“And your idea is to get hold of that information and use it against Levistus and the Council.”
“I am not aware of the exact contents of Levistus’s files,” Morden said. “But they are extensive. I imagine they will more than satisfy your needs.”
“I can see a problem here,” I said. “Levistus is going to have the tightest security on those files that he possibly can. He’ll either have them in some data focus that’s locked to his magical signature, or just keep them all in his head. He’s a mind mage; he can probably memorise them all without breaking a sweat.”
“Indeed,” Morden said. “But I am not suggesting you go after Levistus’s private vaults. I am suggesting you go to the source. The synthetic intelligence itself.”
“How do you know there’s anything there?” I asked. “Levistus could just take out anything he needs on a weekly basis and delete the rest.”
“He could,” Morden agreed. “And that would be the logical approach were he entirely focused on security. However, without existing data to cross-reference, it becomes harder to separate useful signals from noise. I suspect in the early days Levistus might have been willing to make such a sacrifice, but he has been operating this system for a very long time, more than long enough to become complacent. By the time I chanced upon his secret, he was, in my judgement, no longer spending enough personal time and attention on administering the synthetic intelligence for such an approach to be a realistic possibility. I believe that he has allowed data to accumulate for the sake of convenience.”
“But you’re not sure,” I pointed out.
Morden spread his hands. “Things may have changed. But as I say, this is my own judgement.”
“Mm,” I said in a neutral tone. It was still possible that Morden was leading me into a trap. “All right. Say I go after this synthetic intelligence. Where is it? In some super-fortified shadow realm?”
Morden smiled. “That’s the good news. Levistus couldn’t install it in a shadow realm. No radio. So he looked for a central location with the best reception he could find.”
A fuzzy patch of grey appeared in the air between me and Morden, around five or six feet tall. Lines of yellow-white light appeared within, tracing a three-dimensional shape. It was a tower, roughly rectangular but with protruding panels, about five times as tall as it was wide. At the top, the structure broke up into an irregular stack of blocks, with a thin mast protruding from the highest one.
I tilted my head, studying the design. “A skyscraper?”
“Recognise it?” Morden asked.
It took me a second. “Heron Tower,” I said. It was at Liverpool Street, right in the middle of London’s financial district.
Morden nodded. “One of the tallest buildings in the city, and far enough removed from the Council power centres at Canary Wharf and Westminster. Levistus’s data centre is here.” The tallest block on the tower, the one with the radio mast, blinked red.
“Huh,” I said. I must have looked up at Heron Tower a thousand times while living in London. I’d never suspected a thing. “How come no one’s noticed anything?”
“Levistus has opted for stealth over fortification. The data centre has almost no permanent wards, and the few magical sources within are heavily shielded. No bound guardians, no powerful defences to radiate an obvious signal to magesight.”
“Security forces?”
“As I said, stealth over fortification,” Morden said. “The system is entirely automated. Remember that Levistus’s primary concern when setting up the site was not defending it against Dark mages, but against Light ones. He would not have been able to permanently staff it without the risk that someone would talk.”
“So in theory pretty much anyone could just break in and steal the hard drives,” I said. “Is that what you’re saying?”
“More or less.”
“Okay,” I said. “So if this place is such a great target, why haven’t you knocked it over?”
“Morden doesn’t need anything some Light mage could give him,” Lyonesse said. She and the other three had been standing quietly up until now.
“Trust me,” I told her, “there are lots of things your master could do with that.”
“While such material is less useful to me now than when I was on the Council,” Morden said, “it is still valuable.”
“Which makes me wonder why you haven’t made a move.”
“While Levistus’s data centre may not be fortified, it is still defended,” Morden said. “The location has multiple redundant alarm systems. If any are triggered, Levistus can deploy a rapid reaction force. Privately hired mercenaries, probably from outside the country.”
“Mercenaries don’t sound too bad.”
“Secondly, the data centre contains a compact and powerful bomb. I suspect, but do not know, that it is set to detonate in case of any incursion that reaches the computer systems at the centre. The bomb is more than powerful enough to destroy the synthetic intelligence and all of the records on-site.”
“Ah,” I said. “If he can’t have it, no one can.”
“And that is why I have not taken action,” Morden said. “Destroying the data centre would prevent Levistus from gaining any future benefit, but he would still have access to the records it had generated already. Over time it would weaken him, but it would take years, and any influence he lost would simply be gained by other Council members instead. I judged it not worth the risk.”
“But if you could disable the bomb and retrieve the records . . .”
Morden nodded.
I tapped my lip. “What are the bomb’s triggers?”
“You’re a diviner. I expect you can find out.”
I studied the glowing lines of the tower. “Hmm.”
“Oh, and I would suggest timing your attack for, say, tomorrow afternoon.”
I shot Morden a look. “Why?”
“Just a suggestion,” Morden said. “You’re free to ignore it.”
“Your little suggestions have a habit of being not so little,” I said. “I’ll keep it in mind. One last thing. What are you going to be doing while I’m dealing with this?”
“You mean, will I be coming with you?” Morden asked. “No. Honestly, Verus, I really don’t think you need me to hold your hand. Besides, Levistus is your problem more than he is mine.”
“If he wasn’t yours as well, you wouldn’t be being this helpful.”
“Needs versus wants,” Morden said. “The one who wants sets the terms. Was there anything else?”
Tomorrow afternoon didn’t give me much time. I’d need to stake out the place and path-walk to feel out the defences. Even once I’d learned everything I could, I had a feeling this wouldn’t be a one-man job. “No,” I said. “I think that’s enough to go on.”
We departed without incident, Morden’s students giving me suspicious looks as I walked away. Before gating out, I glanced around the ruins of Arcadia. It was still beautiful, despite the damage. I wondered if the adepts who’d trained here had seen it as a haven, and whether it would grow into a legend over time.
I also wondered whether Morden’s help was a form of revenge on Levistus and the Council for what they’d done here. Over the past few years, Morden and I had both sat on the Council, and we’d both been stripped of our positions. There was a certain symmetry in the two of us being the ones to strike back.
—
I spent the afternoon scouting out Heron Tower and path-walking to test its defences. There was good news and bad news.
The good news was that I was pretty sure I could break in. The bad news was that as I’d suspected, this wasn’t going to be a one-man job. If I wanted to have any reasonable chance of this succeeding, I’d need help. And that was a problem, because while I knew a lot of people capable of supplying that help, there were good reasons that I didn’t want to ask them.