He prided himself on his foresight and tact. Not only was he fastidious in his eating habits but he also caused minimal upset by feeding only on bodies already slated for cremation. Their relatives would never be distressed by the discovery of missing body parts. Winston was nothing like those other ghouls, the wild ones who desecrated graves by tearing them open to feed on the buried dead, or the even more despicable ones who fed on the living. He could pass for normal-and not just because his dark skin hid the grayish tinge that infection with the Krieger strain of the HMHVV virus had produced, or because his expensive cologne masked the odor of rot that occasionally arose when he perspired. He was normal, unlike those hulking, misshapen metas who dared to call themselves men.

If he had died at the hands of a bounty hunter, the world would have known his secret. That fear was what had enabled Winston to fight his way back from beyond the brink of death that night when the doctors were forced-twice- to shock his heart back into beating again. He couldn't stand the thought of his colleagues and friends in Human Nation laughing at him behind his dead back. Only if he remained alive could he continue to suppress the news of what he really was.

There had been no identification on the gunman who'd shot Winston that night; the man's retinal scans came up SINless and dataless. All Winston knew about him was that he was human. For the past year Winston had been haunted by the question of his would-be assassin's identity and how he'd learned that Winston was a ghoul. And now it seemed that the bounty hunter had left behind information on his target-information that had fallen into Serpens in Machina's electronic lap.

That had to be how the blackmailer had learned Winston's secret. Perhaps Serpens in Machina also knew who the bounty hunter was-and who had revealed Winston's secret to him.

"What do you know about her?" Dark Father asked, deliberately obscuring the bounty hunter's gender.

The gargoyle grinned. "Ah. Nice try. About him, you mean. I know who tipped off the bounty hunter, for one thing. You were betrayed, Winston Griffith III, by someone you trust. But that information will cost you extra. For now, there is the initial payment of nine hundred thousand nuyen to be dealt with. That will guarantee my silence. Satisfying your curiosity will cost extra."

"It makes no sense to blackmail me," Dark Father repeated. "I already make extensive donations, not only to Informed Parenting but also to a number of other charitable organizations."

"Not to the ones on my list," the gargoyle hissed angrily. "I think it's an appropriate punishment for a candidate for the Human Nation executive council to be forced to donate to meta-rights organizations, don't you? And especially appropriate, considering your own metatype."

Dark Father met this outburst with anger. "You have no proof-"

"Yes, I do."

The gargoyle's eyes took on a satisfied gleam. Dark Father braced himself for the worst.

"Four years ago, I heard of a wiz little program developed in Tir Tairngire," the gargoyle said. "A biolink passkey that could distinguish the metatype of a decker by the distinctive pattern of his or her neural interface signals. The null-brainer who was posting the info claimed the program flagged elves as friendlies and suppressed black IC that would otherwise slag them.

"It was nonsense, of course. One neural signal is the same as any other, and the Tir sysops used IC that was just as harsh on any elven deckers who trespassed upon their data as it was on any other metatype. But the posting wasn't entirely off-slot. Mitsuhama Computer Technologies' Portland subsidiary had been working on some gray IC that would frag up the Reticular-Activation System override of an intruding decker's cyberdeck. After the IC hit, instead of merely suppressing the sensory signals from the decker's body, the RAS override would eliminate them altogether. At the same time, the IC rewrote the RAS programming that prevented the decker's meat bod from acting upon the neural signals that allow a decker to 'move' in the Matrix. Instead of remaining still, the decker's meat bod would thrash about as it responded to the commands the brain was giving it. The object was to induce the decker to suffer injuries by slamming into walls, falling down staircases, running out into traffic-"

"What has this to do with my… with me?" Dark Father asked.

The gargoyle grinned. "MCT Portland's project never did amount to anything. Too many glitches. But there was an interesting spin-off-although it never did prove to have any economic value. Because the program sampled the decker's RAS override signal, it could determine his height and weight. From these gross physical measurements, metatype could be established."

Dark Father listened quietly, fascinated despite himself. Ghouls stood about the same height as humans and massed the same number of kilos. The program that Serpens in Machina was talking about couldn't have…

It was as if the gargoyle read his mind.

"It's the claws that gave you away," he said.

"Claws!" Dark Father laughed out loud. "Ridiculous. If we were meeting in the flesh, you would notice that my nails are neatly trimmed."

"That may be true," the gargoyle said. "And I'm sure you have an excellent manicurist-one who keeps her mouth shut about the length and hardness of your nails. But you should have told that to whoever you hired to cook the ASIST interface on your deck. The RAS overdrive contains a sub-program, designed to prevent you from injuring yourself by balling your hand into a fist. And that application only makes sense if you have claws."

"That's hardly conclusive," Dark Father said. "For example, it could also be used by a dragon in human form."

"Perhaps," the gargoyle answered. Its tongue slithered in and out, wetting its lips. "But a dragon wouldn't be very acceptable to the Human Nation either, would it? They wouldn't accept a dragon as president of UCAS-what makes you think they'd accept one on their oh-so-pure executive council? They'd be even more horrified to find that they've got a ghoul in their midst."

"They wouldn't believe you if you told them."

"But I could sow the seeds of doubt. And then they'd start wondering why their fellow philanthropist had no body hair whatsoever-not even eyebrows or eyelashes. Depilation is hardly the fashion trend it once was, you know."

"There are a number of medical conditions that can cause-"

"Cause what?" the gargoyle snapped. "A craving to eat human flesh?"

In the real world, Dark Father's flesh-and-blood body shivered. This had already gone too far. He'd only let the meeting go on this long in order to find out how much the other decker knew. Too much, it seemed. Serpens in Machina had to be stopped. Once that was done, Dark Father could continue looking into the mystery of the sudden appearance of the bounty hunter on his own, just as he had been doing for the past twelve months.

"What gets me is how you can be so prejudiced against your own kind," the gargoyle continued. "The metas who come to the Informed Parenthood clinics are-"

"They're not my own kind," Dark Father answered angrily. "And I'm no racist. I'm helping them. You couldn't possibly know the horror of giving birth to a monstrous, misshapen child…" He winced, and bit back the rest of what he was going to say. He'd already given away too much.

"So that's it." The gargoyle's persona was emotion-responsive. The voice coming from the other decker's icon was hushed, thoughtful. The gargoyle's forehead was puckered into a concerned frown below its horn. "You see yourself as a monster. I'm truly sorry for you."

Dark Father's gut clenched. If there was one thing he hated, it was pity. He'd seen it in the eyes of the instructors at the secluded boarding school that he was sent to as a teen, after infection with the HMHVV virus had transformed him into a ghoul. He had heard it in the hushed tones of his personal physicians-had even felt it in the falsely affectionate embrace of his former wife after he told her his shameful secret. And now he saw it in the face of a complete stranger-one who wanted to ruin his only chance at acceptance by forcing him to donate to charities that were the antithesis of everything that Dark Father believed in. He couldn't stand the gargoyle's smirking sympathy a nanosecond longer…