Geosynchron (68 page)

Natch speaks. "If anyone asks, you tell them that I'm moving
towards perfection. But I'll get there at my own damn speed."

Natch is an entrepreneur with a burning ambition. He simply can't
define what it is.

The world he lives in is a ripe place for ambition. Having suffered a cataclysmic Al revolt hundreds of years ago, the world
embraced Sheldon Surina and his science of bio/logics. Now, 359
years later, thousands of small software companies-fiefcorps-
compete ruthlessly to sell programs that run the human body. Order
is maintained by a patchwork of subscription-based governments
called L-PRACGs. Overseeing these governments is the Prime
Committee, which uses the Defense and Wellness Council as its
police force.

As an orphaned boy in the care of the neural programmer Serr
Vigal, Natch is plagued by strange and hallucinatory visions. He learns
to use his wits to best his childhood enemies and achieve top scores in
his class. His only obstacle is Brone, a boy with an equally cunning
intellect and a more charismatic way with people. But Brone is soon
dispatched during the boys' initiation by a bear attack that is partly
accident, partly fate, and partly Natch's dark vengeance.

With his prospects for financial success dimmed by the scandal of
initiation, Natch turns to a series of low-paying jobs at the bottom of
the programming world. Only gradually, after much Machiavellian
scheming, does Natch climb to the top of his profession. But he hasn't achieved this alone. He's had the aid of his childhood friend, Horvil;
his mentor, Serr Vigal; and his market analyst, Jara.

With Horvil's and Jara's help, Natch achieves one final coup. He
arranges a complicated con involving a fake black code attack on the
Vault banking system. This con allows Natch's fiefcorp to replace his
bitter rivals, the Patel Brothers, at the top of the Primo's bio/logic
investment guide rankings. Where Natch was once an outcast, now he
is a celebrity.

Furthermore, the scheme brings Natch to the attention of Margaret Surina, heir to her ancestor Sheldon's fortune. She's been working
for decades on a mysterious technology called MultiReal that creates
"alternate realities." But now she fears that Len Borda, the high executive of the Defense and Wellness Council, is preparing to take this
technology away from her-and possibly kill her in the process. Borda
sees MultiReal as a weapon of potentially apocalyptic proportions, one
too dangerous to remain in private hands. It's the same conflict Margaret's father, Marcus, went through with his teleportation technology
many years ago, a conflict that ended in a fiery hoverbird accident.

Margaret offers Natch an opportunity to license her new technology. He is to stir up enough trouble to keep Len Borda off balance
for the next week; then, after Margaret reveals the existence of MultiReal in a widely publicized speech, Natch needs to quickly put
together a prototype to show the world that the technology is real. The
fiefcorp master agrees.

Natch goes looking for a source to fund his company's new project,
but partly due to his shady reputation, nobody will support him in this
new and undefined venture. Finally, with the help of his new apprentice, Merri, he snags an appointment with the leader of Creed Thassel,
an organization dedicated to the power of selfishness. The leader turns
out to be none other than Natch's old nemesis Brone. Brone, still
smarting from the wounds of initiation, offers Natch a quick loan and
foretells a future where the two of them will work together to market MultiReal. The fiefcorp master, seeing no other alternatives, accepts
the loan from his old hivemate.

Armed with a new infusion of cash, Natch hires a new appren-
tice-Horvil's young cousin Benyamin-and forms a partnership with
sales channeler Robby Robby to help market the new product.

The day of Margaret's speech arrives, and with it comes an incursion into the Surina compound at Andra Pradesh by the troops of the
Defense and Wellness Council. As Margaret unveils her new technology before hundreds of millions of people, the Data Sea networks
explode with a strange new computational disturbance: the infoquake.
Thousands die in the tumult, but the Council does not follow through
with its implied threat to kill Margaret and seize MultiReal.

Natch gathers the fiefcorp for a meeting the next day and informs
them that a frightened Margaret has handed over the reins of the company to him and allowed him to rechristen it the Surina/Natch MultiReal Fiefcorp. Furthermore, Natch will get a new apprentice, Quell. A
longtime confidant of Margaret's, Quell is an Islander, a member of a
society that spurns all but the most rudimentary forms of bio/logic
technology.

