"Probablyisstill half their age," Lancelot said thoughtfully.Not really, the gap was smaller than that, but not as small as Mordred would have liked."Better hope Arthur doesn't prove to be your cousin or something."
"I hate you both," Merlin muttered."Finish eating, we've got work to do."
"Whydidyou drag us downtown in the middle of the week when we should both be working?"
"You're quitting, so it doesn't matter," Merlin said, cleaning up the remains of their meal as the other two wolfed down the last few bites."We're going to go scope something out."
"Ominous," Dred said, but fell into step as they left the courtyard where they'd been eating, tugging down the toboggan Merlin had given them earlier in the day, black threaded with faintly shimmery rainbow threads—and magic that made them all but invisible to passersby, and obscured their features from the thousands of cameras scattered across the city.A hooded jacket finished the job, rendering Dred wholly unremarkable to all and sundry.
For Lance, it was a flat cap rather than a toboggan, and for Merlin there was a beautiful handmade silk wrap pulled over his head and across part of his face."Do tell."
"Monmouth Games."Merlin motioned for them to follow him down a narrow alleyway."The only way Maleagant could have such a strong lead on us, and so much control over the game, is if heisthe game, for all intents and purposes.There isn't much listed about the board of directors for Monmouth, only that the company is ultimately owned by Apple-Soft."
"Makes sense.They've been the lords and masters of all things tech and fifty percent of entertainment since the fifties."Mordred sighed.
The other fifty percent was owned by Hollywood-Charter, the result of a rather nasty coup in the eighties that had resulted in a whole lot of 'missing persons' and absolutely nobody being allowed on the scorched earth that was the former heart of Hollywood in what had once been California.Now the Archduke of Hollywood-Charter controlled the first territory, comprised of what had once been Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Nevada.
The Apple-Soft family resided in territory three, which was ruled by the Archduke of BlackRock.
Their territory, six, was ruled by the Archduke of Mondelez, and the next two most powerful families in the area, Kellogg and Kraft-Heinz, took over much of what had once been the American South.
That being said, the families—corporations—had offices and apartments in each other's territories, not unlike embassies.Monmouth had a huge headquarters right in the middle of the city.Maleagant himself would not be here, but this would be their first step to reaching him.
The building was austere but pretty, as were most of the buildings around the cities these days.Skyscrapers had long been torn down, or repurposed into hanging gardens and the like.Most buildings, outside of special historical sites, were legally capped at five stories.With so much done digitally or via robots and automated systems, there simply wasn't a need for the towering buildings of the past.
"So what's the plan?"Dred asked.
"There's a stupid museum on the first floor that's open to the public, has its own entrance and everything.We can start there—you two talk to people and all of that.I'm going to see if I can get a bit deeper inside."
"Use those wiles, pretty boy, that's the way," Dred said with a grin.
Merlin rolled his eyes and didn't bother to further reply as he led the way through the crowded pavilion in front of the building, around to the side where the museum was located.Inside, they had to sign in at a wide, ostentatious counter and scan their IDs, but Merlin had made up fake IDs for them, Lancelot had no idea how, so there'd be no record ofthemhere, just some more nobodies from outside the city.
The building smelled of green things and fresh water, typical these days of renewable energy, though the water running through the place for purely decorative purposes was rarer.It must be used for other things, recycled and reused or something, for that to be allowed.
Merlin slipped away almost immediately, homing in on a tired-looking janitor type person.Another intriguing feature, given janitor work was just one of dozens of jobs that had been automated in the past few decades.Lancelot couldn't recall the last time he'd seen a human janitor.
"What a weird place."
Dred grunted in agreement."Let's explore, shall we?"
The exhibits started all the way back in the days of the original gaming systems, quaint little things that looked like toys, pretend sets for little kids who couldn't actually play games.Lancelot couldn't fathom playing a game that had mere 8-bit images."How do you even understand what's going on with everything that tiny and fuzzy?"
"Don't ask me," Dred said."I know this life, and remember the one where we didn't have running water or antibiotics.I missed the weird in between, thank fuck."
Lancelot laughed.
From there the museum went on through the various other stages of big name companies, the greats like Sony and Microsoft, various game developers, until what many flippantly called the Great Shakeup or the Great Restructuring, where those decades old companies had merged or been bought out or simply fallen entirely, resulting in a new wave of gaming companies that all fell under the control of just a handful of the ruling corporations.
Now, there was just a handful of game developers in the U.S., and all of them fell under the same corporate umbrella."We're right back where we started with feudal societies," he said with a sigh, "except somehow they've gottenworse.Do you think…" Lancelot trailed off as they entered a room that displayed the various owners of Monmouth, including the current owner, a handsome, pale-skinned man with black hair and dark brown eyes colder than a Siberian winter.He'd know that face anywhere.
"Maleagant," Dred said, voice full of venom and fire.
"Reginald Malcolm Monmouth," Lancelot read off the placard beneath the hand-painted portrait.He couldn't begin to imagine how much that had cost, though of course it was a drop in the bucket to Monmouth.
Maleagant, master of black magic, eldest son of King Bagdemagus, crown prince of Gorre, the Land of No Return.Bitter rival of Arthur, turned mortal enemy of Camelot.It had begun with Arthur saving Guinevere, a minor incident in the grand scheme of things that should have been the end of the matter.Instead, Maleagant's hate had grown and grown, spiraling out of control into that final, bitter fight that had put them here, hundreds of years into the future.
"How in the hell are we supposed to win this fight when he owns the field of battle?"
