"If the Council doesn't release Quel soon, you know exactly what's going to happen," said the Islander. "You know how Josiah is."

Natch had no idea who Josiah was or what he was threatening, but this insiders'

conversation was growing tiresome. "You're both missing something obvious," he said with a scowl. Heads swiveled around, as if the politicians had forgotten al about him. "Why would the Council want to conduct another raid? They put Jara in this position. Magan Kai Lee did, at least. If he plays his cards right, Jara wil just hand it over to him."

"How do you know?" asked one of the L-PRACG representatives. "What if-"

"What if what?" Natch barked. "Jara doesn't want the responsibility. She doesn't want MultiReal, and the Council knows that. Don't you understand?

Lee and Borda are going to convince her that it's in her best interest to work with them.

They'l grease the way so that giving the databases over is the easiest and most logical thing for her to do. She's very easy to manipulate."

"But can't you prevent that?" said a Lunar tyc.o.o.n. "Just use MultiReal against her. She won't be able to hand the program over."

Natch flung a withering look in the tyc.o.o.n's direction. "That's the stupidest idea I've ever heard. What if Jara's using MultiReal too? Besides-just because I can stop her from giving it away once doesn't mean I can stop her from trying again. Do you want me to stand guard over her for the rest of my life?" He remembered his mental tug-of-war with Khann Frejohr out on the balcony. The thought of another protracted neural battle so soon after the last one made his knees weak. "Listen, this thing isn't hypnotism. It's not magic. You can't just use MultiReal to permanently change someone's mind. If that was the case, don't you think I would've used it on Len Borda already? Don't you think I would have ... have ..." The sentence wandered off, seemingly of its own volition.

The conversation lost its momentum at that point, leaving the libertarians to stare gloomily at the Tope paintings on the windows. Natch felt an irrational urge to just abandon them there and sneak out the front door. No, it's too late for that, he told himself. Get ahold of yourself. You set this up, and now you need to see it through.

Frejohr spoke. "Then I think it's clear what needs to be done," he said, his voice muscular with purpose. The speaker crossed his arms in front of his chest. "If it's inevitable that Jara's going to hand MultiReal over to the Council, we need to do it first."

Everyone gaped at the speaker, Natch included. "Have you gone completely offline?"

sputtered the bodhisattva of Creed Libertas.

Khann Frejohr appeared to be enjoying the surprise in his col eagues' faces, and Natch recognized the glee of a fel ow showman in midperformance.

"This is what it al comes down to, isn't it?" he said. "This is what it's always come down to, since the beginning. You stil have access to the MultiReal code, don't you, Natch?"

"Of course I do. She said ... she said it couldn't be taken away from me."

"Jara said that?" asked the labor leader, perplexed.

"No, not Jara. Margaret. " Nach felt his emotions rear up at the thought of the bodhisattva, at the thought of the MultiReal code inside his head and the crisis she had brought upon him. He closed his eyes for a moment, temporarily overwhelmed, and tried to mold his emotions into sentences. "She said I was the guardian and the keeper. It can't be taken away. The nothingness at the center of the universe. Why don't you understand?"

He opened his eyes and saw the labor leader swal ow and sit back, obviously understanding nothing.

Frejohr was unmoved. "We need to let Len Borda have MultiReal. Let Magan Kai Lee have MultiReal. Let the creeds have it, the fiefcorps, the drudges, the Meme Cooperative." The speaker stretched his arm out to the balcony, which was facing the snow-engulfed eastern courtyard at the moment. "Release the code and the specs onto the Data Sea, Natch. Everything. Give everyone in the world access."

The room was starting to spin, and Natch could feel himself sliding down into the mental quicksand once more. No, not now, not now! He gave himself a bio/logic boost of adrenaline and a.s.saulted the nothingness until it released its grip on him. His eyes shot open, and he noticed that the L-PRACG politicians who were standing nearby had quietly scooted farther away. "Let me get this straight. You're tel ing me I should take the most revolutionary product of our timemaybe the most revolutionary product in history-and just give it away?"

Frejohr was unrepentant. His silver hair glistened in the reflected sunlight from the window. "That's exactly what I'm saying."

"Why the f.u.c.k would I do that?"

"Studies show that free bio/logics products are more functional and secure," insisted one of the Lunar tyc.o.o.ns, sliding into lecture mode with one finger in the air.

