Multireal (65 page)

A voice speaks. This isn't how I wanted things to end.

The entrepreneur spins around, or at least tries to, which is impossible in a world without exterior referents. No actual sound has pierced
the veil of this ultracompacted universe, but it seems like a sound. It
seems like a voice. It is, in fact, the only voice that is conceivable here.

His own.

Natch has spoken those words, and yet he has not. He remembers making the vocalizations that echo in his mind; he remembers saying
those things, as much as the concept makes sense. But the ideas came
from elsewhere. Outside.

He can feel more words forming at his nonexistent lips, and he
cannot stop them. It took me years to perfect this little piece of black code,
Natch. You would be quite impressed if you had more time to explore it. The
ultimate loopback! Much more interesting than some silly cloaking program.
All sensory input rerouted, all sensory commands blocked off. Think of it as a
dam of sorts, planted in the brain stem. Except I have the ability to open and
close channels at will. Witness....

An instantaneous sword thrust of pure, unalloyed agony. The Urpain, the primordial concept itself.

Gone.

A sudden reemergence of sound. Low voices muttering, the distant
bark of the mongrel. Staccato scrapes that might come from the confluence of boots and rubble.

Nothing.

Don't try to blame me for this state of affairs, says the voice. If you want
to blame someone, you can blame yourself. You've done a much better job isolating yourself than I could have ever done. All I've done is take advantage of
it.

Yes, thanks to you, Natch, your disappearance will arouse little suspicion.
I'm sure the drudges will speculate about you for a while. Some will suspect foul
play; some will suspect that the Council has done away with you. But most
people? Most people will assume you've fallen prey to your own paranoia, gotten
sucked into your own self-delusions. Like Henry Osterman and Sheldon Surina.
Like Marcus Surina at the end. They'll think that one of your uncountable enemies finally caught up to you on a dark road somewhere.

I daresay even those few you label your friends will give up on you soon
enough.

People will wonder what happened to MultiReal. The drudges will have
heated debates about it, and some of the bigger fie/corps will attempt to dupli cate it-unsuccessfully, of course. Some will conclude that the whole thing was
a hoax to begin with.

And then-once the rumors have died down, once the subject has become
nothing more than a myth, once even the Defense and Wellness Council has concluded that MultiReal is lost in the deep eddies of the Data Sea-Creed
Thassel will emerge. We'll launch Possibilities 2.0 and proclaim an end to the
tyranny of cause and effect, forever.

An end to the Council. An end to centralized authority. A new beginning.

It is a strange thing, speaking the words of another. Natch feels the
vibrations of his vocal cords, the swaying of his tongue-the idea of his
vocal cords, the idea of his tongue-but he knows indisputably that
the sentiments behind the words belong to someone else. And yet, the
mere act of stringing together such words in his memory is causing
him to reverse engineer the sounds back into their component
thoughts.

The voice continues.

I hoped that we could work together, Natch. I really hoped that we might
put aside our differences and launch Possibilities 2.0 as a team. I wasn't lying
about that. It would have made for great symbolism-two enemies joining
forces to announce the end of the zero-sum game! And it will take much longer
to finish the programming without you. Maybe years longer.

But I see now that it's not fated to be. I was right to send that strike team
after you. I was right to take out this little piece of insurance. You'll never willingly join my Revolution of Selfishness; as long as you live, you'll be a hindrance. I would simply keep you cooped up in this prison of mine until the
launch of Possibilities, but I'm not that foolish. You would figure a way out of
here eventually.

And so we come now to the final choice. Your last choice.

Don't think I take any pleasure in this, Natch. No sane human being
enjoys taking the life of another But you must agree that sometimes it's necessary. Sometimes we must sacrifice our own lives in order that others may be free.
And that's what you'll do. Your gift of MultiReal to the world will engender a future of boundless freedom for all. You can take some consolation in the fact
that you'll be a hero, a martyr for humankind.

Natch feels the raw fury inside him. It's threaded through every
cell in his body, and now he summons it all. Anger. The righteous,
white-blazed inferno of need and struggle and drive, shaped into a
dagger of willpower. The terrible madness of the Shortest Initiation.
The humiliation of Captain Bolbund's poetry. The sting of being outmaneuvered by Magan Kai Lee. The howl of frustration he feels at
locking horns with Jara. All concentrated and compounded to the
utmost degree.

Natch reaches out and wrenches control of the voice. What's killing
me going to accomplish? he says. You can't be that stupid. Without me, MultiReal is gone forever. It'll float out there on the Data Sea for all eternity-and
even when you find it, your little piece of black code won't give you core access.
What happens to your fucking Revolution of Selfishness then?

There is a moment of considered silence. He can almost feel the
pitying smile on Brone's face, the wretched shake of the head.

