"The last time we met?" Dodger felt faint, but persona constructs don't pass out. He didn't like the way this new twist pushed against the limits of the imposed imagery.
"She comes now." The page bowed and indicated an approaching figure before vanishing as if he had never existed.
The woman wore a long, flowing dress that fit snugly to her full and fetching figure. The gown was midnight itself, swallowing all light. The skin of her throat and neck was brilliantly contrasted against the fabric. It seemed to gleam. It did gleam. Her skin was not the pale tone fashionable in the court, but a faint silver. As silver as her perfect face and delicately rounded, hairless skull.
He recognized the woman identified as Morgan and felt his loins heat up.
This is impossible!
When last they had met, she had effortlessly hijacked him through the Renraku Matrix and held him prisoner. He didn't know why; he didn't want to know. The thing calling itself Morgan Le Fay was neither decker nor system construct. Though he was not sure, he suspected it was something that should not exist; an artificially created machine intelligence, an AI, a real ghost in the machine. During his first encounter with it, the AI had presented itself to his perception as a female counterpart of his own persona construct while simultaneously displaying an entirely different image to another decker. This thing had abilities he couldn't understand. It was apparently sentient, but if its actions were any indication, it was slightly crazy. But crazy was defined by the human norm, and who could know what the norm was for an entity dwelling totally within the electron space of the Matrix? He had thought the AI confined to the Renraku Matrix.
He was obviously wrong.
Morgan Le Fay smiled warmly at him. He fled the only way he could be sure to evade her. He jacked out.
Sam didn't like Dodger's analysis one bit, but it made sense. It matched too well against the data they had gathered while Dodger was pursuing the blind shunt that had led him to the Camelot system. It fit with the police cover-up. Most of all, it explained the strange alliance of corporate and political figures who made up the Hidden Circle.
The druids were apparently operating in the interests of Gordon, Their patron wasn't the crowned king, but only barely. In the turmoil of political compromise and under the economic pressure of the corporations, Windsor-Gordon's faction had lost the bid for his affirmation as the true heir to the throne. George Edward Richard Windsor-Hanover, the other principal claimant, had been crowned instead.
Since his ascension to the throne, George Hanover had often favored corporate interests. No doubt, the European Corporate Community was pleased at having found the technical loophole that assured the superiority of Hanover's claim to Gordon's. But minor technicalities couldn't change Gordon's bloodline. His connection to the House of Windsor made him successor to the throne should George VIII and his children die without heirs. Given Gordon's strong association with the Green Party, the ECC would find him an uncooperative king. Thus, while the ECC made sure that their boy George and his family were well protected, they would not mind seeing Gordon do something to bar himself forever from the throne.
Their attitude was not universal. Gordon's bloodline was more than enough for royalists like Burnside. Whether they favored the current king or Gordon, the royalist factions had worked too hard in restoring the shattered monarchy. The last thing they wanted was to see their handiwork be swept away in a scandal. They would do whatever they could to cover up Gordon's misdeeds and polish his image as a suitable member of the royal family. The inspector and his cronies would suppress Gordon's part in the killings if they could.
The whole arrangement stank. It was a stench Sam was coming to know well, the corruption of power. Power was what it was all about. Gordon grasping for the throne and the druids of the Hidden Circle reaching to further their own interests. It was just barely
conceivable that they sought to install Gordon as king because they believed he was the rightful king. More likely, they wanted a puppet who owed them everything.
Gordon courted the druids for the power they represented. No doubt, he expected to control them once he was king. No ambitious man could ignore the power a circle of druids offered. The Hidden Circle commanded considerable magical power as well as substantial mundane power through their advantageous placement in political and corporate struc tures. So great a concentration of influence would be hard to duplicate in such a small number of British citizens.
Sam didn't know who was using whom in this arrangement, and it didn't really matter to him. They were all participating in the magical sacrifices. They were all guilty.
Justice seemed further and further away, as the runners' forces disintegrated. Two nights ago they had disrupted the druids' ritual and achieved one confirmed kill and a second probable, but it had cost them. Estios, Chatterjee, and O'Connor were still missing. Dodger was fretting and had abandoned his affectation of ornate speech. He had to be pulled away from his cyberdeck to eat, and he barely stuffed down food before jacking back in. Hart maintained that the raid on the warehouse had effectively scuttled the Circle's scheme. She insisted that there was no need to do anything else, and that it was too dangerous anyway, as the disappearance of Estios's crew showed. She refused to do any legwork or magical searches. If their sack time hadn't been full of heated apologies, Sam would have thought she had finally gotten bored with him and was anxious for a more attractive partner. Only Willie seemed to be staying on track. Her payments had vanished along with Estios, but she was still the job and sending second-rate drones anywhere she thought she might pick up a lead.
The night's arguments had wearied Sam more than the long days without enough sleep. Dawn was beginning to lighten the sky from black to indigo. He rubbed at his eyes and felt their puffiness. Almost a new day and they hadn't heard anything yet. Maybe Hart was right.
"There it is," Willie announced.
Sam's stomach flopped.
"Hey, Hart," Willie called from her seat by the rigger board. "I thought you said that with the wendigo dead the Circle was out of business. Morning screamsheet's got a Bone Boy kill. One victim. Just like we never bothered them."
"Must be a copycat," Hart said sourly.
"Sweet dream, elf, but no joy. It's them, or I'm an unjacked ferrophobe. Wendigo or not, they're still on course."
"We can't let this go on," Sam said.
"What are we supposed to do about it?" Hart asked. "They know about us now. Willie can't get a drone near enough to follow even the acolytes. Dodger's off chasing who knows what. Without surprise, we won't be able to crack their security. If we try to catch them in the act again, they'll be waiting. Even if we still had Estios and his bunch, we'd only get ourselves wasted."
"We've got to do something. We can hire muscle."
"With what? We don't have the resources. Even if we had muscle, what about their magic? Those druids are pulling down some powerful mana."
"We'll get the resources," Sam insisted. "We'll find a way to cancel their magic."
"How?"
"That's a question I've got to ask too, Twist," Willie said. "I'm not gonna quit on you, but you gotta know that we ain't gonna get much help on the street. Burnside's been spreading the word that anybody who works with us, crosses him."
"He's just one cop."
"Maybe he's just one cop, but he's got a lot of hooks in the shadow world. Most runners still got to live in this plex with that one cop.''
Sam hung his head and massaged the back of his neck. After a few moments he let his hand drop. "Then we'll do it ourselves. Dodger can slice loose some of the druids' own money. With enough nuyen we can refit your drones, Willie. Cog's a good connection; he can get us combat drones."