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Natch screams. Petrucio bounds across the room, hand extended. But it's too late. The katana flies through the air in its killing stroke. The glint of reflected light strikes Natch in the eye. The icy blade touches flesh-

  Frederic Patel is kneeling in front of the entrepreneur, syringe in hand, expression unnaturally gleeful. The sword lies on the floor, still sheathed. Natch's head is definitely still attached to his shoulders.

  Petrucio bursts through the doorway, bounds across the room, and extends his hand. Natch sees the black gleam of a dartgun. Petrucio fires.

  At Frederic.

  The dart strikes Frederic right between the shoulder blades. There isn't even time for the younger Patel to display a look of shock on his face before he slumps to the floor.

  6

  Natch's feeling of cognitive dissonance only multiplies when Petrucio Patel snaps the fingers on his right hand and makes the entire dungeon vanish. One instant they're in an oppressive, dome-shaped chamber with a radius of thirty meters; the next they occupy a ten-meter-square storage room lined with shelving and assorted household objects. Dusty furniture, gardening tools. Only the chair and side table remain. SeeNaRee, thinks Natch, stunned from his near decapitation and embarrassed it hasn't occurred to him he might be a captive in a virtual environment rather than a literal one.

  He watches the sprawled figure of Frederic twitch and moan in unconscious discomfort as Petrucio unties the ropes binding Natch to the chair. Petrucio keeps the dartgun leveled at Natch's chest as he motions for the entrepreneur to stand and move towards the door. Patel clicks his tongue reproachfully at his insensible brother and retrieves the katana before they leave. His expression is serene, but not untroubled.

  They climb a flight of stairs and emerge in the first floor of a house whose construction dates back hundreds of years, or at least it's been built to look that way. They pass through a room full of kitschy memorabilia from ancient Japan, including a print of Hokusai's Great Wave, porcelain geisha dolls, and a pair of katanas much like the one Petrucio has under his armpit. The programmer deposits the sword on a table and then gestures Natch out the back door.

  They emerge in a drizzly countryside with no sign of other human habitation for a kilometer or more. A dark green Falcon hoverbird sits parked next to the building. Natch offers no resistance as Petrucio eggs him through the hatch and then climbs aboard after him.

  "Frederic not coming?" yawns a bored pilot almost thin enough to get lost between the seats.

  "He'll catch up with us later," replies Petrucio drily.

  The pilot doesn't seem to care. "Ready?"

  "Ready. And thanks again for letting us use the basement, Hiro. We owe you one."

  The pilot nods, yawns again, initiates the hoverbird's launch sequence. Seconds later, they are off. Once they've climbed high enough to see the surrounding territory, Natch starts scanning the horizon for landmarks. He zooms in on the corroded husk of a building far off in the distance, pointing to the heavens like a finger. Pinging the Data Sea with the image, Natch confirms that this is the Banespa Building of Sao Paulo, one of the tallest ancient skyscrapers still standing. Petrucio, meanwhile, gazes nervously to both starboard and port as the vehicle rises; he visibly relaxes when he determines there's no one else around.

  Natch is strapped into a chair opposite Petrucio, watching the retreating fog-shrouded lights of the city. He can't say why he doesn't fear the dartgun in Petrucio's hand, even though it remains aimed at his head for the entire ascent. Nor does he understand why that head is still seated firmly on his shoulders and not rolling on a cold tile floor at Frederic Patel's feet. He reaches up and rubs the spot on his neck where the cold steel of the blade touched his flesh. All he can think is that he is glad to be alive.

  Glad? Yes, definitely glad to be alive.

  As soon as the 'bird levels off, Natch is astounded to see Petrucio flipping his dartgun around and offering it to the entrepreneur grip first. Natch reaches out hesitantly and lets Petrucio push it into his hands.

  He feels a mental ping. "We'll talk over ConfidentialWhisper, if you don't mind," says Patel, arching his eyebrows in the direction of the pilot. Probably a needless precaution; the rhythmic bobbing of the thin man's neck hints that he is absorbed in some slow, sensuous groove on the Jamm. Natch shrugs.

