Infoquake.

by David Louis Edelman.

NUMBER ONE.

ON PRIMO'S.

Natch was impatient.

He strode around the room with hands clasped behind his back and head bowed forward, like a crazed robot stuck on infinite loop. Around and around, back and forth, from the couch to the door to the window, and then back again.

Behind him, the window was tuned to some frantic cityscape that Jara didn't recognize. Buildings huddled together at crooked angles like the teeth of old men, as tube trains probed the cavities. Singapore, maybe? Sao Paulo? Definitely a terran city, Jara decided. Every few minutes, Natch would look in that direction and inhale deeply, as if trying to draw energy from the thousands of manic pedestrians ensconced within the four corners of the window canvas.

Natch stopped suddenly and wheeled on his apprentice. "Why are you just sitting there?" he cried, punctuating the question with a snap of his fingers.

Jara gestured to the empty spot next to her on the couch. "I'm waiting for Horvil to show up so we can get this over with."

"Where is Horvil?" said Natch. "I told him to be here an hour ago. No, an hour and a half ago. Can't that lazy b.a.s.t.a.r.d learn to keep a calendar?" Around and around, back and forth.

Jara regarded her employer in silence. She supposed that Natch would be devilishly handsome to anyone who didn't know he was completely insane. That casually athletic physique, the boyish face that would never know gray, those eyes predictably blue as sapphires: people like Natch just didn't exist on this side of the camera lens. Nor did they spout phrases like trouncing the compet.i.tion and creating a new paradigm without a trace of irony or self-consciousness.

Natch shook his head. "I can only hope he remembers we've got a product launch tomorrow."

"I don't know why you're so uptight," said Jara. "We do twenty or thirty product launches every year."

"No," hissed Natch. "Not like this one."

Jara let it go. As usual, she had no idea what Natch was talking about. NiteFocus 48 was a routine upgrade that fixed a number of minor coding inconsistencies but introduced no new features. The program had an established track record in the marketplace, built on the well-known optical expertise of the Natch Personal Programming Fiefcorp. Unless Natch expected them to rework the rules of bio/logic programming overnight-and she wouldn't put that past him-the NiteFocus product launch would be a pretty routine affair.

"Listen," said Jara. "Why don't you let Horvil sleep for another hour? He was up all night tinkering on this thing. He probably just got to bed. Don't forget that out here, it's seven o'clock in the morning." Here was London: a sane place, a city of right angles. The city where both Horvil and Jara lived, and some six thousand kilometers away.

"I don't f.u.c.king care," Natch snorted. "I haven't gotten any sleep tonight, and I didn't get any yesterday either."

"Might I remind you that I was up all night working on NiteFocus too."

"I still don't care. Go wake him up."

For the third time that week, Jara considered quitting. He always had this condescension, this mania-no, l.u.s.t-for perfection. How difficult would it be to find a job at another fiefcorp? She had fifteen years in this business, almost three times as much experience as Natch. Certainly PulCorp or Billy Sterno or even Lucas Sentinel would take her on board. Or, dare she think it, the Patel Brothers? But then she considered the three agonizing years she had spent as Natch's apprentice, and the scant eleven months to go before her contract expired. Eleven months to go until I can cash out! I should be able to keep it together that long.

So Jara didn't quit. Instead, she gave her fiefcorp master one last bitter look and cut her multi connection. True to form, Natch had already turned his back on her, probably heading into his office to do more fine-tuning on NiteFocus. You need to watch yourself Jara thought. Natch's brand of insanity just might be contagious.

She slid into nothingness.

The hollow sensation of a mind devoid of sensory input. Those blessed two and a half seconds of free time after one multi connection ends, but before the next begins. Emptiness, blankness.

Multivoid.

Then consciousness.

Jara was back in London, but not at Horvil's place, as she had expected. Horvil must have refused her multi request, so the system had automatically stopped the feed of sensory information flowing through her neural cortex. She stood now on the red square tile that was her apartment's gateway to the multi network, staring at the walls she had never had time to decorate.

Jara's apartment insulted her with its desolation: a featureless s.p.a.ce, a human storage chamber. She resisted the urge to blow off Natch's little summit and go shopping on the Data Sea for wall hangings. Eleven months, eleven months, eleven months, Jara told herself. And then I can cash out and start my own business and it won't matter. In the meantime, I'd better wake up Horvil.

If Horvil wasn't answering her multi requests, he was either asleep or ignoring her. The engineer was not known for being an early riser. In Horvil's parlance, early meant any time before noon, and to a global professional who hopped continents with barely a thought, noon was a slippery concept. Jara gritted her teeth and called up ConfidentialWhisper 66, the program de rigeur for remote conversation. If Horvil wouldn't see her, maybe he would at least talk to her.