For a short time, it appears that Natch has gotten the upper hand.
He is on top of the world and has even used his new partnership with
Margaret to pay back Brone and sever his ties with the Thasselian.

But Natch's expectations are dashed when he discovers that his
enemies the Patel Brothers have also secured a MultiReal licensing
agreement with Margaret Surina. Margaret soon reveals that she suspected the Patels of selling out to the Defense and Wellness Council.
Only after she despaired of working with them did she turn to Natch,
who she knew would never give in to pressure from Len Borda.

Natch immediately goes on the offensive to counter the Patels. Frederic and Petrucio Patel have scheduled a demo in less than a week's time;
Natch decides that he's going to hold his demo first, in three days. But
after he commands his fiefcorp to prepare a quick-and-dirty demo, a group in black robes ambushes him in the streets of Shenandoah. Natch
is hit by their black code darts, falls unconscious, and vanishes.

Meanwhile, unaware that Natch is missing, the fiefcorp prepares for
their product demo. They only realize Natch has disappeared hours
before the demo. The fiefcorpers frantically attempt to find him as Len
Borda's forces once again march on the Surina compound. Jara makes a
last-ditch effort to convince Margaret to deliver the demo in Natch's
stead. Margaret refuses, choosing instead to retreat to the top of the Revelation Spire, her private tower. Jara decides that she will give the presentation instead. Horvil catches up with her and attempts to dissuade
her from making this dangerous presentation, in the process confessing
that he has developed deep feelings for her. But Jara will not be deterred.

And then, at the last possible minute, Natch shows up. He had
awakened from his black code coma mere hours before. With him is
Len Borda-who, as it turns out, has brought the Council troops to
Andra Pradesh at Natch's request, in an effort to scare off any potential black code attack. In exchange for this intervention, Natch has
hurriedly promised Borda access to MultiReal.

Natch delivers a product demo that involves using the power of MultiReal to simulate hitting a baseball to all five hundred million spectators
simultaneously. The audience reacts more enthusiastically than anyone
could have anticipated. (The Patels' demo, meanwhile, is a disaster.)

As Infoquake draws to a close, it occurs to Natch that the attackers
in black robes could have been sent by the Defense and Wellness
Council as a ploy to get MultiReal under its control. There are, in fact,
any number of organizations that might be using the black code inside
him as leverage to get control of MultiReal. Brone, the Patel Brothers,
and even Margaret Surina are listed as potential suspects.

Natch is beginning to feel the deleterious effects of the black code
inside him; but as he tells his mentor, Serr Vigal, he's up for the challenges ahead. He's come this far against all odds, and he won't back
down now.

As MultiReal begins, High Executive Len Borda has put his second-incommand, Lieutenant Executive Magan Kai Lee, in charge of forcing
Natch back to the negotiating table. Magan reluctantly agrees. Two
years before, he had been on the verge of assassinating Borda, but the
high executive made a deal with him to step down peacefully. That
deal expires in a few weeks, yet Borda has shown no signs that he's
preparing to leave. Still, Magan does as he is ordered. He conducts a
raid on Natch's apartment, only to find a pack of drudges (journalists)
waiting to humiliate him before the world.

Magan goes back to Borda and baldly accuses the high executive of
mismanaging the fight to regain control of MultiReal. He says Borda
made a terrible mistake assassinating Margaret Surina's father, Marcus,
almost fifty years ago, causing a devastating worldwide economic
depression. He persuades Borda to give him a few more weeks to get
MultiReal under the Council's control. Assisting him will be his
trusted subordinates: the Council's chief solicitor, Rey Gonerev, nicknamed the Blade; and Magan's chief engineer, Papizon.

Meanwhile, Natch returns home to Shenandoah after several weeks
on the run from the Council. He decides that his company will hold
an exposition where two teams of volunteers (chosen by public lottery)
will play soccer against each other using MultiReal.

