MULTIREAL.

Jump 255 Trilogy.

DAVID LOUIS EDELMAN.

i.

LESSONS LEARNED.

i.

Len Borda was dying.

Or so Marcus Surina told his twelve-year-old daughter, Margaret, one bl.u.s.tery winter morning, the two of them striding through the hoverbird docks, wind at ful bore, the sun a frail pink thing cowering behind the clouds.

He won't die today, of course, said Marcus. His voice barely registered above the clanging of the cargo loaders and the yel ing of the dockworkers.

Not this week or even this month. But the worries hang from the high executive's neck like l.u.s.terless pearls, Margaret. They weigh him down and break his wil . I can see it.

Margaret smiled uncomfortably but said nothing.

If the city of Andra Pradesh had a resident expert on untimely death, it was her father.

Before he had accepted the Surina family mantle and a.s.sumed his birthright as head of the world's most prominent scientific dynasty, Marcus had wandered far and wide. He had teased the boundaries of human s.p.a.ce, flirted with dangerous organizations in the orbital colonies. Death was a constant presence out there.

And yet, High Executive Borda seemed an unlikely candidate for the Nul Current. He had been a hale and headstrong man upon his inauguration just weeks after.

Margaret.

was born. A NEW EXECUTIVE.

FOR A NEW CENTURY, the headlines had proclaimed. Some predicted that the troubles of the office would prove too daunting for the young high executive. They murmured that Borda had never been tested by hardship, that he had come of age in a time of plenty and had inherited the job uncontested. But his stature had only grown in the intervening decade. Try as she might, Margaret could find no lingering gaps on Borda's calendar, no tel tale signs of weakness or indecision. As far as she was concerned, the high executive was on his way to becoming a fundament of the world, an eternal force like rock or gravity or time itself.

But Marcus Surina remained firm. You develop a sixth sense out on the frontiers, he said, examining the hoverbird manifest for the third time. You begin to see things outside the visible spectrum of light. Patterns of human behavior, focal points of happenstance. Travel the orbital colonies long enough, and you learn to recognize the omens.

Margaret stirred. Omens? A strange word coming from the lips of her father, the quintessential man of science.

The omens of death, continued Marcus. Plans that wander from their steady paths.

Appet.i.tes that suddenly grow cold. Thoughts that lose their bal ast in midsentence and drift off to places unknown. Her father stopped suddenly and turned his hyper-focus on a dented segment of the hoverbird wing no bigger than a finger. Three aides-de-camp hovered a meter away, antic.i.p.ating a word of command or dismissal. Some people, you can look in their eyes and see that the Nul Current is about to pul them under, Margaret. You can see the inevitability. Just like you can see the stalk of wheat as the thresher approaches, and know that the time's come for a newer, stronger crop to bask in the sun.

Marcus made a gesture, and the aides scattered like duckpins.

Then he was striding off again, and it was al Margaret could do to keep up with him. She shivered as she ran, whether from the cold of encroaching winter or from the strangeness of the man before her she could not tel . l.u.s.terless pearls?

Wheat and threshers? His clattering metaphors made her teeth ache.

The girl resolved to be patient. In less than twelve hours, her father would be gone, off to the distant colony of Furtoid with the rest of the TeleCo board, and routine would slink out from the alcove where it had been hiding these past few days like a bruised animal.

She cal ed him Father, but it was mostly an honorary t.i.tle. Marcus had spent four years of the last twelve on the road, and here at Andra Pradesh he was constantly fenced in a protective thicket of apprentices, scientists, business a.s.sociates, capitalmen, government officials, drudges, bankers, lawyers, and freethinkers that even a daughter could not penetrate. He would stop by her quarters unannounced, cloaked by the night, and quiz her on schoolwork like a proctor checking up on a promising student. Sometimes he would speechify as if Margaret were the warm-up audience for one of his scientific presentations. Other times he would a.s.sign her outlandish tasks and then vanish to some col oquium on Al owel or some board meeting in Cape Town.

Prove Prengal's universal law of physics for me, he told her once. It took Margaret three months, but she did.

Margaret had no doubt that she did not have a normal upbringing. But how far off-kilter things were she had no way of judging. The Surina compound was a cloistered and lonely place, despite the crowds. Her mother was dead, and she had no siblings. Instead she had distant cousins innumerable, and a team of handlers whose job it was to confine her life in a box and then cal that order.

