“It appears to have happened, however,” Geraint pointed out.

Michael was already scrabbling through the printout. “Nothing here on the guy leaving the same icon anywhere else, and nothing on what he wants,” he complained.

“There is for Renraku,” Geraint observed. “He wants twenty billion.”

“Twenty billion?” Michael almost leapt from his chair. Then his voice became slightly manic and humorous. “Well, I mean, why not? Might as well ask for a fur coat for the missus and a bike for the kiddie while you’re at it.”

“If he can crash every Matrix system on the globe at the same instant, twenty billion is probably about the going rate,” Geraint said thoughtfully.

“He? Them must be a whole flock of them!” Michael said. “Working together, one at each system. There’s a whole gang of these people out there.”

“Now that is imposible,” Geraint replied. “Are there eight or so people in the whole world capable of doing this?”

“No,” Michael said, suddenly brought back to earth, “No, there cannot be eight megageniuses sprung from nowhere to conduct such an operation. But how one decker could do it…”

“Look at what you do with frames,” Geraint said.

Michael shook his head. “Couldn’t do this with a frame.”

“Couldn’t do this at all.” Geraint chuckled. “Let’s face it. Whoever did this could construct frames to act synchronously with his own handiwork.”

“How the hell am I ever going to find this guy? I had no idea. This isn’t anyone known in the community,” Michael lamented. “No way I can trace him.”

“Indeed,” Geraint said. “Well, old boy, looks like you’re just a has-been now. This guy could have you for breakfast.”

Michael bristled. “I’m not ready for a bath-chair yet,” he said slightly feebly.

“You couldn’t do this, though, could you?” Geraint said impishly, looking through some of the printout himself.

Maybe not.” Michael’s voice had a definite edge.

“What do you reckon Renraku would pay you if you found out who this was in time?”

“Well, considering that I’d be saving them twenty billion…”

Geraint laughed appreciatively. “I’d say it would certainly be enough to keep you in appalling luxury for the rest of your indulgent life, at a conservative estimate.”

“Yes, well…” Michael began in a suddenly perceptive tone of voice. “That’s all very well-but why are you so keen?”

“Why do people climb Everest?”

“Because they’re fragging idiots who ought to stay home and enjoy a comfortable existence instead!”

“No, laddie.” Geraint wagged an admonishing finger at him. “Because it’s there. This rather interests me, I must say. I need hardly point out that I’ve got a lot invested in various corporate interests around the world, and if this chap crashes everything on the planet, things could get a little ugly. And as it happens, I’ve grown rather fond of the creature comforts you so rightly appreciate yourself.

“One more glass and then I think we should get some sleep,” the nobleman suggested. “We’re going to have a lot of work to do tomorrow.” His attention was finally caught by the winking light on his telecom, and he poured himself a last glass of tawny port on the way to pick up the message.

“And Serrin will be with us by teatime, if we can manage to wake up by then,” Geraint said with a smile when he came back. “Dinner tomorrow will be even more interesting than I’d planned.”

4

“I’ve just realized that we only have nine days,” Michael said glumly. He sat looking out over the quiet London Street, absently noting the handful of overdressed and over-wealthy socialites and their attendant lackeys staggering down the sidewalk with bags filled with the fruits of overindulgent shopping expeditions. In his hands was a Copious listing of every documented decker with a Leonardo-fixation from the last twenty years. He’d decided that going back five might not be enough, but that hadn’t helped much. Scanning the names and data told him what he expected, they were mediocrities trying to puff up inadequate self-esteem by taking on the mantle of the genius, rather like suburban housewives convinced by some two-bit charlatan hypnotist and conman that they’d been Cleopatra or Catherine the Great in a previous life.

“Time to put a call through to Renraku Chiba, I think,” he sighed, parking himself in front of his Fairlight. Geraint was musing over some stock transactions coming through from Hong Kong, his first cigarette of a hungover day spiraling blue smoke into the air next to him.

“You really should give that up.” Michael waved an ostentatiously offended hand to dissipate the smoke. “You smoke far more than I do.”

“Yes, I know, but I’ve had gene therapy to boost the enzymes that degrade all the tar residues,” Geraint said cheerfully, “so it’s no big deal. You lose more brain cells from one bottle of wine than I will from a year of these. Planning to stop drinking, were you?”

“The way I feel this afternoon, it had crossed my mind, yes actually,” Michael grumbled. “I’d forgotten how much you drink.”

“Ha! Had to twist your arm, did I?” Geraint retorted snappily. “You drink the best part of a thousand quid’s worth of superb port and then whine about it. Have you no gratitude, sir?”

Michael laughed, poured another cup of coffee and made the link. Within five minutes he was preparing to jack in to examine the image that had been downloaded to him.

“I’m not sure I want that traced here-” Geraint began before Michael’s frown stopped him in his tracks.

“This has been rerouted through just about everywhere on the planet, and no way can it be traced. Come on. lay off that stuff; you know how I operate. Renraku sent it to a holding bureau in Florence anyway, I’ve just acquired it from there. Now, let’s have a look around this thing in full 3D. Want to come along for the ride?”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Geraint said, reaching out to plug into the hitcher jack.

The image inside the Fairlight’s datastore was still haunting, despite the verdict of history and science. Shroudman stood upright, the image appearing to rotate as they shifted their viewpoint, the enigmatic woman’s head and face making the icon more eerie than ever.

“There’s a join down the middle,” Geraint observed. “Sort of. The original image was a couple of inches taller at the back than at the front. The haziness must be down to that, it’s generally thought that the front and back were created from different torsos,” Michael informed him. “The head-there’s something different. There’s a different degree of precision about it, the image is clearer and sharper. Well, anyway, that’s our one clue. Let’s let the systems get on with image analysis and the frames with their archival research. Hey, we have an incoming flight to meet, don’t we?”

“I’ll see to that,” Geraint said. “I’ve already made arrangements with the caterers for dinner. They won’t be here for an hour or so. I thought I could leave you to this while I go and pick them up.”

“What’s Serrin doing these days?” Serrin Shamander had been a rootless wanderer the whole time Michael had known him, and to have settled quietly on the inhospitable, stormy west coast of Scotland with a young Azanian wife didn’t fit Michael’s image of the man, but Geraint had known him for far longer.

“Not a lot,” Geraint said. “Resting, mostly. He’s rather quiet and we don’t really see much of each other, to tell you the truth.”

There was a diffidence in Geraint’s voice that told Michael he wasn’t hearing the whole story. There was apparently some distance some barrier, between the Welshman and the American mage.

“So he just holed up in your castle for the winter. Nice place to be.”

“It’s hardly a castle,” Geraint protested. “Just a fortified manorial house, It’s very quiet and, as I say, they seem to like being alone.”