“After all, I was there.”
“I can’t take this in,” Michael said, shrugging in helplessness. By the looks on the faces of the others, neither could they.
“You doubt? I can identify with that,” the elf said, suddenly grinning. “The gospels do manage to record my presence with that tag, after all.”
“But what are you going to do here? Why so much money? For what?” Serrin pressed him.
“Because of the Works,” the elf told him. “I want to bring some of the better minds of the world here. I remember the old times, all those great artists and engineers at the behest of the Medicis and the Borgias. Ah, such times! I want that again.
“Indeed,” he continued, suddenly almost humble, “I hoped that I might invite some among you to join me. I think you, Mr. Sutherland, would enjoy working here.”
Michael looked at the cyberdeck and wondered. Fine, he’s glitched, but by hell whatever that thing is I wouldn’t say no to looking into it. Just a few weeks, maybe…
“And you, Serrin, you I would be glad of for the Great Work.”
“And that is?”
“That is something deeper and darker, a greater mystery,” the elf said without the pretension such words might well have carried from anyone else. “There are times in the history of the world, Serrin, when mana rises and falls. When it is potent and strong, many wonders and glories arise. An Awakening, some have called it. We are in such a time now. But dangers come with such limes, dangers all but beyond imagining. I must work with others to counter those dangers.”
“That sounds both vague and paranoid,” Serrin told him.
“It may, but you are noted for your paranoid nature and at times you, too, are rather vague,” Leonardo said tartly. The sharpness of his voice was so unusual that Serrin almost startled, and his mouth formed into a smile for an instant before he reassumed his usual grave appearance.
“You know of astral quests, of the threshold, of the dangers of the metaplanes-or you think you do.”
“I know something of such things.” Serrin wasn’t sure where this was leading.
“There are dangers beyond which are very great and real. At this time, the barrier between us and those dangers is eroding and must he shored up. To do so will take immense effort. That is the Great Work. However. I ask only that you spend a month, perhaps, learning of such things and deciding whether you are willing. Then you may-”
The elf broke off without warning. He cocked his head to one side for a moment, as if listening to something inaudible to anyone else.
The moment’s respite gave Streak the chance to tell Serrin about something whose significance he’d finally realized. “You know, I saw something in that book you had on the Shroud,” he said. “Did you realize the face doesn’t have any bloody ears?”
Serrin had missed that. He’d seen the presence of things that had remained hidden or at best obscured, but he’d missed an absence of something. If this elf was really who he said he was, or rather if the face of Leonardo’s was one he’d worn, then the missing detail was perfect. A self-portrait with the identifying characteristic carefully omitted.
And, of course, what irony there must have been in the gullible of the centuries worshipping an image of himself.
“There may be some trouble,” Leonardo informed them. “Several military aircraft have landed at the airstrip. I think that Renraku may have been overenthusiastic in their approach to potential discussions with me, which is not wholly unexpected. Michael, I would very much appreciate it if you would mediate here. I am very eager to speak with them. I had hoped we could come to some arrangement, as I suggested to you. Will you help me?”
“I’ll do what I can,” Michael said nervously.
“By the way, Salai tells me it is now time you went out into the desert with him,” the elf said to Streak. “The missile has been brought down safely, and we have the protective clothing and measuring instruments you will need.”
“Show me to it, unless you’d rather I took up a position in the bunker and helped you blow away these yobbish gatecrashers for you,” Streak said cheerfully, his good humor recovered after seeing Serrin surprised by his insight.
Michael and Streak got into the elevator with the young man, and as they ascended Michael wondered what he was going to say. Outside the building, the Renraku military had taken up their positions and were clearly ready to begin any bombardment deemed necessary.
Michael thought about it, and walked out into the hot air of the afternoon with his palms out, announcing who he was and the fact that he was working for Renraku too. Johanssen told the commanding officer to hold fire, definitely and absolutely.
“Em, hi, guys. Look. I don’t know how to say this, but you really don’t want to blow up what’s in there.
“Frankly, at twenty billion you’ll be getting a bloody bargain.”
Johanssen looked at him, reconsidered his order, then picked up the phone to Chiba.
29
The second of May was the day when eight megacorps were scheduled to have their Matrix systems blown to frag and back. Midnight came and went and nothing much happened. At one o’clock, seven of them got a message informing them that their tardiness in making the due payment was reprehensible and that as a result their systems would, periodically, be subject to complete surveillance-and that all of their future operations would have to be conducted with this fact in mind. Only four heart attacks were recorded among the relevant personnel during the following hour, which, given their usual bad habits of smoking, drinking, and eating far too much expense-account drek, wasn’t much more than par for the course. Moreover, given their natures, it was probably more or less what they deserved.
The eighth corp was trying to figure out how the frag they could possibly manage to justify such a transfer of funds to the shareholders. Two of their best researchers had been dragged out of bed, piled into a plane, and despatched to Ahvaz. Within an hour of their arrival they’d agreed with Michael that twenty billion was a pittance.
“We can call it a sponsored R amp;D lab, write it off against taxes as profit reinvestment and retooling.” was the best the accountants and marketing people could come up with.
“And who’s going to be in charge of it?” came the obvious reply.
“This elf who calls himself Leonardo. Barking mad but he’s a fragging genius according to our to computer guys, and we pay them enough to know shit from salami on rye. Anyway, he says he can do it anytime he likes. Bust our systems, that is.”
“What’s he offering for twenty billion?”
“The deck. Training for some of our top people. Priority access to research findings. Look, our military guy got a peek at a defensive laser system he had in there. Said it was awesome. Not only that, nobody but nobody picked it up on sat. He’s got to be good. Think about what we could do with this kind of stuff.”
Management thought about what it could do with it all, and a lot of them fantasized about screwing the frag out of everyone else on the block.
They began to talk about payment in installments.
Back in London, a group of recent arrivals were trying to shake off an all-encompassing exhaustion and put the pieces together for themselves. Much of what had happened was still taking its time sinking in.
“Renraku looks like they could buy into it,” Michael told them. “Pay the guy hefty doses and get the research works. He says it’s all toys to him anyway. It’s that Great Work he’s really into.”
They’d had an hour or so with Leonardo after the arrival of the Renraku squad, and then the elf asked them to leave and think over his offers. There was so much to do, he said, and too much urgency to spend longer with them.
“They may come next week, or it may be ten years from now,” he’d told them, though his words were mostly for Serrin, “but come they will, unless the work is done in time.”
“I wonder, I really do,” Michael mused. “I mean, that deck. It was incredible just hitching. The chance to study it… and Renraku would pick up the tab. They’re talking about building him a huge lab out there. They’d love him in Chiba, obviously, but he won’t go. He wont leave the people of Ahvaz. And I don’t think Renraku will try to kidnap him, and they’ll sure as hell go to extreme lengths to make sure no one else does.”