David Edelman - Infoquake

"The whole incident is still in the news, Natch. Maybe you need to give the fiefcorps some time."

"It won't matter."

"You know, you can do so many things other than bio/logics. Maybe-"

"No." Natch pressed his forehead against the window, covering a histogram of fiefcorp share prices. "It has to be bio/logics. There's nothing else out there for me."

The neural programmer cleared his throat and began to say something, then stopped. A statement was slowly coalescing in his mind. At one time, Natch would have lacked the patience to listen to what his guardian had to say, but after nine months in the wilderness surrounded by the impetuosity of teenage boys, Serr Vigal's deliberate manner no longer seemed so irritating. "Do you remember," Vigal stammered, "what I told you before initiation about taking an apprenticeship somewhere close by?"

The boy nodded yes.

"Well, it seems I have some space-I mean, there is an openingat my memecorp. Brainstem programming. The pay isn't much. But, well, I just thought ..." He let the sentence waft away.

What a difference nine months can make, Natch thought. Before initiation, his main concern had been finding an appropriate excuse to take an apprenticeship over Vigal's objections. Even after the debacle with Figaro Fi, Natch had never seriously considered taking an apprenticeship with the neural programmer. But after all that had happened with Brone and the Shortest Initiation, did he have any choice?

Vigal smiled. "I can see the struggle in your face, Natch. You don't want to apprentice with me because you think the work will be dull and unchallenging. Even worse, you're afraid I'm going to lecture you about what happened at initiation. You think I'll try to guilt you into signing up with my memecorp."

Natch's silence indicated his agreement.

"You also know that one day you will be beyond my tutelage," continued Vigal. "Yet you worry that I might try to keep you around by reminding you how I lent a helping hand when nobody else would. Plus-and this may be the most crucial thing-you doubt that you'll be able to find a decent woman in a company like mine to save your life."

The young outcast tried hard not to crack a smile, but he failed.

Vigal chuckled and rose from his chair. He took a seat on the bed next to the boy and put his hand on Natch's shoulder. A rare and yet not unwelcome moment of physical contact between them. "You know that life in the memecorps is much different than life in the fiefcorps, don't you?"

Natch nodded. " Fiefcorps make money," he quoted slyly. "Memecorps cost money."

The neural programmer snorted. "Well, that's what those fools at Creed Thassel say. Maybe that was true back when Kordez Thassel and Lucco Primo were alive. But today.... Today, I think even a hard-core libertarian would be surprised at how much of our funding comes from the marketplace. If you ask me, every bio/logic programmer could use a grounding in the fundamentals of the memecorp world."

The two silently watched the undulations in the Primo's histogram for a few minutes. Vigal's hand communicated an unspoken message of comfort and understanding. Natch could briefly see a widening of vistas, a broadening of horizons.

He tried to picture what life in Vigal's memecorp would be like. Heated debates over brainstem engineering techniques, collaborations with faceless co-workers, long hours fine-tuning bio/logic programs. There were worse ways to spend two years of his life. The money would be a pittance compared to the sums he had been discussing with the capitalmen nine months ago. But all the same, he would be working in bio/logics. And once he had proven his ability in the memecorp world, wouldn't the fiefcorps become that much more attainable?

"So what are your terms?" Natch asked.

Vigal couldn't hold back his delight. He named the terms: Room and board in Omaha. A modest stipend, with the promise of a bonus after two years. Access to the run-of-the-mill bio/logic programming equipment.

"And what about ... all the bad publicity?" said Natch.

His guardian shrugged his shoulders dismissively. "The publicity will pass. You will discover that one of the benefits of working in the memecorp sector is that we are well-protected from that sort of nonsense."

Natch stood back and let the phantom letters of Vigal's contract replace the histogram on the window. He called up Shyster 95.3c to help him negotiate the details. Within minutes, the two were sitting across the small round table in the corner of the room dickering over minor contractual differences. By the end of the hour, they had worked out an agreement. Natch affirmed it without hesitation.

He was now officially Serr Vigal's apprentice.

After a few moments of relaxed celebration, Vigal once again struck a serious note.

"I know you worry about your future, Natch," said the neural programmer in a low voice. "And I am sorry I have always been so preoccupied with all these ... distractions." He wiggled his fingers up towards the ceiling and let them linger there a moment, as if he could only keep them from drifting into the stratosphere by a colossal act of willpower. "But-but when you came to me, I promised myself I would always be there for you. And I intend to keep that promise no matter what the future brings."

Natch ducked his head under the protective helmet of his clasped fingers. Ordinarily, he would have scoffed at Vigal's sentimentality, but he was not in an ordinary frame of mind. "And what if I have no future?"

His guardian leaned forward and put his hand on his apprentice's arm. "Of course you have a future. And do you know what it is?"

"What?"

"Your future is what you choose to do tomorrow. And the direction you're searching for?"

Natch shook his head.

"Your direction is where you choose to go."

Natch took a week to get oriented in his new surroundings. There was a lot to do. He needed to find an apartment whose rent fit the narrow boundaries of a memecorp salary; he needed to arrange for a shuttle to carry his belongings out from Cape Town; and most daunting of all, he needed to enroll himself in an L-PRACG.

The apartment was no hassle. Omaha had an abundance of memecorp-friendly housing. Natch picked a modest building about as far away from the Missouri River as you could get and still be inside the city limits. Even in this drab setting, he could not afford exterior walls with real windows and had to settle for a handful of viewscreens instead. There were, of course, no private outgoing multi streams.

Choosing an L-PRACG proved to be a more difficult chore. Legislatures large and small had been bombarding Natch with ads for days now, since the very instant he reconnected to the Data Sea. He found himself in the midst of an ideological battle fought with one-line enticements:

Full Compliance With All Prime Committee Details

The ULTIMATE in PRIVACY PROTECTION

GOVERNMENTALISM at its Finest

Natch spent a day trying to sort through all the solicitations and pick a government that suited him. But his confusion increased the longer he worked at it; questions nibbled away at the back of his mind like rodents, and only seemed to multiply when he wasn't looking. What basic services did the L-PRACG provide? What kinds of taxes and fees were involved? Did the L-PRACG contract out security or provide its own? How long was the subscription term? How exclusive was the membership?

Finally, Natch threw up his hands and settled on a libertarianleaning L-PRACG that offered a nice package of bio/logic programs as a membership incentive. If he decided he didn't like his government's policies, he could always let the subscription lapse or supplement it with other complementary L-PRACGs. Natch immediately received a vast dossier of regulations and bylaws, which he promptly filed away and never looked at again.