The engineer accepted the connection-solid evidence he was, at least, awake.

Jara waited impatiently for an acknowledgement, a response, something. "Well?" she complained. "Are you coming over to Natch's apartment or what?"

Jara heard a number of fake stretching and groaning noises from Horvil's end of the connection. ConfidentialWhisper was strictly a mental communication program, not an oral one. "I could pretend I'm still asleep," said the engineer.

"If I have to be at this idiotic meeting, Horv, then you're not getting out of it."

"Tell me again why he wants to hold a meeting this early in the morning."

"Come on, you know how it works. Apprentice in a fiefcorp, work on the master's time."

"But what's this all about?"

Jara sighed. "I have no idea. Probably another one of his stupid schemes to take over the world. Whatever he's up to, it can't be good."

"Of course it can't be good," said Horvil. "This is Natch we're talking about. I ever tell you about the time in school when Natch tried to form a corporation? Can't you just picture him trying to explain laissez-faire capitalism to a bunch of nine-year-old hive kids-"

"Horvil, I'm waiting."

The engineer sounded unconcerned. "I'm tired. Call Merri. Call Vigal."

"They're not invited."

"Why not? They're part of this company too, aren't they?"

The question had occurred to Jara as well. "Maybe Natch trusts us more than he trusts them."

Horvil chuckled and made a sound like he was spitting out pillow lint. "Right, sure. Maybe he knows we're too cowardly to stand up to him." And before Jara had a chance to respond, the engineer cut the 'Whisper connection, leaving her alone with her empty walls.

How dare he call me a coward! she fumed silently. I'm not afraid of Natch. I'm just practical, that's all. I know I only have to put up with him for eleven more months. She called up her apprenticeship contract for the thousandth time and reread the clause on compensation, hoping as always to catch a glimpse of some previously unknown loophole. But the letters floating before her eyes hadn't changed: Jara would receive nothing except room and board until the end of the four-year term, at which time her shares matured. She blinked hard, and the illusory text on the surface of her retinas vanished.

Jara gave one last wistful glance at her apartment and opened another multi connection. Multivoid swallowed her empty walls and regurgitated Natch's metropolitan windows. The fiefcorp master was nowhere to be found, but Jara was in no mood to track him down. He had to be here somewhere, or she would have never made it into the building. Jara threw herself down on the couch and waited.

Five minutes later, Horvil materialized in the room wearing the same mixture of bonhomie and bafflement he always wore. "Towards Perfection," he greeted his fellow apprentice amiably as he plopped down in Natch's favorite chair. It was actually a chair-and-a-half, but still barely wide enough to accommodate Horvil's considerable bulk. "Who's ready to wallow around in the mud? I know I could use a good wallow right about now."

Jara frowned, wondering whether Horvil had concocted some algorithm to make even his virtual clothes look disheveled. "That makes one of us," she said.

The engineer yawned and sat back in his chair with a smile. "Stop being so dramatic, Princess. If you don't want to be here, go home. What's Natch going to do? Cancel your contract? Fire you?"

Jara extended her finger into an accusatory position by reflex. She lowered it when she realized she had nothing to say.

And then Natch returned.

Neither apprentice saw the fiefcorp master come in, but now there he stood with his arms crossed and his eyes glaring. For once, he was not pacing, and this made Jara nervous. When Natch chose to focus all that kinetic energy on some concrete goal instead of stomping it into oblivion, mountains moved. Jara examined the gorge in her stomach and came to a sudden realization: she was afraid of Natch.

"We're going to the top of the bio/logics market," he announced. "We're going to be number one on Primo's."

Horvil put his feet up on the coffee table. "Of course we are," he said breezily. "We've been over this s.h.i.t before. Market forces, fiefcorp economics, blah blah blah. It's inevitable, ain't it?"

Natch closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them, his gaze fixed on a spot of nothingness hovering midway between the two apprentices. Jara suddenly felt transparent, as if the world had gained presence at her expense. "You don't understand, Horvil," he said. "We're going to be number one on Primo's, and we're going to do it tomorrow."

The two apprentices sat stiffly, afraid to move. Jara wondered if she had stumbled onto the set of an old-fashioned drama by mistake, with Natch playing the part of the Mad Capitalist Who Went Too Far. Or maybe the fiefcorp master was starring in a farce instead. Number one on the Primo's bio/logic investment guide tomorrow?

