"The Defense and Wel ness Council can give you this.

"Do we want something from you in return? Of course. We want your cooperation. The more cooperation we get from you, the fewer public resources we have to waste, the quicker we can move on, and the easier it wil be for Natch."

Magan turned and focused the ful intensity of his glare on the fiefcorp a.n.a.lyst. It was not an unkind look, but rather a look ful of hidden trapdoors and secret caches of information. In many ways, Lieutenant Executive Lee was Natch's ant.i.thesis: a man of hyperrationality, a man who scrupulously ch.o.r.eographed everything that happened in his presence.

"Jara, I can compensate you for any shares you lose. Not only that, but I can set you up with your own company. A proper company, one run in accordance with the laws of the Meme Cooperative. A company that can earn the number one slot on Primo's honestly, through hard work.

"Natch won't survive this, Jara. You can't change that. What you can change is whether you go down with him."

With that, Lieutenant Executive Magan Kai Lee gave a bow and strode off into the fog.

He seemed smal enough to be swept away by the rainstorm.

Rey Gonerev, Ridgel o, and Papizon fol owed seconds later, leaving Jara sitting alone in the courtyard with a mug of tepid nitro. It was only after several minutes of doleful reflection that Jara realized Magan had not actual y asked her to do ...

anything.

9.

Soccer was mainly an indoor sport in the Mid-Atlantic, especial y during the wintertime.

The regional L-PRACGs had a longstanding deal with the Environmental Control Board to accept the bulk of the season's snowfal in exchange for mild spring rains, and none of the politicians were wil ing to jeopardize that just to play soccer outdoors.

Stil , finding an indoor field to use for practice and demonstration was more difficult than Natch had antic.i.p.ated. The eastern seaboard was awash in soccer stadiums large and smal and al sizes in between, but few of them had a secure Minds.p.a.ce workbench on the premises. As luck would have it, Natch found one a short tube ride away in Harper. He strode on to the field with Quel , Horvil, and Benyamin close behind. Then he stood for a moment in the center of the field, hearing the roar of a crowd that was stil nine days in the future.

Excited fans, stupefied drudges, indignant Patels: he could hear them al .

Quel , meanwhile, was busy removing the tight metal col ar from around his neck, which Natch supposed was only prudent for a game of soccer. He wondered if he should keep an eye out for any Council officers who might cite the Islander for failing to wear the uncomfortable contraption while in connectible territory. But Quel seemed unconcerned. He pinned a smal , coin-shaped device to his lapel. Natch remembered seeing the device once before-a functional replacement for the connectible col ar, almost certainly il egal. Natch shrugged. They were al here in the flesh this morning, so there were no multi projections for the Islander to miss. Besides, why should Natch care if Quel chose to skirt stupid laws?

The Islander grabbed a bal from the cart and crouched in front of the Harper Bul dogs' net like a professional goalie. "Okay, Benyamin," he said.

"Since you got the short end of the stick last time we tried this, I'l let you be on the winning side." He tossed the bal underhanded at the younger apprentice, who had positioned himself for a penalty kick. "Possibilities loaded up?"

"Yeah," said Ben, a wicked gleam in his eye. "Al ready to go."

"Then let's see what you've got."

The two fiefcorpers squared off for a moment. Ben spun the bal in his hands like a gyroscope while Quel gave him a fierce stare. Then suddenly, Benyamin let the black-and-white sphere drop and lashed out with his right foot. The bal rocketed through Quel 's arms and hit the net with a solid whuff.

"Good shot!" shouted Horvil from a bench on the sidelines.

Quel , undeterred, flipped his long pale ponytail over one shoulder and tossed the bal back onto the field.

Natch stood at midfield watching like a dispa.s.sionate referee as Benyamin nailed shot after shot through the Islander's hands. Inept kicks, clumsy kicks, soph.o.m.oric head b.u.t.ts, al sailed effortlessly into the goal despite Quel 's best efforts. Ben flushed with satisfaction. The Islander seemed to be enjoying himself too, in spite of the humiliation.