I don't think you quite understand, says the voice. You're lying completely defenseless on a street in Old Chicago. There's no one out here but the disc
for kilometers. And I have here the gateway to pain beyond your imagining.
Unadulterated pain that's all the more potent because it doesn't go through the
intermediary step of the nervous system.

You have one last choice left to make, Natch. And I already know what
your decision is going to be. When you're racked with anguish beyond anguish
and you're given the opportunity to end that suffering-of signing over core
access to MultiReal to me and earning a swift death you'll make the only logical choice. I know you will.

Natch tries to reach out and steady himself against something, but
there is nothing to steady himself against. He feels the primal fear
wash over him, the fear of emptiness, of loneliness, of pain. He yanks
away control of his voice one last time. You have no fucking idea what I'll
do, he says. Torture me for a thousand years. I'm stronger than you. I'm the most stubborn son-of-a-bitch who ever lived. I'll never hand over MultiReal.
Are you listening? Do you hear me? Never. I'll never do it. Never.

He waits for the inevitable retort, for Brone's perfidious last word,
but it never comes.

Brone is correct. It is pain beyond imagination, pain reduced to its
purest essence and served raw. The snapping of bones in their sockets,
the laceration of flesh, the jab of a million simultaneous stabbings,
weeks of thirst and starvation, all concatenated into one infinite
instant-and Natch can feel it bearing down on him like a tsunami.

And then the nothingness at the center of the universe clasps hold
of him, and Natch knows no more.

42

Jara arranged to meet Geronimo the day after the disaster at the Tul
Jabbor Complex.

She nearly canceled. The thought of letting a Natch look-alike
inside her emotional barricades made her feel greasy in places where
human beings were not meant to feel greasy. But Jara had spent the
day fretting in the Creed Elan hostel, waiting for some scrap of news
about Natch, or barring that, information on what the Prime Committee was up to in their closed-door session. She needed a distraction.
And she wasn't quite ready to get intimate with Horvil yet, despite the
kiss they had shared in the anonymous bureaucrat's office. An afternoon in bed with Geronimo felt like a monumentally stupid thing to
do, but it was a stupid thing she needed to do.

Merri wandered in to the common room at some point, looking
tired and drained of energy. "How's Bonneth?" Jara asked her.

"Stable for now," replied Merri, propping a smile onto her face.
"Access to Dr. Plugenpatch has been really spotty up there for the past
twenty-four hours. But she made it to the Objectivv facilities in Einstein. They're looking after her."

Jara felt like the icy hand of death had just gripped her by the
throat. She had asked the question as idle chatter; Bonneth's medical
challenges in the face of the infoquakes had completely slipped her
mind, again. "Are you-are you going back there?"

The blonde channel manager nodded. "I'm booked on a Lunar
shuttle this Saturday." She slumped down in the chair, searching for a
comfortable position that remained elusive. "Honestly, I don't think
I'm ready to go yet."

"But don't you miss her? You've been Earthside for, what, over a
month now."

"It's not that difficult, Jara. We have multi. We have messaging.
We even have ... well, we have the Sigh when we need it." A blush
tickled Merri's plump cheeks.

Jara thought of her own impending tryst with Geronimo, causing
her to fidget in her seat like a teenage girl. Keep it together, she admonished herself. "But it's not the same," she told Merri. "You can't eat
meals together. You can't sleep in the same bed. Doesn't the intimacy
get strained after a while?"

Merri closed her eyes for a moment as she considered the question.
"Of course things get strained after a while. And of course I miss her.
But sometimes-sometimes I need a little break from Bonneth, you
know? She understands. She knows that sometimes I just need to do
what I need to do. But when I'm ready, I'll always be back."

The analyst nodded. "Yeah. I know what you mean." She debated
asking Merri's advice about whether she should keep the appointment
with Geronimo, but decided against it. In a sense, the channel manager had already answered.

So Jara retreated to her room at the hostel. She closed the door,
scuttled into bed, and activated her connection to the Sigh. Within
seconds, the real world melted away, and Jara was standing on a glittering patio of solid turquoise. The attendant who greeted her had a
wolf's pelt and four tongues.

"What's up, baby?" came a voice. A hand touched her shoulder.
Geronimo.

It was the first day that Len Borda had allowed public access to the
Sigh since shortly after Margaret's funeral. Consequently lines were
long and tempers were frayed. Jara listened to Geronimo describe
Jeannie Q. Christina's latest celebrity gabfest in agonizing detail for
fifteen minutes while they waited. He seemed completely unaware of
the turmoil that had engulfed the world in recent days.

Things didn't get any better when they finally made it to their
room. (Black leather, again.) Geronimo put on the sullen pout that had almost become a third partner in their sex life and paid Jara little
attention during the act some called lovemaking. Jara stared at the
ceiling, wondering if she was being watched by one of Rey Gonerev's
flunkies. I don't care, she thought, hoping the defiance was visible on
her face. I'm not afraid of her anymore.