Chapter 10 The Art of Being Underestimated

Knox returned on Friday.

Not to Cael Street. Not with his people. He arrived at the food vendor on the main street at seven in the morning, which was the most usual hour for the district, when people begin their working day with breakfast.

Ethan didn't notice him from half a block away, and he didn't make any adjustment. The same speed, the same direction, the same expression. He ordered something from the vendor and then sat on a wall 2 feet from Knox and ate and didn't say anything and waited.

Knox didn't say anything at all for one full minute. The special silence of two people who have both decided not to speak first and now waiting to see who broke. The vendor went about his trade around them and the morning went and the common noise of the ordinary Warrens filled the space between them unbothered by both of them

Knox said “you have been in my storage five times.”

"Yes."

“You took nothing that hasn't already been taken from someone else”

"Yes."

Knox gazed at the food vendor. He was as quiet as someone who had practiced for years to control what would have been flying out of lesser men's faces. “Pol said you knew it was coming. The push. You felt it coming. You were expecting it.”

Ethan replied, "I didn't think that was going to happen. There is a difference, I was prepared.”

“What do you think is the difference?”

“If you expect, you know it is going to happen, but when you are ready, it does not matter whether you do or do not.”

Knox remained silent for a while. “My discharge, the night that I arrived at Cael Street, never did anything before.”

"I know."

"What did it do."

Ethan ate and looked at the street taking his time before responding "'It eats,' he said. 'If something hits me, it feeds. The bigger the hit, the more it feeds.'”

He replied: "Your assessment was taken by the Bureau.”

"Yes."

“Because of this thing that gets fed”

Ethan explained “it's due to the fact that it turns into when it gets more food. They understand what the ceiling is, and they don't want it on public record.”

“What's the ceiling made of?”

Ethan gazed at him for the first time since he was seated. “I don't know yet... neither does the Bureau... that's the scary part.”

Knox kept his eyes fixed, which had spent ten years poring over the Warrens, and now perused something beyond their scope. “You're going after the Bureau,” he said.

“I'm going above the Bureau," Ethan said

"The council."

Ethan said nothing – and it was an answer.

Knox looked away. He studied all of it for a while, and Ethan let him. This wasn't hesitation — it was a man running the numbers one last time before committing to a decision he'd already made.

"My brother," Knox said.

“Davin, twenty-years-old E-rank wind talent, under the outer district provision of the conscripted mandatory service program.” Ethan paused. “No correspondence has been received from the advocate whom you were paying for the past eight months – the transfer records are clear, but the Registry has no record of applications.”

Knox was very quiet. "You went through my financial records."

“I got your documentation while it was a storage operation I was doing, not looking for your brother, but I built a structural map, and there he was.” Ethan didn't look away from the amber gaze for a second. “He is in the eastern service division. The rotation is over in four months. If you want him out before the rotation is over, then there is one Registry official who has the clearance to grant him an early release, and the vulnerability to push him.”

“What sort of pressure?”

“The kind that's based upon documented evidence of a contract violation in his personal Registry record that he has been hiding for two years.” Ethan paused. “Mira has the documents.”

Knox looked at him.

Ethan said "I am not doing this out of favor. It's an opening for an arrangement, your network in the Warrens, the access and the intelligence and the operational reach of what you have built here, plus what I am building and what Mira runs is an arrangement too big for any of us.” He paused. "Your brother goes home; you point your network towards my needs, and you don't ask me any questions about what I'm doing if I haven't answered them already.”

The morning swirled around them. It was followed by a short mechanical roar, and afterwards the usual sound returned.

“The council," Knox said. This is no question. The word alone, suspended in the space in between, bearing full weight of itself.

"Yes."

“They are the authors of the Tower Authority, the Bureau, the rank system from the lower to the top”

"Yes."

“And you think you're going to be able to break that down.”

“I don't know how he could possibly hold it together,” Ethan said. “Which is not identical but does have a similar effect.”

Knox glanced at the road. He checked his wristband, the deep amber of a B rank ability that had been running the Warrens for 10 years, had maxed out at gray and was doing nothing. He glanced at Ethan as if he was the most dangerous person in his surroundings and he's just spotted the first person who is even more dangerous.

Knox said “Davin gets home first.”

Ethan agreed "Davin goes home first.

Knox stood. He didn't hold out his hand. Neither did Ethan. There was no need for them to perform gestures that were not of their use.

“I will tell my people the Gray Band is untouchable," Knox said. “Everyone who is helpful to you gets that, too.”

"Mira Doss," he said, "And Solen Vark."

Knox nodded once. He pushed off the wall and walked away — the slow, deliberate pace of someone who'd just learned something and was already moving on to what came next.

Ethan finished eating.

He stayed on the wall a few minutes longer, thinking about the shape that had just come together. Three pieces that hadn't existed a month ago — Mira's information, Knox's network, his own growing ability — now aimed at a target that had gone unopposed for so long it had stopped expecting opposition.

This wasn't enough, though. He knew that. The council was seven S-ranks awakened and had institutional command over all official power structures in Veran City, and what Ethan had was a gray band, a pragmatic alliance with a gang operator of the Warrens, and an information broker with an interest in the outcome.

But he was a dead man on a sidewalk last month with 40 three dollars.

He stood up and placed the coat on and walked back towards Cael Street.

The tower to the east flashed blue with each passing moment, and as he walked, Ethan thought about it and what Solen had told him about the Towers and how everyone who had a job in the building was being tested for their reliability, and how all the movement was going to be kept controlled, measured, and never faster than the people at the top were comfortable with.

He was going to make them sit on their asses a lot.

Not yet. Soon.

He walked, and the Warrens walked around him, and the thing behind his sternum was deep and patient and ready, and for the first time in either of his lives Ethan Cole felt he knew what he would do next.