Volume 19: Oslov Unraveled
Chapter 1
Not a Glitch
When the last vestiges of Feudal serfdom were swept away, we called that the “Quiet Revolution” because no blood was shed. But no revolution is quiet to those who are in the midst of it.
Edvard Whyberg
27 October, year 374, 9:05 p.m.
The power had been out for fifteen minutes, and cold was seeping into Redda’s Core.They were well built, those skyscrapers, painstakingly insulated against the Arctic chill. At first, you might not have known the difference. It was the darkness that frightened people, sending them running and scrambling for flashlights. The hum of heating was normally so constant that no one noticed its absence. No one but the engineers was alarmed.Until the cold crept in—a silent intruder in the night, slipping through minute cracks in the seals around outer doors and windows. Penetrating the coldrooms, which were meant to contain it, and entering the living spaces.There were no drafts, no hint of the wind that wailed outdoors, where it was in the negative 30s. The buildings were too sturdy for that. But the temperature dropped by a degree, then another.People who were accustomed to an unchanging 20 degrees Celsius during their waking hours found themselves reaching for sweaters and blankets and fleece jackets. Children hid in bed and pulled the covers over their heads, waiting for the “glitch” to be over. Parents reassured them in reedy, nervous voices.The chill slithered through their tight shutters and under their hastily knotted scarves and down their backs. It turned their familiar apartments into foreign landscapes. It sank into their skins and made their joints ache. Some sneezed. Some hugged themselves tight. Some panicked.Had they really forgotten that they lived at the top of the world? Had they thought they were safe?Int/Sec was dark. And the cell doors were open.All of the prisoners on Ceill’s level were headed in the same direction, feeling their way along the walls or following one another’s voices. He crept after them, swung open an unlocked door, and found himself in a stairwell that echoed with the din of climbing feet. Freed from his cell, the last thing he wanted to do was descend deeper into the Funnel. But Janta’s voice, speaking from the wall itself, had told him Stefan is one level below you.And Stefan was in danger. So, instead of up with everyone else, Ceill went down.Running footsteps pattered tinnily below. He flattened himself against the wall as three people barreled toward him, breathing hoarsely—prisoners, desperate to escape.A heavy body jostled him, smelling of sweat and fear. A man’s voice cried, “You’re going the wrong way, mate! They’re down there with lights!” Then they were gone, though he could still hear their rough panting.Determined, Ceill felt his way down from step to step until he reached the landing. The chill of the concrete stairwell made goose bumps rise beneath his thin detention coverall. He found the handle of the swinging fire door and eased it open.Flashlight beams zigzagged in the corridor—guards. But they were down at the far end, around a corner. Staying close to the wall, he inched toward them.“Surrender or we shoot to kill! Hands where I can see them!”Two escapees rocketed around the corner and past Ceill, stray light gleaming on their white coveralls, and disappeared into the stairwell. Not Stefan. One was female, and the other was bigger.What if Stefan were one of those people in the stairwell—or what if he’d already been captured? Surely the guards would make him their priority in the chaos. Ceill might have come down here for nothing.But he didn’t turn back. After days of languishing in the dark, now he could finally move, and his purpose sharpened his senses. If he were recaptured, it wouldn’t be a disaster. Maybe Janta would find a way to help him.Janta had done what he’d promised, really done it! If nothing else, his friend had taken control of the Funnel. Pride swelled in Ceill’s throat as he eased himself around the corner.He walked straight into a scuffle—grunts, yells, and a harsh clap that could only be a gunshot! Light scythed across the corridor, blinding him.He dashed for the recessed door of the nearest cell and huddled there, blood pounding in his ears. Three flashlight beams swung wildly. One of them strobed across the corridor, and Ceill saw a slender figure huddled in the opposite doorway. Light flashed in frightened brown eyes.Darkness descended the next instant. But Ceill had recognized Stefan.Adrenaline shot through him. Without stopping to think, he darted the few yards to his friend and grabbed his hands. “It’s me!”