Geosynchron (55 page)

Borda had accomplished what he needed to accomplish. Nothing
more remained. He rose and gave Magan Kai Lee a mocking, obsequious bow. "As you wish, High Executive."

Magan Kai Lee and Rey Gonerev stood at the base of the observation
tower that hung off the bottom of the Defense and Wellness Council
Root like a stem. The ancient British naval SeeNaRee was gone. Their
view was the entirety of the Earth below-not to mention the
departing ships carrying Len Borda and his honor guard.

"Gorda staged that scene for your benefit, you know," said Magan,
apropos of nothing. "Why didn't you take the high executive's offer?"

The Blade started, as if he had just read her innermost thoughts.
"How long have you known?"

"Long enough."

"And yet you trusted me not to turn the pistol on you instead of
Borda?" Gonerev's eyes widened as she lit upon a realization. She took a step back and regarded Magan with a stare that contained more than
a little apprehension. "You didn't trust me. Papizon handed me that
gun before we left Manila. You had him load it with bogus black code,
didn't you?"

The lieutenant executive shook his head. "No. I considered it. But
then I decided that I needed you armed more than I needed you muzzled. Does that make sense?"

"Somewhat.... But at least you could have inoculated yourself
against the code in my gun."

"I suppose I could have. But I didn't think of it."

The Blade turned to face the window, and the darkened parabola
of the planet below. "And to answer your question-about why I
didn't take Borda's offer-I think I've had enough of ambition for the
time being. I've climbed higher than most people dream during my
decade in politics. Is it wrong that I might want to stop here?"

"Not wrong at all. But I'll believe it when I see it."

35

The doors slide open at Natch's touch, and cool air gusts out to meet
him. He hangs on the other side of the doorway for just a moment, gun
at the ready. Moody lights from the room's interior make a dance of
shadows on the floor.

Natch tries to recall Papizon's instructions on how to use some of
the more arcane weaponry in his utility belt. The flamethrower, the
pulse grenade, the smoke pellets. But he knows that despite the thorough grounding Papizon gave him in the basics, this is not something
that he can learn at the last minute. Soldiers train for months with these
weapons until the controls are embedded in muscle memory, until the
weapon becomes an extension of the human being. Such familiarity can
be imitated with bio/logics, but never entirely duplicated.

The entrepreneur shrugs to himself. All he really needs to worry
about is pointing the barrel of his dartgun and pulling the trigger. It
will not be knowledge and skill with advanced weaponry that determines the outcome of this fight. No, this fight will depend on
willpower, resolve, and MultiReal-not to mention the black code
that Horvil, Quell, and Frederic put together.

Natch crouches down, dartgun in his hand, finger primed on the
trigger, and edges into the room. The doors shut behind him.

"Gone," said Petrucio.

"Gone?" Jara gaped at the programmer as if he had told her the
Kordez Thassel Complex had just been overrun by gnomes. "What do
you mean, gone? Where did the feed go?" She stood up and walked
over to the viewscreen that had been showing images from the twenty four cameras embedded in Natch's battle suit. Now it showed nothing
but dull, undifferentiated gray, not so different from the view in the
supply closet.

You sense that too, Jara? said Jorge Monck.

The fiefcorp master flipped one of the viewscreens to the Council
operative's point of view and saw nothing but sparsely populated
hallway. Yeah. Everything okay down there?

As far as I know. Natch just followed the target into that room behind the
double doors.

Jara stretched her mind out to the war room's systems, trying to
ascertain what had happened to the cameras. In her peripheral vision,
she could see Merri and Benyamin fiddling with holographic displays
in an attempt to do the same thing.

"I'll go find Larakolia," said Robby, hopping up and dashing out
into the hallway.

The Defense and Wellness Council tactician was only down the hall.
Less than twenty seconds later, she was standing in the center of the war
room giving a taciturn frown to the table. "EMP," she muttered.

"EMP?" said Robby Robby. "What's that?"

"Electromagnetic pulse," said Petrucio from his seat across from
Jara. "Ancient technology, almost as old as radar. Disables electronics."

