'Everyone's going to come out here to Andra Pradesh. The Surina compound's got plenty of accommodations and the best programming facilities in the world-not to mention armed security.'
'What good is that going to do us?' said Jara with a grimace. 'The Council marched right inside the gates the other day while Surina security just sat there and watched. What makes you think they'll stop Borda this time?'
The entrepreneur closed his eyes once more, and Jara realized he had explored this situation a thousand times already in his head. 'Where else can we go? Any place that's primitive enough to escape the Council's notice is too backwards for us to put together a demo in. And I've looked everywhere ... the Islands, the Pharisee Territories, OrbiCo space freighters. It's the same wherever you look. At least in Andra Pradesh we'll see them coming.'
'What-what about Serr Vigal?' stuttered Horvil.
'Vigal will be all right. He's got his own private security team at the conference, and everyone knows he doesn't have much to do with our day-to-day operations. He promised he'd show up for the demo.'
'Natch, what about me?' Merri's tone of voice was distraught, almost tearful. 'I don't think there's any shuttle that can get from Luna to Terra that fast. The presentation will be over while I'm still in transit.'
'I haven't forgotten about you. I've made you a reservation at TeleCo later this afternoon.'
Jara's eyes went wide with disbelief. 'Teleport-from the moon? Are you kidding? Do you know how expensive that is? That's like our entire third quarter budget right there.'
'Not as expensive as replacing a dead channel manager at the last minute,' said Natch.
Nobody could argue with that.
Ten minutes later, Natch cut his multi connection. He stood on the red square tile in his hallway and took stock of preparations for Tuesday's performance. All the pieces were set on the board: the auditorium space had been reserved, the proper documentation had been filed with the Meme Cooperative, the press release had been blasted to every corner of the Data Sea. He gave the drudges another fifteen minutes before they started a blitzkrieg of their own.
He consulted the time and shook his head. Precious seconds were ticking away, time disappearing forever into the void. He would need to drive his staff hard in order to complete this massive undertaking. He would need to thrash a little sloppiness out of Horvil; to wink and cajole a little extra effort out of Jara; to give Merri that zone of comfort that allowed her to produce consistently excellent work. Benyamin's motivations were still a mystery to him, as were those of the Islander Quell. But Natch felt confident he would find their hooks before this crunch was through.
The fiefcorp master made a quick list of things he would need at the Surina complex. His satchel of bio/logic programming bars. A few shirts. An extra pair of pants. The gabardine suit he had purchased for important events. Natch tucked the hermetically sealed packets of clothing into his satchel, wolfed down a sandwich, and was on his way. As he left the building, he imagined he could hear his apartment breaking down and compressing into its component pieces.
November afternoons in Shenandoah were dreary affairs. It would not be unusual to expect a dusting of early snow, but Natch's LPRACG weather service was predicting rain. Indeed, a group of ominous dark clouds had assembled on the city's western edge, trying to decide whether to advance downtown or move on to riper targets. The threat of rain was enough to empty the streets. Why slog through the rain when you could multi to some sunny locale halfway around the globe?
The large viewscreen down the road from Natch's building had long since moved on from its ChaiQuoke advertisement. Now it showcased a bosomy woman with a lustful gaze that followed everyone who passed by. Above her shoulder were the words:
Vacation packages for all ages and income brackets.
But Natch paid as little heed to the sign as he did to the mounting rain. His head was already inside MindSpace at the Surina Enterprise Facility, toying with the intricate code stored in the MultiReal databases. By the time he made it halfway to the TubeCo station, his hair had drooped mopstyle onto his forehead, bogged down by the afternoon drizzle.
He leaned forward to shake off the watery accumulation, causing the first dart to whizz past his right ear.
Natch snapped his head up and saw a small needle embedded in the side of the building he had been walking past. Undoubtedly, the dart's payload of OCHREs was discharging harmlessly into the concrete.
Darts ... OCHREs laden with ... black code!
Natch's animal instincts took over as he sprinted for cover. He caught a glimpse of a figure in a black robe flecked with crimson, shouldering a dart-rifle. Firing.
Thwip! Thwip! Two more projectiles slammed into the wall mere centimeters away, sending miniature starbursts of rainwater into the air.
Natch dove around the corner into an alleyway of sorts, a temporary opening between buildings that did not need the space. An avenue of shadows that would be gone long before anyone got around to naming it. Natch dimly realized that ending up here was no accident; this assault had been well planned.
He risked a glance back across the street, where he had seen the figure in the black robe. If the man was a Council officer, he was not wearing any of the standard issue uniforms. The robe draped him from head to toe, and the red formed some kind of pattern-Chinese characters, perhaps. Illegible at this distance, in any event.
The man was making brusque hand signals in several directions. He was not alone.
Two figures went tearing past the alleyway in an attempt to establish a flanking position on the other side. In one fluid motion, Natch drew a bio/logic programming bar from his satchel and hurled it like a discus.
The bar hit home, and one of the black-robed figures went down with a grunt. Definitely human, definitely male, and definitely not a multi projection. He doubted he had used enough force to cause major damage, but a solid metal bar in the gut was enough to bring anyone to the floor for at least a few minutes.
Natch could see more scrambling motions in the shadows, and more figures in identical black robes. He swung his head around wildly, looking for someone on the street to yell to, some method of escape. But the street was empty and the only way out of the alley lay some fifty meters ahead of him. Natch bolted down the corridor, frantically trying to think of a bio/logic program he could use for selfdefense. Forty meters to the end of the alley ... thirty meters ... almost halfway there ...
And then Natch felt the pinprick of a needle in his back, near the base of his spine, and the black code slammed into him.
He flopped around and saw one of his mysterious pursuers standing at the end of the alleyway, dartgun mounted on his shoulder. Before Natch could react, he was hit twice more in the side and the right forearm.
As the malevolent dart tip OCHREs flowed into his bloodstream, he felt surprisingly little pain. All the same, he knew it wouldn't be long before the insidious machines had nullified his defenses and reprogrammed his internal systems. The rules of the Meme Cooperative, the strictures of Dr. Plugenpatch, the protective matrix of OCHREs, and the red blood cells in his body-all could be circumvented, given time and expertise and direct access to the major arteries carrying cellular traffic.
Natch tried one last desperate ConfidentialWhisper request to Horvil, but it was too late. He collapsed face first into a puddle of rainwater and continued down below street level into darkness.
27
The apprentices, conscious of the press of time, cut their multi connections and made arrangements to cart their bodies to Andra Pradesh. Only Jara stayed behind at the Enterprise Facility to await Quell's arrival.
Horvil's tube ride to Andra Pradesh was uneventful. No Council officers in white robes lurking around, no strange looks from fellow tube passengers other than the ones Horvil was used to getting. The engineer had ascended halfway up the steep hill inside the Surina compound gates before it occurred to him that a three-day stay at Andra Pradesh might require more than his bio/logic programming bars and a thermos of nitro.