“Ceill!” Stefan clutched at him, then tried to push him away. “Run! It’s me they want!”From the end of the corridor, a man’s voice yelled, “Someone down there!”“Where?”“Give me the light, dimwit!”Beams ricocheted around them. Heavy footsteps approached. Ceill gestured desperately at the bend in the corridor. “C’mon—the way out! Down at the end!”Stefan shook his head. His eyes were wide and white with terror. “They’ve got orders to kill me.”Ceill felt no more fear, only a calm certainty. If Stefan stayed an instant longer, the guards would recognize him. “We need to distract them.”He shoved Stefan out of their hiding place and hauled him toward the bend. “You go—they won’t hurt me. I’ll cover you. Now!”And, with a last forceful shove, he turned on his heel and walked away from Stefan, straight toward the guards.Stefan’s footsteps skittered off, but Ceill didn’t let himself look back. He raised both hands and planted himself in the center of the corridor, trying to take up as much space as possible. “Please don’t shoot me!”The guards were on him in an instant, their lights in his eyes. “Where’d you think you were going?” “The door was open! I thought I was being released!” Ceill dodged around them as if to take refuge in a cell. The more fuss he made, the less chance they’d notice Stefan. “And now everybody’s shooting! What’s happening? I don’t understand!”Strong hands yanked his arms behind his back. “It’s the Councillor’s kid! Don’t hurt him!”Ceill winced at the cold of metal and heard the clink of cuffs, but he felt no fear. They could do whatever they wanted to him. Just let Stefan be safe.In the distance, he heard his friend’s stealthy footsteps heading for the stairs.“You need to tell me where we’re going, Fir’n,” Tilrey protested. “I need to get to Ceill!”“Shh. Trust me.” Bulky in her enormous coat and boots, Davita led him into the coldroom of her apartment. “Int/Sec has backup power, and those prisoners are in no shape to riot. Anyway, I know a short cut to the Sector.”Both of them had showered in ice cold water and fumbled into their clothes. The apartment, so familiar to Tilrey, had become a different place now. For the first panicked minutes, adrenaline had kept him warm—the thrill of seeing the city gone dark and knowing his message had made it happen. But now he felt the cold, and worries crept in with it.“The Funnel could be in chaos,” he said. “I need to find Gersha, too—he’ll be frightened.”If Janta was controlling everything, Janta might be able to help. But how could he communicate with Janta when he couldn’t even reach Besha? With the Net down, his handheld had become a useless brick.“Sweetheart, calm down.” Davita raised her flashlight and lit the way into the garage. “I’m worried about my family, too. But the Sixth Battalion will have converged on the Sector—standard emergency procedure—and they’ll get our loved ones to safety. We’ll meet them there.”“We can’t take the car if the mag-grid is down!” Tilrey pointed out.“We’re not taking the car.” Davita led him past the driver’s apartment to a second door, so narrow he would have missed it if she hadn’t shone her flashlight there. “We’re hiking to the Sector.”“How?” The garage was still tolerably warm, but wind whipped against the door, making it rattle. “We have to wait till the sun is up, or we’ll freeze out there.”“We’re not going ‘out there.’” From her pocket, Davita drew a ring with several jangling, archaic keys. She fitted one into a manual lock, turned it, and tugged. “Help me! You’re stronger.”Tilrey gave the door a yank. With a grating noise, it opened onto the dusty chill of a narrow stairwell. “What on earth?”“An escape route, just for the GM.” She led the way down the concrete steps, one hand on the wall. “Malsha never told you? I suppose he wouldn’t. I wonder if he used this when he fled to Harbour.”“I think he left from the airport.” It would take them an agonizingly long time to reach ground level without a lift, but Tilrey had to appreciate the foresight of the government architects. “How do we get to the Sector? That’s at least three miles.”