meanwhile, met the fiefcorpers halfway
down the aisle and gave them a respectful bow. "So at last I meet the
fabled Petrucio Patel, former number one on Primo's!" Petrucio
returned the bow with a slick grin on his face. "And Merri, celebrated
channel manager and former employee of Natch! Or should I say 'victim'?" The words were caustic, but the body language was cheerful,
almost relaxed.

Merri couldn't help but gape at the man who had earned the title
of Natch's nemesis. She had never heard of him until his loan to the
fiefcorp several months ago, during the run-up to the demo at Andra
Pradesh. It was only after Natch's disappearance in January that Horvil
had started to mutter dark words about the bodhisattva, and only in
the past forty-eight hours that Merri had finally heard the entire story
about the bear and the Shortest Initiation. Brone was stockier than she
had imagined, and his prosthetic limb and eyeball were crafted subtly
enough that they could go unnoticed in a crowd. She could see how he
might once have been handsome. But now he looked at least ten years
older than Natch, even though the two of them had been born only
months apart.

"Gotten an eyeful?" snapped the bodhisattva.

Merri recoiled by instinct. "I'm-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to . .

"Yes, yes, I understand," said Brone, quickly slipping back into his
expression of geniality, this time with a hint of extreme fatigue
showing around the edges. "Forgive me, I don't mean to be so prickly. It's been a long week, and sometimes I just get tired of all ... this." He
made a gesture with his good hand at the prosthetics.

"I can imagine," said Merri awkwardly, unsure what to say.

"No," replied the bodhisattva. "You really can't. Now, shall we sit
down and get to the heart of it?"

The channel manager gave an inquisitive look towards Petrucio
Patel, but the programmer was in no mood to be supportive. Clearly
Petrucio was only here as a favor to Magan Kai Lee; he had spoken
barely a dozen words to Merri during the hoverbird ride over. He
seemed to have an intrinsic dislike for her that she was at a loss to
explain.

Merri activated a bio/logic nerve-soothing agent. She wanted
nothing more than to sit in a quiet corner and study the music box
Loget had given her. Better just get on with it. "Sounds good," she told
Brone. She and Petrucio took seats in the left-side group of chairs and
swiveled them around to face the room's center. Brone chose one in the
right and did the same.

And then Petrucio proceeded to lay out the case that Magan and
Rey Gonerev had prepared for them, without once letting on that he
was reading from a script.

It all seemed eminently reasonable to Merri. MultiReal was still a
largely unknown entity that had never been run through even the most
basic Dr. Plugenpatch validation. The Data Sea had shown increasing
signs of wear in the past few months, since the appearance of the infoquakes. Releasing any program with such high demand opened the
network up to dangerous vulnerabilities, especially when the Defense
and Wellness Council was not in any shape to provide leadership in
case of a crisis. Releasing a program with the scope of MultiReal was
only inviting catastrophe.

Brone listened to Petrucio's patter with patience and intense focus.
He rubbed his chin and nodded several times, but did not interrupt
them. "Exactly what kind of arrangement is the lieutenant executive proposing?" said the bodhisattva when Patel finally found a stopping
place.

"Magan's got an open mind about how to deal with the MultiReal
problem," said Petrucio. "He really believes what Josiah Surina said:
The power of the word is stronger than the power of the gun. So the lieutenant
executive proposes convening a summit to discuss possible solutions to
the issue, after the war is over with. You would get a seat at the table,
of course, as would my brother Frederic and myself. And Jara. Really,
all of the major stakeholders."

"What about Natch?" said Brone.

"It's an open question about whether he even wants to be
involved," said Petrucio.

"He disappeared months ago," put in Merri. "Nobody's seen him
since. We have no idea what he's thinking."

"Oh, I certainly know what that's like," replied Brone with a hint
of exasperation. He planted his chin on his clenched fist and stared into
space for a minute as if considering his options.

