Technobabel (4 page)

I run down the corridor and out the door to the van parked in the alleyway, still loaded with its macabre cargo of corpses. I yank open the door, jump into the driver’s side, and gun the ignition, body-bags scattering from the meat-wagon’s open rear doors as I peel out of there. A horn blares at me as I swerve onto the road and accelerate away, but there is no sign of pursuit from the charnel house. Only when I’m several blocks away do I notice the blood spattered on my clothes and skin. I look down at my arm where the terrible curved blade emerged, seeing the faint, pale line on my skin near my wrist that is its sheath.

I didn’t even know it was there.

3

Now
the
whole
earth
had
one
language
and
few
words
.
And
as
men
migrated
from
the
east,
they
found
a
plain
in
the
land
of
Shinar
and
settled
there
.
And
they
said
to
one
another,
"
Come,
let
us
make
bricks,
and
burn
them
thoroughly
. "
And
they
had
brick
for
stone
and
bitumen
for
mortar
.
Then
they
said,
"
Come,
let
us
build
ourselves
a
city
and
a
tower
with
its
top
in
the
heavens,
and
let
us
make
a
name
for
ourselves,
lest
we
be
scattered
abroad
upon
the
face
of
the
earth
. "
And
the
Lord
came
down
to
see
the
city
and
the
tower,
which
the
sons
of
men
had
built
.
And
the
Lord
said,
"
Behold,
they
are
one
people,
and
they
all
have
one
language;
and
this
is
only
the
beginning
of
what
they
will
do;
and
nothing
that
they
propose
to
do
will
now
be
impossible
for
them
.
Come,
let
us
go
down,
and
there
confuse
their
language,
that
they
may
not
understand
one
another’s
speech
."
So
the
Lord
scattered
them
abroad
from
there
over
the
face
of
all
the
earth,
and
they
left
off
building
the
city
.
Therefore
its
name
was
called
Babel
,
because
the
Lord
confused
the
language
of
all
the
earth;
and
from
there
the
Lord
scattered
them
abroad
over
the
face
of
the
earth
.

—Genesis 11:1-9

It had been a long time since God felled humanity’s last attempt to build a tower to the heavens, but humanity had now toppled heaven from the sky and
raised
up a new heaven to replace it. A heaven of glittering satellites and low-orbital factories singing their electronic choruses in praise of commerce and free enterprise, looking down on the Earth with their watchful eyes, seeing all.

In the highest throne of the new heaven sat the Zurich-Orbital, home of the
Corporate Court
. The Court arbitrated the disputes and laws of the vast, multinational megacorporations straddling the globe and holding the power and prestige once reserved for the nations they had eclipsed. Granted extraterritorial status by the weakened governments of the world, the megacorps answer to no law but their own, embodied in the form of the satellite orbiting high above the mundane concerns of Earth’s teeming populace. From their heavenly headquarters, the thirteen justices of the
Corporate Court
pass their divine judgments on the world below and the megacorporations controlling it.

Justice David Hague of the
Corporate Court
floated in his small office space on board the Zurich-Orbital like an angel sitting on a cloud, but the Justice—a paid employee of Fuchi Industrial Electronics—was anything but serene. Fidgeting in the loose harness keeping him tethered to one wall of the small room, Hague did his best to simulate pacing in a zero-gravity environment.
Floating gently back and forth while looking out the room’s small window at the vast blue sphere of the Earth below, he was alone for the moment with his worries and concerns.

Despite his unease, Hague was very much the image of an angelic figure. His rosy cheeks and wide blue eyes gave him a boyish air that made him look years younger. He’d cursed the "baby face" in youth, but now that he was past fifty, his youthful looks worked to his advantage. Where most of his colleagues were spending huge sums on cuttingedge treatments to keep them looking young and vital, David Hague could still pass for a man in his thirties. Oh, there was a touch of gray in the golden curls, but his hair was so fair most didn’t notice it anyway. He sighed and thought wistfully of his native Amsterdam again, wishing he were back home, or at least back on Earth.

He longed to be standing on solid ground and wished the whole matter he’d come here for was over. The trip up to the orbital had been exhausting, as usual. The Z-O operated on Greenwich Mean Time, which meant it was something like four a.m. here, whatever meaning that had for a station in low-earth orbit. Hague’s personal body clock wasn’t far off, and he wished for the hundredth time that the whole thing was over and done with so he could at least get some sleep.

Although Hague, like all of the
Corporate Court
justices, was no stranger to confrontation or conflict, he felt a deep uneasiness about the events that had brought him to the Zurich-Orbital station. A serpent had entered the
Corporate Court
’s economic and legal Eden, and he feared it might topple their tower to the heavens just as God had toppled humanity’s last attempt. The balance of power between the megacorporations was delicate in the extreme, and the Court was entrusted with maintaining it and keeping the peace.

