“Yes, this is definitely a currency counter.” She produced a metallic card, holding it in her palm beneath the mechanism’s arm. The mechanism made a satisfied beep.
A red dial on the mechanism jumped higher than it probably had in months.
“What?” said the boss, confused at her generosity. She’d just paid him almost a week’s worth of her own wages.
The old man made a shushing gesture.
“Gentlemen, I’m simply following orders,” she said, pulling out her shockpole. “Nothing personal.” She thumbed the vibration voltage to its highest setting, the soothing vibrations raising the hairs on her arms. Despite the damage vibration energy could do, it was also calming. She brought the shockpole down on the fan with all the force she could muster, shrill clangs and screeches filling the confined space. She grunted loudly with each blow.
The traders watched her destroy the innocent fan, shattering it into chunks, and then those chunks into pieces. The boss stood with his mouth agape. The old man continued to make placating gestures as he scribbled.
“I hope you’re ’appy, Seeker,” said the boss as Terese panted, bent over the fan’s remains. His slight smile hinted that he’d caught on. “That currency counter was keeping our operation afloat. I searched for it for four years.”
“Then I recommend you invest in another industry, something other than trading chaos mechanisms.” She put her shockpole back at her waist and turned back to the old man. “Now. The other trading stations. Where are they? Be warned, if you direct us to cadver territory or send us on a wild coyote hunt, I’ll find you and break your arms and every mechanism you own.”
The boss stepped forward, palms rising. “We never—”
The old man held a quieting hand to the boss. “Seeker, if you please.” His reedy voice paused when he checked back to Terese’s note. “We’ve always wanted to know as little as possible. Better for business, you understand. All we know is… what you’re looking for? Well, we’ve heard stories from out east, past FanderWall cluster and further into Chastity. There are slums out there that never really got named, or the names change too often to bother learning. We’re sure you’ll find what you want out there.”
The old man handed back her paper, with his scribbled notes.
“Your co-operation has been invaluable, citizen,” she said. “The Seekers thank you for your contribution to Polis’s wellbeing.”
“The pleasure was ours, I assure you,” said the old man.
She shrugged apologetically at the boss, who acknowledged her with a nod. On one hand, she’d walked in, paralyzed his employees and broken one of his trading goods. On the other hand, she’d spent far too much of her own currency and hopefully passed on a warning.
Terese walked out to rejoin Jools and Toornan. Toornan glared at her as if willing her to drop her eyes first. The guard she’d incapacitated was sitting up and rubbing his head.
“Leave him,” she said. “We’re heading deeper into Chastity Territory.”
5
“There’s not much out past FanderWall,” Jools said, folding away her map. “The food-growth hexagons are sparse out there and the water pipes barely flow. I can’t tell much about the slums, except hardly anyone visits them. It’s a waste of time going out there. The powerheads are better left to fight among themselves.”
Terese wiped her brow. “It’s where we were pointed, Jools. We’ll keep our water bags full and camp out. No fires tonight.”
“Why are we even doing this?” said Toornan. From all his lip biting, she guessed he’d been holding the question in. “Why not the Sumadan Seekers?”
“Our infected went to ground, Toornan. We’ll find them, but until we get some useful reports we’re just as much a part of Sumad Reach Chapterhouse as we are of Armer Stone. Keeper Lijjen said the powerheads crossed the line when they started trafficking chaos to pay for their addictions.”
So much nonsense she was forced to speak aloud. Whatever was happening out this way, powerheads weren’t the problem.
“But why’s he letting us out in the first place? Lijjen’s fixed control of the complement tighter than a finger-trap. Gods! He’s locked you up in the chapterhouse. Jools and I have more freedom.” He gestured around them. “And then, within a day, we’re given a mission, fitted for skinleaf plate and pushed out into the Wastes.”
If she didn’t say something awful about Lijjen, Toornan and Jools would figure something was wrong. “Lijjen is an ass. He thinks I messed the taking deliberately, and that I’m lying about my meeting with the infected who kidnapped me. He can’t accuse me of that: not openly, because I’ll walk us all out the door and go home, citing prejudice. He’s convinced himself I’m hiding something about the infected. He wants me broken for doing my job, so I’ve been given basic training and filing work to grind me down. I have to put up with this nonsense for another nine months and after that we’ll go home. I smile, nod, and agree I’m a complete idiot who should never have been made a Head.”
She hadn’t answered Toornan’s question. It wasn’t safe to answer it yet.
“And if we do this job well enough,” Jools mused, “perhaps we can get a little credit, see a little more action?”
“We’re just the foreigners scattered into the Territories, Jools.” That much may have also been truth. “Perhaps the refugees know something about the chaos trading industry out here. And foreign accents and faces might shake new information loose more easily than Sumadan ones.”
Toornan muttered something to himself, casting his boyish looks into a sullen sulk.
The sun rose, peaked, and declined as they moved further south-east into Chastity Territory’s depths. Clay ridges turned to small hills, a series of successive clay-and-dirt waves threatening to break upon the stick-shelters hiding in their shade.
Terese led them to a large hill surveying the slumlands. “Toornan, you’re on lookout. We’ll stay up here all night.”
“Right.”
After activating the cadver deterrent mechanisms,