  Petrucio leans back and stretches one arm over the seat next to him. "There's three darts left in the gun," he says. "When we land on the outskirts of Angelos, you're going to plug Hiro in the back once, and then use the last two darts on me." His voice is disarmingly calm. Up front, Hiro blithely runs a hand over the instrument panel, still lost in his musical reverie. "Don't worry, it's nothing dangerous," continues Patel. "Temporary blackout. Same thing I used on Frederic."

  The entrepreneur stares at the dartgun in his hand. Natch's memory has sprouted a disconcerting number of leaks lately, but to the best of his recollection he has never actually held a black code weapon before. It's significantly lighter than he expected. "What makes you think I'm going to do any of that?" he says.

  "Because it'll give you a two-hour head start."

  Natch frowns. "You're going to chase after me?"

  "I won't. But Magan Kai Lee will. He's on his way to Sao Paulo now, with Borda on his tail."

  Natch leans forward in the seat and ducks his head under the canopy of his clasped hands. He closes his eyes to block out the dartgun in his lap and pictures the diminutive Council lieutenant. Natch has always believed that human beings are constructed on scaffolds of emotion and irrationality, scaffolds that invariably have their weak struts. He has built his career on this belief. But Magan Kai Lee does not seem to have such an architecture; he's a man of rigid calculation all the way through. Natch tries to recall the first time he ever saw the lieutenant, back when he was just another faceless minion of Len Borda's ubiquitous military and intelligence force. He has a fleeting memory of Magan standing on the stage of a Council auditorium, pointing out into the audience ... but no, the memory is gone now.

  "What is he up to?" says Natch over ConfidentialWhisper. "What does he want?"

  Petrucio leans his head back to face the roof of the hoverbird and closes his eyes, mimicking sleep. "He wants MultiReal."

  "For his rebellion."

  "I don't know for sure. But that's my worry, yes."

  At first it seems ludicrous: why worry that someone might overthrow Len Borda? But then Natch thinks about the Council lieutenant standing in the midst of the Prime Committee's auditorium, with the power of MultiReal at his command. Unassailable, unconquerable. And suddenly he can understand Petrucio's hesitation.

  What does Magan Kai Lee represent? What are his aims and goals? The man is accumulating a rebellion almost solely from the public's hatred of Len Borda. His own beliefs remain an enigma. Does he support Islander sovereignty? What is his position on public funding of TubeCo? Is he capable of balancing a budget? What will Magan Kai Lee do with MultiReal, if he gets ahold of it? Would that be better or worse than if Len Borda should get MultiReal in his possession? Natch recalls the aphorism he has heard many times recently about the wisdom of preferring the known enemy to the unknown enemy. The world has suffered much under the stern rigidity of Len Borda-but is replacing that rigidity with a blank cipher any less frightening?

  And are either of these alternatives better than putting MultiReal in the hands of Brone and his Thasselian disciples?

  It's all too confusing, and not for the first time Natch wishes he could return to that time of simpler loyalties. When he was merely an entrepreneur looking out for his own ass, when his enemies announced their intentions with press releases, when a single incontrovertible authority filed winners and losers into slots of descending order every hour.

  "I don't understand why you're not handing me over to the Council," says Natch over the silent channel. "I assumed you and Frederic were working for them."

  "Honestly, so did we." Petrucio chuckles softly. "Shortly after Margaret recruited us to help her finish
MultiReal, we signed another deal with a faceless shell company. We were to continue our work with Margaret as agreed. But on the side, we were to construct MultiReal prototype programs. Defensive programs, code named MultiReal-D. The deal was negotiated, signed, and paid for by Magan Kai Lee from an untraceable Vault account. We figured he was acting on behalf of the Council."

  "And it didn't bother you to go behind Margaret's back like that?" says Natch, surprised at his accusatory tone.

  Petrucio's lips curl into a half-smile. "It was a different world then. A plum military contract with a big paycheck, no oversight, nobody looking over our shoulders? Why not? I didn't really understand what Margaret was building out there in Andra Pradesh, and neither did Frederic. It didn't occur to us that Magan might be doing this behind Borda's back. But now ..."

