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of old Texas territory, pausing for a brief multi foray to Shenandoah to set his trap; the night before, he had skimmed the surface of
the Indian Ocean.

    But there were a number of close calls. Natch could find only so
much anonymity when his face had been burned into the public consciousness through a hundred interviews and drudge reports. A group
of teenagers in Sao Paulo had seen right through his false public directory profile, and Natch had had to pawn off one of his new bio/logic
programming bars just to keep them quiet. Counting the one he had
flung at his black-robed pursuers in Shenandoah a few weeks ago, he
was now two bars short of a complete set.
    Then there was the disturbing incident with the crazy woman in
central Europe. She had worn the bright blue uniform of a healer, but
had reached the age when many abandoned curative treatments and
sent in their applications to join the Prepared. The woman had walked
up to him in plain view of three white-robed Council officers, indignant, demanding that Natch explain the "dirty tricks" he had performed at the demo in Andra Pradesh. Natch's mind had been gliding
through some remote place, and he had nearly panicked. But suddenly
people had stood up to defend him with voices raised and fists clenched.
Soon a handful of L-PRACG security officers had gotten involved, and
the Council officers had scurried over to investigate. A small-scale brawl
had erupted between Natch's supporters and his detractors. Libertarians
shouting Down with Len Borda, governmentalists bellowing Respect the
law. Natch, dumbfounded, had offered no resistance when two libertarians calmly tugged him out the door and thrust him onto a tube running in the opposite direction. He had managed to escape before Len
Borda's people realized exactly what was going on.
    In a world of sixty billion people, simple mathematics dictated
that Natch must have millions of sympathizers on the libertarian side
of the political spectrum. A hundred million people probably sup ported his fight to keep MultiReal out of the Council's hands from
sheer spite for Len Borda. But to discover that people had coalesced on
this issue, that they were willing to stand up to armed Council officers
... Natch simply didn't know how to process it.

    Once aware of this undercurrent of libertarian sympathy, he began
to see signs of it everywhere he went. Natch found posts of support on
the Data Sea, speeches by L-PRACG activists, drudgic calls for embargoes against the central government. Suddenly he realized he had
underestimated the number of his supporters by several orders of magnitude. A minority, perhaps, and still skulking in the shadows, but
gaining strength every day.
    And now the Council's raid on Natch's apartment building had
altered the dynamics of the situation altogether. He called up Sen Sivv
Sor's reportage on the window.
COUNCIL STORMS NATCH'S APARTMENT
IN PLOYTO SEIZE MULTIREAL
    I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Nobody is worse at bungling public
relations than High Executive Len Borda.
    In the three weeks since Natch's MultiReal demonstration at Andra
Pradesh, the Fefcorp master has disappeared from the public eye. This
morning, we found out why. Because Borda, in his supreme wisdom, has
already decided to renege on his assurances of safety, and to seize MultiReal from its rightful owners without provocation.
    What else can we conclude from the dazzling display of stupidity executed by one of Borda's lieutenant executives, Magan Kai Lee, this
morning? You all saw it right here, dear readers. If not for an anonymous
tip-off to the drudge community early this morning, the Surina/Natch
MultiReal Fiefcorp might have already been dissolved by now. And its fiefcorp master might be rotting away in some orbital Council prison.
    It's astounding the lengths some will go to in order to preserve the
vaunted status quo. Which is why-

    Natch had read enough. He banished the potpourri of