Jik Dain Bedlip
Dain stepped from a catwalk amidst the rafters of the great dark block of space that housed
Byukan-Hamil's infraware. Below him, ranks of sullen boxes perpetrated Byukan-Hamil's private
automation alongside, but invisible to, their part of the very public Mirnaya Direvnya. With one
pace, he left that den of growls and whoops for the spare silence of his quarters.
"Kär!" he summoned as the door coasted shut behind him. It brushed the nap of his trousers and
clipped the tail of his coat.
The boy issued from a corner of the room. He paused, head bowed, available, surrounded by a drab
floor.
Dain regarded the figure, more aware of its capability than its appearance. "Connect," he told his
private entrance to the Mirnaya Direvnya. "Knights of Magellan."
"Done." The holographic boy lifted eyes whose pupil, iris, and sclera shone as a medium gray with
just a touch of purple. "Fiducia?" he demanded flatly.
Dain lifted the two points of his wingtip collar and wrapped them against his neck, their tips
reaching his larynx. Then he snapped the pieces together, thus activating the sound-shielded
microphone woven into the fabric there. Watching Kär, he subvocalized the pass phrase.
"Discussion center?" the hologram asked.
"Komme hier."
The boy closed the gap to a pace. "Discussion center?"
"Le Coeur de la Patrie."
"Fiducia?"
Dain subvocalized another security code.
"Topic?"
Dain gazed into the hologram's eyes, so apparently solid, so apparently alive, so apparently ready
to serve. "Create as text, no voice, no video. Title is 'Commence Operation Heart Transplant.'"
Those gray depths seemed to swirl ever so slightly. "Body of message is 'Opportunity knocks, my
friends. Let us meet to confirm tasks and duties, then commence implementation of our plan.'" He
named a time two days hence. The location was moot. This chapter of the Knights of Magellan
gathered only at the Inn of the Laetoli Valley, at the very center of the continent. "End
message. Complete exit."
The boy executed a neat about-face, marched toward his corner, and faded from sight.
Dain allowed himself a slow blink. His stomach rumbled. His shmatte llevar chimed in from atop
his right shoulder. Compact, even as such things went, the easily portable and supple personal
automaton presented information through holoscreen only. It received input by voice or by
following Dain's fingers using its holoscreen as a keyspace. It processed its own agenda, as set
by Dain, or it gave him a mobile connection through Kär to the rest of the world.
This time, its dark words quavered in the air in front of his shoulder: "Periodic nutrition
intake."
"I know that. Is there anything else?"
The holoscreen vanished. Dain cut across the hygiene corner of the spartan room, past the
nano-scour shower, and halted at the closet. He disrobed, handing each item of apparel to the
wardrobe. An unseen mechanical hand relieved his each time.
Clad only in a loin wrap, he strode to a chute set into the wall and stretched out a hand. A
chyme flask tumbled out. He caught, then carried it across the open, patternless floor.
"Bed: Thinking position."
Along the opposite wall, a platform that was more cot than mattress, less bed than hammock, lifted
one end to head height and drew its soft pad taut. It extended a footboard. Dain mounted this
small shelf, leaned back on the slanted surface, and paused to attach the flask to his duodenal
shunt and hook it onto the supporting eyes set into the iliac spines on both hips. Then he settled
back and measured his performance with Norma.
The scene in her entrance room had played out much as he'd hoped. He'd caught her off-guard, but
in a positive way, reinforcing his for-Norma façade: clever, ambitious, in tune with her moods,
but no threat to her. That interaction had been satisfactory, needing no repair of delivered
perception and no stanching of ricochet effects.
That question about Irwin, though. How much to reveal? Did he tell her that Irwin had plagiarized
an ancient document of rebellion, the from-USA Federalist Papers, a fact Kär had
revealed to him privately? With his choice, Irwin had subtly telegraphed his true intent: a new
order of things. How little to reveal? Should he dismiss Irwin's threat?
No matter now. He had chosen well, tough without giving away too much. He shared in Norma's
scheme.
He shifted to think about the substance of the conversation. He had to admit that her plan to
scare the Ganj-Dareh Collective with too much change was clever. But he couldn't penetrate this
scheme for the underlying strategy. What could she be dreaming up in her pampered, tutor-educated,
ossified brain? He'd just have to follow her trends to ensure they kept her busy elsewhere.
And the time limit on her proxies? No matter. As long as the project ran, he carried the
imprimatur. And when the project concluded, he would no longer need her permission for anything.
