‘With the Ousters?’ Since the war on Bressia a few years earlier, the Ousters had been the Web’s prime bogeymen. The idea of the Core . . . the same congregation of AIs which advises the Senate and the All Thing and which allows our entire economy, farcaster system, and technological civilization to run . . . the idea of the Core being in touch with the Ousters was frightening. And what the hell did Johnny mean by ‘other sources’? I didn’t really want to know right then.