"Ordinarily it's not something you worry about on the battlefield,"
said Larakolia, arms folded across her chest, disappointed at having
failed to anticipate something. "The cameras you use out there are
attached directly to the optic nerve and shielded from electromagnetic
force. But when you're using cameras embedded in the mesh of a powered suit ..."

Benyamin slapped his forehead, hard. "Krone knew we were
coming, didn't he?"

The room fell silent, which was an answer in and of itself.

Natch wades through a copse of trees until he finds a clearing at the
top of a hill. The surrounding foliage serves as both curtain and
boundary. There is a large tree stump poking incongruously from the
center of the clearing like a splinter in the Earth. The smell of burning
camphor lingers in the air.

He knows this place. In the flesh, he only spent a few scant
moments here, and they were panicked moments that attenuated the
senses and distorted mental geography. But of all the places Natch has
been in his lifetime, this may be the one he can never forget.

"You're not looking in the right direction," says a voice, unruffled,
unhurried.

Brone parts the curtain of greenery with his artificial hand and
steps into the clearing. He's wearing the same black robe with stylized
red trim that Natch has seen on the other Thasselians. Like, but not
identical to, the robes they wore when they ambushed him in Shenandoah. Brone's hands are folded behind his back, and he's carrying no
weapon that Natch can see.

"It was over there," says the bodhisattva, nodding towards the
center of the clearing. "The bear batted me over that stump with one
of his paws-he hit me right here." Brone raises his good hand and
makes a gesture, indicating the scar that still flares angrily across his
face, bisecting the prosthetic eye. "I fell back and raised one arm to
keep the bear off my face, and he twisted it. All the way around. I can't
explain exactly how it happened. One minute I had an arm, the next
minute ..." He stares dolefully at the ground, as if the severed limb
might be lying there in the SeeNaRee. "But you remember all that,
don't you, Natch? Because you were standing right there." Brone
points towards one of half a dozen maples lining the far side of the
clearing. "I looked over and caught your eye, do you remember? And
what did you do? You just stared at me and watched."

The screams, the terror, the pain assault Natch's mind. For once,
he wishes that MultiReal-D had taken one of his memories away. "I'll never understand you," he says, shaking his head. "You knew I was
coming. You've been waiting for me. So why didn't you have a dartgun
ready? Why didn't you just kill me when I walked in the room?"

Brone seems to find the question mildly amusing. "I've had the
opportunity to kill you, Natch. Many times. And I'm not talking
about our little confrontation in Old Chicago. I followed you around
Shenandoah for months, remember? I knew exactly where to find you
and exactly where to attack you. I could very well have made the black
code in those darts lethal."

"Well? Why didn't you?"

"Certainly you know the reason. I needed you on my side. I needed
your help in finishing the MultiReal programming. I foolishly thought
I could persuade you to join my Revolution of Selfishness. I thought
you would gladly help me rid the world of the Defense and Wellness
Council's tyranny." With hands clasped behind his back, Brone begins
a leisurely pace clockwise around the tree stump. Natch, wary, circles
around it too, keeping the stump between them. "I guess I underestimated Magan Kai Lee's powers of persuasion. After all the Council did
to you, you'd risk putting the ultimate weapon in their hands?" Natch
starts to speak, but Brone cuts him off with a dismissive snort. "No,
stop, Natch-I already know what you're going to say. Magan isn't the
tyrant you think he is. He's not like Borda. Let me guess.... He told you
that he intends to keep MultiReal safe and out of the hands of his
armies. He said he would work with you on a plan to get the program
out on the open market. A slow plan that'll take twenty years, I'll
wager. Do you really believe him?"

Natch continues circling around the tree stump, dartgun raised,
finger on the trigger. He says nothing.

"Didn't you listen to the speech that Serr Vigal gave to the Prime
Committee?" says Brone, irked at his enemy's silence. "In the end, it
doesn't matter whether you believe Magan or not. It doesn't matter
whether he's being sincere. Power has intense gravity, that's what Lucco Primo said. Concentrate the power of MultiReal in the hands of the
few, and you will get corruption. That's true whether we're talking
about Len Borda, Magan Kai Lee, or Khann Frejohr-or you and I, for
that matter.