“You’ll see.”The trip down the stairs felt endless. Tilrey willed himself to concentrate on each step so he wouldn’t think about Ceill, trapped and terrified in the dark of an underground prison. Gersha must be having the same thoughts, and he was all alone, presumably at home. They should have been together.They arrived at the bottom dripping with sweat, though the trapped air was cooling by the minute. Davita unlocked a second door. Tilrey shouldered it open, and they stepped into more darkness, with a sharp, musty scent.Davita’s flashlight picked out walls on either side. They were in a tunnel about five feet in diameter and seven feet high, stretching into blackness.Tilrey shuddered; the roof was inches from the top of his head. “Part of the underground city?”“A classified part, yes.” She tugged his hand. “Let’s go. It shouldn’t take long to get backup power going in the Sector. You can send an army copter to fetch Gersha and Ceill.”“So you count on the Sixth Battalion staying loyal?” Tilrey walked beside her, his voice echoing too loudly down the tunnel. How ironic that she seemed controlled and confident, not knowing what had caused the blackout, while he knew everything and was terrified.Besha joining forces with Einara got no less disturbing the more he thought about it. He wished he knew what they were planning.“Of course!” Davita’s laughter bounced off the walls, a little too loud. “Why wouldn’t they be loyal?” “Our troops are Laborers, and the mob is popular.”“You don’t seriously think the mob caused the blackout?”Tilrey didn’t want to betray himself, but he couldn’t hide his surprise, either. “If they didn’t, the timing is some coincidence.” “Oh, the timing is calculated, no doubt. But Drudges and students wouldn’t—couldn’t—sabotage our city. They don’t have the means. This enemy is a hacker, and one of our own. We’ll hold another emergency session, this time with the Council of Eight. ”The Council of Eight was a sort of shadow version of the main Council, a group of elite Programmers who governed their colleagues in the vast underground server complex. To his knowledge, Tilrey had never met any of them.Now he wondered if the Eight were part of the secretive inner council with which Davita had met to pass the death sentence on Stefan.“So you think another enemy took advantage of our unrest,” he said, careful to match his paces to hers. “Who could that be?”“It’s classified, love. You should know that.” Panting a little, Davita took his arm. “I’m turning off the light to save the battery. Will you guide me? Defend me from whatever lurks in the dark?”“Of course.” He hooked his arm in hers and led her deeper into the tunnel, extending his other hand to keep the wall at a safe distance. “Who do you think would be lurking here? Shirkers?”“Ha! I wasn’t being literal.”Tilrey remembered their conversation in bed. He had told her, I wasn’t made to rule or lead. It helps to have a guide. “You guide me, and I guide you. That’s only fair, isn’t it?”“Yes.” She squeezed his hand. “I’m not afraid, you know. I’ve spent my life preparing for our world falling apart.”“You have?” He wondered how many classified contingency measures the government had in place. “But why? Nothing like this has ever happened before.”A soft laugh. “Our ancestors planned well. I wouldn’t expect you to think about worst-case scenarios—that’s a burden for Upstarts to carry.”“I see, Fir’n.” Maybe Tilrey’s voice was too sharp in the dark.“But I’m glad I’m here with you right now—and not, say, with my husband.”“Why?” He couldn’t let her hear how her arrogance irritated him. “Besha’s indestructible. He’d be my pick for weathering a crisis.”“He’s indestructible because he cares about survival more than his values—to the extent he has any. And he whines.” Davita pressed closer to Tilrey, as if to draw his warmth into herself. “I love Besha. He’s my life partner. But you—I can depend on you.”Just then they entered a cold air pocket, and Tilrey shivered from head to toe.