Poised at the edge of his own future, Dain required perspective. "jDub," he subvocalized and with
a snick, a fog of facts swirled across his center of perception. This alter came with no body
other than untolled data-motes siphoned from the shoals and depths of the Mirnaya Direvnya,
info-specks providing a thick medium with which to portray trends and summaries of Continent
Popovich. jDub also brought a sullen tingle behind Dain's left earlobe where a medulla modem had
been implanted.
Kär offered sophisticated virtual assistance, but its capabilities arose from the minds of its
Author-Team — and were limited by its perceptual user-interface. At times, Dain also required a
more specialized agent, more exhaustive, more private, tied to him by a cerebral interface, whose
direct connection to the underlying data-processing components of the continent's cyberspace could
tell him about the warp and woof of its inhabitants. So he had deliberately denied his own modest
talent for lattice-munging, squelching it with such determined and familiar pathology that it had
sprung back on its own, as a splinter ego. He had named it "jDub." Then, he had a medulla modem
installed in his head, for use exclusively by jDub. Finally, he permitted jDub read-only access to
his plans, an insight forbidden to the others — though they managed to disregard that ban, and
other directives and ambitions, when it suited them, an issue that continually soiled his designer
optimism.
Status report, Dain demanded.
A shaft of focus drove through the fog, highlighting a misty patch. Pinpricks glinted there,
factinos whose filigree implied a pattern of behavior in some constituency somewhere on Popovich.
Dain brushed impatiently at the labels sprouting over this complex graph. Simplify.
The spotlight winked out, leaving a whiff of jDub's frustrated pride. Dain didn't care. jDub knew
the drill-downs Dain needed for high-level planning. He should present those first, but the very
anal-nature that drove his limited life discouraged summary perspectives.
For jDub searched after an illusive aspect of human nature, identity, a many-faced, shifting
conundrum as Dain knew only too well. He wanted to know who every human being on the continent
was, what he believed in, who she attached herself to, where they settled their loyalty now, and
most importantly, how they would distribute it in the future. jDub couldn't read their minds —
nobody on the Backdoor Planets could, despite the terahertz simulations — but he could read their
behavior.
So much behavior revealed by the tides of traffic in the Em-Deh: meetings of all kinds,
one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-many; every purchase of any kind; entertainment, everything except
the blatantly zhuhndí. So much to be noted and correlated despite encryption, sometimes because of
it. Add to that the Beobachtung, recording all public activities, available to anyone who knew how
to render it. Working on this one task constantly, without the demands of nutrition and hygiene,
of livelihood and recreation, jDub had come to know a lot about the people Dain intended to rule.
As directed, jDub unfolded his summary abacus, an abstract set of lines marked with emblematic
beads; each line represented one of Dain's current objectives, a venue he wanted to dominate.
Resting at the right edge, the beads denoted power, influence, identity out of Dain's hands, beyond
his control, or without application to his ambitions. Slid to the left, they reported success for
Dain's efforts. At this moment, nothing he wanted belonged to him:
(1) public and private contracts:
Meaning: all awarded to Byukan-Hamil combines; hence, no other combines or consortia of combines
operated on Popovich ... yet. Dain instructed jDub about future research on this topic:
Ganj-Dareh anshin will be BH's first loss, and it won't be to Gatogrebok either. Le Coeur will
start its own consortium right there. Focus on this Collective: measure it now for a base-line so
we can tell when we're winning.
jDub acknowledged with a muted click.
(2) authority over BH budgets:
Update, Dain commanded. All six beads on that line, one for each signature-of-approval required to
spend money within Byukan-Hamil — all part of Norma's imprimatur — stirred, then slid left, fast,
hard, stopping with a resounding, satisfying clack! and an updated line:
(3) control over BH combines:
Now that he had received budget authority, he could take control from the other Partners.
Starting tomorrow, he promised. Watch for it.
Click.
Still, this lopsided graph galled him. After twelve years in Byukan-Hamil, seven as a Partner, he
controlled no one — not even himself if he listened to the glosso-waggen that always raged through
consortium staff. Norma's executive-in-charge of wiping — up
messes, off asses, and out careers. Yet, he had not wasted this time at the top levels of BH; he
had just worked another agenda.
Add Le Coeur shadow-graph, he told jDub.
Just beneath the original ten beads — depicted in lustrous cherrywood, each representing a tenth
of BH combines, lodged hard-right — appeared another ten, ash-gray apes. Four of these sped away
from the legitimate clump and thudded the left margin: tacticians of a full forty percent of BH
combines had sworn secret allegiance to Le Coeur de la Patrie. Another two shadow beads edged
toward the middle, signifying partial loyalty to Dain's cabal.
Gratified, Dain envisioned mahogany compounding with gray, a double harvest of control.
