his hand at the viewscreen, causing it to broadcast a holographic blueprint of white, red and green squares that filled the room. Natch recognized this vast three-dimensional abacus on sight; it was the standard OCHRE engineering map of the human brain. Yet it represented only one small portion of the whole human programming schematic, which might have encompassed two or three square kilometers at this level of detail. 'You will notice that these relationships are particularly dense in this area, the area of brainstem software.' He pointed to a cluster of beads near the center of the diagram.
'I suppose the one you've highlighted is the cranial nerve software,' mumbled Natch, tilting his head towards a blinking circle in the center of the cluster.
'Precisely,' replied Vigal. 'Now let me show you the programs with a direct relationship to 9971.7-programs that will explicitly rely on the information from your work.' The neural programmer pulled back the focus and let a whole new level of the blueprint slide into the room. A disparate group of perhaps twenty beads began to blink. 'Now, if we add in the components of the system that rely on information from those programs ...' The focus pulled back even farther. Hundreds of beads were now flashing in perfect synchronization. 'And so on and so on,' concluded Vigal, waving a jittery hand at the exponential explosion of blinking beads.
Natch could feel the impatience swelling within him. He began drumming his fingers on the side table. 'All right, I get it. There's a lot riding on this program.'
'Any neural program.'
'Fine. But I don't see what you're worried about. My code meets all the standards. It produces consistent results.'
'I have no doubt of that,' replied Vigal somberly. 'If I ever had any doubts about your programming abilities, Natch, this has certainly dispelled them. It's not you I worry about-it's the companies working on all these other programs whose skills I question.' He flipped the back of his hand at the pinpricks of light that had replicated throughout the room like a cancer.
'Why should I care?' said Natch through gritted teeth. 'That's their problem.'
'But Natch, you must understand ... you're not working with skin moisturizers or, or, breath fresheners. This is neural software. One major discrepancy between any two of these programs could cause a massive brain hemorrhage. And that is an unacceptable result. That's why we have to work slowly and with careful coordination.'
'That's why we have Dr. Plugenpatch standards-'
'The standards are only one small part of the procedure,' said Vigal with a tinge of sadness in his voice. 'For process' preservation, Natch, why do you think I'm always going off to speak at all these conferences? It's so those of us in neural programming can keep on top of what the others are doing. Certainly, it's costly and time-consuming, but it's also effective. We have a higher standard to live up to here in the memecorp sector.'
Natch crossed his arms in front of his chest and sulked. He tried to look at anything in the room but Serr Vigal. 'I don't see how you can make a profit doing all that,' he said. 'I mean, who's going to wait three years for all of you to coordinate an upgrade to some obscure piece of cranial nerve software?'
Vigal shut off the diagram with a snap of his fingers, revealing the cheap carpeting and second-hand furniture of Natch's apartment once more. 'You're beginning to understand life in a memecorp,' said the neural programmer quietly. 'We can't make a profit. We can't just rely on Primo's ratings or the whims of the marketplace to test our products for us. Because, as you say, people do not have the time or the inclination to pay attention to most neural software. If we didn't get outside funding, I would have to close up shop and send everybody home.'
'Then why do it at all?'
'Because I enjoy it,' said Vigal, 'and because someone has to.'
There was a long pause. Natch could feel 9971.7 mocking him from its berth in MindSpace. 'So what do you want me to do? Abandon the whole thing?'
'I want you to do exactly what you're doing,' replied Vigal, 'but slow down. Natch, you've created an excellent long-term plan for the future of 9971.7. Tomorrow, you can begin by rolling back the changes you've put in place, and then we can start to enact that plan one piece at a time.'
Natch had no response. He had expected Vigal to point him to some hidden flaw in the program architecture that only a wise and seasoned programmer could see. Instead, his guardian had only confirmed that the problem did not lay with Natch; the problem was the memecorp system itself.
Silently, Natch cursed the day he had ever signed on to an apprenticeship with Serr Vigal, and wondered if he would make it through the rest of his apprenticeship without going completely insane.
13
A few weeks later, Natch abandoned his grandiose plan for the neural software. He hadn't lost confidence in his abilities; on the contrary, he was more certain than ever that he could bring the program to a higher plain of functionality. But Natch had decided to leave Vigal's employ in eight months, when his contract ended. Until then, he would get much more experience trying his hand at a variety of projects than tinkering with just one.
Serr Vigal took the news coolly but with a tinge of disappointment. 'Where will you go?' he asked his protege. 'The fiefcorps?'
'That's not the place for me right now,' said Natch, leaving the obvious unspoken: he still suffered from the taint of the Shortest Initiation. Hiring someone with Natch's notoriety could provoke a boycott from the creeds and the L-PRACGs, or a backlash from the drudges. 'I've decided to set myself up on the Data Sea as a ROD coder,' the youth continued. 'Like Horvil.'
'Are you sure, Natch? ROD coding can be extremely-'
Natch cut the discussion short. 'Yes, I'm sure,' he said.
Vigal did not begrudge his young apprentice's decision. In fact, he seemed to forget all about it over the next few months. Natch quietly upgraded a number of optic nerve programs to the new Plugenpatch specs, working at the glacial pace his master had requested. When Natch multied to Vigal's office to collect his end-of-contract bonus and say goodbye, the neural programmer responded with a surprised 'Oh!' and gave him a feeble hug. Natch could see a host of worries fluttering through his guardian's head, but Vigal had evidently decided to keep them to himself.
Thus ended Natch's brief career in the memecorp sector.
RODs were Routines On Demand, bio/logic programs that catered to the indulgently rich. There were no contracts, no guarantees, no fringe benefits. ROD coders simply scouted the Data Sea for a spec they could engineer quickly, rushed to build it before someone else did, and then launched it in hopes that their patron would like it enough to pay. The applications for RODs ranged from the frivolous (Fab-a-lous Nails 15, now with programmable cuticles') to the lascivious (Tit-o-rama 8, the total breast bounce controller') to the purely ridiculous (DiscSpeak 3c, 'for the true connoisseur of ancient recorded-sound emulation-now with pop, hiss and warble!').
An expedient programmer could typically launch two or three RODs per week. Horvil had maintained that pace for over a year before moving on to the more specialized field of bio/logic engineering.
'Let's estimate three sales a week,' said Natch to his old friend one night as they strode around London discussing career options. He summoned a virtual calculator in the brisk spring air and began plugging in numbers. 'So we'll multiply three by the average asking price for an ROD, subtract out equipment and overhead ...'
Horvil sliced his hand through Natch's holographic calculator. 'Wait a minute, Natch,' he said, shaking his head. 'It's not that easy.'
'What do you mean?'
'I said I launched two or three RODs a week. I didn't say anybody bought 'em. You never sell all the RODs you launch. Sometimes you get beaten to the punch by another programmer. Or your patron changes his mind and pulls the spec from the Data Sea just for the fuck of it. Or you're sabotaged by the competition. There are assholes out there that post fake ROD requests, you know.'
Natch frowned and adjusted his numbers downwards. 'Well, it's still not that bad-you've just got to factor in