*In Bors Dartán’s office in the Funnel, Blas Lindblom was trying to force the door open. He pounded on it. “Hey! We’ve got an outage in here!”Not just in here, Bors knew.The darkness and silence around them could mean only one thing: His signal had worked. Janta was in control. He had locked up the jailers’ offices and opened the cells to set the prisoners free.Bors backed stealthily away from the examining magistrate, massaging his aching wrist. Earlier, Lindblom had grabbed him hard, meaning to drag him somewhere, then released him when he realized the door wouldn’t open.Bors didn’t want to be locked up in here, either. He had a job to do. Armed guards would be roaming the Funnel, and there was no guarantee that Stefan Altmering would escape them.Without their precious Darius, the mob might be impossible to control—which meant someone had to protect Stefan from being harmed in the chaos. Bors just had to lose the GM’s spoiled son first—or, if he could manage it, turn this unexpected deficit into an asset.As long as he didn’t know the truth, Blas Lindblom could be useful.Bors fumbled his way to the desk, where the darkness was easier to navigate, and soundlessly opened the second drawer on the right. Inside was the satellite transceiver he had used to give Janta the go-ahead. His handheld was dead weight now, but the transceiver should still work.“What the fuck is going on?” Lindblom exclaimed. He crashed into something—the trash? “My mother didn’t do this, did she?”“Why would your mother cut off the power?” Bors perched on his desk chair and cupped his hands around the transceiver as he activated it. The red light blinked on, indicating a connection.He mashed buttons: Opnmyy door!!!“Where are you?” Lindblom blundered toward him.Bors jabbed the send button. He switched off the transceiver and stuffed it into his pocket. “Right here, Examining Magistrate.”“You know what they’re doing down in his cell, don’t you? We need to stop it!”Was he talking about Stefan? Bors realized abruptly that he had no idea what Lindblom wanted from him.When the man entered his office, Bors had been so busy monitoring the video feed from Stefan’s cell, waiting for the assassins to show up, that he couldn’t focus on their conversation. Then Lindblom had started hurling accusations at Tilrey—filling Bors with bittersweet triumph, because it was way too late for an official investigation of Tilrey to do him any good. That nasty Councillor Linbeck was right: Bors and Tilrey were allies, whether Bors liked it or not.Now, dimly, Bors remembered Lindblom saying, An innocent man’s life could be at stake. Could he mean Stefan? Did he know that his mother meant to kill the boy? And if so, why would he care?“Try the door again.” Bors felt around for the flashlight he kept in his desk. “And if you really think Stefan Altmering is innocent, tell me why on the way to his cell.”“We can’t go to his cell!” Another crash, presumably Lindblom throwing his large body at the door. “We can’t go anywhere!”Flashlight in hand, Bors dodged around him and found the release button by muscle memory. C’mon, Janta. You better have received my fucking message!Apparently Janta had. The door sprang open.Like an animal released from a trap, Lindblom darted into the corridor, which was just as dark and chilly as the office. Bors supposed they were still getting the backup generator running. The priority would be securing the prisoners—especially that prisoner.“How did you do that?” Lindblom asked breathily. “It was locked.”“Probably just jammed.” Bors was glad the darkness hid his face; the man had caught him in a lie earlier. “This door is tricky.”“You were monitoring Stefan’s cell! You know they came to kill him!” Lindblom lurched back and captured Bors’s wrists in his damnably large hands again. “Who do you really work for? Gelmedyn? Or Tilrey Bronn?”“Neither! Gelmedyn’s taking orders from your mother.” Now it was Bors who tugged the examining magistrate down the corridor. He knew the building so well he could probably find the detention block even without the light. “But I guess you know that—she must’ve told you her plan.”“How do you know?”“I work here. I hear things.” Bors freed one hand so he could switch on the flashlight. “What matters is making sure Stefan doesn’t die tonight and justice is done. Are you with me, Fir Examining Magistrate? Can I trust you?”“Of course I want justice done! Why do you think I’m here?”Bors remembered what Lindblom had said earlier: Even if Bronn paid you off, even if he threatened you, there’s nothing to fear now. The man seemed to think Bors was a victim of Tilrey’s machinations, a pawn. Well, let him think that—until it was too late.“Then let’s find Stefan Altmering,” Bors said, dragging Lindblom to the stairwell. “He is innocent, and Bronn is guilty—just like you thought. And the world needs to know.”
When the last vestiges of Feudal serfdom were swept away, we called that the “Quiet Revolution” because no blood was shed. But no revolution is quiet to those who are in the midst of it.