But there were some things the Surina family handlers could not shield her from. Lately Marcus's face had grown sterner, the lines on his forehead coagulating into a permanent state of anger and anxiety. Margaret suspected there were new developments in her father's battle with the Defense and Wel ness Council. Len Borda wanted TeleCo. He wanted her father's teleportation technology either banned outright or conscripted for military purposes; n.o.body was sure which. And now, this past week, tensions seemed to be coming to a head.

Margaret couldn't quite comprehend what the fuss was about. She had watched a dozen trials of the teleportation process from un.o.btrusive corners, and it wasn't anything like the teleportation she had read about in stories. You couldn't zap someone instantaneously from one place to another. The procedure required two people of similar biochemical composition to be strapped into a metal container for hours on end while particle deconstructors transposed one body to the other, molecule by agonizing molecule. Margaret wondered why High Exec utive Borda found the whole idea so threatening.

But whenever she asked one of the TeleCo researchers about it, he would simply smile and tel her not to make premature judgments. Marcus had big plans up his sleeve. Give the technology a chance to mature, they said-and generate much-needed revenue for the TeleCo coffers-and she would one day see wonders beyond her imagining. The world would change. Reality itself would buckle.

She took the TeleCo scientists at their word.

That look of inevitability, said Marcus, wrenching Margaret back to the present. They were taking the long, silent lift to the top of the Revelation Spire, where her father had his office. That look of death. I've seen it, Margaret. I've seen it on Len Borda's face. The high executive knows that the thresher is coming for him.

Margaret shook her head. But he's not that old, is he? You're older than he is andAge has nothing to do with it.

The girl wasn't quite sure what to do with that statement. How to make her father understand? How to pierce that veil of myopia and arrogance that kept Marcus Surina from the truth? But-but-I was talking to, jayze, and. jayze said that you've got it al wrong. She said that the Council's coming for you.

The high executive's going to bust down the gates to the compound any day now and take TeleCo awayMarcus Surina laughed, and the worry lines on his face broke like barricades of sand washing away with the tide. At that moment, they reached their destination, and the elevator doors opened. Marcus put one brawny arm around his daughter and led her to the window.

You see that? he said.

Margaret wasn't entirely sure what she was supposed to see. They stood on top of the world in a very visceral and literal sense. The Revelation Spire was the tal est building in human s.p.a.ce, and built on a mountaintop, no less. Far below, she could see the Surina compound and a blue-green blob that could only be the Surina security forces con ducting martial exercises. Sprawled in every direction outside the wal s was the unfenceable polyglot ma.s.s of Andra Pradesh, city of the Surinas, now getting its first taste of the seasonal snow.

Margaret could think of no safer place in the entire universe.

You see that? Marcus repeated. It's winter. Everything is shrouded in snow, and the world seems bleak and hopeless, doesn't it?

The girl nodded tentatively.

The gloom doesn't last, Margaret. It never lasts. Remember that.

ButHe gripped her shoulder firmly and turned her around to face him. Marcus Surina's eyes shone bril iant blue as sapphires, and she could smel the cinnamon of morning chaff on his breath. Listen, he said quietly. Don't breathe a word of this to anyone, especial y your cousin Jayze. Len Borda's lost.

Our sources in the Council say he's spent too much time and money coming after teleportation, and he's ready to move on. That's why the board's going to Furtoid. To negotiate a settlement. By this time next week, it'l al be over. Do you understand? We've won.

The girl blinked. If the victory bel s were ringing, she could not hear them.

Always remember this, Margaret. No matter how bad the winter, spring is always right around the corner The girl nodded, smiled, let Marcus Surina fold her in his arms for a last embrace. Better to leave him with this memory of hope at the top of the world than to shower him with cold truths. Spring might always be right around the corner, she thought. But there's always another winter behind it.

2.

Lieutenant Magan Kai Lee stood at the window of a Falcon hoverbird and watched the Potomac scrol away until it was lost in the snow. December of 359 had proven an exceptional y good month for snow.

