disapproval, and the woman quickly lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. 'Yes, Floral Eyes 14. That's the one.'
Horvil frowned and tapped his foot for a moment. Don't tell her what you're doing, Natch had said. Make her think you're talking to someone over Confidential Whisper. Let her wonder for a minute or two. Then the engineer abruptly motioned for Vellux to turn around and face the viewscreen. The old woman complied, with a nervous glance towards her table of passionflowers. 'This will just take a moment,' said Horvil. He bisected the viewscreen with a gesture, summoning a mirror on the left half and a series of flowers on the right. Daisies, buttercups, baby's breath, sunflowers. He gave an exaggerated stare at the image of Vellux in the mirror, took note of her obviously mismatched eye color, and shook his head sadly. 'Bolbund, Bolbund, Bolbund,' he muttered with a world-weary sigh for effect.
The confused flower vendor huddled inside her purple robe and frowned. 'It's been working perfectly since I bought it,' she said. 'I don't know what happened.... Should I return the program? Should I get a refund, or, or ... report this to someone?'
Act surprised. Look around quickly. Make her believe that you've said too much and now you're trying to cover up. 'Madam,' said Horvil, blooming into a nervous smile, 'I'm not allowed to make recommendations on bio/logic programs. Please don't make any changes on my account. It's nothing. Pretend I was never here. If we get enough evidence to move the investigation forward, we'll be in touch with you.'
Vellux smiled wanly and nodded, looking completely unconvinced.
'Towards Perfection,' said Horvil, and gave her a formal bow. Then he was gone. The entire encounter took about five minutes.
That afternoon, Natch logged his first sale of the EyeMorph program.
Natch spent the week tracking down Captain Bolbund's best customers. He did so by personally following the man, who turned out to be as offensive to the eyes as his poetry was to the ear. Bolbund had a body like a misshapen bowling pin, with an uneven beard and a nose like a wedge of putty.
But Natch did not fear his rival now that he had put his finger on Bolbund's mortal flaw: vanity. It was this vanity that led him to conduct his business out in the open, where others could see and post reports on the Data Sea. Where people could observe him personally delivering programs to his customers and reciting lines of his gutwrenching poetry. Natch had to admit that it was a clever gimmick; customers appreciated the attention, and onlookers remembered his name. During the next few days, Natch and Horvil watched him sell two phallic enhancement programs to old Creed Objectivv devotees and repackage the same eyelash curling program for a handful of debutantes. By the end of the week, they had compiled a sizeable list of clients and the RODs Bolbund had sold them.
The two quickly developed a solid routine. Natch would buy copies of Captain Bolbund's routines (using Horvil's money, of course) and study them in MindSpace for hours on end. Cracking into the programming code was no simple matter, even for such retrograde technology as a ROD. But even without root-level access, Natch could glean a lot of information just by eyeballing a program's surface and running it through a battery of tests. Within a few weeks, he could reverse-engineer Bolbund's code blindfolded and put together improved versions in mere hours. Once a ROD was completed, Natch would pass the customer's name and the script on to Horvil for his unique brand of social engineering.
Horvil was having the time of his life. He pinned bits of ceremonial bric-a-brac to his costume like medals, and constantly pestered his old hivemate with new character improvisations. Horvil had lived his whole life in decadent boredom, every move choreographed by an autocratic family. All Natch had to do was show the engineer a glimpse of spontaneity, and Horvil was dancing to his music.
Natch was astonished at how quickly Captain Bolbund's operation folded under pressure. He expected to run into a few snags along the way: programs he could not duplicate, customers he could not sway. But these problems never materialized. Bolbund's customers continued to roll over and switch to Natch's brands. Credits continued to accumulate in Natch's Vault account.
Of course, Bolbund did not accept the ravaging of his client list without a fight. But once again, Natch was shocked by his rival's stupidity.
The whole affair came to a head one morning as Natch was swigging down a cup of nitro and scanning the drudge headlines. The previous night he had relished his first mention in the Primo's investment guide.
Then he received a multi request from a Meme Cooperative official.
Natch activated a serenity program and granted the multi request. Within seconds, he was greeted by a smartly dressed woman flashing the official crest of the Meme Cooperative, the ancient Hebrew character of the aleph on a field of azure.
'Towards Perfection,' said the woman. She then proceeded to reel off her name, position, division and supervisor, along with a string of unnecessary provisos and notifications.
'Perfection,' replied Natch, his anxiety now well under control. 'What can I do for you?'
'You can tell me what your relationship is with this man.' The Cooperative official held out her hand and flashed the same obnoxious picture of Bolbund that Horvil had been using in his charades.
Natch rolled his eyes. 'Captain Bolbund,' he moaned with distaste. 'We've been scrapping over ROD customers for months now. He just can't accept that I'm beating him.'
'Well, apparently he has gone over the line.' The woman nodded towards the nearest viewscreen and began playing back a heated discussion between one of Natch's new customers and an ugly man with large ears. The video was obviously captured on the sly. Natch couldn't make out the words passing between the two, but they nearly came to blows before the encounter was over. 'Do you know this man?' said the Cooperative woman, freezing the display and tapping one of the interrogator's floppy ears.
'No,' Natch replied truthfully.
'This man has been passing himself off as a Meme Cooperative official,' she said. Natch looked closer at the display and noticed that the imposter's uniform was nearly identical to that of the woman standing in his apartment. 'He's been telling people that he's conducting an official investigation into `unethical ROD coding practices.' When we caught up with him, he told us that this Captain Bolbund has been paying him to put on this charade.'
Natch was by now the very model of unconcern. 'So what does this have to do with me?'
'Apparently, Bolbund specifically requested that his accomplice tell people that you were the one under investigation.'
Natch masked his laughter by burying his face in his mug of nitro. You fumbling idiot! he chided Bolbund in his head. The key to the whole scam was to not mention any specific names or organizations whatsoever. After all, who could accuse Horvil of misrepresenting himself if he never made any representations in the first place?
'I don't know anything about it,' Natch said at length to the Cooperative official.
The woman nodded perfunctorily. She had already made the mental leap to the next case. 'The Cooperative will be in touch with you if we need any further information.' She added another litany of bureaucratic language and was about to cut the multi connection when she had a sudden thought. 'This Bolbund-what is he a `captain' of anyway?'
Natch shrugged. 'I have no idea.'
And that was that.
Natch never heard another word back from the Meme Cooperative about the investigation, but was pleased to discover via the drudges that Captain Bolbund had received a stiff fine and a ninety-day suspension of his license to sell programming code on the Data Sea. Ninety days was an aeon in this business. Natch breathed a sigh of relief, and not only because he had vanquished his competitor; now Horvil could drop his silly role-playing and Natch could do business in earnest. For months afterward, Natch kept waiting for a reprisal to come his way from the Cooperative or some other legislative body, but none ever appeared.
The final chapter of the Bolbund saga occurred the night of the Meme Cooperative visit, when Horvil took Natch on a whirlwind tour of the London bars to celebrate. Natch was still earning less in a month than the top fiefcorps paid their apprentices as a daily wage. But he had halted his downward slide. He had proven that, by sheer force of will, he could bring the world in line with the visions in his mind's eye. Natch never drank or used alcohol simulation programs, but was content to watch Horvil get pleasantly sauced. At the end of the night, Natch fired off a parting message to Captain Bolbund with Horvil's enthusiastic backing:
Please don't think I'm rude If I tell you YOU GOT SCREWED. Guess you finally met your match From now on,
