Chapter 2, "Day -30", Scene 5

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-America 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.

74,852

JDB sniggered. Dain grinned back and glanced at the rest of jDub's display, a number of zero-sum indicators of public contentment:

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.

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