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remember this in a few
years, when you finally get sick of working for me and venture out on
your own again. They're going to beg you to accept their money."
    The analyst ran three fingers self-consciously through her curly
mountain of hair. She wished there were an easy way to turn off the
sensation of Natch's virtual grasp, but the multi network didn't allow
that level of customization. "Yeah, well, maybe," she replied lamely.
    And then, seconds later, he vanished. His smile remained burned
on her retinas.
    Jara tiptoed down the hall to make sure Natch had indeed cut his
multi connection and not just ducked into the next room to deceive
her. You're so paranoid, Jara, she told herself. This is your apartment.
Nobody can multi here without your permission. Still, she breathed a sigh of
relief after determining that her boss was not in the flat. Natch had been known to perform miracles before.

    She glanced back at the ziggurat and nearly retched. There it sat,
in three dimensions-the evidence of her final degradation in the
bio/logics trade. There has to be some way to stop this from happening.
    Jara stood at her window and watched the London evening crowd
go about its business. Of course, it wasn't a real window; Jara couldn't
afford an apartment with exterior walls on her meager fiefcorp stipend,
and had to settle for flat viewscreens. But how easy it was to just tune
in an exterior view from the building and pretend. Down below, hundreds of people bustled around the public square, thousands maybe,
casually perusing the Data Sea with hardly a thought to the bio/logic
programs that ran their lives. Bio/logics regulating their heartbeats,
bio/logics keeping their appointment calendars, bio/logics pumping
sensory information into their skulls every second.
    Jara's mind buzzed with evil possibilities as she fell into the
familiar game of what's the worst that could happen. What would happen
if panic overtook the market tomorrow and people started pulling
money from their Vault accounts? What would happen if Horvil's
trepidations became reality and the Pharisees really did launch a black
code attack? Or what if-perfection postponed!-some unconnectible
lunatics figured out a way to sabotage Dr. Plugenpatch? Jara's eyes
darted to some anonymous pedestrian making his way across the cobblestones below, and suddenly he was no longer anonymous.... He
was an important businessman who would wake up tomorrow in Beijing or Melbourne or one of the orbital colonies, Allowell maybe....
He tries to grab a batch of stock reports off the Data Sea while he
drinks his morning nitro, and nothing happens.... His blood pressure
starts rising, he's supposed to close a big deal today. What the heck is
he going to do now? ... The OCHREs in his body frantically ping the
Plugenpatch medical databases for advice on how to keep his blood
pressure down, and what to do about his congenital heart condition.
... But Dr. Plugenpatch doesn't respond.... The room goes dark, the lights go out....

    Get a hold of yourself! Jara thought. You're giving Natch way too much
credit. One man can't bring the whole Data Sea crashing to a halt on a whim.
The Pharisees aren't going to launch a black code attack tomorrow. What's the
worst that could happen? A few fiefcorps will lie low for the day, that's all.
    She switched the window display to a peaceful Irish countryside
and tried to get back to work. The three-dimensional flowchart on the
table silently mocked her: GULLIBLE. UNTRUSTWORTHY.
UNDEPENDABLE.
    "Fuck fuck fuck!" Jara cried aloud, slamming her hand against the
bare walls. She couldn't just sit back and let this happen. Natch had to
be stopped. He had to.

    "I'm telling you," said Horvil, "they're talking about it all over the
gossip networks. I'm not making this up! Go check it out for yourself
if you don't believe me."
    The woman pursed her lips skeptically and regarded Horvil with a
penetrating look. It was the kind