"Plus free bio/logics creates demand," the other tyc.o.o.n chimed in. "In fact, that's actual y how I made my first-"

"I'm not an idiot," yel ed Natch, causing the tyc.o.o.ns to shut up instantly. "Don't try to teach me hive-level economics. I know it backward and forward.

Why would I open up the MultiReal code? To create demand? To speed adoption?

Ridiculous. My product's got one hundred percent demand. Everyone in the solar system is going to be using MultiReal a month after we release it. You think opening up the program wil make it more functional and secure?

That's laughable. There's subroutines in this program that could kil you in a second if they're mishandled. People can't deal with that kind of freedom."

The entrepreneur found himself alone on the other side of the garden, though he didn't remember walking there. Khann Frejohr stood across the room with his libertarian posse cl.u.s.tered in their chairs behind him. Suddenly Natch scanned the eyes of the Lunar tyc.o.o.ns and realized that Frejohr had planned this. He had brought the libertarians to Natch's apartment for the specific purpose of convincing him to release MultiReal on the Data Sea. The thought gave Natch a perverse sort of amus.e.m.e.nt. Some of them had obviously known the agenda ahead of time, while others, like the bodhisattva, were just now coming around to the idea.

Speaker Frejohr stepped slowly around the daisies and put his hand on Natch's shoulder with another one of those Vigalish touches. "We need to release MultiReal so people can defend themselves," he said, voice low and sinuous.

"With al that manpower at the Defense and Wel ness CouncilNatch, once they get ahold of it, this might be our only chance."

Natch sniffed. "Don't worry, they won't get ahold of it. Not once we've executed my plan."

"What plan?" said Frejohr suspiciously.

A grin spread across Natch's face like a malignant creeper. "I'm glad you asked."

The program hung in Minds.p.a.ce, a spiky pyramid the color of a poisoned apple. Natch dimmed the lights in his office, causing a greenish hue to suffuse the room and reflect off every forehead.

"Black code," somebody whispered.

The entrepreneur didn't respond. Of course it was black code. Form didn't necessarily fol ow function in the bio/logics world-Natch had worked on plenty of innocuous routines that looked like fairy tale horrors in Minds.p.a.ce-but the fact that this program exhibited no name or pedigree was indicator enough.

One of the L-PRACG politicians scratched her head. "So what does it do?" she asked.

The rest of the politicians hung back near the door and peered over her shoulder, afraid to get any closer.

"It communicates," replied Natch.

"With whom?"

"With everyone. Every single person from here to Furtoid, if you want. If the Council lets it run that long." The entrepreneur reached inside the Minds.p.a.ce bubble with a bio/logic programming bar, hooked the nameless black code on its tip, and swirled it around like a magician trying to summon something verminous from his hat. "But the ability to send a message to anyone isn't that special. It's the ability to send a message from anyoneindividual, business, government."

"A forgery machine," said the speaker pensively, nudging the L-PRACG politician to the side so he could get a closer look.

"The forgery machine," said Natch. "The best one there is. It's not foolproof, of course-it's next to impossible to get foolproof forgery on the Data Sea anymore-but this is about as close as you can get." He spun the program around with the bar until it was nothing but a rotating blur.

"You've used this program before," said the bodhisattva.

Natch pa.r.s.ed his words careful y. "Let's just say I've seen it in action."

"So could we forge a message from the Council with this?" said the Islander with a little too much eagerness. "Could we report false troop movements, or-or-"

Natch cut the woman off before she short-circuited. "No. The program's not that good.

The Council doesn't use normal Data Sea communications protocols."

Speaker Frejohr walked up to the gyrating blob and scrutinized it as the virtual friction of Minds.p.a.ce began to slow its spin. How much the speaker knew about the intricacies of bio/logics, Natch had no idea. But at the very least, he was staring at the program's important junctures and not at its distracting ornamentations. "So you've got the ultimate forgery machine," he said in a dubious tone of voice. "What do you propose to do with it?"

"Let's start at the beginning," said Natch coyly, stepping back from Minds.p.a.ce. He tossed his programming bar on the side table and began circ.u.mnavigating the workbench. "Al those tens of thousands of people at the Defense and Wel ness Council. Al those officers in that hidden fortress of theirs. What do you think they do al day?"

No one answered. Natch could feel the impatience radiating off them like heat waves.

"They a.n.a.lyze," he continued. "They plot, they strategize. They conduct war games.

Right?

