Multireal by David Louis Edelman Page A

and we keep replaying the scene over and over again in our heads
until Ben finds a scenario that's acceptable. He closes the choice cycle,
outputs that `reality' to his motor system, and it happens." Quell
touched a massive finger to his temple. "The alternate memories up
here get erased instantly, and the guy who isn't using MultiReal-in
this case, me-never even realizes what's happening. Now here's where
things start getting interesting."
    The Islander threw the globe back to Benyamin. Ben palmed the
soccer ball in his hands and prepared to score yet another goal. He
pulled back his foot, let the ball slip through his fingers-

    And then both Quell and Benyamin slumped to the ground,
exhausted. Ben barely had the strength to keep his head from slamming into the grass. Meanwhile, the ball rebounded off Ben's shin and
went rolling toward the sidelines.
    "What happened?" said Natch.
    "That time," said Quell, panting, "we were both using MultiReal."
    Horvil's eyes did a full clockwise circuit as he sifted through the data
points. "Okay, so you've got two MultiReal users working at crosspurposes," he said. "Benyamin keeps creating scenarios where he scores
a goal. But as soon as he does, Quell takes that scenario and runs it over
and over again until he blocks the kick. You get ..." The engineer's jaw
rocked back and forth in confusion as he tried to reconcile the equations
in his head with the bizarre performance he had just witnessed.
    "You get exhaustion," moaned Ben, still sprawled on the field
trying to catch his breath.
    "They're at an impasse," said Natch. "An infinite loop, until
someone gives up ... or his OCHREs run out."
    Horvil pulled his cousin to his feet and gave him a vigorous thwack
between the shoulder blades. "Eh, you'll be okay," said the engineer.
"Ready to take on the Harper Bulldogs in no time. So what did it feel like?"
    Benyamin bobbled his head and cracked his neck. Horvil's goodnatured clap on the back actually seemed to have helped him recover
his equilibrium. "Pretty much like you'd expect. Just the same thing
over and over. And over and over and over ..."
    "How many times?" said Natch.
    "I dunno. You lose track. Felt like hundreds, maybe even thousands. It's like an enormous grid that you scroll through in your head,
but you have to expend this tiny bit of effort for every move. Doesn't
seem that bad at first, but it adds up. I couldn't take it anymore.
Finally just gave up and cut the whole process off."
    Quell did not bother to pick himself up off the grass, but simply
lay there with his head propped up on one elbow. He had to be packing at least twice as much mass as Ben, and yet he seemed just as winded.
"So here's our challenge," he said. "You've seen two instances of MultiReal running at the same time. But at our exposition, we're going to
have twenty-three."

    Horvil's head slumped to his chest. "Oooh," he moaned.
    Natch stood with his arms folded. "Don't tell me that it never
occurred to Margaret in the last sixteen years that something like this
might happen."
    "Of course it occurred to her," replied Quell calmly.
    "And it's been tested?"
    "Sure, it's been tested ... just not with twenty-three people at the
same time. Listen, Natch, don't get ahead of yourself. Let me show you
the next demo. Horvil, take your programming bars over to the workbench, go pull up the common tools library...." A long and tortured
series of mathematical formulas sprayed from his lips. Horvil soaked it
all up, nodded, then dashed through a door in the stands to find the
bio/logic workbench.
    Natch paced slowly up and down the sidelines, kicking at the grass
with one foot as they waited for Horvil to complete the program modifications. He had been in possession of MultiReal for a month now, and yet
he still knew so little about it. The most powerful work of bio/logics ever
created, the pinnacle achievement of the Surinas. But there were still basic
concepts about MultiReal he