Edvard Whyberg
27 October, year 374, 9:05 p.m.
The power had been out for fifteen minutes, and cold was seeping into Redda’s Core.
They were well built, those skyscrapers, painstakingly insulated against the Arctic chill. At first, you might not have known the difference. It was the darkness that frightened people, sending them running and scrambling for flashlights. The hum of heating was normally so constant that no one noticed its absence. No one but the engineers was alarmed.
Until the cold crept in—a silent intruder in the night, slipping through minute cracks in the seals around outer doors and windows. Penetrating the coldrooms, which were meant to contain it, and entering the living spaces.
There were no drafts, no hint of the wind that wailed outdoors, where it was in the negative 30s. The buildings were too sturdy for that. But the temperature dropped by a degree, then another.
People who were accustomed to an unchanging 20 degrees Celsius during their waking hours found themselves reaching for sweaters and blankets and fleece jackets. Children hid in bed and pulled the covers over their heads, waiting for the “glitch” to be over. Parents reassured them in reedy, nervous voices.
The chill slithered through their tight shutters and under their hastily knotted scarves and down their backs. It turned their familiar apartments into foreign landscapes. It sank into their skins and made their joints ache. Some sneezed. Some hugged themselves tight. Some panicked.
Had they really forgotten that they lived at the top of the world? Had they thought they were safe?
Int/Sec was dark. And the cell doors were open.
All of the prisoners on Ceill’s level were headed in the same direction, feeling their way along the walls or following one another’s voices. He crept after them, swung open an unlocked door, and found himself in a stairwell that echoed with the din of climbing feet.
Freed from his cell, the last thing he wanted to do was descend deeper into the Funnel. But Janta’s voice, speaking from the wall itself, had told him Stefan is one level below you.
And Stefan was in danger. So, instead of up with everyone else, Ceill went down.
Running footsteps pattered tinnily below. He flattened himself against the wall as three people barreled toward him, breathing hoarsely—prisoners, desperate to escape.
A heavy body jostled him, smelling of sweat and fear. A man’s voice cried, “You’re going the wrong way, mate! They’re down there with lights!” Then they were gone, though he could still hear their rough panting.
Determined, Ceill felt his way down from step to step until he reached the landing. The chill of the concrete stairwell made goose bumps rise beneath his thin detention coverall. He found the handle of the swinging fire door and eased it open.
Flashlight beams zigzagged in the corridor—guards. But they were down at the far end, around a corner. Staying close to the wall, he inched toward them.
“Surrender or we shoot to kill! Hands where I can see them!”
Two escapees rocketed around the corner and past Ceill, stray light gleaming on their white coveralls, and disappeared into the stairwell. Not Stefan. One was female, and the other was bigger.
What if Stefan were one of those people in the stairwell—or what if he’d already been captured? Surely the guards would make him their priority in the chaos. Ceill might have come down here for nothing.
But he didn’t turn back. After days of languishing in the dark, now he could finally move, and his purpose sharpened his senses. If he were recaptured, it wouldn’t be a disaster. Maybe Janta would find a way to help him.
Janta had done what he’d promised, really done it! If nothing else, his friend had taken control of the Funnel. Pride swelled in Ceill’s throat as he eased himself around the corner.
He walked straight into a scuffle—grunts, yells, and a harsh clap that could only be a gunshot! Light scythed across the corridor, blinding him.
He dashed for the recessed door of the nearest cell and huddled there, blood pounding in his ears. Three flashlight beams swung wildly. One of them strobed across the corridor, and Ceill saw a slender figure huddled in the opposite doorway. Light flashed in frightened brown eyes.
Darkness descended the next instant. But Ceill had recognized Stefan.
Adrenaline shot through him. Without stopping to think, he darted the few yards to his friend and grabbed his hands. “It’s me!”
“Ceill!” Stefan clutched at him, then tried to push him away. “Run! It’s me they want!”
