robert Charrette - Arthur 02 - A King Beneath the Mountain (15 page)

Soon he would walk among men in the robes of power. King he had been, king he would be again. King, and more. How much more depended only upon his will—and had it not sustained him through the long sleep? He would be much more than a mere king!

The flow of images and sounds stopped. Why? His sight dimmed, returning him to the dark, ordinary world inside the computer's helmet. He tore it from his head to find Nakaguchi leaning over him.

"You stopped it," he accused the Asian.

"Your vital signs were beginning to fluctuate, Venerated One. The doctors thought it best to abort the session. We can begin again once you have had a chance to rest and regain a little strength."

"Yes, strength. I am hungry."

"I will have some food prepared for you."

"Another."

Nakaguchi nodded in understanding and departed. The fare that the Asian eventually provided was poor, another pitiful castoff, but the rush of strength invigorated Quetzal. He was ready to learn more, but Nakaguchi and the doctors said that tomorrow would be better.

He let them go without complaint, but he did not abandon his desire. Who were they to dictate when he should follow his will?

"Joel Lee, show me how to access—that is the right word?—whatever information I desire."

The slave demonstrated how to control the machines. Quetzal discovered that his control of the machine was partial, but it was enough for now. He gained access to the historical files for Mitsutomo's involvement in the mysteries. As he drank in what the machines laid before him, he began to formulate his strategy.

He would place himself at the heart of this Charybdis Project, Hiroto Mitsutomo's program to study magic. His skills and knowledge would make him invaluable, indispensable, until he controlled Charybdis. From there, it would be but a small step to controlling Mitsutomo.

There was one section of his e-mail that Charley Gordon always saved for last: the anonymous transmitters. As usual, most of them were junk. One wasn't.

>>21.10.09 * 15.01.58.22
* xxxxx.xxx

log #1009.121

TO: GordonC@NECPOLNET*0004.03.874334

FROM:

RE: Modus 112.

MESSAGE: Entry. Jane Doe 12 * 45.23 * 211008.4.

The "Modus" notation told him that the message wasn't exactly anonymous. This message was from a network contact who had adopted Charley. Whoever the guy was, he had a good sense of what was and what wasn't weird—in other words, what was business for the Special Investigations Unit. Twice already this year he'd supplied Charley with data that had helped Charley close an investigation that had been going nowhere. The guy was a regular console detective. Sure he made a lot of intuitive leaps, but more often than not they paid off once Charley had done the legwork to tie the pieces together.

Every communique from him was transmitted anonymously, lacking even the usual hacker handle. The guy dropped his messages into Charley's box and picked up any replies from random cyberspace locations, each week posting his new "address" to Charley. That kind of sourcing had made Charley suspicious at first. The guy was a regular ghost in the machine. Because he was a friendly ghost, Charley had dubbed him "Caspar," a combination of spook and wise man.

Caspar was a reticent fellow, apparently satisfied by his good deeds; he'd refused to step forward for the reward he'd earned for providing data in the Billingsford case. In fact, Caspar had demanded that his participation be kept quiet, under threat of deserting Charley. Charley had gone along. Good contacts were priceless, even when they were cyber-cowboys; a smart cop kept his good contacts happy. And Caspar was a good contact.

The "112" was Caspar's case number; Caspar had assigned modus numbers to each collection of data he thought was related. Offhand, Charley couldn't remember what 112 was about, so he called it up.

Dead streeters.

Not an unusual piece of business for Charley, but not necessarily business for the Special Investigations. Looking at the official case file tags for all the previous entries, Charley saw that only one had been referred to SIU, and that one wasn't on his caseload.

Right.

What was Caspar seeing here?

Dutifully he logged in the new stiff and set up a data transfer from the morgue records. He read them as they dumped to his file. No witnesses. No suspicious circumstances. Routine autopsy scan listed myocardial infarction as cause of death, heart attack; not unusual with an age of sixty, approximate. Routine genetic typing in progress, to be matched with missing persons. On the whole, nothing to warrant SIU attention.

Even Caspar chased a few wild hares.

Streeters were found dead all the time, and the taxpayers of the New England Cooperative didn't like seeing their money squandered on justice for nonproductives and unregistereds. His console started buzzing, reminding him that there was plenty for him to do which
would
be satisfactory to those fine upstanding citizens who paid his salary. He closed the file and answered the call. It was the manager of the Norwood Hilton, reporting another incident of poltergeist damage.

Jerry Constantine liked debunking. Too bad it was only his hobby and not his job. There was nothing quite like the thrill of showing up a charlatan for what he was. It gave Jerry a real sense of victory, a sense that he had done something that the world needed. There were too many nut cases peddling their nonsense and booga-booga foolishness to too many gullible people. Tonight he was sure he had a live one.

The carnival's advertising didn't use any pictures of "The Wild and Wonderful Fairy Goblin." Of course. That was a normal teaser. Gotta pay to see it. Gotta pay, gotta pay. Of course, you gotta pay; money was all that was behind these scams. Jerry insisted the admission booth take his card; he wanted a record that money had been taken for this fakery.

Jules from the office had been out here last night and had seen the fairy goblin. Jules had done nothing but rave about how strange it was all day. Everybody listened to Jules. All the talk had just made Jerry mad. Jules was supposed to be bright. Hadn't he just gotten the promotion Jerry had been promised? God, that Jules was an idiot! Busting this scam would have been fun all by itself, but being able to show everyone at the office just how stupid Jules was would make it even sweeter.

"All right, folks. The doors are about to open," the barker said.

Jerry was ready!