"So somewhere in the Council databases, there has to be a whole col ection of memos about the MultiReal situation. Plans for how the Council can take hold of MultiReal. Plans for what the Council should do after they've taken hold of MultiReal. Far-fetched scenarios. Hardline scenarios. Apocalyptic scenarios. What would these memos say?

"Let's pretend there's a memo that says, We need to use MultiReal quickly to subdue our enemies.

"Who are the Council's enemies? The libertarian L-PRACGs. The Islanders. The Lunar tyc.o.o.ns who've been chafing against central government regulation. The creed that's been stirring public sentiment against the Council." Natch looked over each political representative in turn, fixing them with a stare that was almost accusatory. "Once Len Borda gets his hands on MultiReal, he's going to go after each and every one of you. Or so the memo says."

The Islander frowned and shook her head, clearly disappointed that Natch didn't have anything more substantial up his sleeve. "So we leak this memo to the drudges, and the public goes berserk," she said. "Isn't the Council going to deny it?"

Natch smiled. "Of course they're going to deny it. Of course they'l cal it a forgery. But isn't that exactly what they'd do if it were a real memo in the first place? Their denials are meaningless. Besides, the brave soul who risks his life to leak this memo isn't going to just use his own signature, is he? He absolutely won't pa.s.s it on through traceable communications protocols. No, he'l do his best to anonymize the memo.

"So we've got a memo of dubious authenticity. n.o.body's going to believe the Council.

The Prime Committee gives Borda his marching orders-in theory-so they'l stay out of it. Who's left? Guess who the public wil look to for validation?"

Everyone turned to Khann Frejohr, who had stepped to the office window with a faraway look, as if reading smal type on a distant viewscreen. His posture signaled his irritation that the meeting had taken such a detour. "And you expect the Congress of L-PRACGs to authenticate this message for you?" he asked with a sigh.

"Absolutely not," said Natch. "Come on, don't you know how this works? You tel the drudges you don't know the first thing about this memo. Who can tel if it's real. Al you know is that n.o.body's seen any plan from the Council about what they intend to do with MultiReal once they get their claws on it. If this isn't the real memo ... then where the f.u.c.k is it? Why hasn't Len Borda told anyone what he intends to do with MultiReal? What does he have to hide?

"As for the rest-wel , that's easy. The public's primed and ready. They're waiting for someone to stand up to Len Borda. So you al fan the flames, stir up your const.i.tuencies, cal for boycotts. The reaction to this memo is going to be explosive. With the public in a frenzy, and the Congress of L-PRACGs locked in a battle of words with the Defense and Wel ness Council, who's going to step in to calm things down? Who's got to step in eventual y?"

"The Prime Committee," offered the Islander.

The entrepreneur gave the most pedantic nod in his repertoire. "Exactly. The Prime Committee wil intervene. Hopeful y they'l cal for some kind of special session to deal with the MultiReal issue. But we can't coerce them. They need to come up with the idea on their own, or it won't happen."

The bodhisattva of Creed Libertas was shaking her head in vehement objection. "You're jumping to too many conclusions. How do you know what the public's going to think? You have no idea how people wil react to that memo."

"Sure I do," said Natch. "It's going to be an explosive reaction because we have a catalyst."

"Which is?"

"Margaret Surina's funeral, about eighteen hours from now."

Silence engulfed the apartment.

Natch looked around his office at the politicos who had multied to his foyer so smug and self-satisfied. Now they al looked defensive, unsure if Natch's plan would work and unsure if it would be a good thing if it did. Funeral ceremonies for the unexpectedly deceased-the unPrepared-were melancholy affairs and exceptional y rare. The funeral ceremony for the richest and most revered woman in the world would be even more so. Natch could see the mental calculations going on around the room: was it right to hijack such an event for political purposes?

Frejohr's reaction was real y the only one that mattered. Behind those eyes, Natch could see a wrestling match going on between predilection and pragmatism. He didn't know what had real y happened during those Melbourne riots back in 318. He didn't know if the speaker was actual y responsible for those atrocities or not. What Natch did know was that Frejohr had not felt the ful impact of the MultiReal situation until just a few minutes ago; even Natch's mind control trick on the balcony yesterday hadn't jolted him so hard. This was a crisis every bit as portentous as the Melbourne riots, and what he decided here today would have just as much impact on the libertarian movement-not to mention on his career.

"I can't partic.i.p.ate in this," said Frejohr after several moments of silence. "I won't see Margaret Surina's funeral turned into a circus. I stand by what I said earlier. You need to release the MultiReal code on the Data Sea, Natch-every last gigabyte. That's the only way."