The pilot quietly veered off the established flight path, leaving the spa.r.s.e morning traffic behind while they plowed through the mist a dozen meters above the river's froth and foam. Today, at least, the hoverbird's egg-white finish made decent camouflage.

Magan looked out the port window and saw the Shenandoah River slide into view.

"Ulterior admission," he said quietly. Ful stop.

It was a smal craft, designed by Defense and Wel ness Council engineers for first-response situations. Twelve could fit here with comfort, and today there were only three. The pilot could hear his superior officer's command just fine.

"Impulse open and locked," he replied in acknowledgment. Ful stop.

Seconds later, Magan could hear the decrescendo of engines shutting down and the ethereal whir of antigrav kicking in. The hoverbird came to rest twenty meters above the treetops.

Within the s.p.a.ce of a heartbeat, the il icit advertising began dribbling in to Magan's mental inbox. Guerril a messages, automated, probably keyed in to the whoosh of the hoverbird's vapor exhaust.

COZY WINTER GETAWAYS on the SHENANDOAH:.

Affordable.

Prices!

Hoverbird in Need of a Boost? Read Our Special Report THE MAKERS OF CHAIQUOKE SALUTE THE SHENANDOAH COMMUTER.

The hoverbird's third occupant blocked the flow with an irritated tsk.

Rey Gonerev, the Defense and Wel ness Council's chief solicitor, rose from her seat and stood at Magan's side. She parted her long braided hair to reveal a thin face with skin of deepest cocoa. Magan could feel the neural tug of her ConfidentialWhisper request. "You sure we're not overdoing this?"

she asked, her words appearing silently in his mind like adjuncts of his own thought process.

Magan ignored her and watched the skyline. His mind was sifting through combinatorial possibilities in preparation for their mission. Rey Gonerev had no place in his reflections at the moment.

The solicitor pursed her lips. "Lieutenant?" Receiving no response, she shrugged and retreated to her seat, keeping the ConfidentialWhisper channel open just in case.

Magan turned his attention to the circular table that comprised most of the hoverbird's rear section. He waved his hand over the surface, causing a holographic map to blink into existence. It was an example of true Defense and Wel ness Council austerity: the meeting of two rivers reduced to a handful of intersecting vectors, with the hoverbird itself nothing more than a triangle of canary yel ow. As Magan studied the hil y terrain with a critical eye, four more yel ow triangles arced into the display and halted in formation alongside them. He looked out the window and surveyed the line of sleek white hovercraft floating above the Shenandoah, silent as vultures. The lieutenant noted approvingly that the noses of the hoverbirds were in perfect alignment.

There was a momentary squawk of pilots confirming their rendezvous and their mission number. Then one craft broke off from the rest and took a vanguard position. A blue dot on the map indicated the presence of the team leader: Ridgel o, a veteran from the Pharisee front lines and one of Magan's most trusted subordinates.

The team leader opened a voice channel to the rest of the troops. "Broad strokes imply a declension of purpose, and such things cannot be ascertained with present information," he said. We commence operations in approximately six hundred seconds, after we receive the technical crew's signal.

Any questions?

"My question," said Rey to Magan over the ConfidentialWhisper channel, "is whether this whole thing is overkil ."

The skepticism in her voice would have earned a swift reprimand had it come from anyone else. But Magan had learned long ago that kowtowing to superiors was simply not part of Rey Gonerev's nature. She would continue dropping little bombs of snarkiness al morning until he had answered her. "If you insist on observing," replied Magan over the 'Whisper channel, "the least you could do is fol ow standard procedure and use Council battle language."

The solicitor made a dismissive shrug. "This isn't a military issue," she stated icily. "It's a policy question, and you know it."

"This policy comes from High Executive Borda."

"But Magan-nineteen dartguns, six disruptors, and three technical crew, just for one unarmed man? You've taken out whole Pharisee outposts with fewer boots on the ground."

Lieutenant Lee gritted his teeth, perfectly aware that he had no cause to gainsay her. You know she's right, he told himself. And there's nothing you can do about it. He seethed momentarily with ire for the unsorted, for the unordered, for the chaotic and unplanned.

