separate realities, all created up here'-the fiefcorp master tapped his forehead-'and experienced out there.' He gestured broadly to the audience.
'But we don't live in a world of multiple realities. MultiReal may give you hundreds of millions of possibilities, but we still have to make a choice. A single choice. And so the path I have chosen is-this one.'
Natch snapped his fingers, causing a spotlight to spear a tiny figure far away in the crowd. A wave of applause came crashing towards Jara, rippling out from the center of the spotlight until it enveloped the entire audience. In the center of the spotlight stood a girl not more than eight years old holding her father's hand, grinning adorably and brandishing a MultiReal baseball in her elfin little fingers.
'Let the word impossible be permanently eliminated from our vocabulary!' cried Natch. 'There are no more impossibilities! We have entered a new Age of Possibilities-a new Age of MultiReal-and from now on, the choices are yours.
'Towards Perfection, and I thank you for choosing to attend.'
Robby Robby stuck to Horvil's side like a bad odor.
'They're going absolutely offline out there, Horv-o!' the channeler squealed, his cube of hair bobbing enthusiastically to some triumphant march playing inside his head. 'My team is getting mobbed-it's like being in the middle of a fucking orgy! Everyone wants to hear more about MultiReal!'
'Yeah,' said Horvil, his own face sporting a lopsided grin. 'Including me.' Robby let out a laugh that continued much too long to have any correlation to the wit of Horvil's comment. If Merri hadn't shown up and ushered him out to join the sales blitzkrieg, he might have kept going until his spleen ruptured.
The chaos continued for over an hour after Natch had vanished from the stage. Horvil's cousins and uncles and cousins-of-cousins and third-cousins-twice-removed-by-companionship multied in from every crevice of the known universe to pat him on the back. Every member of the extended family except for Aunt Berilla, whose hatred for Natch apparently outranked her pride in Horvil and Benyamin. Once the family had dissipated, friends and business acquaintances that Horvil didn't even recognize began pressing in from all sides asking for more details about MultiReal. The engineer did his best to provide vague answers, especially when some of his 'old hive buddies' revealed that they had taken up the drudging profession.
Horvil shook off his pursuers and scanned the foot of the stage for the rest of the Surina/Natch apprentices. They all seemed to be in the same pickle. Jara was being mobbed by a horde of L-PRACG represen tatives trying to negotiate a bulk rate on the spot. Ben was happily enfilading an entire squadron of creed devotees with upbeat chatter about MultiReal. Quell was engaged in a vigorous argument with a small pocket of Islanders, all tugging uncomfortably at their connectible collars. Merri was presumably still off crowd surfing with Robby Robby. Only Natch and Serr Vigal had made a clean getaway.
Somewhere in the middle of the confusion, Horvil noticed a line of white-robed Defense and Wellness Council officers moving silently out the door, their guns safely holstered.
'Did you hear?' he said in a rush as Jara walked up to him. 'Sen Sivv Sor tracked down the little girl who caught the baseball. Apparently, the kid lives in a hive that just got its budget slashed by a bunch of L-PRACG bureaucrats. Can you believe that luck? I wonder who Natch wants as our next spokesperson. A stray kitten? A monk? Or maybe a prostitute with a heart of gold who-'
Why am I laying it on so thick? thought Horvil.
Jara waited patiently for the engineer's shtick to ramble to a close. 'Good publicity is good publicity,' she said softly, distantly.
Horvil smiled and nodded, then began inching away from the analyst towards an exit. He could ponder the mysteries of womanhood another time. Right now, too many loose ends needed tying up. Like who had ambushed Natch and shot him full of black code? What kinds of surprises did the Patel Brothers have waiting for them later tonight? And how in the world had Len Borda gotten mixed up in all of this?
5. DEMONS OF THE AETHER
33
'I swear to you, Natch,' said the man, 'I had nothing to do with this. I didn't hire anybody to ambush you in the street. I don't know any group that runs around in the shadows wearing black robes attacking people, and I wouldn't have anything to do with them if I did.'
Natch's eyes blazed with doubt as he looked at Petrucio Patel.
He could only guess why Petrucio had agreed to come talk with him here in the Surina Enterprise Facility, mere hours before the Patel Brothers were due to take the stage at the Thassel Complex. Natch's cold rage would have been evident from the instant Petrucio stepped into the conference room and found himself enveloped in the windswept Arctic tundra, a forbidden land with Lovecraftian menace lurking over every hillside. If he didn't already know that his rival was beyond such emotions, Natch might have guessed that Petrucio was experiencing shame or guilt.
'I don't believe you,' said Natch.
Petrucio burst into laughter. 'You don't believe me! You think Frederic and I hustled the fiefcorp off to Shenandoah and started handing out robes and dartguns? Wait-you didn't see a short, fat one in the group, did you? Maybe that was Frederic. He's quite the marksman, you know.'
Natch's face remained deadly serious, and Petrucio muzzled his glee with great effort. He peered back over his shoulder at the 35meter dropoff just behind his heels. A long way to plunge just to see if the SeeNaRee's automatic pain cutoff was operational. Petrucio straightened his tie and brushed ice crystals off his jacket, gestures to signal his command of the situation. 'Natch, what would we gain by hiring some goons to hit you with black code? It just doesn't make any sense. How do I know you're not just making the whole thing up?'
'Don't be a fool, 'Trucio,' snapped Natch irritably. 'You've got the whole MultiReal market to gain. Billions of customers and no competition.'
'That's absolutely ludicrous. We're not just your competitors anymore, Natch-we're your licensees. If I hired someone to kill you, who knows where control of MultiReal would end up?'
'It would stay with Margaret, who's scared for her life-'
-and wants nothing to do with us anymore. Follow the logic, Natch! She'd just find someone else to partner with. Haven't you ever heard the old adage about preferring the enemy you know to the enemy you don't?'
'How pithy. You're the second person to tell me that this week.'
'Obviously, you have a lot of enemies then. Listen, Natch, I'm not going to sit here and pretend that the Patel Brothers are your friends. I don't like you. I never have. But just because we're not your comrades doesn't mean we don't know how to compete honorably.'
Now it was Natch's turn to let out a hearty laugh. 'What about MemoryMiner 98c? Do you call that honorable?'
Patel sighed and stroked his elegantly waxed moustache in consternation. 'I don't know if there's anything I could possibly say to convince you that I had nothing to do with this so-called black code incident. Okay, I'll admit, MemoryMiner 98c-that was a shitty thing to do. But that was a long time ago, Natch. And what about all of those dirty tricks you've played on us in the past couple years? Remember DeMirage 24.5? NiteFocus 13, 34 and 48? Your reputation in this business isn't exactly unblemished. Shall we count citations from the Meme Cooperative and see which company is the cleanest?'
'Fine, let's.'
Petrucio rolled his eyes. 'I've already told you, Natch. We don't do business like that anymore. I've gone through a lot in the past year. This whole MultiReal opportunity has turned the company upsidedown. I've been far too busy preparing for our presentation-which, in case you've forgotten, starts in two hours-to worry about you. My companion died-'
