Multireal (37 page)

"I know Borda's scared of MultiReal. I know he'll go to any lengths
to get core access to it. And I think-I think he-" I think he ordered a
special ops team to dress in black robes and assault me in an alleyway. "I think
he wouldn't hesitate to kill someone of Margaret's stature to get his
hands on it."

Frejohr closed his eyes and nodded. His white hair glared vibrantly
in the moonlight. "That's obvious."

"Quell-the Islander who used to work for Margaret-he said
something strange just before the Council carted him away," continued
Natch. "He said that Borda killed Margaret's father."

"That's obvious too," said the speaker.

Natch felt as if a cold and many-legged insect had just wriggled
up his spine. Could the high executive be so contemptuous of the
Surinas that he would kill both Marcus and Margaret? Was even Len
Borda ruthless enough to cut off the line of humanity's greatest benefactors in cold blood?

"How do you know?" the entrepreneur croaked, clenching the railing almost hard enough to crack it. "If the Congress has evidence
that Marcus Surina was murdered, why haven't you brought it forward?"

"It's the evidence we don't have," replied Frejohr. "A shuttle
explodes in a distant region of Furtoid. Ruptured fuel tank, the whole
executive board of TeleCo dies instantly. No surviving witnesses. No
Council officers around for kilometers. No distress calls, no explanation for what Marcus Surina was doing out there in the first place.
That's pretty convenient, isn't it?" The speaker winced as if probing
the vestigial traces of an old pain in his gut. Natch had seen Vigal's
hollow stare of loss whenever someone mentioned Marcus's death, and
Vigal had never even met the man. Khann Frejohr had been involved
in politics long enough to have worked with Marcus personally.

"Look, Natch," continued the speaker, "this is how the Defense and
Wellness Council does things. It didn't start with Len Borda. This is
part of the organizational culture going all the way back to Tul Jabbor.
Someone opposes the Council; the Council tolerates it just long
enough to avoid suspicion-then that someone ends up in a tragic and
fatal `accident.' It happened to Marcus Surina. It happened to Margaret
Surina. Some of us even think it happened to Henry Osterman."

Natch said nothing for a moment. He tracked a group of whiterobed officers on the street below as they made a tight circuit around
the block. "So what's to stop Len Borda from getting away with it this
time too?"

Frejohr retreated into the shadows and slid his hands into the
pockets of his bronze robe. "I don't think he'll get away with anything," he said, "because I don't think Borda's responsible."

"So if the Council didn't kill her, then-"

"I said Borda isn't responsible. I didn't say anything about the
Council."

Natch let out a long, ragged breath. The image of the slight lieutenant executive with the impenetrable stare knifed through his con sciousness. Fool, he had told Quell. Don't you realize I'm the only one standing
between you and Borda? "Magan Kai Lee," whispered the entrepreneur.

"There's a major rift in the Defense and Wellness Council right
now," said Frejohr, his voice laced with bitter satisfaction. "Borda's old.
The rumor is that he was planning to hand control of the Council over
to Magan before this whole MultiReal crisis hit."

"Hand control over? How can he do that? The high executive is
appointed by the Prime Committee."

"And the Committee is in Borda's pocket. It's a rubber stamp;
they'll appoint whomever he tells them to appoint. But that's all irrelevant. Now that Borda's decided to stay for a while longer, we hear a
lot of officers muttering about speeding his retirement." Frejohr let out a
hoarse chuckle. "There's a euphemism for you, huh? Speeding his retirement. The top officers in the organization are choosing sides. Rey
Gonerev is stirring up the ranks. There's talk of a coup."

"A coup?" Natch stepped back from the railing, away from the eyes
of the Council officers. Such a thing belonged in the realm of the neverpossible. A rebellion against the high executive of the Defense and
Wellness Council? Just as easy to rebel against time or the rotation of
the Earth. "So what makes you think Margaret's death has anything to
do with it?"

"Imagine this," continued the speaker. "Magan Kai Lee orders
Margaret Surina dead and arranges it to look like Borda's doing. Then
he persuades the Prime Committee to throw the high executive out of
office and install him in Borda's place. Or maybe he arranges to frame
you-which gives him leverage to seize MultiReal. He arms his troops
with the program, and then he makes his move against Borda. With
Borda gone, the Committee appoints him high executive."

Lieutenant Executive Lee had never seemed like the type to work
for his own self-aggrandizement. Natch had pegged him in the slot of
the Organizational Creature and had based his assumptions accordingly. But what if he was wrong about Magan? A whole new set of sickening possibilities was coming to light. What if Magan had purposefully not seized control of MultiReal to prevent Borda from getting
his hands on it? Was that why he had arranged to give it to Jara?

The frightening thing was that it didn't really matter in the end.
Whether Magan Kai Lee or Len Borda ultimately held control of
MultiReal was irrelevant. Either outcome spelled certain doom for
Natch's aspirations, and probably the world's civil liberties too.

"Now you see why I wanted to meet," said Natch. "The situation's
getting out of control. You have to stop this before it's too late."

Frejohr shrugged. He was inexplicably vacating the conversation
and moving on to the next item on his itinerary. "And how would you
suggest I do that?"

"Get the Prime Committee to intervene. Get them to start their
own investigation into the murder of Margaret Surina." Natch could
feel his legs growing restless and started to pace back and forth across
the narrow patch of balcony. Finding that too constrictive, he reached
out to the tenement and upped his allotted balcony space, causing an
additional length of metal walkway to slide out from the building.

"This isn't just about Margaret," Natch went on. "It's not just about
me. It's about government intrusion into private business. It's about the
Council bullying and threatening other government agencies. It's about
Len Borda and Magan Kai Lee turning MultiReal into a weapon."

