"No wild blues have ever been encountered floating randomly through the tunnels. As far as anyone knows, it takes a human to pull blue ghost light." He took a swallow of the tea and lowered the mug. "Someone like me, for instance."
"That monster vortex was rezzed up by a person? A hunter?"
"Yes."
"You're sure of that?"
"Trust me." He picked up a fork and started in on the eggs with enthusiasm. "I'm sure."
She grappled briefly with that. "But we didn't see anyone else down there. Hunters, even strong ones, can't summon ghosts from any great distance. Besides, large, human-generated ghosts disintegrate very quickly once the hunter stops feeding it psi power through amber. Dissonance energy is inherently unstable."
"Some hunters can make ghosts hang around for quite a while, even after the hunter himself has left the scene."
"Oh, sure, small, simple ghosts, maybe, like the ones that you attach to your license plate to protect your car. But that's not what we're talking about here. That blue firestorm wasn't some uncomplicated little UDEM. It was very complex."
"How do you think I do that trick with the ghosts and the license plates?"
She shrugged. "I just assumed you could do it because you're a very strong para-rez. It's not that unusual. My dad and my brothers can pull off the same stunt."
"No hunter, not even a strong one, can make any kind of ghost stick unless he has a chunk of amber to anchor it."
She frowned. "So how do you attach one to your license plate?"
He smiled slightly. "I'll let you in on an old hunter secret. You install a chunk of amber behind the plate or under the fender of the vehicle. Once that's in place, any hunter who is strong enough can get a ghost to stick for a while."
She groaned. "To think that all these years I let my brothers convince me they were super macho para-rezzes because they could make dumb little ghosts stick to things like license plates or the canopy of my bed."
He paused, the fork halfway to his mouth. "They attached ghosts to your bed?"
"It only happened once. One night when I was nine I woke up and found a little UDEM hovering over my bed. Scared the you-know-what out of me. I was afraid to move. But I screamed bloody murder. Mom and Dad came running in, and Dad zapped the ghost."
"What about your brothers?"
She grinned. "Dad took all three of them down into the catacombs the next morning. When Logan, Matt, and Sam returned, they looked as if they'd all seen real ghosts. I got deeply sincere apologies from each of them. Suffice it to say I didn't wake up to any more ghosts." She returned to the counter and poured herself a mug of tea. "Let's get back to that blue vortex. How did the hunter who summoned it make it stick in the corridor? I didn't see any amber around it."
"You're forgetting the amber-rez directional locator in the dash of Bertha's sled."
"Oh, right."
"I'm betting the hunter knew the frequency. That's probably how he was able to chase her through the catacombs."
She sat down across from him and wrapped both hands around her mug. "He found the sled, but he didn't find Bertha."
"Probably didn't have the frequency of her personal amber."
"Thank goodness. She must have realized at some point that he was tracking her using the sled's amber. She abandoned the sled and managed to hide in a chamber until he was gone."
"I think so, yes."
"But if that's the case, how did she get the ghost-burn?"
"Maybe she waited until the hunter left and then tried to retrieve the sled. Blues are more volatile than greens. All she had to do was get a little too close to that vortex, and she would have been singed."
"After she got zapped she maintained consciousness long enough to crawl into the nearest chamber, and then she passed out."
"That's my take on it, yeah." Cooper munched some toast.
Elly exhaled deeply. "It fits with your theory that she stumbled into a drug-making operation."
"That's sure how it looks to me."
She leaned back in the chair and stretched her legs out under the table. "One thing I don't get here. Why have the Guilds been so anxious to keep the blues a secret all these years?"
He chased the last of the eggs around the plate with a piece of toast. "Two reasons. First, unlike greens, blues can be manipulated with far more precision and speed. Even a small one can be used to kill."
"They can be turned into weapons more easily than greens?"
"Not only that, a hunter who knows what he's doing can convert a blue vortex into a sort of psi-seeking missile that will home in on a specific piece of tuned amber."
"In other words, it combines the elements of a weapon with those of an amber-rez directional locator or a compass?"
He nodded. "You have to know the frequency of the target amber, but if you've got that-" He let the sentence end, unfinished.
"And last night, the amber in Bertha's sled was the target?"
"Looks like it."
She shuddered. "Okay, I can see where that information would make the general population a bit more nervous about hunters."
He drank some more tea and lowered the mug. "The good news is that blue energy is only effective underground in the catacombs. You can create some splashy fireworks with it aboveground if you're very strong and if you know what you're doing, but there's not enough of it up here to manipulate into a vortex, which is what's needed to turn it into a weapon."
"What's the other reason the Guilds have tried to keep blues hushed up?"
"Does the name Donovan Cork resonate?"
"The serial killer?" Startled, she set her mug down hard on the table. "The guy who used to lure women down into the catacombs and murder them? He could rez blues?"
"Yes. That's how he killed his victims. Death by blue looks a lot like a heart attack."
She frowned. "He murdered a number of prostitutes before they finally found his body in the tunnels. No one could figure out exactly how he had killed the women. They assumed it was some sort of fast-acting poison. As I recall, the authorities concluded that Cork, himself, had taken the poison when he feared that he was about to be arrested."
Cooper watched her over the rim of the mug. "How about Stewart Picton? Ever heard of him?"
"Well, of course. He's in all the history books. Forty years ago he set out to blackmail several members of the Federation Council. If they didn't pay off, he murdered them and their spouses. He was finally stopped but not before he had killed at least four people."
"J. Herbert Harris?"
"Another serial killer," she said. "Very famous case a couple of years ago. There were several best-selling true crime books written about him." She paused, frowning. "They found his body in the tunnels, too."
"There have been others over the years."
"Are you telling me that they were all hunters who could rez blue ghost energy?"
"Yes. Fortunately, most blue freaks are identified as problems early on and removed before they become notorious."
A small chill slipped down her spine. "Blue freaks? Is that what they're called?"
His mouth tightened at the corners. "Yes."
"So who removes these guy's when they become problems?" she asked carefully.
"You know the old saying about how the Guild polices itself?"
She made a face. "Everyone knows that. Frankly, most people assume that's the Guild's way of avoiding having to deal with local law enforcement."
"The Guilds don't mind letting local cops take care of the run-of-the-mill criminals in the ranks. For the most part it's good for the image. Says we don't consider ourselves above the law."
"Not everyone believes that, but never mind. Go on."
"Image issues aside, the cops don't have the resources to track down and neutralize a rogue hunter who can pull blue ghost energy," Cooper said. "Even if they could track one through the tunnels, which is where guys like that tend to retreat if they're in danger of getting caught, they wouldn't have the firepower to bring him down. You know how it is down in the catacombs. Like most other high-tech devices, guns don't work well there."