customers-er, constituents-get sucked dry because some black code caught them unaware.'
'I'm certain our devotees will be just fine.'
The engineer lost his patience. 'Why do you always have to look for ulterior motives? Do you think Creed Elan has a-a monopoly on good intentions?'
'No,' Marulana replied drily. 'We simply know from experience that the only people fiefcorpers care about are themselves.' She threw a vulture-like frown in Horvil's direction. Then her multi connection winked out without even a goodbye.
Horvil collapsed back to the couch, frustrated, sending a stack of grubby pillows to the floor in the process. So much for family connections, he thought. At least he could be comforted that the state of his apartment would make it back to Aunt Berilla.
Jara stood in the atrium of the Meme Cooperative's administrative headquarters. All the other governmental and quasi-governmental agencies built their offices in Melbourne, under the imposing shadows of the Prime Committee and the Defense and Wellness Council complexes. Not so the Cooperative, which chose the lonely orbital colony of Patronell as its base of operations for no reason Jara could discern.
The building followed the same bland architectural recipe that all bureaucratic buildings used these days. Start with a base of stretched stone and flexible glass to provide that chic curved effect. Throw in a clump of rice- paper walls to show solidarity with the past. Add impos sibly high ceilings. Coat every available surface with viewscreens, and auction off the advertising space to defray construction costs. Mix in a crowd of thousands. The result: instant nausea.
But Jara was not there to study architecture. She was there to do the right thing. She was there to report Natch to the Meme Cooperative and stop this insanity before someone got hurt.
The very idea was absurd, and it grew more ridiculous with each step she took. Who are you going to tell? And what are you going to tell than?
Jara didn't know; she just knew she had to tell someone. She tamped down that tiny voice inside suggesting she use the information as leverage to get out of her apprenticeship contract. No, I'm not just doing this for myself I haven't sunk to Natch's level yet. Natch's plan wasn't just dangerous to the capitalmen who had grown fat off the fiefcorp boom, or the degenerate fiefcorpers like Natch and her old boss Lucas Sentinel, people Jara would just as soon see destitute. The plan also made a mockery of the Primo's rating system that had served the public for seventy years. People trusted Primo's to uncover shoddy programsprograms that did not obey Plugenpatch specifications, programs that could theoretically overload bio/logic systems and cause fatalities. Primo's was not perfect by any means. Its interpreters could be petty and inaccurate and just plain spiteful. But who else was there to turn to, really?
If Primo's can be undermined, thought Jara, then what in the world can you depend on?
The fiefcorp analyst wasn't sure where her feet were taking her, but now she discovered they were heading towards a department called the Fraudulent Fiefcorp Practices Division. She could see the office now, just past the viewscreen hawking a program called Feminine Mystique 242.37a. Natch's fiefcorp had received its share of warnings from this office before, and Jara had walked these halls more than once to plead the company's case before an arbitration board. She could have filed a complaint from home, of course, but this was the only way if she wanted to remain anonymous. Without proof that the petitioners were real people, the office would be flooded with data agents from dishonest fiefcorps.
Judging by the long line of multi projections, there were plenty of disgruntled consumers willing to put in the extra effort. Jara scanned the queue and discovered a dozen people who had carefully scrubbed their public profiles to protect their anonymity. She herself had taken this prudent step before opening the multi connection to Patronell; anyone who pinged the public directories with Jara's image would see her name as Cassandra and her locality as Agamemnon's Palace. She doubted anyone here would get the joke.
A fine dust of boredom settled on the petitioners. Every minute or two, the line would shuffle forward. The silence of strangers, the doldrums of public spaces.
Forty minutes later, Jara reached the head of the line. An incoming message welcomed her to the Meme Cooperative and offered a map to guide her through the office to her designated inspector. She took a deep breath and dove into the labyrinth of cubicles.
'Come in, come in,' urged the caseworker when she finally reached his cube. A slack-jawed fellow with Scandinavia in his eyes.
Jara walked to the stiff-backed chair opposite his desk and found herself ankle-deep in snow. The walls of the cubicle had disappearedalong with the rest of the Meme Cooperative building-replaced by a frozen tundra. SeeNaRee, Jara thought with distaste. She could practically hear the familiar SeeNaRee slogan she had seen on a thousand viewscreens: If you can't go to the places you love, why not bring them to you? At least it was good programming; her toes were already starting to freeze.
'I am required by the charter of the Meme Cooperative to inform you this is an anonymous conversation,' began the official in a tired voice. 'To ensure your confidentiality, neither I nor any of my col leagues can see you or otherwise identify you, your gender, or any of your distinguishing characteristics without your express permission, except to confirm your presence on the multi network. A sealed recording of this conversation will be stored in our archives for a period of no less than ...' The nondescript official droned on for another minute as he gazed myopically in the direction of his visitor's chair.
'I'm here to report a crime in my fiefcorp,' said Jara when she was finally given the chance to speak.
'The nature of the crime?'
'Inciting rumors with the intent to mislead.'
The Meme Cooperative official gave her a patronizing nod. 'That may or may not be an actual crime,' he said nonchalantly, drawing circles in the desk condensation with his index finger. 'Do these rumors concern a business rival?'
'Well, not exactly, they're more just-general rumors....'
'About your industry?'
'You mean, are they about bio/logics? In a roundabout way, I suppose.'
With smooth strokes, the man connected two of the circles on his desk, forming the mathematical symbol for infinity. 'Do you have any evidence of these alleged rumors that can be presented before an arbitration board?'
I knew this was a mistake, thought Jara bitterly. I haven't been here for five minutes, and we're already talking about 'alleged' rumors. The Meme Cooperative official was obviously more interested in enjoying his SeeNaRee than in listening to the grievances of some ghostly, genderless voice from the outside world. 'Listen to me!' she grunted. 'Something terrible is going to happen, and someone's got to stop it. It's a matter of public safety!'
Again the placating smile. 'This really sounds like it's outside our jurisdiction. Perhaps you might try contacting your L-PRACG. Or maybe the Defense and Wellness Council would be willing to take a statement. There's also the Fair Business Working Group of the Prime Committee. Have you tried them? Or the Creeds Coalition's Council on Ethical Fiefcorp Behavior ...'
Jara shook her head. This was pointless. Even if she did manage to ram a complaint through the thick skull of this bureaucrat, it would get lost in the administrative morass. She pictured a colossal Rube Goldberg machine two hundred meters high, her complaint a pea bobbing back and forth on some remote conveyor belt hidden deep in the works. What else can you expect when you trust an industry to police itself? thought Jara bitterly. But the system had lined too many pockets over the years; no one else wanted the responsibility.
The analyst cut her multi connection without a word. The familiar walls of her London apartment appeared once more. Let the bureaucrat prattle on in his little winter retreat and make excuses for the Cooperative's inaction. Jara couldn't take another minute of it.
She flopped down on her couch and called up the holographic rumor flowchart. Another towering structure that obscured her very existence, only this one she had built herself. Jara rubbed her temples and prepared to send a Confidential Whisper request to the first name on her list.
Horvil whined and pulled his head out of the burrow of pillows he had created in his sleep. His internal calendar assured him it was indeed Tuesday morning, and he had slept for ten hours. But if the sun wasn't directly
