“Who the hell is this Lowenthal, Hal? When you said that the order to copy him in came from upstairs I assumed that he came from upstairs too, but he says he didn’t. Who’s he really working for?” Hal shrugged. “Pick your cliche,” he said. “The Secret Masters. The Hardinist Cabal. The Nine Unknown. The Ice-Age Elite. The Knights of the Round Table. The Gods of Olympus. The Heirs Apparent. The Inner Circle. The Dominant Shareholders.” “The MegaMall?” Charlotte completed the sequence incredulously. “Why would the MegaMall be interested in this? King’s murder can’t possibly have any macro-economic implications.” “Everything has macroeconomic implications,” Hal informed her, although—as his recitation of the list of names by which the world’s economic elite were mockingly known suggested—he didn’t seem to be entirely serious. “This is a very sensitive time, world-supply-and-demand-wise. We’re on the hot upslope of the economic cycle, and the Dominant Shareholders have taken what must seem even to them to be a brave decision in pandering to the prophets of Decivilization.

Clearing out the old cities and changing the lifestyle of the race will certainly generate a lot of lovely economic activity, but the Shareholders must be a little nervous about the possibility that it might all boil over. They don’t want anything to get out of hand, and the assassination of a man like King—the publicly acknowledged spearhead of the demolition of New York—might be a symptom of something ugly.” “Are you saying that King was part of the Inner Circle?” Charlotte asked incredulously.

“No. But he was a committed servant—close enough to make the real Shareholders think that it might be worthwhile to track my investigation move for move.

Lowenthal’s just learning the ropes, though. For him, this is schoolwork. Be nice to him—one day, he’ll probably be up there on Olympus with the rest of the Heirs Apparent, jockeying for a good seat at the Round Table, at the right hand of the Once and Future Managing Director.” Hal was still taking the trouble to sound nonserious, but Charlotte wondered whether he was only doing it to conceal the true seriousness of what he was saying.

“You really think Lowenthal’s going to be a big wheel in the MegaMall one day?” she said, uncertain as to whether it was the sort of question that should even be asked, if it might receive an affirmative answer.

“Him or someone very like him,” Hal replied. “Once members of the New Human Race get their bums on the boardroom seats, they’re likely to be there forever and a day—unless, of course, Zaman transformations turn out to be a storm in a teacup, just like PicoCon’s much-vaunted nanotech escalator. The prophets of Decivilization know that, of course, and they probably understand well enough why the MegaMall is letting them play their games with real cities. If they were to decide not to be content with their concessionary inch, and set out to claim a mile… well, some might say that it’s a short enough step from being a hard-line Decivilizer to becoming an Eliminator.” “Oh,” said Charlotte, recognizing that this line of thought might be the basis of a much more intriguing hypothesis as to the why of Gabriel King’s murder than her supposition that Oscar Wilde was an insane criminal genius. After a pause she said: “Have you got the DNA analyses from King’s apartment yet?” “Twenty minutes,” Hal told her. “Maybe thirty. Better wheel Wilde in anyway, though. My silvers have turned up some other stuff he might be interested to look at—and it really isn’t a good idea to appear to be shutting Lowenthal out.” “Wilde wants to go to San Francisco on the midnight maglev,” Charlotte reported mechanically. “Lowenthal wants to go with him. So do I.” “I know,” said Hal in the infuriating manner he always reserved for her best revelations. “Wilde’s got every right to do so, of course, provided that he gives the gentemplate of the killer plant his full and immediate attention once Regina’s finished the analysis. What difference does it make? If he has done something wrong, we can find him easily enough, whether he’s in San Francisco or on the moon. You don’t have to go with him.” “Suppose he were the murderer and went on to murder someone else?” Charlotte asked desperately.

“He’ll be under close surveillance whether you’re with him or not—but if you want to go, you can. I don’t need you here. If Lowenthal chooses to go with you instead of sticking with me, it’s his choice.” Charlotte had no difficulty at all in deducing that Hal would far rather Lowenthal went with her, especially if she led him off on a wild-goose chase for which she had taken sole responsibility. The simple fact was, however, that Hal didn’t need her here. Modern police work involved packs of assiduous silver surfers checking objective data, carefully attempting to sort the relevant from the irrelevant, and the real information from misinformation and disinformation.

Talking to people, even on the phone, was a “real-time activity,” generally considered by most seasoned policemen to be a terrible imposition and a woefully uneconomic use of precious hours—and if she remained here, talking to people on the phone was exactly what she would be doing.

“I’ll go with Wilde,” she said. “It’s okay—I’ll take the blame if it turns out to be a stupid move. I’ll just have to hope that Lowenthal will one day find it in his heart to forgive me.” Hal smiled, and his eyes expressed wry gratitude-but what he said aloud, for the sake of listening ears, was: “If you think it’s necessary.” Charlotte collected Oscar Wilde and Michael Lowenthal from her office and brought them into Hal’s workplace. The space was overcrowded with screens and comcons, and there were trails of printout hanging down like creepers from every shelf and desktop—Hal had an absurdly anachronistic and altogether unreasonable fondness for paper—but there were enough workstations for both of them to sit down in reasonable comfort.

“Oscar Wilde, Michael Lowenthal—Hal Watson,” she said with awkward formality.

Hal got up to shake hands with both of them, but he took Lowenthal’s hand first.

He met the Natural’s eyes with an expression of pure professional concern and muttered something about always being appreciative of extra professional help.

Charlotte observed that he was careful to put that particular mask away before greeting Wilde.

“Charlotte tells me that your unique insight into the motives and methods of the man behind Rappaccini Inc. might be of considerable help in the investigation, Dr. Wilde,” said Hal, implying by his indifferent tone that he shared his assistant’s skepticism regarding Wilde’s usefulness as an amateur detective.

“Call me Oscar,” said Wilde smoothly. “I certainly hope so. There are, I think, times when instant recognition and artistic sensitivity might facilitate more rapid deduction than the most powerful analytical engines. I’m a naive invader in your territory, of course—and I confess, as I contemplate this awesome battery of electronic weaponry, that I feel like one of those mortals of old who fell asleep on a burial mound and woke to find himself in the gloomy land of the fairy folk—but I really do feel that I can help you. I have some time in hand before the midnight maglev leaves, if there’s anything you’d like to tell me by way of background.” “As I say, I’m always grateful for any help I can get,” said Hal, still feigning casual indifference. “You’re welcome to listen in while I fill Mr. Lowenthal in on some relevant details, provided that he has no objection.” “None,” said Lowenthal. “I agree that Dr. Wilde’s special insights might be valuable. I’m keen to hear what he thinks.” Charlotte was glad, but not surprised, to observe that her colleague seemed equally unimpressed by Oscar Wilde’s recently renewed handsomeness and Michael Lowenthal’s authentically youthful beauty. Hal, whose machine-assisted perceptions ground up all the richness and complexity of the social world into mere atoms of data, had not the same idea of beauty as common men. In a Webwalker’s eyes, the cataract of encoded data which poured through his screens and VE hoods was the only reality. Hal never thought of himself as a man watching a shadow play; he found his aesthetic delights in patterns woven out of information or enigmas smoothed into comprehension, not in the hard and soft sculptures of stone and flesh.