Natch laughed the free and easy laugh that only the rich or the deranged possessed. "I give Frederic and Petrucio Patel a lot of credit. They didn't waste any time launching a counter-offensive. It's no wonder they've been number one so long. But I think we've proven our point: the Patel Brothers' days of dominating the Primo's ratings are over. From now on, they'll have to watch their backs."
Jara had heard enough. Obviously, Natch had no plans to include her in the conversation. She stalked towards the living room, her face a study in carefully controlled rage-and then stopped.
Perfection taint you! she screamed silently at her boss. The fiefcorp master had cordoned off the living room, blocking access as only the apartment owner could. It was an inhuman feeling, this sensation of just stopping, the inability to even make an effort to transgress. The designers of the multi network strove so hard to provide complete verisimilitude, and yet their method of access control utterly short-circuited human instincts.
"So what's next for the Natch Personal Programming Fiefcorp?" Sen Sivv Sor was asking.
Natch's grin was practically audible. "Kick the Patel Brothers out on their asses, of course." His imaginary audience let out a spirited cheer.
Jara gritted her teeth and fired off a terse ConfidentialWhisper. "This interview is over," she announced, "unless you want me to start bombarding him with all the evidence I've found about your little scheme."
There was a pause in the conversation. Jara could hear the rustling of clothing, a man arising from his chair. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to call it a day, Mr. Sor," said Natch. "Duty beckons. I've got a fiefcorp to run."
"Sure, sure!"
The analyst suddenly found the impenetrable barrier lifted, and swooped around the corner just in time to see Sor give Natch a final clap on the back. The drudge looked exactly like his pictures on the Data Sea; his craggy face, white mop of hair and distinctive birthmark would be recognizable anywhere. A second later, he disappeared. Off to rebroadcast the interview and play the bit part Natch had assigned him in the drama of his life.
Natch displayed no sign of the fatigue a normal human being would feel after four days without sleep. He looked alive, focused, handsome. Jara felt the familiar twinge of lust stabbing through her abdomen and sneered it down.
And then, in the space between one breath and the next, Natch's demeanor completely shifted. A mask was silently discarded. Now his eyes held nothing but sullenness, and the once-over he gave her spoke more of dismissal than command. Natch didn't even offer his apprentice a chair to sit in, but instead marched straight into his office. Jara stormed after him, trembling, only to find him standing at his workbench in the midst of a MindSpace bubble. The donut-shaped code of NiteFocus 48-or NiteFocus 49, she supposed-surrounded him like a life preserver.
"What evidence?" grunted Natch.
Jara put her hands on her hips and mustered her best accusatory stance. "Evidence of what you did."
"And what exactly did I do?"
"You know exactly what you did, you son-of-a-bitch! You launched that fake black code attack yourself."
If the analyst expected an angry outburst from her master, she was disappointed. She would have even been reassured by one of his contemptuous laughs. Instead, Natch nudged a periwinkle-colored chunk of code with his left hand while he probed its cratered surface with the fingertips of his right. "What makes you think I did that?" he said.
"Come on, Natch! There aren't many people clever enough to pull off that little fandango yesterday. There's even fewer who would have anything to gain by it. I've seen you tinkering around with strange programs over the past few weeks, stuff that doesn't look like anything in our catalog. And then, of course, there's the fact that the so-called attack happened exactly when our rumors said it would."
"A happy coincidence."
"And was it a happy coincidence you put our necks on the line instead of yours? Did it occur to you that when the Council starts asking questions, the rumors'll lead back to Horvil and me? Not you, of course. You didn't have anything to do with those rumors. You were busy getting our bio/logic programs ready for launch, as the MindSpace logs will clearly show."
Something she said finally penetrated Natch's thick skin. He worked quietly for a few minutes without speaking a word, the gears in his head clearly grinding away. The pause of a politician carefully phrasing a key platform. "If you really think I would do that to you and Horvil," he said at length, "then you don't understand me at all."
Jara studied the fiefcorp master's face carefully. Could he possibly be telling the truth? Could he be operating on a plane that far removed from everyday life? Or was this just another one of his acting jobs? She gazed into that unblemished, boyish face and wondered if there were any truths at all buried beneath its surface, or if truth for him was as mutable as programming code, subject to updates by the hour.
A minute rolled by, then two. Jara cursed her body as a turncoat, fired up Delibidinize 14a for the third time that hour. Can't he at least give me the satisfaction of turning MindSpace off? she fumed. Finally, she straightened her spine and looked him squarely in the eye. "I quit."
Natch gave her a sly look. "Fine," said the fiefcorp master blithely. "Quit."
A stunned silence filled the room. Jara didn't move.
"Stop being so fucking melodramatic, Jara!" Natch burst out. He grabbed NiteFocus 49 with one hand and violently spun the virtual code around like a wheel, himself stuck in the spokes. "You've got less than a year left on your contract, and after that you'll have the option to cash out. You're telling me you're going to give up all those shares and start from scratch someplace else? Room and board for another four years? I know you better than that, Jara. You're going to stay right where you are and get filthy rich with the rest of us."
"I could turn you in to the Council."
Natch didn't lose a beat. "Without hard evidence-which I know you don't have-where would that get you? Nobody wants to hire a whiner or a whistle blower. You'd be right back where you were when I found you: blacklisted by the major bio/logic fiefcorps, taking shit from second-rate imbeciles like Lucas Sentinel. And don't tell me the Council will get to the bottom of this, because they won't. Dozens of cases like this cross Len Borda's desk every week, and he's lucky if he can close a tenth of them."
"Then I'll tell the Meme Cooperative."
"Don't make me laugh."
"The drudges. I could send a message to Sen Sivv Sor and John Ridglee right now."
Natch shrugged, as if the effort of responding to such an inane proposition was beneath him. He caught the spinning donut of code with one hand and began studying its surface once more.
Jara let her hands drop inertly to her sides. Is he right about me? she thought. Is that all I am-a whiner and a whistle blower? She thought back to her days peddling bio/logic analysis to Lucas Sentinel, to all the times she had cursed her fate and threatened to quit. Wouldn't Lucas pull the same stunts that Natch did, if he had the guts or the foresight?
She hadn't really intended to quit, she realized now. Despite all the indignities, Jara couldn't bring herself to hate this cantankerous child. What she had wanted was the opportunity to deliver some kind of high-handed sermon about Pyrrhic victories and the value of interpersonal relationships. She wanted him to take her seriously. "People could have gotten hurt, Natch," Jara said quietly.
"They didn't."
"But they could have."
Natch finally capitulated and flipped off the MindSpace bubble around his workbench. The holographic donut melted back into the void. "Jara, everyone who invests in bio/logics knows what's going on. Things like this happen all the time. Do you think the Patel Brothers got to the top without getting their hands dirty? Or Len Borda?"