Magan turned and gave Rey Gonerev an appraising look. She had risen once again from her seat and was standing alongside the pilot watching the formation. Gonerev should have been the type of volatile element that Magan tried to suppress from the Council hierarchy. Instead he had worked hard to put Rey Gonerev in the chief solicitor's office, and it had taken him some time to realize why. It was precisely because she refused to kiss a.s.s, because she was not Len Borda's toady and did not aspire to be Magan's either. Gonerev could always be counted on to cut through bureaucratic and organizational hypocrisy like a machete slicing through so many thin vines. It was no wonder the pundits had nicknamed her "the Blade."

Ridgel o had just received final status reports from the other four hoverbird teams.

"Perhaps we need to cover extremities and observe ful zoning regulations," he said. Commander Papizon wil signal us when he's overridden the building's security and compression routines, and then it'l be time to move.

"This man is not to be underestimated," Magan told the Blade. "He is as sly as a snake."

"But-"

"Enough. The high executive has made his decision. My duty-and yours-is to carry it out." Magan cut the 'Whisper channel with a curt swipe of one hand, and even the Blade knew that further argument was useless.

Ridgel o concluded his preoperational briefing with a question for Magan Kai Lee.

"South by southwest makes for a defensive maneuver," he said.

Anything to add, Lieutenant?

Magan could feel the randomness algorithm hijack his thoughts and twist them into unrecognizable shapes designed to sow confusion among any eavesdropping enemy. "Keep pushing for higher ground, regardless of any spiking temperatures," he said. "It's a tribute to your preparedness that we have a robust strategy at al ." He could imagine the same process at work in reverse in each of the soldiers' heads, realigning and rea.s.sembling his gibberish into something more comprehensible. Remember that the subject is expected to be unarmed, and lethal force wil not be required. If we encounter his apprentices, they are to be taken alive.

Silence ensued. Magan watched the drifting snowflakes and tried to clear his mind. He could see the officers through the window of the next hoverbird polishing their dartguns, choosing which canisters of black code-laden needles to load.

Rey Gonerev was making smal talk with the pilot in plain speech, as if deliberately flaunting her defiance of military convention.

A little more than a month ago, Magan had never heard of this man, this fiefcorper who was the object of their mission. He had come from nowhere, real y, a shameless entrepreneur who had clawed his way out of the bear pit of bio/logic programming. n.o.body was quite sure how he had wormed his way into Margaret Surina's good graces, or how he had gained control of her MultiReal technology so quickly. Then he had showed up in Len Borda's chambers, mere hours ahead of a major product demo, looking to make a deal: the Council's protection from some group of a.s.sa.s.sins in black robes that had ambushed him on the streets of Shenandoah-protection from the black code swarming through his bloodstream even now like barracudas. In exchange: access to MultiReal.

The high executive had kept his word. He had raised his hand and sent three legions of his best troops scrambling for Andra Pradesh. The fiefcorper's product demo had gone off as planned.* _link_ And what had the entrepreneur delivered in return? Nothing.

He had failed to show up for half a dozen scheduled meetings over the next week, leaving Magan and his underlings to sit alone in a series of conference rooms feeling foolish. Urgent messages and ConfidentialWhispers had disappeared into the void, unacknowledged and unanswered. Threats had gone unheeded.

Borda had responded to this charade with the subtlety of someone conducting an orchestra in a suit of armor. He had sent white-robed Council officers to shadow the man twenty-four hours a day, then had those officers parade before the man's windows with dartguns drawn. When that had failed to apply the appropriate pressure, he had ordered the troops to accept no excuses and firmly escort the man to the Council's administrative offices in Melbourne. Stil the fiefcorp master managed to elude them. He would disappear for days at a time right under the officers' noses-n.o.body knew where or how.

Two days ago, Len Borda's patience had reached its limit. He had cal ed Magan Kai Lee to his chambers in the middle of the night, tel ing him to drop everything and bring the intractable fiefcorper back to the negotiating table, by force if necessary.

"In handcuffs?" Magan had asked.

"In chains," Borda had replied.

Lieutenant Lee had looked at that weathered face, that bald capstone of a head. The high executive had stared back at him with a gaze of acid.

Magan felt his fingertips flex involuntarily, yearning to take hold of the dartgun holstered at his side and aim it at that caustic, lichlike countenance. Borda had merely sat there, defenseless but utterly without fear. He knew that Magan would not break their agreement.