Infoquake (Jump 225 Trilogy Series #1), Vol. 1

\ INFOQUAKE Volume I of the Jump 225 Trilogy\ \ \ \ By DAVID LOUIS EDELMAN \ Prometheus Books \ Copyright © 2006 \ \ David Louis Edelman\ All right reserved. \ \ \ ISBN: 978-1-59102-442-2 \ \ \ \ \ Chapter One Natch was impatient. \ He strode around the room with hands clasped behind his back and head bowed forward, like a crazed robot stuck on infinite loop. Around and around, back and forth, from the couch to the door to the window, and then back again.\ Behind him, the window was tuned to some frantic cityscape that Jara didn't recognize. Buildings huddled together at crooked angles like the teeth of old men, as tube trains probed the cavities. Singapore, maybe? Sao Paulo? Definitely a Terran city, Jara decided. Every few minutes, Natch would look in that direction and inhale deeply, as if trying to draw energy from the thousands of manic pedestrians ensconced within the four corners of the window canvas.\ Natch stopped suddenly and wheeled on his apprentice. "Why are you just sitting there?" he cried, punctuating the question with a snap of his fingers.\ Jara gestured to the empty spot next to her on the couch. "I'm waiting for Horvil to show up so we can get this over with."\ "Where is Horvil?" said Natch. "I told him to be here an hour ago. No, an hour and a half ago. Can't that lazy bastard learn to keep a calendar?" Around and around, back and forth.\ Jara regarded her employer in silence. She supposed that Natch would be devilishly handsome to anyone who didn't know he was completely insane. That casually athletic physique, the boyish face that would never know gray, those eyes predictably blue as sapphires: people like Natch just didn't exist on this side of the camera lens. Nor did they spout phrases like trouncing the competition and creating a new paradigm without a trace of irony or self-consciousness.\ Natch shook his head. "I can only hope he remembers we've got a product launch tomorrow."\ "I don't know why you're so uptight," said Jara. "We do twenty or thirty product launches every year."\ "No," whispered Natch. "Not like this one."\ Jara let it go. As usual, she had no idea what Natch was talking about. NiteFocus 48 was a routine upgrade that fixed a number of minor coding inconsistencies but introduced no new features. The program had an established track record in the marketplace, built on the well-known optical expertise of the Natch Personal Programming Fiefcorp. Unless Natch expected them to rework the rules of bio/logic programming overnight-and she wouldn't put that past him-the NiteFocus product launch would be a pretty routine affair.\ "Listen," said Jara. "Why don't you let Horvil sleep for another hour? He was up all night tinkering on this thing. He probably just got to bed. Don't forget that out here, it's seven o'clock in the morning." Here was London: a sane place, a city of right angles. The city where both Horvil and Jara lived, and some six thousand kilometers away from Natch's apartment in Shenandoah.\ "I don't fucking care," Natch snorted. "I haven't gotten any sleep tonight, and I didn't get any yesterday either."\ "Might I remind you that I was up all night working on NiteFocus too?"\ "I still don't care. Go wake him up."\ For the third time that week, Jara considered quitting. He always had this condescension, this mania-no, lust-for perfection. How difficult would it be to find a job at another fiefcorp? She had fifteen years in this business, almost three times as much experience as Natch. Certainly PulCorp or Billy Sterno or even Lucas Sentinel would take her on board. Or, dare she think it, the Patel Brothers? But then she considered the three agonizing years she had spent as Natch's apprentice, and the scant eleven months to go before her contract expired. Eleven months to go until I can cash out! I should be able to keep it together that long.\ So Jara didn't quit. Instead, she gave her fiefcorp master one last bitter look and cut her multi connection. True to form, Natch had already turned his back on her, probably heading into his office to do more fine-tuning on NiteFocus. You need to watch yourself, Jara thought. Natch's brand of insanity just might be contagious.\ She slid into nothingness.\ * * *\ The hollow sensation of a mind devoid of sensory input. Those blessed two and a half seconds of free time after one multi connection ends, but before the next begins. Emptiness, blankness.\ Multivoid.\ Then consciousness.\ Jara was back in London, but not at Horvil's place, as she had expected. Horvil must have refused her multi request, so the system had automatically stopped the feed of sensory information flowing through her neural cortex. She stood now on the red square tile that was her apartment's gateway to the multi network, staring at the walls she had never had time to decorate. She stretched her calves, slightly sore from five hours of multi-induced paralysis, and walked down the hall to the living room.