"Impossible," said Jara. "You can't just press a b.u.t.ton and will yourself to the top of Primo's. It's all impartial, rules-based. They've got strict formulas that n.o.body knows except the senior interpreters."

Natch regarded her with a stare he might have given a less-evolved subspecies of humanity. "And?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Natch. They sift through ten thousand bio/logic programs a day, and every decision they make affects the hierarchy. You can't predict Primo's rankings. And don't give me that look-you can't rig them either. People have tried." She turned to Horvil, aiming her index finger at his bulbous nose. "Come on, Horvil-you know about Primo's as well as I do. They're not accountable to anyone."

The engineer stretched his arms out over his head, suspended them there momentarily, then sent them crashing down onto his commodious lap. "Primo's: impartial because we have to be," he quoted the company's official slogan. "Your biollogic systems depend on us, from hearts and lungs to stocks and funds. "

Natch might well have been a video clip in pause mode. He gave no outward sign he had even been listening to his apprentices' exchange.

"All right," spat Jara, anxious to break the tension in the room. "I suppose you have some brilliant plan to make this happen."

The fiefcorp master began to pace once more. "Of course I do," he replied, stone-faced. "Now, as you know, today we're scheduled to release NiteFocus 48, our biggest-and best product this year."

Jara thought about debating the best portion of his statement, but changed her mind and leaned back in the sofa. Horvil was one of the best engineers in the business, but Jara knew from experience he got sloppy when he worked long hours. NiteFocus 48 would have its share of bugs and inconsistencies, like any program bred of human thought.

"Well, guess who else is planning a product launch this week," continued Natch.

Jara's heart skipped a beat. "Don't tell me the Patel Brothers are finally releasing NightHawk 73," she said.

The fiefcorp master nodded. "The same."

Jara frowned and crossed her arms over her chest. With that kind of compet.i.tion, how in the world did Natch expect to top the market this week of all weeks? The Patel Brothers had dominated the number one rating on Primo's for the past two and a half years. They were widely perceived to be unbeatable. Of course, this hadn't stopped Natch from confronting the Patels head-to-head on a variety of programs over the past few months-on the contrary, the challenge spurred him to new heights of compet.i.tive frenzy. He plotted their release schedules on graphs of three, four and five dimensions. He hunted down even the deadendingest rumors about Frederick and Petrucio Patel.

And now, it seemed, after feeling the occasional p.r.i.c.k of Natch's jabs on the Primo's battlefield-a loss of a point here, a pre-empted product launch there-the Patel Brothers had finally accepted the challenge of their younger rival. Releasing NightHawk in the same week as NiteFocus was a direct a.s.sault.

Horvil was unperturbed by this latest turn of events. "Why are you two so worried?" he said, trying unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn. "We've put a lot of work into NiteFocus. It's good code. I'm not afraid to go up against the Patels."

"So then, what do we do?" asked Natch. His tone of voice indicated it was a rhetorical question.

Jara scowled. She knew where this was heading. "If anybody but you asked me that question, I would say, We both launch our products on the Data Sea, and may the best company win."

The fiefcorp master gave her one of his wolfish grins, the kind that had little to do with humor. On some alternate plane of existence, Natch's audience howled in gleeful antic.i.p.ation. "You think I'm afraid to go up against the Patels."

"I just don't like pulling these dirty tricks of yours. We're number six on Primo's, in a field of thousands. Why can't you be happy with that?"

Natch stopped in mid-stride and gave his apprentice a piercing look. "Happy with failure?" he said incredulously, as if she had suggested joining one of the creeds and devoting his life to poverty. "Happy with this?" He gestured wildly around him at what seemed to Jara to be a pretty nice flat. Natch's apartment had enough s.p.a.ce for both living and working quarters, with room left over to entertain. Not only that, but it boasted real and programmable windows, as well as a lush garden of daisies right smack in the middle of the place. Maybe Natch's apartment paled in comparison to the lunar estates of the big tyc.o.o.ns, but at least it was decorated.

Jara composed herself. "Natch, number six on Primo's isn't failure," she said. "Most programmers spend their whole lives trying to crack the top ten. We've gotten here in thirty-six months. Thirty-six months, Natch! Primo's has been around for almost seventy years, and n.o.body's ever done it as fast as we have. Horvil, where were we a year ago today?"

The engineer focused his attention inward for a split-second, the tell-tale sign of a brain angling for information on the Data Sea. "Sixty-two," announced Horvil momentarily. "The year before that, four hundred nineteen." Jara threw up her hands as if to say, See what I mean? "And the year before that, we didn't-"

Natch cut his apprentice off in mid-sentence. "Does this s.h.i.t have a point?"