  He pauses, but Natch does not need him to fill the gap. He knows what MultiReal can do. Sometime in the past three months, the world has been remolded.

  Petrucio sits up and looks Natch straight in the eye with an earnestness that's atypical for a Patel. "You and I are businesspeople, Natch," he continues over the 'Whisper connection. "We're not kingmakers. Politics ... war ... madness and freedom ... it's not our domain. And it certainly isn't Frederic's.

  "Magan Kai Lee knew you'd turn up in Sao Paulo eventually. He figured we'd have no problem handing you over to him. But that puts me and Frederic in a very difficult position. If we hand you over to Magan, his rebellion will be a fait accompli. If we allow you to fall into Len Borda's hands, the rebellion will be crushed." Petrucio weighs these two options with his hands on an imaginary balance scale. "We can't keep you here forever; sooner or later Magan will come around asking questions. But if you manage to escape ..."

  Natch does not hesitate. "I'll disappear."

  "Exactly. We tell Magan that you overpowered Frederic and took his dartgun. That's not hard to believe. Then you kidnapped me and had me charter you a flight to Angelos. You completely vanish, and we don't have to be responsible for what happens."

  "And is Frederic on board with all this?"

  "Frederic." Petrucio sighs dramatically and then rolls his eyes. "Don't worry about Frederic-he'll see things my way, eventually."

  "Assuming the Council doesn't kill him when they reach your pilot's house."

  "No, Borda and Lee will leave him alone. He's got nothing they want." Patel stares at his hands, and Natch wonders if he's having second thoughts about shooting his own brother in the back with black code. "Frederic needs to realize that things have changed. The world can sort out its own messes without us. And without MultiReal." He lapses into a moody silence as the South American continent below disappears underneath a gray gauze of cloud.

  Half an hour passes. Inside the hovercraft, there is no sound except for the almost-undetectable tapping of Hiro's foot in time to the Jamm channel that has enveloped his senses. Either the tempo has picked up considerably, or he has switched channels to something more upbeat. Natch wonders exactly how complicit this pilot is with Petrucio's schemes. Complicit enough to let the Patels use his basement as a makeshift prison, and then to fly their prisoner hundreds of kilometers out of his way at a moment's notice. But does he know he's going to get shot with black code when they arrive? Does he know the Defense and Wellness Council could be at their heels? Natch supposes it's none of his business; Petrucio is capable of sorting out his own personal affairs.

  Natch opens another Confidential Whisper channel with his erstwhile enemy. "If you expect me to go along with all of this, then I'm going to need some answers."

  Petrucio's been gazing out the window for the last half hour, lost in reflection. "Would you prefer to stay in Sao Paulo and wait for the Council to show up?" he replies, deadpan.

  "No. But maybe I'd rather not wait until we land to use this dartgun." He holds up the weapon and points it at Petrucio's forehead. A can't-miss shot at this range. "Maybe I'd rather shoot you right now and dump you in the middle of the ocean. For fuck's sake-you imprisoned me, Petrucio. Just because you decided to let me go doesn't mean I'm going to forget this."

  Petrucio's face sparks into a grin. For some reason, extreme adversity always seems to bring out the jester in him. "All right, what do you want to know?"

  "These defensive programs you've been building. MultiReal-D. If I'm going to stay a step ahead of Magan Kai Lee and Len Borda, I need to know what they are."

  "Fair enough." Petrucio stretches, sits up, and gives his most serious stare while Natch lowers the gun back to his lap. Natch is under no illusion that his threats have convinced Petrucio of anything. It's obvious that the programmer resolved to impart this information to Natch as soon as he burst into that SeeNaRee room and shot his brother in the back.

  Petrucio narrows his eyes for a few seconds, trying to decide where to begin. "Tell me how you can use MultiReal," he says, "to reverse death."

  Natch again resists the urge to rub the spot on his neck where he should have met his mortality. "I don't know," he replies.

  "Now you're just being lazy," chides Petrucio. "You've had Margaret's program for months. You haven't spent the entire time dodging black code darts, have you? You must have thought some of these things through. Suppose the lieutenant executive of the Defense and Wellness Council gives you unlimited funding to build a MultiReal program that reverses death. How do you do it?"