An electronic chime drew Hague’s attention away from his brooding. He gently pushed off from the wall to grab a padded handle, which let him turn toward the door of the room.

"Enter," he said, and the hatch slid open with a pneumatic hiss to allow Hague’s visitor to float gently into the room before expertly catching one of the wall handles and hooking her harness to the nearby ring to tether
herself
.

Although the room was small, Hague could normally use all of the space to move and work in, including the walls and the ceiling, rather than being limited to just the floor. But when he had visitors, he preferred to speak to them face to face rather than having people dangling from the ceiling while talking. It made him sick to his stomach. The addition of his guest made the room seem smaller and more cramped, although Hague was not sure if it was her presence or the news she carried.

"Hello, David," Justice Lynn Osborne said with a smile. "How are you enjoying your visit?" Like Hague, Osborne was a member of the
Corporate Court
in the employ of Fuchi Industrial Electronics. Fuchi was one of the few megacorps with two Justices on the
Corporate Court
. It had been a considerable coup for the computer-industry giant over the past few years and one that should serve them well as they now brought a serious matter before the Court. So serious that Fuchi had invoked the right to have all the justices present in the flesh instead of merely by virtual reality.

"Lynn, you know how much I despise freefall. It’s a good thing the treatments they’re giving out for space-sickness are reasonably effective, or you could never have dragged me up here. Can we just get on with this?"

Osborne smiled and nodded. Unlike Hague, Osborne spent considerably more time on board the Zurich-Orbital handling her duties as a justice. Hague preferred to remain on Earth and conduct Court business through the virtual-reality interface of the Matrix via a sophisticated satellite uplink system, but not this time. No matter what he said, he and every other justice would be physically present. When the Court was in session, Z-O would be isolated from the worldwide computer network and inviolate to spying or outside interference of any kind. Osborne’s regular presence on board the station had also
acclimated
her internal clock to the orbital’s routines. Where Hague was tired and irritable, she was fresh and well-rested, which only grated further on his strained nerves.

Taking a computer pad from a clip on her belt, Osborne touched the flat-screen and brought up an organizational display of the
Corporate Court
. Eight of the thirteen icons representing the Justices were colored in green while the remaining five were colored in red.

"We’ve got our chance," she said triumphantly. "I’ve just come from talking with Doi and Msaki, and they’re willing to lend their support. That’s enough of a majority for the initial hearing to go forward. It’s only a formality for the Court to convene now."

Hague wasn’t overly surprised. The two justices working for Mitsuhama Computer Technologies might have their differences with Fuchi, but they also knew what was at stake in this issue and what could happen if two of the major computer-tech corps didn’t work together on this one.

He nodded and gave a low "hmmm" of approval. "What about Napoli? How do you plan to handle him?" he asked, and Osborne gave a small pout that made her look almost girlish despite her fifty-plus years.

David Hague knew Osborne was one of those people who spent part of her considerable salary as a member of the
Corporate Court
on maintaining appearances. Her fine features were the best Fuchi’s exclusive cosmetic clinics could produce, but she still had not gone the route of entirely concealing her real age beneath some plastic glamour-girl façade. The dark chestnut hair was free of gray and the smooth skin free of lines, but Osborne still looked like a mature woman somewhere in that vague range between thirty and fifty. An observer would be hard pressed to guess her real age.

She shook her head. "Don’t worry about Napoli. He’s isolated on the Court—and he’s a lame duck. We can handle him. Renraku hasn’t exactly been making friends on the Court lately."

That’s
certainly
true,
Hague thought.

"But it doesn’t change the fact that Renraku has a lot of clout," he said. "Renraku has been handing us a lot of surprises over the past two years, and it’s just possible they might have a card up their collective sleeve that could trump even the Court. Who knows what Lanier might have given
them.
"

"Renraku is out of cards, David. Nobody can stand against the whole Court when we’re unified behind a cause. The Veracruz Incident proved that."

The event Osborne referred to had occurred ten years ago, before either she or Hague had become justices. The so-called incident consisted of the world’s first-tier megacorps joining forces to punish one of their own for flouting the
Corporate Court
’s authority. A military strike against some of the target’s holdings had been carried out with surgical precision, and the message sent was clear: defy the Court’s edicts at your own peril.
Now loomed the possibility that another megacorp was heading up that same dangerous road.

"I wish I shared your certainly," Hague replied. "Francesco Napoli is a pit bull. He’s not going to let go without a fierce fight, and by now he must know what you’re planning to present before the Court. Renraku’s got to know everything by now, including the fact that our case has holes in it. He seems too confident. If he wasn’t, he’d never have allowed this hearing to happen in the first place. He’d have come up with some kind of delaying tactic or—"