Natch's flat. He hesitated at the fiefcorp master's door for a few seconds. If Natch wasn't here, the apartment security program would probably let a trusted presence like Horvil invoke emergency protocols and enter. But that would trigger warning messages to Natch and possibly the building management as well. He didn't mind Natch receiving such a message-the entrepreneur might actually respond and put an end to this madness-but how much could you really trust a landlord these days? A series of gloating drudge headlines flashed in Horvil's brain: BREAK- IN LEADS TO MASSIVE MANHUNT FOR MISSING FIEFCORP MASTER.... NATCH LEAVES APPRENTICES HIGH AND DRY.... MISSING ENTREPRENEUR `A WORTHLESS HUMAN BEING,' SAYS LANDLORD.
Horvil entered, stood in the foyer and counted to twenty. Nothing happened.
It took Horvil only a few minutes to determine there was no bloody corpse stinking up the premises. No scattered debris on the counters, no slack body standing on the red tile, no sign of a struggle. But he could see no evidence the place had been inhabited the past few days either. Not that Natch's messes could compare to the colossal disasters Horvil usually left for his cleaning bots, but a few half-drunk cups of chaff or nitro could usually be found on his table at any given time. Today, however, nothing.
Horvil knew the real test was not in the common areas, but in the office. That was where Natch spent most of his time anyway. The engineer poked his nose into the room and made a major discovery: Natch's bio/logic programming bars were gone. Of course, they could be lying in one of the drawers under the workbench, drawers that a multi projection could not physically open. But in all the years Horvil had known him, Natch had never set his programming bars anywhere but the top of the bench or on a side table within easy reach.
Wherever Natch went, he took his biollogic programming tools with him, thought Horvil. So what does that mean?
The fiefcorp apprentice wandered to the window and tuned it transparent. Natch would have headed northeast past the billboard (BANDWIDTH CONSERVATION IS PEOPLE PRESERVATION: A message from Creed Conscientious), towards the main city, towards the TubeCo station.
Towards the small cluster of officers in white robes now pointing in Horvil's direction.
Horvil instantly flipped on the window's sunblock and ducked out of the officers' line of sight. Don't be so paranoid, Horv, the engineer scolded himself. Just Council officers doing a routine patrol. They weren't pointing at you.
But was it really so implausible to think Len Borda's goons might be scoping out Natch's apartment? Especially now, when he was mere hours away from demonstrating MultiReal to an audience of billions?
Horvil scurried out of the apartment and down the lift, whether to hide from the officers or to follow them, he could not say. He stood in the atrium and looked out the window, still vacillating between courses of action, when his eye caught a glint of metal on the ground reflected from the just-risen moon, past the billboard in the gutter on the side of the road. Horvil launched NiteFocus 50c and fine-tuned his vision with Bolliwar Tuban's TeleScopics 88 to make sure. Yep, definitely a bio/logic programming bar.
Eventually, the coven of Council troops moved westwards toward the hoverbird facilities. The engineer thrust his head outside the front door and scanned the horizon, left to right and back again. None of the officers carried bulky, shoulder-mounted disruptors, but who knew which of the surrounding buildings contained one the Council could summon at a moment's notice? When the coast was clear, he darted northwest as fast as his feet could carry him.
Horvil kneeled to the ground and examined the object closely, wishing his multi projection could solidify long enough for him to pick it up. A thin rod of burnished metal, nondescript but for the Roman letter S embossed near one end and a small dent in one corner. The kind of dent a tightly wound programmer might make by repeatedly whacking the bar against a hard workbench.
If this was indeed Natch's bio/logic programming bar, then what were the odds of Horvil finding it here? The fact that the municipal LPRACG had not swept it up by now was a pretty astronomical coincidence in itself.
And if it was Natch's-how did it get here? And what did its presence mean?
Jara had the same questions.
'I'm not saying it means nothing,' said the analyst, looking drawn and haggard from lack of sleep. 'I'm not saying the bar doesn't belong to Natch. But there have to be hundreds of people who walk by that spot every day carrying programming tools. Anybody could have dropped that bar.'
'But the dent,' protested Horvil. 'The fact that the bars weren't in his apartment ...'
'Circumstantial evidence. And besides, what if you're right? What if that was Natch's stuff lying on the street? It's useless information. Unless Natch left a trail of metal bars leading across town like breadcrumbs, it won't help us.'
Benyamin rocked back and forth in his seat impatiently. 'The least we can do is send someone to go get it.'
'No,' said Jara. 'Multi projecting to Shenandoah is one thing, but sending someone there in the flesh is another. What if someone's trying to use that bar to lure us away from the Surina compound? We came here to Andra Pradesh to keep safe. We need to stay here.'
The young apprentice muttered something under his breath and arose from his chair with a look of defiance. 'I'll go,' he said.
'No, you won't,' snapped Jara. 'You need to ride herd on those assembly-line programmers and make sure we've got a product ready to show this afternoon. Now sit down.' Blood rushed to Benyamin's face. He looked to Horvil, Merri and Quell for support, but found only awkward silence. Horvil gave an almost imperceptible gesture downwards towards the chair, and his cousin crumbled to his seat.
'I think we need to try contacting Serr Vigal again,' said Quell.
Jara shook her head. 'What's the matter with you people? We've been through this, Quell. We keep going round in circles, the same arguments over and over again for hours.' The analyst scoped out the conference table for a suitable object to use as a projectile, found none, and pressed her fingertips to the mahogany all the harder. 'Even if Vigal was returning my messages, we can't have him deliver the speech. He's just not a good enough huckster. Have you ever sat through one of his neural programming speeches? They're excruciatingly boring.'
'I'm afraid to say it, but I agree with Jara,' offered Merri.
'But Vigal's got a reputation in the programming community,' said Quell. 'He's got a following. He knows what he's talking about.'
'And after the tenth time he stops mid-sentence to scratch his bald head, people are going to wonder where Natch is. They're going to think something has gone terribly wrong in the Surina/Natch MultiReal Fiefcorp, and consumer confidence in us is going to plummet before we can even get a product to market. Blowing your first major company presentation is worse than not doing one at all.'
'So why don't we cancel already?' mumbled Horvil, his head bowed to the table under the confining archway of his clasped hands, as if waiting for a guillotine to drop.
'Because we have an alternative,' said Jara.
The Islander let out a brutish noise halfway between a grunt and a laugh. 'Now you're the one who's going around in circles. How many times do I have to say this? Margaret won't do it. She's handed the project off to Natch-she's not going to jump back into this whole business again.'
Jara frowned, brushing one finger slowly over her bottom lip. 'I realize you've known Margaret longer than any of us-for process' preservation, I've never even met her except for that two-minute appearance she put in at the fiefcorp meeting the other day. But I'm just not convinced. We've got a first-rate demonstration. Merri's been working with Robby Robby to get the crowd fired up. The entire thing is laid out. All Margaret has to do is stand up and deliver it. How can she refuse?'
'The infoquake,' said Quell. 'She keeps saying the whole thing was her fault. She thinks those people died because of hear'
'Delusions of grandeur,' muttered Ben.
Quell glared sharp slashing daggers at the young apprentice. 'When you're the daughter of the Surinas,' he snarled, 'there's no such thing as a delusion of grandeur.'
'That notwithstanding,' said Jara, 'I have to try to convince her. For process' preservation, Quell-this woman is a scientist. She'll listen to reason, won't she?'