  Natch drops a token thought or two on the problem. "Impossible," he shrugs. "Or at least, that's what you want me to say."

  Again, the wry smile. "Frederic and I thought it was impossible too, at first. Time only moves in one direction, right? Prengal Surina proved that. But then I had an inspiration. If you send a multi projection into a real building, and that real building collapses on top of you, do you die? No, of course not-because you're not actually in the building in the first place. It's just an illusion. Neurons firing." Petrucio taps the side of his head with one finger. "When the building collapses, the multi network can sense trauma coming an instant before it happens. It cuts off your projection and you wind up standing on your red tile again. So I thought: if you can project a virtual body into space ... why not project a virtual body into time?"

  "That doesn't make any sense," says Natch, shaking his head. "Virtual time? What would that even look like?"

  "Tell me what time it is."

  "What-"

  Petrucio cuts him off. "You'll find out. Just tell me what time it is.

  The entrepreneur turns his attention to the internal clock that has been acting as metronome for the bio/logic symphony in constant performance since the hour of his birth. "It's 10:04 a.m. Sao Paulo time."

  Petrucio puts the palms of his hands together and touches his fingertips to his nose. "You're sure about that."

  Natch makes no response. Ever since he hit number one on Primo's, ever since he got enmeshed in Margaret Surina's tangled skein of MultiReal programming, all of the sureties in his life have been vanishing one by one. Career, friends, ideals. Why should time be the exception?

  "In actuality," continues Patel, his demeanor maddeningly placid, "it's 10:03. You want to know what virtual time looks like? You, my friend, are living in it."

  Natch grips the armrest of his seat as his stomach does backflips. He remembers the feeling of queasy vertigo that wormed through his extremities when Brone and Pierre Loget demonstrated how he could stand in two places at once. He's suffered this primordial shock so often these past few months it should almost feel commonplace by now. But no matter how hard he tries, Natch simply can't adjust to this new world of constant gut-wrenching change. "You did this to me," he mutters over ConfidentialWhisper. "At the Tul Jabbor Complex. The black code you hit me with when I jumped on the hoverbird."

  Petrucio gives the slightest nod of affirmation. "Magan's idea," he says.

  "This doesn't help me at all. So my clock's out of sync. I still have no idea why that matters."

  "Let's take a step back." The programmer settles deeper into his seat and waves one
hand in the air like a professor diving into a didactic lecture. "What does MultiReal do? It lets you explore alternate realities in your mind, before they happen. Glorified probability calculation, right? Run the program with someone else present, and it becomes a collaborative process. You still see the potential realities, but now the other person is effectively telling you what they're going to do, before they do it. MultiReal can project all this much, much faster than real time, because it's all just mathematical calculations in your head." Petrucio points again to his own head, with its neatly combed slick of hair. "Once you've chosen the reality you want, you still need to make it actual. It hasn't happened yet; it's just potential. So you close the choice cycle and turn that possibility into a reality. If we're using the baseball analogy ... you choose where you want the ball to go. You close the choice cycle. MultiReal tells your body to hit the baseball just like so, and tells the other person's body to catch it, or not catch it. You with me so far?"

  "Yes."

  "It only takes a fraction of a second for your brain to project all those realities and for you to make a choice. But the actual hitting and catching of the baseball takes several seconds. So what are you doing during those several seconds?"

  Natch frowns. "I don't know. You're acting out the choice, I suppose."

  "Sure. But who says your mind can't continue onward? While your body is hitting the ball and running for first base, why can't MultiReal just keep calculating further into the future? Why not keep going for a whole sixty seconds-and why not stay sixty seconds ahead of everyone else?"

  The entrepreneur has no answer.

  "If you did this continuously, without stopping, then you'd effectively be living in the future, wouldn't you? One minute in the future. As long as life conforms to the probability calculations in your head, the outside world would unspool in `real time' behind you. All of your interactions with the people around you would happen ahead of time in that collaborative virtual space. Even when unpredictable things do happen, the program can usually just back up and weave those things into the virtual fabric. MultiReal can erase those nascent memories, so nobody would be the wiser-including you."