Alex watched them. 'But you understand me, yeah?'
Quietly they cawed to one another as if they were arguing about the situation. The birds exchanged looks. 'Caaaw,' said one.
'So here's the deal,' said Alex. 'You give me a feather, a long one mind, none of your pissy ones, and I leave. Your friend wakes up later and no one's the wiser. Deal?'
There was a chorus of cawing from the birds.
'Or…' said Alex, 'I can boil the water in every one of you and make you explode. Then I can walk in and take the feather for myself, geddit?'
The birds erupted in another chorus of argument. 'Well?' said Alex.
One of the birds strutted down the branch while another bent down, as if it was bowing to Alex. There was a flash of beak and the bird had a long black feather. It hopped down the branch and approached the mesh of the cage cautiously.
'You needn't think I'm putting my hand in there,' said Alex.
The bird angled its head and then hopped up to the mesh and poked the feather through, dropping it on Alex's side. Then it flapped over the branch, turning to watch her. She collected the feather and placed it in the resealable plastic bag that Eve had given her for it.
'A deal's a deal,' she said. She knelt down beside the old man, placing her hand on his chest. The birds flapped about in agitation. 'It's all right,' she said. 'I'm just rebalancing the flow. He'll have a headache tomorrow, but no more, I promise. OK?'
The bird that had produced the feather bowed once, dipping its beak and raising its tail feathers high in a wide sable fan. Alex nodded to it, acknowledging the bow, and left.
Outside, the courtyard was bathed in light. She slipped sideways but there was no longer any shade to hide in. She might as well have walked across the middle of the courtyard for all the good it did. Even so, she worked her way around the outside, heading for the gates which led across the expanse of moat to the outer walkway.
When she reached the gateway, it was locked. Four grim looking soldiers stood to either side of the locked gate with automatic rifles held across their bodies, barrels down but ready to fire. Of Eve, Sparky and Chipper, there was no sign.
'Fuck!' she swore under her breath. 'Now what am I supposed to do?'
FOURTEEN
'I want to make it clear,' the Scot seated at the end of the table said, 'that this meeting never happened. You were never here. These words were never spoken. We'll deny it all.'
Garvin lifted his chin very slightly. 'You're saying this for whose benefit?'
Garvin looked at me and I raised my eyebrow very slightly. I wasn't even sure why I was here. I knew these meetings went on, but I'd only ever been to one, and that was in rather unusual circumstances.
The Great Hall of Oakham Castle was special — its walls were home to hundreds of horse-shoes, gifts from visiting dignitaries over the centuries. Whether by design or accident, the proximity of the horse shoes had the effect of dampening the sense of truth and falsehood that all who were fey possessed. It meant that within these walls, the fey visitors did not have the advantage of knowing whether their human counterparts were telling the truth. It levelled the playing fields for negotiations between humanity and the Feyre, at least in part.
The guy at the end of the table had been in charge of security during my last visit, but not part of the negotiations. Secretary Carler had conducted those and I was wondering whether this was the new guy's way of letting us know he'd been promoted. That also made me wonder what had happened to Secretary Carler.
'Questions have been asked,' said the Scot, 'and denials have been issued.'
Garvin folded his hands on the table and looked from one to the other. 'As I understand it,' he said, 'our meetings are with Secretary Carler or his replacement. I don't have a remit to negotiate with anyone but the Secretary himself.' He looked pointedly at the security guard at the door, the goatee bearded tech across the table, and then at the Scot.
'We're not here to negotiate,' said the Scot.
'Then what's this about?' asked Garvin.
'Certain material has come into our possession which implicates certain other people in acts which may compromise the agreement between our respective principals. I have been tasked…' he paused for effect, '…with making certain that this does not become a security issue.'
'What are you referring to?' asked Garvin.
'Show them,' the Scot said to the tech, who sat with an expensive looking widescreen laptop computer open in front of him, positioned so we couldn't see the screen. The portable white screen which had been set up on a tripod stand at the end of the dais glowed blue and then white as it came to life.
'This is all pre-event,' said the tech, 'and I'll fast forward through it. It's really just to show that everything was working fine up until the incident.'
The screen showed an array of tiled feeds in a composite grid view from cameras around a large building. I counted six rows of eight cameras. I was trying to think why the view was familiar, and then I caught sight of Tower Bridge in one of the views.
'This the the Tower of London,' I said.
'Cut to the chase,' said the Scot. 'Show them why they're here.'
The tech sighed and operated a control on the laptop so that the tiles flickered forwards in time and then paused.
'Nine twenty-seven, the gate guards are there to collect a party of visitors from the front gate. The visitors were checked and vetted before entry and there's no sign of collusion. They were as surprised as everyone else.' The feed showed two soldiers in uniform marching up to the gate and allowing a small group of tourists inside.
'Nine thirty-four they arrive at the main gate. They're challenged and allowed through. They meet with the Yeoman Warder who is escorted to the keys. Now watch here,' He used a laser pointer to circle on one of the tiled images. It was stepping through a single frame at a time. For a moment in one frame a shadow passed across the courtyard, but in the next frame it had gone.
'See it?' he asked.
'See what?' said Garvin. 'Is this a ghost sighting? Is that what you brought us to see?'
The tech backed up a frame. There was a streak of darkness across the grass. 'These cameras are taking twenty-four frames a second. Whatever it is, it appears to be moving very quickly.'
'Or it's simply a trick of the light?' said Garvin. 'It could be a moth close to the lens so that its relative movement appears fast?'
'No, it's not close to the lens and there's no point of origin for a shadow,' said the tech.
'It's a glitch in the system,' said Garvin, 'You brought us here to show us this?'
'It gets more interesting,' said the Scot. 'Roll it forward.'
'We're moving frame by frame now, so each one of these is a twenty-fourth of a second.' The views of the walls and courtyards continued, as the frame count and time-stamp in the corner advanced. Then in ones and twos the images disappeared from the screen.
'What you're seeing here is a systemic attack. The cameras are being taken out one by one, very rapidly.'
Progressively the pictures were blanking out. 'Power failure?' I asked, earning a look from Garvin, but intrigued by this development.
'There was a power failure, four seconds after this, but these cameras have separate power supplies and battery backup. Also, if this were a power failure then they would all fail at once. These are going out one at a time.' He continued until the screen was blank.
'Any comment?' said the Scot.
Garvin shrugged. The Scot looked at me.
'Some sort of software failure?' I suggested.
'Evidence says not,' said the tech. 'The systems returned to full working condition, but not until later.