After a dozen such plays, the Islander final y tucked the bal in the crook of his elbow and stepped out from the net. "So that's pretty much the same demonstration we did before," said Quel . "A col aborative MultiReal process. Benyamin activates the Possibilities program, and we keep replaying the scene over and over again in our heads until Ben finds a scenario that's acceptable. He closes the choice cycle, outputs that 'reality' to his motor system, and it happens." Quel touched a ma.s.sive finger to his temple. "The alternate memories up here get erased instantly, and the guy who isn't using MultiReal-in this case, me-never even realizes what's happening. Now here's where things start getting interesting."

The Islander threw the globe back to Benyamin. Ben palmed the soccer bal in his hands and prepared to score yet another goal. He pul ed back his foot, let the bal slip through his fingersAnd then both Quel and Benyamin slumped to the ground, exhausted. Ben barely had the strength to keep his head from slamming into the gra.s.s.

Meanwhile, the bal rebounded off Ben's shin and went rol ing toward the sidelines.

"What happened?" said Natch.

"That time," said Quel , panting, "we were both using MultiReal."

Horvil's eyes did a ful clockwise circuit as he sifted through the data points. "Okay, so you've got two MultiReal users working at crosspurposes," he said. "Benyamin keeps creating scenarios where he scores a goal. But as soon as he does, Quel takes that scenario and runs it over and over again until he blocks the kick. You get ..." The engineer's jaw rocked back and forth in confusion as he tried to reconcile the equations in his head with the bizarre performance he had just witnessed.

"You get exhaustion," moaned Ben, stil sprawled on the field trying to catch his breath.

"They're at an impa.s.se," said Natch. "An infinite loop, until someone gives up ... or his OCHREs run out."

Horvil pul ed his cousin to his feet and gave him a vigorous thwack between the shoulder blades. "Eh, you'l be okay," said the engineer. "Ready to take on the Harper Bul dogs in no time. So what did it feel like?"

Benyamin bobbled his head and cracked his neck. Horvil's goodnatured clap on the back actual y seemed to have helped him recover his equilibrium.

"Pretty much like you'd expect. Just the same thing over and over. And over and over and over ..."

"How many times?" said Natch.

"I dunno. You lose track. Felt like hundreds, maybe even thousands. It's like an enormous grid that you scrol through in your head, but you have to expend this tiny bit of effort for every move. Doesn't seem that bad at first, but it adds up.

I couldn't take it anymore. Final y just gave up and cut the whole process off."

Quel did not bother to pick himself up off the gra.s.s, but simply lay there with his head propped up on one elbow. He had to be packing at least twice as much ma.s.s as Ben, and yet he seemed just as winded. "So here's our chal enge," he said. "You've seen two instances of MultiReal running at the same time. But at our exposition, we're going to have twenty-three."

Horvil's head slumped to his chest. "Oooh," he moaned.

Natch stood with his arms folded. "Don't tel me that it never occurred to Margaret in the last sixteen years that something like this might happen."

"Of course it occurred to her," replied Quel calmly.

"And it's been tested?"

"Sure, it's been tested ... just not with twenty-three people at the same time. Listen, Natch, don't get ahead of yourself. Let me show you the next demo.

Horvil, take your programming bars over to the workbench, go pul up the common tools library...." A long and tortured series of mathematical formulas sprayed from his lips. Horvil soaked it al up, nodded, then dashed through a door in the stands to find the bio/logic workbench.

Natch paced slowly up and down the sidelines, kicking at the gra.s.s with one foot as they waited for Horvil to complete the program modifications. He had been in possession of MultiReal for a month now, and yet he stil knew so little about it. The most powerful work of bio/logics ever created, the pinnacle achievement of the Surinas. But there were stil basic concepts about MultiReal he did not understand and simple questions he could not answer.