Frejohr was too smooth to allow Natch's badgering to upset his
equanimity. "I wasn't sure the Congress should get involved when I
arrived here," he said coolly. "And now I'm even less sure. Have you
ever heard the saying Nothing's less persuasive than a government committee?
If you work on this alone, you've got a chance, Natch. The public's on
your side-or at least they will be once they stop blaming you for Margaret's death. If the Congress of L-PRACGs gets involved, the whole
thing's going to turn into a partisan battle. Governmentalists versus
libertarians. The minute that happens, you're going to lose half the
public's support, and the Council will clamp down on you even more."

Natch's nostrils flared. His left hand was twitching too violently to
keep it a secret from the speaker much longer. "What's your strategy then?"

"We wait. We let the Defense and Wellness Council weaken itself
with internal politics." Frejohr rubbed his eyes, clearly exhausted.
With all the infoquakes and the chaos going on, his week must have
been even more stressful than Natch's. "And while the Council tears
itself apart, there's a groundswell of support from the grass roots that's
only going to get stronger. We're starting to see serious movement in
the poll numbers. We've got a shot at turning the Prime Committee
libertarian in next year's elections-and if that happens, the whole
equation will change."

Natch grimaced. This was not the man the libertarian public relations machine claimed he was. Khann Frejohr might once have been a
revolutionary, but now he had succumbed to the Melbourne mind-set,
where all things revolve around the next set of elections. There simply
was no time for dithering. Natch thought of the Council officers on the
street below, the Patel Brothers in the Council's pocket, Jara dancing to
the Council's strings with core access to MultiReal. He needed to take
command of this conversation, and he needed to do it quickly, or Frejohr
would be back in his office drafting obscure legislation within the hour.

"You want to sit around and wait for all of Len Borda's enemies to
get their act together?" he said. "You want to wait for elections? Fine,
go ahead. Go on inside and show me these great poll numbers on the
viewscreen. If you can."

Frejohr blanched. "What do you mean, if I can?"

"Go ahead and try it."

The entrepreneur reached out with his mind to the Possibilities
interface. It lay there in the fiefcorp data stores like an extension of his
own anatomy. Natch switched on the program and felt its hum in his
bones as he tried to recall the specific instructions Horvil had given him.

Flash.

Flash.

Flash.

Natch's mind skated along Feynman pathways, collating alternate
realities at ludicrous speeds, selecting the one possibility out of a million that suited him, over and over again. Khann Frejohr's eyebrow
writhed up and down in concentration. The speaker's expression took
a slow journey from doubt to discomfort, and then dipped momentarily into fear.

Flash.

Flash.

Flash.

After several long seconds had passed, a single droplet of sweat
trickled down the speaker's forehead and came to a rest on the tip of
his nose. Frejohr had not budged from the railing.

"I-I can't move," he said.

Natch nodded with grim satisfaction as he shut off the program.
He had never tried this particular MultiReal trick before, and he
hadn't known if it would work or not. Manipulating a street vendor
into giving a two-credit discount on lunch was one thing; thwarting
the will of the speaker of the Congress of L-PRACGs was another. It
was tremendously empowering. And yet, as Horvil had warned him, it
wasn't without cost. Expending all that mental energy left him quivering like a junkie, just a few heartbeats away from total collapse. He
switched on an adrenaline program to keep himself upright.

"Do you know why you can't move?" said Natch in a menacing
whisper.

Khann Frejohr shook his head.

"Because when we run the simulation over and over in our minds,
your brain tells me there's a possibility that you'll decide not to move.
It might be remote. It might be insignificant. It might take me a million iterations to get to. But with MultiReal, I can find that possibility.

"And if I can find it-what could Len Borda find if he digs deep
enough? The desire to obey authority? The desire to confess all your secrets, all the Congress's secrets?" Natch walked up to the speaker and
leaned in close. "Maybe even the desire to stand still in the crosshairs
of a Council multi disruptor?"

They peered over the railing at the group of Council officers below.
One of them was actually checking the scope on his shoulder-mounted
disruptor cannon; he could have aimed and fired at Frejohr in the blink of
an eye. Nobody knew for sure whether the Council had the ability to pass
black code through a disruptor beam, but judging by Frejohr's wide eyes
and sweat-mottled forehead, the speaker didn't relish taking that chance.

"I don't think you understand the urgency," said the entrepreneur.
"Once the Council gets ahold of MultiReal, that will be the end of libertarianism. That's it. Who could possibly fight against an army of
Council officers armed with that program? Nobody. It would be the
end of the Congress, the end of freedom as we know it for hundreds or
thousands of years. It all comes down to this: if Len Borda or Magan
Kai Lee seizes MultiReal, your speakership will vanish, and you'll be
forgotten. Wiped out of history without a trace. Is that how you want
to end your career?"

Natch could see the fear behind Frejohr's eyes ignite a spark of
anger. For a brief moment, the man standing before him looked like
the man in the history files. It was the sign Natch had been waiting
for, an indication that the speaker could indeed prove useful.

Yet still there was hesitation. "I don't think you understand the
politics involved here, Natch," said Frejohr. "I've only been speaker for
a month. I'm barely holding on to a slim libertarian majority in the
Congress as it is. You can't just expect the libertarian members to start
pushing on the Prime Committee so soon."

Natch snorted. "I don't really care what they do. I didn't call this
meeting to talk to the Khann Frejohr who's the speaker of the Congress
of L-PRACGs. I wanted to talk to the Khann Frejohr who has contacts
in the libertarian movement, the labor unions, the creeds. I wanted to
talk to the Khann Frejohr who stages insurrections."

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