From the end of the corridor, a man’s voice yelled, “Someone down there!”
“Where?”
“Give me the light, dimwit!”
Beams ricocheted around them. Heavy footsteps approached. Ceill gestured desperately at the bend in the corridor. “C’mon—the way out! Down at the end!”
Stefan shook his head. His eyes were wide and white with terror. “They’ve got orders to kill me.”
Ceill felt no more fear, only a calm certainty. If Stefan stayed an instant longer, the guards would recognize him. “We need to distract them.”
He shoved Stefan out of their hiding place and hauled him toward the bend. “You go—they won’t hurt me. I’ll cover you. Now!”
And, with a last forceful shove, he turned on his heel and walked away from Stefan, straight toward the guards.
Stefan’s footsteps skittered off, but Ceill didn’t let himself look back. He raised both hands and planted himself in the center of the corridor, trying to take up as much space as possible. “Please don’t shoot me!”
The guards were on him in an instant, their lights in his eyes. “Where’d you think you were going?”
“The door was open! I thought I was being released!” Ceill dodged around them as if to take refuge in a cell. The more fuss he made, the less chance they’d notice Stefan. “And now everybody’s shooting! What’s happening? I don’t understand!”
Strong hands yanked his arms behind his back. “It’s the Councillor’s kid! Don’t hurt him!”
Ceill winced at the cold of metal and heard the clink of cuffs, but he felt no fear. They could do whatever they wanted to him. Just let Stefan be safe.
In the distance, he heard his friend’s stealthy footsteps heading for the stairs.
“You need to tell me where we’re going, Fir’n,” Tilrey protested. “I need to get to Ceill!”
“Shh. Trust me.” Bulky in her enormous coat and boots, Davita led him into the coldroom of her apartment. “Int/Sec has backup power, and those prisoners are in no shape to riot. Anyway, I know a short cut to the Sector.”
Both of them had showered in ice cold water and fumbled into their clothes. The apartment, so familiar to Tilrey, had become a different place now. For the first panicked minutes, adrenaline had kept him warm—the thrill of seeing the city gone dark and knowing his message had made it happen. But now he felt the cold, and worries crept in with it.
“The Funnel could be in chaos,” he said. “I need to find Gersha, too—he’ll be frightened.”
If Janta was controlling everything, Janta might be able to help. But how could he communicate with Janta when he couldn’t even reach Besha? With the Net down, his handheld had become a useless brick.
“Sweetheart, calm down.” Davita raised her flashlight and lit the way into the garage. “I’m worried about my family, too. But the Sixth Battalion will have converged on the Sector—standard emergency procedure—and they’ll get our loved ones to safety. We’ll meet them there.”
“We can’t take the car if the mag-grid is down!” Tilrey pointed out.
“We’re not taking the car.” Davita led him past the driver’s apartment to a second door, so narrow he would have missed it if she hadn’t shone her flashlight there. “We’re hiking to the Sector.”
“How?” The garage was still tolerably warm, but wind whipped against the door, making it rattle. “We have to wait till the sun is up, or we’ll freeze out there.”
“We’re not going ‘out there.’” From her pocket, Davita drew a ring with several jangling, archaic keys. She fitted one into a manual lock, turned it, and tugged. “Help me! You’re stronger.”
Tilrey gave the door a yank. With a grating noise, it opened onto the dusty chill of a narrow stairwell. “What on earth?”
“An escape route, just for the GM.” She led the way down the concrete steps, one hand on the wall. “Malsha never told you? I suppose he wouldn’t. I wonder if he used this when he fled to Harbour.”
“I think he left from the airport.” It would take them an agonizingly long time to reach ground level without a lift, but Tilrey had to appreciate the foresight of the government architects. “How do we get to the Sector? That’s at least three miles.”
“You’ll see.”
The trip down the stairs felt endless. Tilrey willed himself to concentrate on each step so he wouldn’t think about Ceill, trapped and terrified in the dark of an underground prison. Gersha must be having the same thoughts, and he was all alone, presumably at home. They should have been together.
