'And what do you fear?'
'I fear that Margaret has picked you for this enterprise because she thinks she can manipulate you.' The neural programmer took a long, sad look at the traders tussling with one another on the Melbourne exchange floor. Undoubtedly, most of them were only multi projections, but that did not make the scene any less violent or chaotic to behold.
Natch felt the old alienation swooping down on him and constricting his lungs. He snarled angrily, poking a virtual finger into his guardian's chest. 'And so what if she thinks she can manipulate me? That doesn't change anything. I've still got to find a way to get into the Phoenix Project, or I'll never get out of this ... this horse race on Primo's.'
'And do you know that this Phoenix Project of Margaret's is a panacea for your problems? I worry that you're throwing everything aside for some vague business venture when you don't even know what it is.'
'No. The Phoenix Project is it. This is the answer. This is what I've been searching for. I know it, I can feel it with every cell in my body. You don't think I can just ignore an opportunity like this, do you?'
Vigal smiled wanly. 'That is a decision only you can make, Natch.'
Merri looked as if she had been in her foyer for hours awaiting Natch's arrival. He frowned briefly. There were few things Natch detested more than someone who was too eager to please. A good employee says no more often than yes, the great Lucco Primo once claimed.
'Towards Perfection, Natch,' she said softly.
'Perfection,' replied Natch. 'Ready?'
'Yes, but ...' Merri flinched, as if raising an objection were the most difficult task in the world. 'I was hoping you could shed some light on the role you want me to play today.'
Natch checked the Shenandoah central time service. They had almost twenty minutes before the potential investors arrived at the Surina Enterprise Facility. He walked past the channel manager and into her living room, cursing the multi network's insistence on reproducing the wobbly effects of imperfect gravity control. 'People don't trust me,' Natch said bitterly, taking a seat on a round ottoman covered with a delicate floral pattern. 'I've hit number one on Primo's, I've proven myself time and time again, but still nobody worth talking to will do business with me. I need your credibility, Merri.'
Merri absorbed all this with an air of mystification. 'My credibility?'
'When people look at me, they still see the Shortest Initiation. They look at Horvil and see ... well, we've been working together so long, they see me. And Jara made some powerful enemies when she was on her own. We're all tainted goods, Merri. But you ... Nobody has said a bad word about you on the Data Sea since you graduated from the hive. You've got an honest reputation.'
The blonde woman shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. 'So you're saying you want me there because of this.' She nodded at the swirled black-and-white pin displayed prominently on her jacket breast pocket.
'Well, of course it helps that you're an Objectivv,' said Natch. 'Come on, Merri, you can put two and two together. We're going to a fundraising pitch. You've taken a pledge not to lie.'
Merri wrinkled her nose in disappointment. 'It's not quite that simple.'
Natch shrugged. He had always disdained the creeds and their arbitrary ethical systems-the Surinas with their slavish devotion to science, the Elanners with their hypocritical advocacy for the poor, the Thasselians with their shallow and pointless worship of business. But he reserved a special irritation for the Objectivvs. Natch could not fathom why the public tolerated, even revered, the creed's disciples. The way they babbled about 'the search for objective truth' and dissected every utterance of that cryptic old hermit known as The Bodhisattva made Natch cringe.
'We can discuss philosophy some other time,' said the fiefcorp master, rising from the ottoman and nodding pointedly at the red square tile in the hallway. 'Right now we've got work to do. Get ready to follow my beacon.'
'So,' stammered Merri, 'what do you want me to do?'
'I don't know,' said Natch indifferently. 'Keep quiet. Act ethical.'
He didn't wait for Merri's next disapproving grimace. Instead, Natch closed his eyes, focused on the beaker of concentrated entropy that was Andra Pradesh, and let the cold frisson of multivoid envelop him. Seconds later, he stood at the gates of the Surina compound, staring up at the Revelation Spire. Natch stretched his mind out to the multi network and activated a beacon to tag his spatial coordinates for Merri to follow.
She needn't have worried about getting separated from her master. The blue-and-green-clad security officers kept the two visitors waiting at the compound gates for ten minutes. The Surina guards were busy eyeing a group of white-robed Defense and Wellness Council officers across the way who seemed to have nothing better to do than pace at the bottom of the mountain and polish the barrels of their dartguns. Merri shuddered with relief when she and Natch were finally escorted into the safety of the Surina compound.
The Enterprise Facility was an impressive location for a fundraising pitch: twelve stories of blue stretched stone cantilevered off the side of a mountain in defiance of the natural laws of gravity. Merri followed him silently through the throngs of suits up to a room on the ninth floor. A room blissfully free of irritating SeeNaRee. They entered to find eight capitalmen already seated at the semi-circular conference table. Natch consulted the time and noted with satisfaction that he was exactly twelve minutes late, which was three minutes earlier than he had planned.
'Towards Perfection,' he said brightly, moving to the focal point of the table. The five men and three women returned his greeting with varying degrees of politeness and curiosity. Merri stood respectfully to one side with her hands clasped behind her back, her Creed Objectivv emblem on prominent display, waiting for some signal from her fiefcorp master.
'Let's not waste any time,' announced the fiefcorp master, gesturing to the white open space on the wall behind him. An itemized list of business expenses appeared in blocky fixed-width characters. Natch paused to let the capitalmen absorb his list. As expected, their eyes uniformly zeroed in on the big ticket items at the bottom: ten additional bio/logic programmers and engineers, fifteen channelers, office and meeting space, bio/logic programming equipment, marketing expenses. The total figure spelled out in the bottom right corner was an eyebrow-raising sum. 'This is what I need by the end of the week,' he declared. 'Are there any questions?'
Eight pairs of eyes-nine, counting Merri's-gaped dumbly at the entrepreneur, waiting for some elaboration. But Natch simply stood there and gazed around the room with a smoldering stare. He looked as if he were preparing to either cut his multi connection or march around the table slicing off heads.
Finally, one of the capitalmen raised her hand timidly. Merri sent an inquiry to the public directory and discovered she was the investment manager for a libertarian L-PRACG and no stranger to fundraising pitches. 'Exactly what is all this for?' she said with an air of bemusement.
Natch fixed her with an unblinking stare. 'For development of Margaret Surina's Phoenix Project, which I am licensing.'
The investors gawked at the entrepreneur as if he had just offered to sell them a set of dragon's teeth. The mythical Phoenix Project, the boondoggle to end all boondoggles. Margaret's Folly. Natch could practically hear his audience's frantic ConfidentialWhisper conversations, their frenzied queries to the Data Sea.
'The Phoenix Project?' continued the capitalman in disbelief. 'Are you serious?'
'Dead serious,' replied Natch.
'What is it?'
'You'll have to wait and see.'
A sense of shock crusted over their fury at being lured out to India for such a ludicrous presentation. Merri was surprised to see that Natch had been correct about her ties to Creed Objectivv; the pin on her breast pocket might have been the only thing preventing the capitalmen from vanishing in disgust. But even that would only keep the outrage from boiling over for so long. The capitalmen began hurling questions at him in rapid-fire succession, which Natch answered brusquely and without hesitation.
'What can you tell us?'
'I can tell you that if you invest in me, you'll make more money than you've ever dreamed of.'
'How much?'
'The sky's the limit.'