Jara stood her ground. "I'm not suggesting we quit trying, Natch. I'm just saying we'll get to the top eventually, by the strength of our products, without dirty tricks. The Patel Brothers are getting older, and we're gaining on them all the time. In a couple of years, when all the tax breaks dry up, they'll sell out and dissolve their fiefcorp. That's what happens in this business."

Natch grimaced, rocked back and forth on his heels, and let out a restless sigh. He looked like the little boy who had been scolded by his proctors for staying out past curfew. Despite all his frantic motion, every chestnut-colored hair on his head remained perfectly in place. Jara met his stare, but she was disappointed to see Horvil struggling to stay awake. Thanks for backing me up, Horv!

"All right," said the fiefcorp master, with a look on his face that said, I'll go through the motions of considering your worthless ideas, but only for form's sake. "Let's take a look at NiteFocus 48 in Minds.p.a.ce. Let's see how strong our products really are."

Jara and Horvil followed Natch into his office. The room was short and spa.r.s.ely decorated and functional, but still quite a bit nicer than Jara's works.p.a.ce. Artificial daylight, streaming into the room from two square windows, showed a hectic market square somewhere in Beijing. That's one way to keep working through all hours of the night, Jara thought sourly. Pretend it's day.

Natch walked up to the squat workbench that sat in the center of the room and waved his hand to summon the virtual programming bubble known as Minds.p.a.ce. He was instantly surrounded by a clear holographic sphere about two meters in diameter, along with an a.s.sortment of interlocking geometric shapes and connecting fibers.

The program loaded in Minds.p.a.ce looked like a dense pyramid carpeted with spikes. It wasn't any code that Jara recognized. "What's that?" she said.

"Nothing," grumbled the fiefcorp master, banishing the display with a flick of his wrist. A more cohesive structure appeared in the layer beneath, shaped like a lopsided donut and colored in soft grays and blues. Strands of purple and white formed an intricate net through the center. Jara could have traced those supple curves with her eyes closed. NiteFocus 48.

Natch took one look at the ma.s.s of bio/logic code floating in front of him and gave a snort of disgust. His dissatisfaction grew as he rotated the donut slowly along its z-axis. Imperfect! Jara could hear him thinking, a fourth-act soliloquy to his invisible audience. Unsatisfactory! A mockery of all the projects I've left unfinished, all the goals I've left unattained.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" said Horvil. "Let's fire this baby up ,, Jara gave her internal system a silent command to activate NiteFocus, and then waited a few seconds as the program disseminated its instructions to the microscopic machines floating in her bloodstream. She tried to detect the millions of calculations going on right now inside her brain, the logical handshakes extending thousands of kilometers from her virtual body here to cellular structures standing slack on a red tile in London. But she knew that even if she were here in the flesh, the chemical reactions in the retina and the electric pulses along the ciliary muscle would be completely undetectable. Bio/logic programs had not been that crude since Sheldon Surina invented the science some three hundred sixty years ago.

"I think it's working," said Jara. A hopeful statement.

Horvil puffed up his chest and clapped a virtual arm around Natch's shoulder. "Of course it's working. What'd I tell you?"

The fiefcorp master said nothing. He turned off the Beijing scene on the left window, leaving a view of the real darkness outside. Natch squinted, shook his head, and marched through the other room to the balcony door. Horvil and Jara followed him as he stepped outside into the coal-dark Shenandoah night, about half past three now. A platform promptly slid under their feet from the side of the building.

The three fiefcorpers stood at the railing and gazed into the distance, looking for a suitable object on which to test their enhanced vision. Flashing lights were still evident in the rowdier quarters of the city, but out here in the residential district, things were relatively quiet. "There," said Horvil, pointing towards a viewscreen that stood several blocks down the road, its lights dim now that there was no foot traffic. Jara found she could read the advertis.e.m.e.nt clearly.

DRINK CHAIQUOKE.

Because the Defense and Wellness Council Still Lets You.

Beneath the print, the smart-alecky ChaiQuoke pitchman suckled on a neon purple bottle while a Council officer looked on with overt disapproval.

Horvil danced a clumsy jig of triumph. "Looks like the Natch Personal Programming Fiefcorp will still be in business tomorrow," he crowed. "Oh yeah!"

Jara breathed a sigh of relief. Why had she been nervous? NiteFocus 48 had worked fine yesterday too, and the day before, and the day before. She hadn't seen a major glitch in the program since version 43 or 44. "So what do you think?" she asked Natch. "Ready for launch?"