Jara, Quell, Horvil, Benyamin, Serr Vigal, and Merri get to work
preparing for the exposition. But the fiefcorp has a number of obstacles
in its path. Magan Kai Lee tries to persuade Jara to make a deal with
the Council before they intervene and stop the MultiReal exposition.
Natch is being tormented by tremors from the black code he was hit
with in Shenandoah, as well as by mysterious bits of MultiReal code
that have turned up in his bio/logic systems. The Patel Brothers are
still working on their own competing MultiReal product. And the fief corp is getting no assistance from Margaret Surina, who has seemingly
gone insane after fleeing to the top of the Revelation Spire.

Suddenly, as the date for the exposition approaches, Magan Kai Lee
and the Defense and Wellness Council swoop in. They've used a variety
of tactics to suspend the business licenses of everyone in the company-except Jara. Since Jara is the only one legally capable of doing
business now, the Council has effectively put control of the
Surina/Natch MultiReal Fiefcorp into Jara's hands. Natch threatens to
launch MultiReal right then and there in retaliation-until news
breaks that Margaret Surina is dead.

The fiefcorp master rushes to Andra Pradesh, where he finds that
the Council has taken control of the Surina compound. He and Quell
sneak to the top of the Revelation Spire, trying to find out what happened to Margaret. On seeing her lifeless body, Quell goes crazy with
grief and attacks Magan Kai Lee. He lands a solid blow on Lee, but
ends up being dragged off to a Council orbital prison.

Margaret Surina's death throws everything up in the air. Jara leads
the rest of the frightened fiefcorpers to the estate of Benyamin's
mother, Berilla, where she relies on the pack of news-seeking drudges
outside to keep them safe. Natch soon arrives, telling Jara that he's
given her core access to the MultiReal program in order to smooth
things over. Jara is initially convinced by his peace offering. But when
Natch threatens his own apprentices-Horvil and Benyamin, Berilla's
nephew and son-in an attempt to coerce Berilla to assist the fiefcorp,
Jara has had enough. She casts Natch out of the estate and tells him she
is running the company now.

Jara embarks on a campaign to repair the fiefcorp's image. But the
campaign gets off to a rocky start with a failed press conference, and
the rest of the apprentices are suspicious of her motives. Jara makes a
desperate deal with the Patel Brothers to secure their help restoring
the fiefcorp's business licenses: from now on users of both companies'
versions of MultiReal will have limited numbers of daily "choice cycles." This means that Surina/Natch users will not be able to handily
win any MultiReal-versus-MultiReal conflict against Patel Brothers
users.

Jara and Horvil also try to cut Natch off from the MultiReal program, afraid of what he might do with it on his own. But it turns out
that the mysterious MultiReal code in Natch's head has given him
access to the program that can't be taken away.

Meanwhile, Natch has not been idle. He arranges to meet Khann
Frejohr, speaker of the Congress of L-PRACGs and sworn libertarian
enemy of Len Borda. Natch demonstrates to Frejohr that MultiReal
can be used to enact a form of mind control. With the help of a forged
Council memo to enrage public opinion, Natch persuades Frejohr and
his libertarian allies to stir up civil unrest against the Council during
Margaret Surina's funeral. Chaos and violence soon break out. The
Prime Committee steps in and declares they will hold a hearing to
determine the fate of MultiReal-all as Natch had planned.

The hearing in the Tul Jabbor Complex begins with a pair of highminded speeches by Natch's mentor Serr Vigal and the Council solicitor Rey Gonerev. But just as Petrucio Patel is summoned to demonstrate MultiReal, another infoquake strikes, sending the crowd into
panic. Len Borda loses his patience and instructs his troops to kill both
Natch and Magan Kai Lee, who has failed to follow through on his deal
to deliver MultiReal. Natch manages to avoid death through the
power of MultiReal, while Magan prevails over his would-be assassins
with the aid of a contingent of loyal Council officers (including Rey
Gonerev and Papizon). As the battle rages, the mysterious group in
black robes who hit Natch with black code enters the auditorium,
dartguns blazing. Strangely, they're not firing at Natch; they're firing
at the Council in an effort to help Natch escape.