"Creed Elan has contacts in the Defense and Wellness Council," she said. "We have people in the Meme Cooperative. If everyone is panicking about Pharisee black code, why haven't we heard about it?"
"Heck, I don't know. I'm not a Council officer. Who knows how a wave of rumors like this gets started?"
"I don't care how a wave of rumors like this gets started," she mimicked cruelly. "I'm more interested in knowig how you, of all people, end up on the crest of it."
The woman's name was Marulana-at least, Horvil thought her name was Marulana. These rich old crones from Creed Elan were all interchangeable. They scrapped amongst themselves to be the first to solicit your donation for their silly charity events, but when it came time for you to ask a favor of them, they were nowhere to be found. All Horvil knew for sure was that she was a bigwig in Creed Elan-one of the handful of minor bodhisattvas that ran the organization. She was also one of the women his Aunt Berilla frequently had over for lunch in that gaudy calcified estate of hers on the West End.
He could have verified her name in a heartbeat on the public directory, but it didn't really matter. Horvil knew this was going to be a short conversation anyway.
"You want to know how I heard about this?" Horvil gulped, looking for a quick way to foist Marulana's suspicions on someone else. "Natch told me." He gave her a conspiratorial shrug as if to say, Crazy world. You never know when you're going to get swept up in another rumor or scandal. But what can you do?
"Oh, Natch told you," replied the creed official with deepening suspicion. "Somehow that doesn't surprise me." Horvil had no doubt she would recognize the name. Ever since he had signed on with the fiefcorp, Natch's name had been spreading among the Elanners like a virulent cancer. Aunt Berilla's influence, no doubt. "So you hear that a major black code attack is imminent, and your first instinct is to contact your spiritual mentors at Creed Elan. Is that it, Horvil?"
The sarcasm in her voice was palpable, almost a third participant in the conversation. "Listen, your holy creedfulness," said Horvil. "I don't expect you to panic every time you hear a strange rumor. But this is me talking! You guys know me. My family's been shelling out credits to support Creed Elan since the beginning of time." And I haven't paid any attention to your dumb creed activities since I was a kid. I don't even pretend to understand what kind of morals and values you people teach anymore. I'm not sure I ever did. "I'd just hate to see your fine 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.