Accelerando

"C'mon. Don't give me that line. Look, all it takes is a couple of million, and you can buy your way free for all I care. All I'm here for is to see that your wife and daughter don't get left pe

Manfred snorts. "You're talking about an elite IRS auditor here. She isn't pe

"You're making it hard on yourself," Glashwiecz warns.

"Expecting company?" Pam asks, one brittle eyebrow raised in Manfred's direction.

"Not exactly —"

A

"Mais Oui." The door closes itself and the guards stand to either side. A

"You think to walk in here, to my pied-à-terre, and take from Manfred?" she sniffs.

"You're making a big mistake, lady," Pam says, her voice steady and cold enough to liquefy helium.

A burst of static from one of the troopers. "No," A

She points at Glashwiecz. "Are you aware of the takeover?"

"Takeover?" The lawyer looks puzzled, but not alarmed by the presence of the guards.

"As of three hours ago," Manfred says quietly, "I sold a controlling interest in agalmic.holdings.root.1.1.1 to Athene Accelerants BV, a venture capital outfit from Maastricht. One dot one dot one is the root node of the central pla

Pam looks a

A

"You wouldn't —"

"I would." Manfred brushes his hands on his knees and stands up. "Done, yet?" he asks the suitcase.

Muffled beeps, then a gravelly synthesized voice speaks. "Uploads completed."

"Ah, good." He grins at A

On cue, the doorbell rings again. The guards sidle to either side of the door. A

"Which one of you is Macx?" snaps the older one of the two thugs, staring at Glashwiecz for no obvious reason. He hefts an aluminum briefcase. "Got a writ to serve."

"You'd be the CCAA?" asks Manfred.

"You bet. If you're Macx, I have a restraining order —"

Manfred raises a hand. "It's not me you want," he says. "It's this lady." He points at Pam, whose mouth opens in silent protest. "Y'see, the intellectual property you're chasing wants to be free. It's so free that it's now administered by a complex set of corporate instruments lodged in the Netherlands, and the prime shareholder as of approximately four minutes ago is my soon-to-be-ex-wife Pamela, here." He winks at Glashwiecz. "Except she doesn't control anything."

"Just what do you think you're playing at, Manfred?" Pamela snarls, unable to contain herself any longer. The guards shuffle: The larger, junior CCAA enforcer tugs at his boss's jacket nervously.

"Well." Manfred picks up his coffee and takes a sip. Grimaces. "Pam wanted a divorce settlement, didn't she? The most valuable assets I own are the rights to a whole bunch of recategorized work-for-hire that slipped through the CCAA's fingers a few years back. Part of the twentieth century's cultural heritage that got locked away by the music industry in the last decade – Janis Joplin, the Doors, that sort of thing. Artists who weren't around to defend themselves anymore. When the music cartels went bust, the rights went for a walk. I took them over originally with the idea of setting the music free. Giving it back to the public domain, as it were."

A

He takes another mouthful of coffee. The recording Mafiya goon glares at him. Pam glares at him. A

Glashwiecz stands up carefully. The lead goon stares at Pamela. "Is this true?" he demands. "This little squirt give you IP assets of Sony Bertelsma

The second goon rumbles agreement: "Remember, dose MP3s, dey bad for you health!"

A

"This means you," Manfred advises Pam helpfully.

"You bastard ," she spits at him.

Manfred forces a smile, bemused by his inability to respond to her the way she wants. Something's wrong, missing, between them. "I thought you wanted my assets. Are the encumbrances too much for you?"

"You know what I mean! You and that two-bit Euro-whore! I'll nail you for child neglect!"

His smile freezes. "Try it, and I'll sue you for breach of patent rights. My genome, you understand."

Pam is taken aback by this. "You patented your own genome? What happened to the brave new communist, sharing information freely?"

Manfred stops smiling. "Divorce happened. And the Italian Communist Party happened."

She turns on her heel and stalks out of the apartment bravely, tame attorney in tow behind her, muttering about class action lawsuits and violations of the Digital Mille