Chapter 12 The tower knows his name

Solen found him on Monday.

Not at the room on Cael Street or the Mira office in the corridor. Ethan had been sitting in the public gallery on Tower Four, passively watching the challenge floor below, taking it in slowly. Slow water still flows in the right direction. The reservoir didn't care about speed.

Solen walked into the lobby and went up to the 2nd floor gallery and spotted Ethan at the rail, but did not acknowledge him and waited right next to him for one minute before talking to him about the challenge floor.

He said "Harmon submitted an activity review to Tower Four yesterday.”

Ethan's gaze was fixed at the bottom of the stairs where a C-rank engagement was underway in its second round. “What sort of review?”

“Access to gallery and challenge floor routines and logs will be routine audited in standard language". Solen paused. “The kind of pattern that does not match is an unregistered individual appearing in the gallery access logs repeatedly over a two week period without any wristband registration.”

“He knows that I'm here.”

“He knows someone with a gray band has been visiting Tower Four's gallery on a regular basis, but the logs of visitors are not kept of unregistered people, only the time they visited and band color.” Solen glanced down at the challenge floor. “He doesn't know it's YOU. Yet.”

Ethan took this, as well as the passive bleed from below the C-rank engagement, in stages, both filed away. He knew the sessions in the gallery would eventually result in a flag. He had figured that it would take longer than two weeks, which meant that Harmon's monitoring devices were more sensitive than the Tower Access Code indicated or he had done something to make Tower Four more sensitive, which would have narrowed the location.

Ethan said “he had raised the monitoring of Tower Four.”

Solen took a moment in silence. “Yes, I found the internal order this morning, and it was filed three days ago, so he did look before the activity review, and something triggered the heightened monitoring before the access log pattern was long enough for it to be detected automatically.”

Ethan gazed at the challenge floor and recalled what had occurred three days prior. He hasn't been at Tower Four three days ago. He didn't come here three days ago. He had been out in Knox's jurisdiction, on the eastern side of the Warrens, walking the limits of the district with Knox's lieutenant, sketching out the outer edge of the network for the structural image he was creating of what he thought the alliance might be able to encompass.

He had been in Knox's territory — close enough to feel the passive bleed from Knox's amber B-rank band. And Knox's people, warned that the gray band on Cael Street was untouchable, would have known exactly who they were looking at.

“He’s got somebody in Knox's web, Ethan,” he said.

Solen turned to look at him.

“Not Knox, but somebody in the network reporting to Harmon or directly to the council and trusted inside Knox's operation, who has been there long enough.” Ethan's voice did not rise or fall. “Three days ago I was in the eastern territory of Knox, the informant saw me there, filed a report, and Harmon followed up by raising the sensitivity of Tower Four, which resulted in their access log being connected to me as being in the unregistered territory of knox.”

“He has made you the variable," said Solen.

“He's figured out that there is a variable, and that it's tied to Knox and the Towers, but he doesn't have all the pieces of the puzzle. But the timeline has shortened.”

They were on the rail for a moment as the C rank engagement below ended and the audience in the gallery acknowledged it with a quiet appreciation. Ethan was convinced that the last trace of the engagement was finally delivered to the reservoir, but this was only a small one, a challenge that was technically successful but not very strong, and he put it with the rest.

He said “the informant in Knox's network. I need a name."

“Let me ‘look’,” replied Solen. “It will take time, the council's embedded contacts are meant to be undetectable even by the Authority's own review.”

"How much time."

“It could have been a week, perhaps two.”

Ethan replied, "One week. Once the informant is in there, that's a liability, whether or not we have the name, because Knox will know about them and Knox will find them a lot quicker around the outside than we will.”

He regarded him with the look he gave when Ethan's words were both right and wrong. “If you tell Knox that Harmon has someone in his network, you tell Knox that Harmon has been watching him, and you tell Knox how and for how long, and you will pay some price for that.”

“I'm going to lose control of what I know and when I know it,” said Ethan. “Knox can manage that, he already knows that the council runs everything above the Warrens, when he learns one of his people reports to them, it's confirmation of what he has suspected since before my arrival.”

Solen was quiet. Then: "Informants aren't the most pressing matter that I need to tell you here.”