\ Jara's apartment insulted her with its desolation: a featureless space, a human storage chamber. She resisted the urge to blow off Natch's little summit and go shopping on the Data Sea for wall hangings. Eleven months, eleven months, eleven months, Jara told herself. And then I can cash out and start my own business and it won't matter. In the meantime, I'd better wake up Horvil.\ If Horvil wasn't answering her multi requests, he was either asleep or ignoring her. The engineer was not known for being an early riser. In Horvil's parlance, early meant any time before noon, and to a global professional who hopped continents with barely a thought, noon was a slippery concept. Jara gritted her teeth and called up Confidential-Whisper 66, the program de rigueur for remote conversation. If Horvil wouldn't see her, maybe he would at least talk to her.\ The engineer accepted the connection-solid evidence he was, at least, awake.\ Jara waited impatiently for an acknowledgment, a response, something. "Well?" she complained. "Are you coming over to Natch's apartment or what?"\ Jara heard a number of fake stretching and groaning noises from Horvil's end of the connection. ConfidentialWhisper was strictly a mental communication program, not an oral one. "I could pretend I'm still asleep," said the engineer.\ "If I have to be at this idiotic meeting, Horv, then you're not getting out of it."\ "Tell me again why he wants to hold a meeting this early in the morning."\ "Come on, you know how it works. Apprentice in a fiefcorp, work on the master's time."\ "But what's this all about?"\ Jara sighed. "I have no idea. Probably another one of his stupid schemes to take over the world. Whatever he's up to, it can't be good."\ "Of course it can't be good," said Horvil. "This is Natch we're talking about. I ever tell you about the time in school when Natch tried to form a corporation? Can't you just picture him trying to explain laissez-faire capitalism to a bunch of nine-year-old hive kids-"\ "Horvil, I'm waiting."\ The engineer sounded unconcerned. "I'm tired. Call Merri. Call Vigal."\ "They're not invited."\ "Why not? They're part of this company too, aren't they?"\ The question had occurred to Jara as well. "Maybe Natch trusts us more than he trusts them."\ Horvil chuckled and made a sound like he was spitting out pillow lint. "Right, sure. Maybe he knows we're too cowardly to stand up to him." And before Jara had a chance to respond, the engineer cut the 'Whisper connection, leaving her alone with her empty walls.\ How dare he call me a coward! she fumed silently. I'm not afraid of Natch. I'm just practical, that's all. I know I only have to put up with him for eleven more months. She called up her apprenticeship contract for the thousandth time and reread the clause on compensation, hoping as always to catch a glimpse of some previously unknown loophole. But the letters floating before her eyes hadn't changed: Jara would receive nothing except room and board until the end of the four-year term, at which time her shares matured. She blinked hard, and the illusory text on the surface of her retinas vanished.\ Jara gave one last wistful glance at her apartment and stepped back down the hall to open another multi connection. Multivoid swallowed her empty walls and regurgitated Natch's metropolitan windows. The fiefcorp master was nowhere to be found, but Jara was in no mood to track him down. He had to be here somewhere, or she would have never made it into the building. Jara threw herself down on the couch and waited.\ Five minutes later, Horvil materialized in the room wearing the same mixture of bonhomie and bafflement he always wore. "Towards Perfection," he greeted his fellow apprentice amiably as he plopped down in Natch's favorite chair. It was actually a chair-and-a-half, but still barely wide enough to accommodate Horvil's considerable bulk. "Who's ready to wallow around in the mud? I know I could use a good wallow right about now."\ Jara frowned, wondering whether Horvil had concocted some algorithm to make even his virtual clothes look disheveled. "That makes one of us," she said.\ The engineer yawned and sat back in his chair with a smile. "Stop being so dramatic, Princess. If you don't want to be here, go home. What's Natch going to do? Cancel your contract? Fire you?"\ Jara extended her finger into an accusatory position by reflex. She lowered it when she realized she had nothing to say.\ And then Natch returned.\ Neither apprentice saw the fiefcorp master come in, but now there he stood with his arms crossed and his eyes glaring. For once, he was not pacing, and this made Jara nervous. When Natch chose to focus all that kinetic energy on some concrete goal instead of stomping it into oblivion, mountains moved. Jara examined the gorge in her stomach and came to a sudden realization: she was afraid of Natch.\ "We're going to the top of the bio/logics market," he announced. "We're going to be number one on Primo's."