'It was a vague speech,' agreed Benyamin with a sigh.
'I mean, what is this MultiReal? What does it look like? What does it do? Did Margaret ever sit down and do a-a needs analysis or a survey or something to figure out if an
ybody wants multiple realities? I've tackled a lot of tough problems in my life, but I can't remember a single time I said to myself, You could fix this if you just had a few alternate realities.'
Jara found herself nodding her head vigorously in agreement. 'Listen, Natch, even if Margaret is on the right track, what makes you think this, this, daydream of hers will work? We have no idea how good an engineer this woman is. That licensing agreement you made with her might be totally worthless.'
'The licensing agreement is dead,' said Natch. 'I'm a co-owner now. '
'What?'
'Hold on, everybody. Act confident. Pretend you know what's going on.... Towards Perfection, Margaret. How are you?'
Jara whipped her head around, only to see Margaret Surina herself watching from the doorway. Part of the SeeNaRee? No, this woman was real. Of course she's real, you idiot, Jara chided herself. She lives right across the courtyard. The analyst slammed on PokerFace 83.4b as quickly as she could, and the rest of the staff followed suit.
'Perfection, Natch,' said Margaret, with a slight bow. 'What a great environment.' She rapped her knuckles on the illusory table, and gave a wan smile at the SeeNaRee-generated knocking sound.
'We're just wrapping up a few details here,' said Natch, his voice laced with SmoothTalker 142. 'Why don't you go ahead and take a seat? I'm sure a few of these chairs are real.'
Margaret shook her head quietly. On closer inspection, Jara realized that this was not the same serene woman who had confidently faced down legions of Defense and Wellness Council troops last night in front of 700 million people. The bodhisattva looked as if she had been eviscerated. She had not changed clothes since the speech, and from the diminished sparkle of her eyes, it looked as if she had not slept either. 'I'm afraid I can't,' she sighed, making a noticeable effort at nonchalance. 'There's so much going on. All that trouble out in the orbital colonies ...' Margaret's voice cracked, and for a minute Jara could have sworn she was fighting back tears. 'Len Borda is furious.'
Natch chuckled. 'He'd be even more furious if he knew you were here with me.'
'That's a chance I'll have to take. I ... just came to tell you that, if you're ready, my people will be sending out a release to the drudges.'
'Ready as I'll ever be.'
'Outstanding.' Margaret exhaled loudly. She looked as if she might melt into the ground right then and there. 'We can iron out the details over the next few weeks.'
'So you've spoken to Quell then?'
'Yes. He has decided to stay with the MultiReal project. He's busy getting everything prepared; he'll be here Saturday at noon.'
'With access to the program, I assume.'
'Naturally.'
Jara was growing irritated at this light exchange. So many pleasantries, so little content. Natch and Margaret Surina could very well be reciting memorized lines.
'Then Perfection to you, Margaret,' said Natch, rising and giving a deep bow. 'It's a pleasure doing business with you, as always.'
'And you, Natch. Sheldon Surina once said, There are no ends, only means. So here's to a long and fruitful partnership.'
And with that, she turned and walked away.
'A partnership,' said Merri, as her PokerFace morphed into a look of concerned perplexity.
Natch nodded and made a motion like someone stifling a yawn. He had replaced his inscrutable mask as soon as Margaret had turned her back. 'The Surina/Natch MultiReal Fiefcorp,' he said. 'Surina/Natch with a slash. But don't worry, it's mostly a silent partnership. Margaret's handing over all the day-to-day operations to me.'
'Suring/Natch!' Horvil bellowed with glee, then pounded out a drum fill on the table. 'Surina/Natch! I can't wait to hear what Aunt Berilla thinks about that.'
'So Margaret provides the product and the capital-' began Merri.
Natch cut her off. 'Not the capital. Not all of it, anyway.'
'Then where did that come from?' asked Jara, leaning forward to project her venom as close to Natch as possible.
'A third party.'
'What third party? One of those loopy capitalmen you and Merri reeled in at your fundraising pitches last week?'
'It doesn't matter,' snapped Natch, suddenly annoyed. Jara congratulated herself on derailing his train of thought, if only for an instant.
'So Margaret provides the product, and an apprentice, and meeting space,' continued Merri, shrugging off the interruptions. 'Not to mention a name with four hundred years of history. I don't mean to be presumptuous, Natch ... but what do we bring to the table?'
The fiefcorp master sat back with fingers intertwined and raised one eyebrow. Jara could practically hear the ominous trumpets blaring out notes of suspense inside Natch's head. 'Me.'
Jara threw up her hands. 'You?' she spat out.
But Natch would not be thrown off-track again; like a mutating virus, he had already adapted to her caustic attacks. 'You're missing the point,' he said calmly. 'Margaret is scared. You all saw her standing there a few minutes ago. She looked like a fucking ghost. She needs to get MultiReal out to the public, and she needs to do it quickly, before she becomes a victim of another assassination attempt.'
Horvil's eyes went wide and his jaw plummeted. 'Assassination attempt?'
'Why do you think those Council troops were there last night? And for process' preservation, what do you think the infoquake was? It was a distraction. It was Len Borda's attempt to create pandemonium so he could do his dirty work while no one was looking. Except he made a few miscalculations, and Margaret managed to slip away. Come on, you didn't really believe that bullshit about a simple bottleneck of information, did you?'
'I did,' muttered Benyamin, blushing furiously. Jara remembered Sen Sivv Sor's words in that morning's editorial: Wherever you find such poisonous medicine, there's a human hand nearby administering the dose.
'Well, it's nonsense. Borda wants MultiReal to disappear. He wants Margaret dead. And the only way to prevent that is to spread MultiReal far and wide before Borda gets a chance to strike. Because once everyone from here to Furtoid is swimming in multiple realities, the Council won't be able to stop it.
'So Margaret needs a good product, and she needs it quickly. People around her are dying. The Council has already proven they'll march right into her compound without a second thought. She's never had to work under pressure before, and she just doesn't know how to take a product to market on a tight deadline. What does Margaret need? She needs the best programmers in the world to put together something marketable now.
'That's where we come in.
'You want quality? The Natch Personal Programming Fiefcorp is the best in the business. We've got the best analyst and the best engineer and the best channel manager around. You want fast? We climbed to number one on Primo's faster than anyone in history. We know how to work under pressure and we won't be intimidated by anyone.'
As Natch's words pricked Jara's skin and sizzled her hormones to a white-hot intensity, she felt a sudden charge of electricity in the room. He actually called me the best analyst in the business, she thought. An hour ago, she was ready to submit to the doldrums of a government desk job. Jara looked around and noticed that Benyamin and Merri both had an excited gleam in their eye, and Horvil was actually fidgeting in his chair like an eight-year-old boy. How in the world does he take control of a room like that?
'So how long do we have?' said Jara.
'Ten days,' replied Natch. 'We make our first presentation at seven p.m. on December 11th, Andra Pradesh time. MultiReal goes on sale the next day.'
Silence descended upon the bio/logic apprentices and snatched the breath from their lungs. It was already