Even Horvil had knowledge gaps large enough to pilot an OrbiCo s.p.a.ce freighter through. Natch silently cursed Len Borda and Magan Kai Lee for keeping him on the defensive for the past few weeks, for keeping him on the run and away from Minds.p.a.ce.

Ten minutes later, the engineer emerged from the bowels of the stadium brandishing his programming bar satchel like a trophy.

Quel arose and brushed himself off, then reached for the soccer bal that had rol ed to a stop near his feet. "Again," he said, tossing the bal Benyamin's way.

The young apprentice did a few quick stretches, trying to psyche himself up, unsure whether to be prepared for victory or defeat. He wound up for the kickAnd found each kick thwarted by Quel 's goaltending, time and time again.

"Something's ... strange," said Ben, final y conceding defeat. "I'm using MultiReal, just like before-but it just stops at some point. It leaves me hanging there in midloop."

"Limited choice cycles!" cried Horvil, rushing onto the field before Quel could utter a single syl able. "I think I get this now. We put a limit on the number of reality loops Ben can do at one time-but your version of MultiReal stil has no limits."

The Islander nodded. He strol ed back to the cart with the bal clutched in one palm like another man might clutch an apple, then deposited it gently on the top of the stack. Apparently the demonstration was over.

"So why would anyone buy a MultiReal program with limited choice cycles?"

complained Benyamin. "It's useless. If someone else can always trump you-"

"Not always," interrupted Horvil. "The other guy would only win if he's got MultiReal activated too-and if he's not running a limited version like yours. I suppose if you're both running limited versions, the person with the most choice cycles wins."

Natch made his way to the bleachers and gripped the cold metal railing with trembling fists. One of his last conversations with Margaret began to unrol in his mind, and for a moment he felt like he was back in Andra Pradesh watching the bodhisattva prepare for one of her dul presentations.

It had been an offhanded statement of Margaret's: Frederic and Petrucio have a limited license. They can release MultiReal products, but they wil be subordinate to yours.

Natch, puzzled: Subordinate how?

The Patel products wil have a limited number of choice cycles, Margaret had explained, whereas yours wil be infinite.

He had nearly forgotten about that snippet of dialogue, given that it had taken place during an argument about how the bodhisattva had lied to him.

Only now did he understand what had transpired there. Natch seethed. This was good news, to be sure-but how many more of these moments would he have to endure? How many elements of this MultiReal affair would become clear only weeks or months after the fact?

"So that's how Margaret decided to resolve conflicts among the MultiReal licensees," he said.

"Margaret explored a lot of different ways to deal with these conflicts," said Quel . "She spent years, but never came to any definite conclusions." The Islander walked to the sidelines and found a seat on the bench normal y reserved for the visiting team. "Actual y, that's not quite the right way to put it.

Margaret came to the conclusion that she shouldn't come to any definite conclusions."

Ben frowned. "What does that mean?"

"That means she wanted to keep the options open. Give the owners and licensees every possible scenario, and let them sort it out for themselves.

Margaret thought there might be different flavors of MultiReal available from different resel ers. Maybe each company would come up with its own a la carte pricing. So she built every possible solution she could think of into the program and made it easy for an engineer to flip them on and off." The Islander threw one arm over the shoulder of the chief engineer, who had just planted his sizable a.s.s on the bench. "Horvil's already demonstrated how easy it is to select the options. The hard part is deciding which ones to choose."

The engineer sat pensively, not speaking for a moment. "This exposition is going to be a nightmare unless we make some decisions before those lottery winners. .h.i.t the field," he put in final y.

"Then why aren't we consulting Margaret?" asked Ben, ever ready to pin words on the silent questions in everyone else's mind. "She already knows al the pros and cons. She's been working on this for sixteen years. Why don't we ask her for advice?"

Horvil turned to Natch. He wanted to know the answer to this question too.

"I've tried to contact her," said the fiefcorp master with a frown. "She won't answer.

