through the archway, Dodger was back in his chair and Teresa was sitting demurely on the desk.
'The keyboard was quiet, so I came to see what progress you had achieved. You have information?' Chatterjee asked.
The frustration of the flesh was bad enough. Dodger didn't need to be reminded of how little he had achieved in the Matrix as well. 'Nothing new.' 'Estios will not be pleased.' 'Tough,' Dodger snapped. 'That slick is never pleased unless he's got his butt…'
'Dodger!' Teresa's voice was suitably chastising, but Dodger caught a hint of her quirky smile.
So, the lady has not been totally wooed by the party line.
Chatterjee remained unperturbed. 'Your personal evaluation of any member of the team is irrelevant. However, your lack of results is pertinent and distressing. It limits our course of action too much. I had been informed that you were a decker of exceptional competence.'
' 'Tis a fact. For the moment, however, 'tis also a fact that there is no joy in the Matrix.' 'You have exhausted all avenues?' 'All? A decker of my 'exceptional competence'? Hardly. 'Tis true that I have run all of our current leads to ground. Beyond confirming that the younger Neville is dead, we are no nearer to them than we were on the Solstice.'
'Without their full circle, they are weak,' Teresa said.
'Yet not weak enough,' Chatterjee said. 'The optimal result would be their complete dissolution, but reduction beyond the ring of three should be sufficient for present purposes.'
'One cannot 'reduce' the unknown effectively. We are no closer to naming all of the Circle than we were three weeks ago. And without knowing all of their identities, we dare not move against those we have identified.'
'Precisely,' Chatterjee agreed. 'You must intensify your endeavors.'
Dodger folded his arms and stared at the ceiling.
'Let Estios intensify his.'
'He already has,' Chatterjee said. . He would have. Always going one up. Fragging slick. 'Then when he returns with usable data, I shall use it.'
Chatterjee frowned. 'Time passes.'
'What matters time to an elf?'
'Flippancy is inappropriate. Estios prepares for action and we must all be ready to move if the arcane reconnaissance results in useful data. Even if the shaman learns something of worth, it will be unlikely to have much pertinence with regard to your Matrix efforts. I suggest that you immediately pursue whatever avenues remain open.'
'Verily? Then I suggest that you…'
'Dodger,' Teresa warned.
Dodger sighed. Baiting Chatterjee wasn't worth upsetting Teresa. 'Perchance I shall try a blind shunt; some of the data we do have should serve as hooks.'
'Explain,' Chatterjee ordered.
So ho, Squire Chatterjee. Must you now acknowledge that the Dodger may indeed be of exceptional competence? 'A blind shunt utilizes a sophisticated series of mask and camouflage programs that render transparent a decker's presence in the Matrix. Unfortunately, the technique leaves the decker vulnerable as well, but what isn't seen by intrusion countermeasures is not attacked by such defenses. While cloaked, the decker waits; for to take active measures is to destroy the illusion of transparency. The hooks are data bits to which the decker attaches his invisible persona, waiting for the data to move. The assumption is that the hook will be taken legitimately into a place where the decker cannot gain entry through conventional hacking. The procedure takes time, but I don't see anything else to do. Mayhap we shall be lucky.'
Teresa reached out and laid her hand on Dodger's arm. He could feel the electricity through his leathers. She didn't seem to care that Chatterjee was watching. 'Dodger,' she said. 'Don't do that. It's too dangerous. A blind shunt could drag you into heavy ice.' 'Fear not, fair maid. The Dodger has not yet met the ice that can trap him.'
He was lying, of course. He had been trapped by icea151once and only once. It was an experience that haunted his nightmares. But he didn't need to fear a repeat of that experience. The artificial intelligencea151 if that's what it really wasa151that controlled the deadly ice lived locked away in the Renraku Matrix, and he was never going to enter that terrible black pyramid again. No matter how slick these druids were, their deckers couldn't be playing in the same league as the megacorp that controlled most of the world's public data structures. He would be safe from anything he would encounter.
Teresa's eyes bored into his, her expression flickering with an emotion he couldn't read. Her hand left his arm as she stood. Had she read the lie? 'Yet,' she said softly. Dodger was sure she hadn't intended him to hear.
The man entering the room was not a man at all. He went by the name Hanson, and looked like a man to the unaided eye, but Andrew Glover knew better. Glover had assensed Hanson when he had first shown up bearing Hyde-White's letter of introduction, and Glover's exercise of his mage sight had shown him that Hanson was not human. What Hanson was remained an open question; Glover had never before seen such an aura or astral image. There were no astral image files, no aura records to consult that would reveal what kind of metahuman Hanson was.
The fat, old man could not have failed to penetrate the illusions cloaking the metahuman from the ordinary eye. So why was he recommending a nonhuman like Hanson?
Hyde-White had sworn the same oaths as the rest of the Circle, dedicating himself to restoring the rightful monarch and purifying the land. Such purification applied not just to the pollution but to the corrupting influence of metahuman genes as well. Glover's ancestors had fought to preserve British purity against the influx of the less advanced races. Their struggle seemed petty compared to the battle he fought against the scourge of mutated humanity that threatened to overwhelm even the debased blood of the lower classes.
Metahumans were little better than beasts, and Hanson, with the bestial aspect he presented astrally, was clearly one of the worst kind.
Hyde-White was devious, but he was also a practical man. Like all well-brought-up men of his class, he understood the nature of the underclasses. Just as Glover himself did. Which was, of course, the answer. Hanson would only be a tool, a resource to be used up and disposed of when he was no longer useful, That made sense. It was only an unpleasant necessity that required Glover to deal with Hanson personally.
Hanson seemed unaware of Glover's distaste for him. Or, if he was aware, he was indifferent. Either way suited Glover. Hanson's repugnant presence was a temporary annoyance, one more burden to bear in the furtherance of the cause.
'They are ready,' Hanson said,
'Then we should not delay.' Glover swept past Hanson and entered the room. In its center five people lay bound. They were dregs chosen from the flotsam of the metroplex, three of them orks. They were a far cry from the pure bloodlines of the sacrifices in Neville's ritual. Glover personally found such submen repugnant. There would be no room for them in his resurrected Britain. The mongrel half-breed foreigners who made up the rest of the sacrifice were little better, but what they were was unimportant. It was what they represented that mattered. Power.
Such sacrificial offerings had given their energy to aid the Circle, restoring the power lost by the deaths of Young Neville and Fitzgilbert. Even without the full nine, Glover could feel that their ritual workings were stronger, and Hyde-White had suggested that they would grow stronger still. Each completion of the cycle would double their power. It was an added benefit that they could purge the land of such misfits while they gathered strength to restore it.
Too bad there were no elves among tonight's participants. Their legendary physical beauty belied their deceptive and corrupt natures. They had cost Britain dearly. When the restoration came, they would pay for the land they had stolen and for the souls they had corrupted, but first the Hidden Circle needed strength. He turned his mind to the matter at hand.
Glover shrugged back the shoulders of his topcoat, revealing the golden pectoral he wore in his office as archdruid. Hanson's solicitous hands removed the outer garment. Gordon straightened from where he had been bent over to talk to one of the orks, and took his place among the acolytes. Glover nodded to each of the druids present. Of their diminished circle, only Hyde-White and Neville were absent. Neville would attend the next ritual
