Geosynchron (64 page)

"You're not trying to eradicate MultiReal at all."

"No. What would be the point? If it was dreamt up once, it will
be dreamt up again. You can't stop the human race from striving towards perfection any more than you can stop a hurricane. I'm not
trying to keep Possibilities 2.0 out of the public's hands. I'm just
buying the human race some time to get it right. Fifty years of time,
maybe longer."

Magan sits silently and considers all of this for a minute. Hard to
fathom that only a few months ago, they were sitting across a table at
the Kordez Thassel Complex in much different circumstances. Back
then, it was Natch trying to release MultiReal to the world in an
unfinished state and Magan working to stop him.

"So what if you're wrong about me?" says the lieutenant executive
finally. "What if I have the Defense and Wellness Council reconstitute
MultiReal in secret after you're gone?"

"Then someone will rise up to stop you."

"Who?"

"Fuck, I don't know. You don't think this is just about me, do you?
The world put me here, Magan. Time, history, fate, the confluence of
events-call it whatever you want. If you or Rey Gonerev or the next
high executive after her turns into another Len Borda, someone will be
around to stand in your way. You can count on that."

Merri, again.

"The Council can't guarantee Bonneth's safety," says Natch. "There
are just too many unknowns. But that doesn't mean you're powerless.
What you can do is help her get somewhere that she'll be insulated
from the chaos."

"But there isn't any such place."

"Sure there is. An OrbiCo medical freighter."

A thoughtful pause. An audible burst of optimism. "That-that
might work."

"Of course it'll work. Once Bonneth gets situated, she'll be safer than anyone down here on Earth. Those ships are totally isolated and
self-contained. They're prepared for a complete bandwidth cutoff. And
if worse comes to worst, she'll be surrounded by doctors."

Merri's voice vanishes without another word as she goes off to book
passage for Bonneth on an OrbiCo medical freighter. Not five minutes
later, before anyone else can take up the communication channel to talk
to Natch, she's back, her voice ratcheted into the hysterical range again.

"There's a freighter leaving literally in an hour from Einstein," says
Merri. "But it's all booked up-everything but the VIP suites. And
those cost a fortune."

"Define a fortune."

Merri names a number that does, indeed, meet the definition.

"Horvil and Benyamin have that kind of money."

"I can't reach them, Natch. They're with Quell. They've locked
themselves in a room with a bio/logic workbench to try to get you out
of there, and I can't even get a message through.... What am I going
to do?"

Natch ponders the question for a moment, and a solution quickly
presents itself. Remarkable how easy the answers come when the world
has narrowed the scope of your resources. "My Vault account," he says.
"Empty it."

The channel manager gasps aloud, clearly taken aback. "Empty it?"

"Every single bloody credit, if you have to. Get her a personal
attendant. I'm certainly not going to need that money anymore."

Natch can sense Merri's unease with the idea. He's fairly certain
that if her and Bonneth's roles were reversed, the channel manager
would gladly ride out a thousand infoquakes rather than ask such a
favor for herself. But somehow, asking on behalf of a loved one changes
the equation. "I don't have authorization to spend from your Vault
account, do I?"

"Serr Vigal does. If you have any trouble, see him. Is he still
around?"

"Yes, he's here. But what if he doesn't believe me?"

Of all the things Vigal has to worry about, Natch suspects that
Merri embezzling money is rather low on his list. He laughs out loud.
"Merri, you're a Creed Objectivv truthteller. You've never sullied that
oath. Everyone knows that you've always stayed true to the letter and
the spirit of your promise. Of course Serr Vigal will believe you."

A pause. More tears. "Natch," she says, "I ... I don't know how to
what 1 can ... Thank you."

And then she's gone.

42

It was all too much to absorb at once. Memory reversal, upheaval,
death: Jara felt like there was some jagged truth buried at the bottom
of it all, and her brain was doing its best to keep her in a state of disorientation to protect her from its barbs.

"So what do we ... do?" she said, always focused on the practical.

Petrucio seemed dejected. "I don't know if there's anything we can
do. Horvil says he's made up his mind."

Technically the fiefcorpers were still operating in the war room at
the top of the Tio Van Jarmack building. But ever since Natch's signal
had gone dead, things had gotten increasingly surreal up here. The
Defense and Wellness Council officers were still patrolling the hallways outside, but the mood had noticeably shifted after the news of
Len Borda's surrender had made its way through the ranks. Loud, jubilant conversations and even the occasional celebratory snippet of song
drifted into the war room now, while Jara, Petrucio, and Robby stared
glumly at the walls and prepared for the apocalypse. Petrucio decided
to open the bottle of burgundy Brone had given him, but nobody had
a taste for wine at the moment. Merri had left to make preparations for
her companion's OrbiCo shuttle, and Serr Vigal had retreated back to
his hotel room for some rest. Quell, Horvil, and Benyamin were locked
away in a room on the twenty-third floor trying to free Natch from
Brone's black code. Richard Taylor was still flitting around somewhere,
nobody was quite sure where.