They arrived at the bottom dripping with sweat, though the trapped air was cooling by the minute. Davita unlocked a second door. Tilrey shouldered it open, and they stepped into more darkness, with a sharp, musty scent.
Davita’s flashlight picked out walls on either side. They were in a tunnel about five feet in diameter and seven feet high, stretching into blackness.
Tilrey shuddered; the roof was inches from the top of his head. “Part of the underground city?”
“A classified part, yes.” She tugged his hand. “Let’s go. It shouldn’t take long to get backup power going in the Sector. You can send an army copter to fetch Gersha and Ceill.”
“So you count on the Sixth Battalion staying loyal?” Tilrey walked beside her, his voice echoing too loudly down the tunnel. How ironic that she seemed controlled and confident, not knowing what had caused the blackout, while he knew everything and was terrified.
Besha joining forces with Einara got no less disturbing the more he thought about it. He wished he knew what they were planning.
“Of course!” Davita’s laughter bounced off the walls, a little too loud. “Why wouldn’t they be loyal?”
“Our troops are Laborers, and the mob is popular.”
“You don’t seriously think the mob caused the blackout?”
Tilrey didn’t want to betray himself, but he couldn’t hide his surprise, either. “If they didn’t, the timing is some coincidence.”
“Oh, the timing is calculated, no doubt. But Drudges and students wouldn’t—couldn’t—sabotage our city. They don’t have the means. This enemy is a hacker, and one of our own. We’ll hold another emergency session, this time with the Council of Eight. ”
The Council of Eight was a sort of shadow version of the main Council, a group of elite Programmers who governed their colleagues in the vast underground server complex. To his knowledge, Tilrey had never met any of them.
Now he wondered if the Eight were part of the secretive inner council with which Davita had met to pass the death sentence on Stefan.
“So you think another enemy took advantage of our unrest,” he said, careful to match his paces to hers. “Who could that be?”
“It’s classified, love. You should know that.” Panting a little, Davita took his arm. “I’m turning off the light to save the battery. Will you guide me? Defend me from whatever lurks in the dark?”
“Of course.” He hooked his arm in hers and led her deeper into the tunnel, extending his other hand to keep the wall at a safe distance. “Who do you think would be lurking here? Shirkers?”
“Ha! I wasn’t being literal.”
Tilrey remembered their conversation in bed. He had told her, I wasn’t made to rule or lead. It helps to have a guide. “You guide me, and I guide you. That’s only fair, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” She squeezed his hand. “I’m not afraid, you know. I’ve spent my life preparing for our world falling apart.”
“You have?” He wondered how many classified contingency measures the government had in place. “But why? Nothing like this has ever happened before.”
A soft laugh. “Our ancestors planned well. I wouldn’t expect you to think about worst-case scenarios—that’s a burden for Upstarts to carry.”
“I see, Fir’n.” Maybe Tilrey’s voice was too sharp in the dark.
“But I’m glad I’m here with you right now—and not, say, with my husband.”
“Why?” He couldn’t let her hear how her arrogance irritated him. “Besha’s indestructible. He’d be my pick for weathering a crisis.”
“He’s indestructible because he cares about survival more than his values—to the extent he has any. And he whines.” Davita pressed closer to Tilrey, as if to draw his warmth into herself. “I love Besha. He’s my life partner. But you—I can depend on you.”
Just then they entered a cold air pocket, and Tilrey shivered from head to toe.
In Bors Dartán’s office in the Funnel, Blas Lindblom was trying to force the door open. He pounded on it. “Hey! We’ve got an outage in here!”
Not just in here, Bors knew.
The darkness and silence around them could mean only one thing: His signal had worked. Janta was in control. He had locked up the jailers’ offices and opened the cells to set the prisoners free.
Bors backed stealthily away from the examining magistrate, massaging his aching wrist. Earlier, Lindblom had grabbed him hard, meaning to drag him somewhere, then released him when he realized the door wouldn’t open.
