'Well, it's either that or ...' Jara let the sentence trail off.
The engineer leapt to his feet, face as pale as the droplet of ChaiQuoke piloting its way down the grooves of his chin. 'Come on, Jara. There's no way he could've done that black code himself. I mean, yeah, Natch is one of the most brilliant programmers out there, but to break into the Vault? The Pharisees and the Islanders and who knows how many other lunatics have been trying to do that for decades. You think he just cobbled together some black code to crack open the financial exchange system in his spare time? He's not that smart. No one is.
Jara grimaced, conceding the point. Humans had limits. It was an axiom she felt she would be wise to remember. 'Okay, okay. So what are the other alternatives?'
'Are the messages fake?'
'I don't think so. They look authentic to me. The signatures check out.'
'Maybe he's involved with the Pharisees. Maybe somebody warned him ahead of time. But wait-that doesn't make sense either. The Pharisees don't use ConfidentialWhisper or multi or-or anything. They'd have no way to get in touch with him.' Jara could see Horvil sliding back down into the mental quicksand. He was flailing his arms around in increasingly wide arcs to match the mounting decibels of his voice. 'You know Natch likes to ride those tube trains in circles for hours on end. Maybe he's going to the Pharisee Territories ... or meeting the Pharisees halfway ... or-'
'That's ridiculous. Natch is not holding secret meetings on the tube with a bunch of violent lunatics. He just isn't.'
'Then maybe he has a source in the Defense and Wellness Council.'
Jara snorted. 'Horvil, we're getting nowhere. Natch doesn't have sources anywhere. The only people he talks to are you and Serr Vigal. Everyone else trusts him even less than I do.'
They were both standing now, venting their inner turmoil at each other. Jara turned away from her fellow apprentice and stalked to the other side of the kitchen. Suddenly, the news began flooding into her consciousness once more, overrunning the hastily erected barricades she had put up so she could concentrate on her conversation with Horvil. Drudges of all political stripes were bickering in public about the sums of money that had vanished. The Council was maintaining complete silence about the situation. Jara's younger sister in Sudafrica sent her a panic- stricken message asking for advice. And then, without thinking about it, Jara opened a message from the Vault authorities.
The Vault has detected a DNA-assisted decryption attack directed at your account. Your holdings have not been compromised ...
The fiefcorp apprentice smacked her hand loudly against the wall and stomped off to the living room. Jara instantly regretted it. Blank walls weren't so bad in the kitchen, but in living space they seemed like an accusation. She didn't want the world to come to an end before she had made some kind of mark on this place.
'You know what we have to do,' Jara said grimly to the engineer, who had followed her out of the kitchen.
'What's that?'
'We have to go to the Council and tell them what we know. They'll listen.'
Horvil's jaw dropped. He was too stunned to speak.
'Horvil, can you live with something like this on your shoulders?' she bellowed. She started to pace, Natch- like. 'I mean, deceiving greedy fiefcorp masters is one thing. Even deceiving Primo's. But what about those people out there who are going to suffer the consequences?' Jara's sweeping gesture encompassed the London commuters visible from the window. The multied businesspeople hustling to meetings, the families scampering across the square looking for safety, the street performers in the midst of some apocalyptic pantomime at the foot of Big Ben. 'What if the medical networks break down? What if the multi network collapses? What if this black code attack sparks a total panic? What if people die, for process' preservation?'
The engineer cocooned himself in a ball on Jara's couch, as if his voluminous stomach might provide some insulation against the calamities of the world. 'But ... but ... I'm sure that Natch wouldn't-that he didn't ...'
Jara refused to give any ground. 'I don't know how he's involved in this. Maybe he heard a rumor on the Data Sea weeks ago. Maybe he had a hand in putting this black code together. But he knows something. We can't just ignore that, Horvil! We can't just let people die! The Council might need Natch's information to help stop the attack.' I know Natch has been your best friend practically since birth, Horv, but sometimes you've got to look out for your own ass. Do you think Natch cares one way or the other what happens to you? 'Horvil, there comes a point where we have to put this Primo's nonsense behind us and think of the people out there.'
The engineer was starting to crack. 'All I ever wanted was to be a bio/logic engineer,' he whimpered, as if this were the most relevant statement in the world. 'All I ever wanted to do was help people.' He peered up at this pint-sized woman with the mass of curly hair standing over him, but there was no mercy forthcoming.
Can't you see that I'm trying to help you, Horv?
Don't you realize this could be just what we need to do to get out of these miserable apprenticeship contracts?
And then Horvil narrowed his eyes, puzzled. The color gushed back to his face all at once. He looked as if his tongue was struggling to catch up with the information in his head. Finally, the engineer shook his head violently, banished the display on the viewscreen with an outstretched hand, and summoned forth the craggy visage of Sen Sivv Sor.
Defense and Wellness Council to Make Statement
Jara could afford only one outgoing multi stream at her apartment, and it would have taken too long for Horvil to physically traipse back to his place on the other side of London. So the engineer had to rush down the street to the nearest public multi facility, something he hated to do. He didn't care how many times the Council guaranteed the safety of these public connections and how many guards they posted; you could never really feel comfortable letting your body stand slack in a room full of strangers while your mind was off elsewhere. Life in the world of meat and bone could be so inconvenient.
Apparently, word of the Council's impending statement had hit the streets. People started vanishing throughout the block as they slid into multivoid and prepared to open new connections. Horvil arrived at the public multi facility just in time to claim the last open red tile. He breathed a sigh of relief, and stepped into the space between a fat Japanese businesswoman and a wiry Indian man who seemed to be a technician of some kind.
'We didn't have to multi over here,' said an amused Jara when Horvil finally caught up to her in the crowd. 'We could have stayed at my place and watched the press conference on the viewscreen.'
Horvil sniffed. 'How much fun would that be?'
They were standing in the Defense and Wellness Council's main auditorium, its public face. Everyone knew the Council had moved its real base of operations to a new compound of unknown location. The auditorium was a fat wedge that might have represented 20 percent on some vast pie chart-a number that roughly approximated the Council's public approval ratings.
Horvil had actually been here in person once, during his requisite tour of the Melbourne governmental facilities. He remembered seeing the entire city laid out before him during the descent of the arriving hoverbird craft. If he had the power to see through the dozens of hanging pennants to the west and the stretched stone wall beneath them, he could have seen the Prime Committee complex and the Congress of L-PRACGs. To the east lay the headquarters of the Creeds Coalition and the chief lobbying arms of TubeCo, GravCo, and TeleCo.
Jara pinged the Council's multi information node. 'A hundred and twelve million,' she said, gazing around at the assembled crowd of multi projections.
Horvil whistled. This black code attack had shaken people up. It looked like only twenty thousand, of course; in situations like this, the network conveniently abandoned the illusion that multi projections inhabited Cartesian space. 'Any sign of Merri? Or Vigal?' he said.
'Public directory says Merri's here somewhere,' replied Jara. 'But no word on Serr Vigal. He wouldn't come out here for something like this.'
'And Natch?'
Jara looked at Horvil and shook her head with a frown.
At precisely three o'clock (London time), there was a decrescendo in the background chatter of the crowd.