Merri knew she was missing some vital piece of information, and
that made her feel even more like an outsider in these negotiations.
How had Brone actually gotten hold of MultiReal if not through
Natch? She had the feeling that somehow Jayze and Suheil Surina were
involved, though neither Magan nor the Blade would confirm that. No
matter. Soon their little summit with Brone would be over, and she
would be able to teleport back to Luna and start sorting through the
bills for Bonneth's medical consultations.

"So the lieutenant executive's proposed a number of tentative dates
for the MultiReal convocation," continued Patel, looking somewhat
pleased at himself for keeping the negotiations so short and to the
point. "Of course, don't forget that circumstances between Magan and
Borda might push that date back and forth a little bit...."

"Perfectly understood," said Brone, snapping out of his reverie and
sitting up straight in his chair. "You can tell Lieutenant Executive Lee that I appreciate the gesture of civility, but I'll have nothing to do with
any convocation."

Merri felt a horrid burrowing sensation at the base of her spine.

"Let me ask you a question," said the bodhisattva, his face turning
cold and somber. "Do either of you seriously believe any of the drivel that
the Council prepared for you? Wait, no need to answer that-the answer's
on the inside of your lapel." Merri had to refrain from reaching up to
clench the black-and-white-swirled pin sitting there, emblem of the
Creed Objectivv truthteller. "It's an old trick, one that I've seen many
times before. I'm surprised that you two would fall for it. Surely you
know how this goes? Keep the Objectivv truthtellers in the dark ... pack
them full of lies ... and then send them off to deceive with impunity."

The channel manager quickly threw up a PokerFace before Brone
could see the flush of embarrassment creeping up her neck. She looked
down and realized she was gripping the music box almost hard enough
to break it. Of course ... Magan's sent us here because we're both devotees of
Creed Objective, She had to admit that in the rush of the past four
days-the urgent conferences with Josiah and Bali Chandler, Council
troops coming and going, Quell reciting wild stories about his time in
orbital prison-the thought that Magan would take advantage of her
truthteller status had never occurred to her. Merri cast a sidelong
glance at Petrucio; the unnatural equanimity on his face told her that
he had also failed to see the possibility.

"Oh, don't worry, I don't hold the two of you responsible," continued Brone, folding his arms across his chest, his voice moving back
towards affability. "In fact, I'm quite impressed by the two of you.
You've made a very convincing argument. Or at least, it would have
been convincing if I didn't know who you're representing.

"But surely you must know by now that the Council only speaks
one language, and that's the language of power. This negotiation is,
and never was, anything but a sham. Magan Kai Lee has no intention
of sitting down and discussing the future of MultiReal, I can assure you. If he did, he wouldn't have had you repeat the same tired old facts and
figures from Council-sponsored research. The same canards that Len
Borda threw out when the infoquakes began. Tell me, how are we to
independently verify these numbers? What about the opposing
research from the Congress of L-PRACGs contradicting just about
everything these numbers say?

"The answer is plain for all to see: Magan Kai Lee wants MultiReal
for the Defense and Wellness Council. He may be younger than Len
Borda and have less of a history of oppression, but his intentions are no
different. The two of you will see that in the end, I'm sure.

"You tell Magan Kai Lee that the bodhisattva of Creed Thassel
does not negotiate with tyrants. MultiReal will be released to the
people on the Data Sea, in its entirety, as soon as it's ready."

Stunned silence seeped through the room. Merri really had not
been prepared for Brone to give such a frank rejection to Magan's
request. Rey Gonerev had led her to believe that this visit was something of a formality, that the bodhisattva would not be so foolish as to
turn up his nose to both Len Borda and Magan Kai Lee.

"You realize," said Merri, not sure where she summoned the
courage, "that you won't get an opportunity to parley with Len Borda.
The first you'll hear from him is the black code dart that hits you in
the back of the neck."

Brone gave her a feral grin. "Good! That's the thing I like about Len
Borda-at least he's honest. Just so you know, I'll be rooting for the high
executive to crush Magan's insignificant little rebellion. That will make
the decision to release MultiReal to the world that much easier."

Jara listened to Petrucio's report with a sense of impending gloom.
Dealing with Len Borda was challenge enough, but to have a madman
holding MultiReal over their heads at the same time?