Natch gave them al a wry smile, then shut down the Minds.p.a.ce bubble. He grabbed a bio/logic programming bar from the side table and began tossing it up and down nonchalantly. "Wel , it's too late," he said. "The memo's already out there."

Another poisonous silence. "What do you mean?" whispered the labor leader.

"I mean I sent it to the drudges about two hours ago, shortly before you al arrived. But wait-I wouldn't be in too much of a hurry to cut your multi connections. The drudges know you're here. In fact, they think you've gathered here to discuss how to respond to this memo."

"And why do they think that?" thundered Frejohr indignantly, looking as if he might throw something.

"Wel , I told them, obviously," replied Natch, matter-of-fact. He flipped the programming bar in the air and let it make a ful three rotations before catching it again. "I'm sure they've noticed al those Congressional security officers hanging around outside anyway."

The labor leader stepped forward and planted his clenched fists on the workbench with a thump, but Natch did not flinch. "So what happens when someone finds out this memo is a fake?"

"Oh, someone wil figure it out eventual y, and the Council wil probably shut the program down for good. But by then, it'l be too late. I'l already have had my day in front of the Prime Committee. And don't worry, no one'l be able to trace it here. I'm positive of that."

"And if they do?"

The entrepreneur shrugged and plopped into the chair next to the side table where Horvil usual y resided. "Then tel them the truth. Hang me out to dry, it won't matter. The memo's not signed, it's not attributed to any particular person on the Council, and I'm not the one that's trumpeting it to the skies. What would I be guilty of? Nasty rumors? Conducting a thought experiment?" He grinned.

"They can add that infraction to the hundred and twenty I've already got."

Natch could practical y see the turbines whirring inside their minds. The politicos would have to make a choice when they cut their multi connections and stopped priving themselves to the world: to go along with the ruse or to deny it. If they intended to deny it, then the clock was ticking. Every minute elapsed was another minute they would have to explain away. Besides which, revealing the nature of the plan was tantamount to revealing that they had been duped. In the hard-knuckle world of libertarian politics, such an admission could be highly damaging.

And what was the alternative? Natch had already made it perfectly clear he didn't expect anyone to confirm the memo's authenticity-in fact, he expected them to do the exact opposite, to cast doubt, to stir up suspicion. They would reap the benefits in the end without taking much of the risk. Wasn't that the easier course?

Khann Frejohr was clearly incensed. He had not moved from the window, preferring to glare outside with palpable rage on his face. He had come to this apartment to strong-arm Natch into releasing the MultiReal specs on the Data Sea.

Instead, he was being strong-armed into convincing the Prime Committee to put their foot down.

"Listen," Natch told the speaker. "You've got to understand. What you're suggesting-releasing the MultiReal code on the Data Sea-it wouldn't work."

"And why not?" growled Frejohr.

"Let's say I do what you're asking. Let's say I release the technical specs to MultiReal on the Data Sea. Don't you think the Council is going to be waiting right there with a thousand engineers to weaponize it? Two hours after I release those specs, Len Borda or Magan Kai Lee wil be back with ten thousand troops that you won't be able to run away from. Do you real y think you can out-engineer the Council? No, I'm sorry, Khann. The Council can't get hold of those technical specs. They can't ever get hold of them. MultiReal has to stay in private hands."

The libertarians shuffled back into the living room and began holding quiet discussions about how to respond to the inevitable drudge onslaught. Natch obliged them by plastering the memo on the windows to a.n.a.lyze. They were muttering to themselves, dissatisfied but wil ing to make do. After al , they were getting what they wanted-confrontation with the Defense and Wel ness Council on a level playing field. Al that was required was a little bit of clever dissembling to the drudges, and n.o.body would be the wiser. Natch knew they would see things his way eventual y. Already he could hear one of the tyc.o.o.ns saying that Len Borda probably did have a memo just like this one in his files anyway.

Khann Frejohr took Natch aside, back into the office. "So let's say you get the Prime Committee to intervene and cal a special sessionwhat then?"

said the speaker bitterly. "You think you can persuade them to overrule Len Borda? He's had the Committee in his pocket for twenty years."

"I don't know. One step at a time."

"And what happens if they overrule you instead? What if after al this they decide to seize MultiReal and put it in the Council's hands anyway? What then?"

Natch frowned and stared intently at the s.p.a.ce where the black code had been floating just moments earlier. "Then I'l make them vote my way," he said. "I've got MultiReal, remember?"