Polis help her, she really was doing this!
Holder Moorcam would disapprove of using this much of the ‘perfume’, but she had no other choice.
She neither tripped on discarded clothing nor bumped into chairs as she padded through the green-lit corridor to the bedroom. It was no small relief that both sleepers’ faces were to the side and not buried in their pillows. One deep breath. Hold it for one minute. She released a gentle, dusting spray over their faces, then gently shook the sleepers.
“Mistress Fejak, Master Fejak, awake and lie still. Mistress Fejak, Master Fejak, awake and lie still.” When both had opened their eyes, she continued. “You will obey my voice and none other. Mistress Fejak, I have need of your husband’s service and skill. He will return in good health and conscience to this bed before sunrise. You will forget I have awoken you, and go back to sleep. If you wake to find he is not here, you will recall he had difficulty sleeping. You will recall nothing of my intrusion. I was never here. Repeat these instructions.”
Mistress Fejak’s voice was halting and breathy at first, but by the end, the stout woman had mostly relaxed.
Terese bade Head Arlun Fejak, GarageMaster, stand in his thick woolen bedclothes. The man examined her, eyes wide in confusion but tight with anger at the edges. He was not a large man, but his bearing hinted that he would be difficult to manage, should he break free of the mindlock.
“Head Fejak, I require your knowledge in execution of my duty as a Seeker. You will dress for work and come with me to the garages. You will open the hidden accessway within the garages and accompany me within. You will defend me, and only me. You will obey me, and only me. You will take every precaution possible to ensure we are not discovered and that our presence remains unknown and unrecorded. If this is not possible, you will behave and act in such a manner that casts our presence in any hidden places as acceptable and normal. Repeat these instructions back.”
Fejak repeated the instructions, rubbing absently at his thick moustache. The serum enabled commanded action and supplied memory replacement but, unlike the nail lacquer, couldn’t be used to obtain information. Using the solution in the perfume bottle, all she could effectively command was ‘do this, and act normal’. Whatever knowledge rested within Fejak couldn’t be coaxed out as speech.
The nail-lacquer solution she’d used on Jools wouldn’t work, as Fejak wouldn’t want to speak to Terese under normal conditions. That left the compulsion solution in her perfume bottle. It was the only option.
Fejak led her through the sprawling chapterhouse’s empty passages and staircases. When they reached a bolted ground-level gate, Fejak produced a rectangular magnetic key and inserted it into five fitted apertures in formulaic succession, unlocking the door combination. A heavy click sounded, and Terese helped him slide the door open, then closed again once they passed through.
The knowledge that something was strange in Sumad Reach, if not wrong, had made her question everything. She’d tracked Jools’s electric wagon’s return to the chapterhouse after an excursion, then wondered why this particular garage’s internal door was locked whenever the wagons rolled inside.
That heavy, complicated door had been her first clue. It looked only a few years old and far more complex than necessary for a simple internal garage access. The second clue had been the wooden wagons with reinforced wheels, a larger battery, and extra storage space at the sides. Finally, there’d been the fine, rounded dust lines on the floor near the back wall, as if a door had swung open from the wall. Those faint lines had been mostly swept away, only a dusty sliver surviving the attack of a negligent broom.
The clues added up, but only if one knew to look for them. Just like how she’d searched for Jools in the duty rosters.
The pieces fit: Jools’s new complement had brought their dark golem or dark mechanisms from the Wastes, then stored them, taking a secret passage from the garage, to somewhere.
Terese knew almost nothing, but suspected a chain of events.
Somehow, those bloody renegades had upset Patzer’s chaos mechanism smuggling enterprise, which he, Holder Mathra and the Keepers of Sumad Reach were using to create something similar to a golem. The four boys must have exposed evidence of the golem, and Patzer—or someone—had ordered that evidence destroyed with that same golem, in turn killing those running the workshop in the slums.
She’d seen investigations back home where crime bosses had wiped out their own employees or clients using ‘scorched earth’ tactics after a leak or accident. The whole situation was screamingly familiar.
Being from Armer, like the renegades, and supposedly tracking them, she’d come to Patzer’s attention and he’d demanded—Patzer was not one to diplomatically ask—to meet her. During their sojourn in the Wastes, he’d somehow determined that she knew little more of them than he did.
She’d been careful of what she said to him, but how drunk had she been that night in the hideaway? Nowhere near enough to incriminate herself, but then afterwards, why hadn’t Patzer asked more about the renegades if he suspected she was working with them?
There was one final connection: The massacre at the workshop and the massacre in the Immersion Chamber. The two massacres weren’t quite the same, but the damage done to both places meant something very powerful had done the dark work. What was the connection?
Patzer had pulled Lijjen off her back, isolating her and saddling her with work. The renegades were still out there, possibly making trouble for