Neither Magan Kai Lee nor Rey Gonerev took the news of Brone's
rejection particularly hard. Magan merely nodded, his face plastered
over with exhaustion, as if he had either expected such a reaction from
the bodhisattva or was not paying attention. As for the Blade, Jara
could plainly see that Brone's stance did not come as a surprise to her.
Anticipated or not, the report from Petrucio was enough to send the
two Council members back to the barracks on the other end of Manila
for private dialogue.

Merri, for her part, was furious. Furious at Magan and Gonerev for
crassly using her truthtelling oath as a political tool; furious at
Petrucio for sourly dismissing Magan's ploy as just another cost of
trying to put Absolute Truth in a sullied world; but most of all, furious
at herself for being so gullible.

Her anger was quickly put into perspective by Quell. The Islander
had been standing close by with Josiah and Bali Chandler, discreetly
listening to Merri's conversation with Jara. He walked up without an
invitation and gave the two of them a polite bow to apologize for the
intrusion. "You're not the only one who's had to make ethical compromises in the past few months," said Quell to the channel manager, his
manner firm but not unkind.

"I suppose that's true," Merri admitted, her face reddening.

"If the worst ethical compromise that comes out of all this is that
a truthteller has to make a few fibs, count yourself very, very lucky."
The Islander made another bow and retreated to the opposite corner of
the room with Josiah and Chandler.

Merri excused herself to contemplate what Quell had said in the
privacy of the hallway, leaving Jara alone in the center of the room. It
was the same bemuraled room where she and the other fiefcorpers had
talked Josiah into writing his manifesto a scant few days ago. Since
the moment that the young Islander had tapped a button on his
viewscreen and sent the missive hurtling onto the Data Sea, the world
had taken on a surreal quality. Jara felt like she was watching events happen in compressed fashion, as if time had suddenly shifted into
fast-forward.

Magan Kai Lee had assembled a vast armed force in Manila's warehouse district; the entire city seemed to exist now in the shadow of the
white hoverbirds and other more esoteric machines of war, conducting
exercises on the bay. General Cheronna's unconnectible army remained
within spitting distance of the Council, causing all manner of tension
between the camps. Still, the idea of Grand Reunification maintained
high approvals across the board.

In connectible lands, the Prime Committee was remaining steadfast
in its neutrality between the two factions of the Council. But the Congress of L-PRACGs had made a dramatic shift by announcing that Magan
Kai Lee had "legitimate grievances with the Borda administration that
must be resolved"; given that Lee and the Congress had only recently
opposed one another in the hearing at the Tul Jabbor Complex, this was
big news indeed. And in the midst of all this, Sen Sivv Sor dropped the
bombshell revelation that Council investigators had concluded that Margaret Surina's death several months ago had been the result of suicide by
black code. Numbers from Zeitgeist 29a concluded that sixty-three percent of the population believed a government cover-up was in effect.

Meanwhile, as the spectacle swelled through the world outside the
unconnectible curtain, Jara watched a number of much more personal
dramas in this very room. Magan Kai Lee had summoned virtually all
of the players to the MultiReal drama here to Manila for a summit in
twenty-four hours. Since Jara had nothing else to do, she decided to
hang around this central chamber to bask in the glow of colliding
human emotion. In one corner of the room, Quell and Josiah Surina
were conducting a mostly unspoken conversation full of pride, recrimination, love, and acrimony, sometimes all at once. In another corner,
Petrucio and Frederic Patel glowered at each other and occasionally
fired off tense words that Jara couldn't quite make out at this distance.
Speaker of the Congress of L-PRACGs Khann Frejohr was holding a raucous (and possibly drunken) conversation with Islander Representative Bali Chandler, as befit two grizzled lions of their respective governments. As for Benyamin and Robby Robby, the two had struck up
an intense conversation with General Cheronna, of all people. What
Robby had to say to a dour military man like Cheronna, Jara could not
fathom, but he appeared to be doing most of the talking.