\ Horvil put his feet up on the coffee table. "Of course we are," he said breezily. "We've been over this shit before. Market forces, fiefcorp economics, blah blah blah. It's inevitable, ain't it?"\ Natch closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them, his gaze fixed on a spot of nothingness hovering midway between the two apprentices. Jara suddenly felt transparent, as if the world had gained presence at her expense. "You don't understand, Horvil," he said. "We're going to be number one on Primo's, and we're going to do it tomorrow."\ (Continues...)\ \ \ \ \ \ Excerpted from INFOQUAKE Volume I of the Jump 225 Trilogy by DAVID LOUIS EDELMAN Copyright © 2006 by David Louis Edelman. Excerpted by permission.\ All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.\ Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.\ \

\ From Barnes & NobleThe Barnes & Noble Review\ Web programmer David Louis Edelman's debut novel, Infoquake -- the first installment of his Jump 225 Trilogy -- is equal parts corporate thriller, technophilic cautionary tale, and breathtakingly visionary science fiction adventure. \ \ In a world where virtually thousands of biological programs can enhance any bodily function -- U-No-Snooze 93 to stay awake, Analgesic 232.5 to lessen pain, PokerFace 83.4b to mask emotions, etc. -- Natch is the best at what he does, which is programming and marketing new and improved bio/logic products. But when the ruthlessly ambitious Natch is offered the opportunity of a lifetime -- to develop and launch a groundbreaking technology called MultiReal -- a host of enemies come out of the woodwork to stop him from succeeding by any means necessary… \ \ The extensive appendices at the back of Infoquake -- which include a glossary of terms, a historical timeline, background information on the science of bio/logics, etc. -- are reminiscent of the addenda that accompanied Frank Herbert's original Dune trilogy. And similar to Herbert's vast prehistories (which planted the seeds for numerous novels and short stories by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson), Edelman's book has set the stage for potentially so much more than just a trilogy of novels. Brilliantly blending the cutthroat intrigues of the high-tech business world with revolutionary world building, Edelman could quite possibly be the love child of Donald Trump and Vernor Vinge. Infoquake is one of the most impressive science fiction debuts to come a long in years -- highly recommended. Paul Goat Allen\ \ \ \ \ Kate Elliott"Inventive and provocative, with a surprisingly emotional kick. Read this book, and then argue about it."\ —Author of Crown of Stars\ \ \ Tobias S. Buckell"A fascinating glimpse into an all too possible future of business, software, wetware, and over-powerful technocrats."\ —Author of Crystal Rain\ \ \ \ \ SFFWorld.com...the genre might not be quite the same after this book...a stunning debut novel by a lucid, precise, and talented new voice in the genre...With an already impressive list of authors in their stable, Pyr looks to have nabbed one of, if not, the next big thing in Science Fiction. This may be THE science fiction book of the year.\ \ \ \ \ Publishers WeeklySlick high-finance melodrama and dizzying technical speculation lift Edelman's SF debut, the first of a trilogy. Centuries in the future, humans rely less on machines than on upgrading their own nervous systems with nanotech bio/logic programs. Natch, a gifted young code programmer-entrepreneur obsessed with clawing his way to the top, jumps at the chance to merchandise a major new technology, MultiReal, even though he doesn't know what it is. Natch soon becomes a target for not just his business rivals but also totalitarian governmental agencies and more mysterious groups. Natch's being a borderline sociopath makes him extremely creative in business tactics and personal manipulation (and thus fascinating to read about). The world in which he operates is also fascinating, with awesome personal powers being sold on a frantic open market. Edelman, who has a background in Web programming and marketing, gives his bizarre notions a convincing gloss of detail. Bursting with invention and panache, this novel will hook readers for the story's next installment. (July) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.\ \ \ \ \ Library JournalIn a distant future dependent on the exchange of information via the Internet and other advanced technologies, Natch stands out as an expert in bio/logics, the science of programming the human body. To him falls the task of assimilating and protecting a new technology-MultiReal-from corporate spies and the deadly energy bursts, or infoquakes, that threaten the existence of all bio/logic networks. In web designer and programmer Edelman's first novel, he moves quickly from scene to scene, building suspense with believable characters and in-the-know technical expertise. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.\ \