Ethan gazed at him.

“The internal enforcement division," said Solen. “The one on top of the public building of the Tower Authority. They have opened a file.” He paused. “Not on YOU personally. The anomalous variable that was associated with the pattern of grey band access and the activity of the Knox network. They haven't put your name on it yet. They are described and then have a behavior profile, and a flag that if a new item turns up that fits the profile, they will be forwarded directly to the top of the division.”

“Who is their superior officer?”

“A man called Crest. He's been managing the division for eight years, he's not a field operator, he's a strategist, and he’s making decisions about the division, he’s building full pictures before he does anything, he's not dealing with individual incidents.” Ethan looked into Solen's eyes. “Don't forget, he will not budge until the picture comes into focus, and when it does, it's too late.”

Ethan studied the challenge floor below where a new engagement was preparing, two D-rank challengers standing at the marks with the excitement of fighters who had no idea of what his abilities could do.

He considered the time-line. Two months as he had said to Mira he needed. The facility review will be conducted in six weeks. The Tower challenge that will speed up the development of the reservoir. The person who told Knox about it. Harmon's increased monitoring. Crest's division constructing a picture.

Too many things being squeezed in at the same time. Not to cause an actual catastrophe, but to make a change.

He said “I need to move this Tower challenge forward.”

Solen gave him a look. “You told me that you weren't ready.”

“Three weeks ago I said I wasn't ready, but this reservoir has grown a lot since then.” He watched the engagement of the D rank start below, the little amount coming to him passively as he was used to, with no effort on his part. "Crest's division builds pictures from behavior patterns. An unregistered individual making regular gallery visits is a pattern. An unregistered individual kicking off a Tower challenge in the public domain, and producing output that does not conform to the gray band classification is a different kind of information. It does not extend the picture. It breaks it.”

“You'd like to provide them something they can't fit into their profile that they're creating.”

“I want them to have to do the profile again," Ethan said. “Crest is a strategist, loss of time when data disproves the model.”

Solen pondered the challenge floor for an extended period of time. “Cass Amir is a challenger from the C level in this Tower with a scheduled floor session in four days, with the highest force amplification that exists at this level in this Tower.” He paused. “If you're going to do this, Amir is the right guy to play against.”

Ethan said, "Explain his ability mechanics.”

Solen told him. He listened closely — this information would have a direct effect on his plans. By the time Solen finished, the D-rank engagement below had ended, the gallery had reset, and the reservoir sat exactly where three days without significant input had left it.

Four days.

He had four days to build up as much extra capacity as the gallery sessions and any other accumulation he could get would give him, and then he was going to be standing across from Cass Amir with a gray band on his chest and discover if the reservoir was what he thought it was, on the fly.

“Oh, there's one more thing,” Solen replied.

Ethan waited.

“The informant in Knox's network.” Solen glanced down the rail but not at Ethan. “I've got a preliminary idea who it might be, if the read is right, the informant has been in Knox's network for three years, which means it was before you were there and before the council had any reason to specifically monitor Knox.” He paused. “Which is to say the council has had an interest in watching Knox that has nothing to do with you.”

Ethan said, “Knox's brother.”

Solen looked at him.

The council regulates the mandatory service and Davin has been attempting to get out of it for two years on courses that continue to get done for him. Ethan stared into Solen's eyes. “The channels are shutting down because the council has been intentionally shutting them down, with Davin as the tool they use to keep Knox manageable, the informant is how they determine if the leverage is working.”

They were in a context of peace; the stillness of the gallery between two battles.

“If that is true," Solen said carefully, "and if Knox finds out it is true.”

Ethan said “Knox will want to move faster than the arrangement we have now accounted for. That's why the name of the informant should come before Knox's. I want to have control over how and when he gets that information.”

For a long time, Solen studied him. Then he said: "You've been three moves ahead of this since you arrived at Cael Street the night Knox showed up and you haven't been the same since then.”

Ethan said, "I have been trying to be. There is a difference.”

He walked out of the gallery and took the elevator down and walked through the mid morning of Veran City into the opening of four days, his hands in his coat pockets, ready or not.

He would be ready.

He walked faster.