(4) alignment of BH Partners:
Sitting hard right, beads represented the seven Regionals and the two Lines-of-Integration, as
though supporting Norma. Update here, Dain prompted. One marker darted into the middle — Irwin.
What's he up to? No matter, I'll run right by him. Another clung hard-right — Idombruce with his
lips locked into Norma's tuckus. The Regionals drifted free, heading nowhere particular yet, but
in motion. Giving me room to maneuver ...
(5) influence on Norma's personal agenda:
No more than any tick-bird clinging to a charging mokele-mbembe. Dain acknowledged jDub's take
there, despite the recent session in her quarters. Will that ever change? Dain sighed. jDub
didn't answer.
(6) tlaxtli teams deployed at arenas:
Just training, just playing their autistic games, engulfed in a mythology designed to whet their
focus on an undated Day of Rescue. An investment in the future, venture capital to fund a
revolution, waiting for opportunity, hence their position on the right side of the graph.
Le Coeur shadow? Dain asked.
A single, black number flashed bold on the left end of this line: 74,852 focused, skilled,
ruthless warriors ready to deploy, all under his control. Have to move them out ... soon — hence
the can-feel in the Laetoli Valley.
JDB sniggered. Dain grinned back and glanced at the rest of jDub's display, a number of zero-sum
indicators of public contentment:
* passive versus active entertainment, with the trend still toward active as people fought to
maintain headway against the throes of economic recession
* comfort versus healthy food, with healthy steadily losing ground across the continent
* participation in Collective functions, such as on-line votes and meetings/will-be-heard, with
attention growing in proportion to agitation
Like I said, make this specific to Ganj Dareh, too.
Click.
Dain settled back to gaze at the overall picture. An intimidating weight of beads held fast on the
right. Despite that, he tasted the tannic headiness of progress. He felt a tilt toward momentum.
And he closed jDub's window so he could savor the change.
Chinks were starting to appear inside Byukan-Hamil; witness Irwin openly challenging the
Consortium's traditional order of business. Hard-core societal rules were being bent; witness
Norma sending Dain like a scythe across well-established lines of power. Waiting for those trends
to mature, he would lay out the means to take Norma's imprimatur and parlay it. Parlay it into
control of BH's strategic components, into a power vacuum open to Le Coeur de la Patrie, into an
executioner's axe to dispatch Norma.
Images soared out of his thoughts and dominated clumsy words. One torrent of imagination promised
grand scenes of the future, with voiceover by JDB. Another cinema, full of wondrous possibilities,
its soundtrack blaring with Shennongjia a cappella, sliced through the first with JDainB at the
helm. Still another stream of images, clotted with scents and twisted cravings, jinked through his
mind as the wraith unleashed its fantasies. Splattering across all these sensations, prickles and
caresses —
Dain ran from the tumult, a sporadic after-effect of visiting with jDub. With the small slice of
mind left to him, he groped for physical control and discovered his right hand resting on a thigh.
He turned the hand over. The fingers fell on the smooth cloth of his loin wrap and felt a round
mass below them. He squeezed to grasp, then pinched to hurt.
The fugue vanished. After-images cluttered his mind's eye. His right testicle ached.
Dain smirked. He did want discourse with his inner selves, but on his own terms. He closed his
eyes and once more, climbed those hypnotic steps. Around him, a mottled gray defined a resplendent
mental isolation.
In his homey clearing, Dain beckoned to Jikki. The boy stepped closer and accepted the touch on
his thick, tousled hair. They looked into each other's eyes.
"We're starting, Jikki," Dain said. "Tonight, Norma unwittingly unleashed us. First, we will
gather the true reins of this continent. Not the so-called lines of control, the byways of power
that Norma and the other Partners cherish. Rather, we will take charge of transportation, of
supplies, of communications, of anshin, Jikki. I alone will snip these plums free from the
branches of Byukan-Hamil, one combine after another, one region after another." All those
objectives, designed as steps to a single goal.
"Then, we in Le Coeur de la Patrie will wrest control of Continent Popovich from that idiot Team of
Partners and leave the Consortium bodiless. Beginning with Ganj-Dareh Direvnya, we will take this
land in a whole new direction."
Dain paused and basked in the light of the boy's adoration. "Finally, I will be able to rescue
you, Jikki. More than that, I will expunge the Network of Learning and all those other Patterns
that punish the weak and fragment the gentle. I will restore childhood to our part of Humanity,
Jikki, and we will laugh again, you and I together, out in the sunshine and warm air.
"Would you like that, Jikki?"
The boy didn't say a word. Instead, he wrapped his arms around Dain's waist, pressed his face
against Dain's side, and hung on for the ride.