Bors didn’t want to be locked up in here, either. He had a job to do. Armed guards would be roaming the Funnel, and there was no guarantee that Stefan Altmering would escape them.
Without their precious Darius, the mob might be impossible to control—which meant someone had to protect Stefan from being harmed in the chaos. Bors just had to lose the GM’s spoiled son first—or, if he could manage it, turn this unexpected deficit into an asset.
As long as he didn’t know the truth, Blas Lindblom could be useful.
Bors fumbled his way to the desk, where the darkness was easier to navigate, and soundlessly opened the second drawer on the right. Inside was the satellite transceiver he had used to give Janta the go-ahead. His handheld was dead weight now, but the transceiver should still work.
“What the fuck is going on?” Lindblom exclaimed. He crashed into something—the trash? “My mother didn’t do this, did she?”
“Why would your mother cut off the power?” Bors perched on his desk chair and cupped his hands around the transceiver as he activated it. The red light blinked on, indicating a connection.
He mashed buttons: Opnmyy door!!!
“Where are you?” Lindblom blundered toward him.
Bors jabbed the send button. He switched off the transceiver and stuffed it into his pocket. “Right here, Examining Magistrate.”
“You know what they’re doing down in his cell, don’t you? We need to stop it!”
Was he talking about Stefan? Bors realized abruptly that he had no idea what Lindblom wanted from him.
When the man entered his office, Bors had been so busy monitoring the video feed from Stefan’s cell, waiting for the assassins to show up, that he couldn’t focus on their conversation. Then Lindblom had started hurling accusations at Tilrey—filling Bors with bittersweet triumph, because it was way too late for an official investigation of Tilrey to do him any good. That nasty Councillor Linbeck was right: Bors and Tilrey were allies, whether Bors liked it or not.
Now, dimly, Bors remembered Lindblom saying, An innocent man’s life could be at stake. Could he mean Stefan? Did he know that his mother meant to kill the boy? And if so, why would he care?
“Try the door again.” Bors felt around for the flashlight he kept in his desk. “And if you really think Stefan Altmering is innocent, tell me why on the way to his cell.”
“We can’t go to his cell!” Another crash, presumably Lindblom throwing his large body at the door. “We can’t go anywhere!”
Flashlight in hand, Bors dodged around him and found the release button by muscle memory. C’mon, Janta. You better have received my fucking message!
Apparently Janta had. The door sprang open.
Like an animal released from a trap, Lindblom darted into the corridor, which was just as dark and chilly as the office. Bors supposed they were still getting the backup generator running. The priority would be securing the prisoners—especially that prisoner.
“How did you do that?” Lindblom asked breathily. “It was locked.”
“Probably just jammed.” Bors was glad the darkness hid his face; the man had caught him in a lie earlier. “This door is tricky.”
“You were monitoring Stefan’s cell! You know they came to kill him!” Lindblom lurched back and captured Bors’s wrists in his damnably large hands again. “Who do you really work for? Gelmedyn? Or Tilrey Bronn?”
“Neither! Gelmedyn’s taking orders from your mother.” Now it was Bors who tugged the examining magistrate down the corridor. He knew the building so well he could probably find the detention block even without the light. “But I guess you know that—she must’ve told you her plan.”
“How do you know?”
“I work here. I hear things.” Bors freed one hand so he could switch on the flashlight. “What matters is making sure Stefan doesn’t die tonight and justice is done. Are you with me, Fir Examining Magistrate? Can I trust you?”
“Of course I want justice done! Why do you think I’m here?”
Bors remembered what Lindblom had said earlier: Even if Bronn paid you off, even if he threatened you, there’s nothing to fear now. The man seemed to think Bors was a victim of Tilrey’s machinations, a pawn. Well, let him think that—until it was too late.
“Then let’s find Stefan Altmering,” Bors said, dragging Lindblom to the stairwell. “He is innocent, and Bronn is guilty—just like you thought. And the world needs to know.”