"Stay quiet, folks, and please don't tap on the glass," the barker's assistant said as the line filed past her. "Please keep moving. Lots of people want to see the wonder of the fairy goblin."

/ wonder how many people will want to see it after I'm through.
But Jerry didn't say that aloud. He'd have plenty to say in a bit though;
after
he'd seen the fairy goblin.

The passageway was dark and filled with music—some crystal-loving, cosmic shit—all carefully calculated to add to the mystery. A recorded voice was dumping bilge about the supposed lifestyle of the fairy goblin and how difficult it had been for the carnival to obtain and how selfless they were being in offering the public a chance to view the wonder. Jerry wanted to barf.

This scam used the one-way window shtick. The rubes were supposed to be hidden from the strange wonder, watching it while it couldn't see them. A little added voyeuristic tit-illation. Good for business. Jerry had seen it before.

Jerry was a little taken aback when he reached the window. He had been expecting a dwarf or a kid in a heavy makeup job, but the fairy goblin wasn't that. It was too lean; even a starving kid wouldn't be so skinny. And the proportions were a bit off for a human. The damned thing was naked, not that it mattered much—it was pretty hairy down there—but that would make the scam harder to play in the Bible Belt. Did they have a different version for more straitlaced rubes?

The carnival scammers had taken an unusual tack with their fairy goblin. He had to concede that it was clever not making it look like a post-Froudite keebler. Having it not be what people expected gave them an edge; maybe it was a little less commercial, but it caught the debunker off guard. Good move, but not good enough to stop Jerry. He gave the fairy goblin a good look over. He didn't care about disgruntled rubes pushing past him and complaining about him hogging the tiny window.

The fairy goblin was about the size of a twelve-year-old boy, but far leaner and more muscular. No, cute wasn't their goal in this exhibit. Again he silently congratulated the planners of this fraud on their cleverness.

The fairy goblin had a gaunt, narrow face, that Jerry found oddly attractive despite the slightly jutting jawline. The big, dark, slanting eyes and the long, pointed ears gave it a lupine look. It looked very real, very alive.

He was having a hard time figuring out how they'd done it, until he recognized that the window was the answer. It wasn't a window at all. It had to be a holoprojection screen. He was impressed again. The guy who programmed the holovid was good, real good. The texture mapping and the interplay of lighting was superb, with a subtlety Jerry had never seen before.

"Keep moving, folks." The attendant had come and singled Jerry out; he'd outstayed his admission fee. "Lots of folks want to see the wonderful fairy goblin."

Jerry nodded and moved on. He wanted to see the wonderful fairy goblin all right. He wanted to see the real thing. He hadn't been able to spot any projector lenses; so they had to

be working it from the other side of the wall. That meant getting backstage.

Once out of the tunnel, he left the line of rubes and their dim-minded babbling about the amazing fairy goblin. No one sa
w
him slip through the door into the back. Maybe the scam-mers weren't so clever; they'd left the door unlocked and they didn't have anybody watching the place. Good luck for Jerry.

It didn't take him long to find the projection booth. It was big, big enough to actually be the fairy goblin's living quarters that he'd seen through the window. Did the size have something to do with the success of the tech that they were using? They were trusting a magnetic-key lock to hold their secrets. Clearly they hadn't counted on Jerry. He dug his unscrambler from his pocket and slipped the contact card into the slot. It didn't take him long to spoof the lock. The bolt clicked open, offering him access to the scammers' secret.

He opened the door and his smile melted from his face. There were no lenses, no projectors, no computers. Just the lairy goblin, looking at him with its deep, dark, hungry eyes.

Grinning at him, it showed its pointed teeth.

CHAPTER

7

Resigning from the Department wasn't as simple as walking out, Spae discovered. She should have guessed that her display of pique—let alone her improved magical ability— would have repercussions. She shouldn't have done it; she knew better, but her temper had gotten the better of her, and now she had to live with the consequences.

She'd been barred from access to the underground facilities, including her workshop. That was criminal; almost everything in that lab was her personal property. When she'd logged a demand that her property be returned, the synth secretary who'd responded had said that there were a few forms. So far they'd transmitted thirty different forms for her to fill out. The forms were now "in process," which she knew from past experience was bureaucratese for lost. Fortunately she'd brought some of her most important items home from the workshop the night before for a private ritual. She suspected she'd never see the rest of her equipment and books unless she reentered the fold.

Which she was not about to do.

She'd had enough of those pompous asses, and she knew they were not fond of her. Still, they weren't about to let her go. She'd learned that when she'd tried to arrange transportation out of Chardonneville. Every airline she'd tried rejected lu-r requests for tickets on international flights, citing an invalid passport. They all offered to process a passport application and append her ticket purchase, of course. She hadn't bothered. What good would it do to file a new one? The Department would get it canceled as soon as it was issued—if it was even issued at all.

When she'd set her sights on a less-distant escape she'd found they had anticipated her. By what couldn't have been coincidence, the cross-country buses had changed their schedule the day of her resignation and no longer stopped at Chardonneville. There were no rental car offices in the tiny village, and she was not yet ready to stoop to auto theft. She had been furious. Once she had calmed down enough to think, she had actually considered walking out of the village. When she calmed down further, she realized that such a method wouldn't be practical either—or any method for that matter— if they wanted her to stay as badly as it appeared, she would only force them to get physical, and she doubted she'd win that sort of confrontation.

At least they weren't being total barbarians. She was still able to move freely around the village, and so far her cottage remained inviolate. At least as far as she could tell. The electronic systems continued to say that no one had entered, but those systems had been installed by the Department and were suspect. Her wards agreed, but even with her increased understanding of magic, she wasn't sure that they were completely reliable.