Chapter 3: Excalibur Drawn

The morning arrived the way significant mornings always do in San Francisco — not with ceremony but with marine layer, the fog sitting low over the bay as if the city had not yet decided to be visible. By six-fifteen, the line outside the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts stretched half a block, journalists and engineers and governance academics and three mayors standing in the grey damp together with the specific patience of people who have decided the wait is worth it before they know for certain.

Arthur was in the holding room at six-forty-five, standing at a narrow window with a cup of coffee he had not touched, watching the line move.

"You're going to stare a hole in that glass," Guinevere said from behind him.