Won't accept my multi requests. She's just sitting there on top of that b.l.o.o.d.y Revelation Spire, and she won't come down."

"Wel , somebody has to be talking to her," continued Benyamin. "Quel ? Don't tel me you haven't seen Margaret since the demo."

The Islander was busy removing his coin-shaped apparatus and replacing the burdensome col ar around his neck. At Ben's question, his gaze instantly slid inward to some troublesome emotional vista. "Yeah, I've seen her," he mumbled. "A few times. She's ... not doing wel . You're not going to get a lot of help from Margaret."

"What's wrong with her?" asked Horvil.

Quel stood and shifted from one foot to the other, then back again. "She's il ," he said laconical y.

Natch shook his head. "It's not Margaret's problem anymore," he said. "That's why I hired Merri and Jara, to work on these kinds of policy questions.

You three need to concentrate on getting al those bugs ironed out so Possibilities doesn't choke in front of a bil ion people."

"This should be easier than last time though, right?" said Ben. "We had MultiReal interacting with hundreds of mil ions of people in that auditorium.

This time it's only twenty-three."

"You're forgetting something," replied Horvil with a reprimanding finger wag. "At the demo, we real y just did five hundred mil ion one-on-one interactions in a row. Nothing complex about that. Heck, it was al rigged off a mathematical progression, so Natch didn't even have to think about it. But next week at the exposition, we could have twenty-three conflicting realities to work out.

That's twenty-three times as bad-no, twenty-three times exponential y as bad."

Natch shrugged, already halfway to the door that would lead them back to the Harper tube station. He wasn't worried. If there was any bio/logic engineer in the world capable of hunting down such a chal enge, it was Horvil. With nine days to go, his old hivemate would have twenty-three-way MultiReal conflicts mounted and stuffed on his mantel by the time the exposition was under way.

The fiefcorp master turned to make sure the others were fol owing him and was confronted by the odd sight of Benyamin wriggling his arms and legs like a man trying to bring back the circulation. "What's with you?" he said.

Ben snapped his head up, embarra.s.sed. "Sorry, Natch. Those MultiReal choice cycles can be exhausting-but it is such an incredible rush."

I0.

Two days pa.s.sed with a cyclone of activity. Impromptu meetings swept across the horizon and threw previously settled decisions up in the air again.

Fiefcorpers breezed into Natch's apartment with no advance notice at al hours of the night, and there were no apologies offered or expected.

Jara couldn't sleep. Every time she lay in bed and felt herself sliding under, she would come thrashing awake with Natch's name on her lips and Magan Kai Lee's words buzzing in her ears: As long as Natch refuses to cooperate with us, the SarinalNatch MultiReal Fiefcorp is my top priority.

We are exploring every transaction your fiefcorp has ever done, every piece of code you've ever launched onto the Data Sea. This MultiReal exposition you are so diligently preparing for wil not happen.

We wil bury Natch.

Shouldn't she have warned Natch by now that the Defense and Wel ness Council was stil gunning for him? Wasn't that her duty as a fiefcorp apprentice? Then again, certainly this would not be news to Natch. He might have achieved a temporary triumph over the Council, but the entrepreneur knew better than to declare victory so soon. What more could Jara real y tel him?

The internal argument raged as the night wore on. She composed a dozen messages to the fiefcorp master, discarded them, started again. The script for the MultiReal exposition, meanwhile, sat in a fetal state, shapeless and unformed.

Final y, at half past six, the a.n.a.lyst kicked off her blankets and summoned a view of the building's exterior on the viewscreen. She half expected to find a team of Defense and Wel ness Council officers staring back at her taking notes. There were Council officers out there, al right, but they were far below, strol ing placidly through the London mist along with everyone else. Was this a message in and of itself?

Jara col apsed back into her warren of pil ows and tuned the viewscreen to the latest John Ridglee.

THE BOY WHO COULD DO NO WRONG.

If the Prime Committee gives out civilian medals for bravery, then I propose somebody nominate Natch.