Jara leapt out of her chair and began pacing back and forth in front
of the viewscreens, which were still showing nothing but solid gray.
"I'm not just going to sit here and do nothing while the world comes to
an end," she scowled. "There's got to be something we can do to prepare for the failsafe."

"Like what?" said Petrucio, leaning back in his seat and rubbing
his tired eyes.

"I don't know. But the stakes are just too high. Those drudges are
going to be voting on whether to release Possibilities in the next five
or ten minutes." She gestured at one of the viewscreens that was
showing the scene inside the Kordez Thassel Complex: Ridglee and
Sor in full yellow journalism mode, Council operatives seething, Brone
resplendent. "We've got to warn sixty billion people from here to Furtold to hunker down and stay indoors. We've got to tell them to stay
away from MultiReal if Brone releases it. And we need to do it in the
next two hours, before Natch activates the failsafe."

Petrucio grinned. "That would be the greatest communications
coup in the history of humanity. How the fuck do we do all that?"

Robby Robby abruptly stood up with a look so solemn and free
from hipster sarcasm that Jara had to look twice to make sure it was
the same man. "Leave that to me," he said, his voice brimming over
with purpose. "Where's Rey Gonerev?"

Jara and Petrucio turned to each other with a look and a shrug. If
anyone could accomplish a miracle like this, it was Robby.

The channeler did not disappoint.

Within five minutes, they had reached the Blade via a secure communications channel at DWCR. She quickly prived herself to all other
incoming messages and gestured for Robby to go ahead.

Robby Robby posed a tripartite solution. Magan Kai Lee would
immediately send out as many Council hoverbirds as he could spare to
hover over humanity's most populous cities blaring out warning
klaxons. Council troops would march through the city streets side by
side with security forces from the Congress of L-PRACGs, weapons
sheathed, along with as many representatives from the creeds as they
could gather. And urgent messages would be sent through every LPRACG in the world urging people to get indoors and set a green
beacon on the multi network when they had reached a place of safety. Anyone who found themselves in some kind of extreme danger or distress would change their beacon to red. Robby thought that this
arrangement would reach the maximum number of people without
causing massive panic, and discourage people from flooding the Data
Sea with frantic message traffic.

"What if someone doesn't have time to change their beacon from
green to red?" protested Jara. "What if someone has a massive coronary
and dies in a split second?"

"When you die, the multi network automatically cuts off any beacons you've set," replied a sanguine Robby Robby. "Red beacon or no
beacon-either way, if you check on someone and there's no green
beacon, you know you've got trouble."

"But what about pranksters, or people clamoring for attention, or
people who refuse to obey-"

"I never said it was perfect," said Robby. "Just the best we can do
in two hours."

Rey Gonerev was pensive. "Krone will try to counter it," she said.
"He's a quick thinker. As soon as he realizes we're trying to get out a
warning to the public, he's going to try to spread a countermessage
accusing us of intimidation."

"And let's not forget that he's got tens of thousands of anonymous
devotees out there to help him," put in Petrucio Patel.

Robby was unfazed. "That's why we get the Council officers to
march on the streets with weapons sheathed, together with the creed
and Congressional forces. So people don't think this is just some sinister trick by the Defense and Wellness Council. Anyone who thinks
the Council and the Congress and the creeds are all in bed together ...
well, they're not going to listen to us no matter what we say, right?"

"Authenticated messages don't travel quickly enough," objected
Petrucio. "It'd be impossible to get a verifiable message out to sixty
billion people in time."

"So we'll send unauthenticated messages."

Jara could feel a switch go off in her head. "Natch's black code forgery machine," she said. "The program that looks like a green pyramid
in MindSpace. The one he used to get to number one on Primo's, and
then to spread the word about that fake Council memo. That thing can
do the trick."

Robby flashed a set of enormous teeth so white they could practically
serve as a light source. "Whoever said that was Natch's forgery machine,
Queen Jara?" he said. "Who d'you think told him where to find it?"

The Blade listened silently to this interchange with a look of intense
concentration. Jara suspected that she was relaying the pertinent details
to Magan Kai Lee. After half a minute, she lifted her head and gave a
nod. "Magan says to make it happen. Robby, you stay right there so we
can coordinate logistics. We've got five minutes to put this in motion."

Jara blanched. "Five minutes?"

"In case you hadn't noticed-the drudges have voted. They voted
for Brone to release Possibilities 2.0."