Chapter 9 The Price of what he carries
The form that Ethan was in has changed in three weeks, and he didn't choose to change it.
He did not intend to be of any service to anybody. He was going to build up, he was going to develop, he was going to create an understanding of the system he was working in before he began to break apart parts of it. Plans like that tended to meet reality and come out changed. The Warrens had a way of putting problems in front of you that couldn't be stepped around without losing ground you needed.
It began with Sera.
She was a woman in her forties, with an E-rank wind talent and the demeanor of a woman who knew how to take care of herself, and was here because this particular problem was beyond her ability to resolve on her own. Without beating around the bush, she said “Knox's collectors has taken the equipment three weeks ago and i wasn't owing him, the equipment are irreplaceable at my price point, losing it has cost me two clients of my repair business I've been running for six years”
Ethan said “No.”
The next morning she returned with a folder of Knox's collection records for eight months, an address for the storage location, and an access pattern she had compiled based on her own observation of the building for three weeks. Before she knocked on his door the first time, she had done the work, so she was prepared for him to refuse, and she had prepared to come back with more.
He glanced through the folder. He looked at her.
He took the folder.
On a Sunday morning, when he saw a break in Knox's guard rotation, he went to the storage area, and retrieved her equipment and left all the other things as they were and gave it to her that afternoon and told her they were done.
She returned on Wednesday with three others and new access patterns.
He took the folder.
He then visited Knox's storage four more times during the next two weeks. He retrieved equipment and documents and in one instance even a bank balance of credits which had been paid by a family of three over a period of six months, but collected by a company that had since shit down and which represented the entire operational budget of a small food business. He did not leave any sign of entry. He gave no more than what was on each person's list.
What he created in the process was not planned but more valuable than what he planned. A detailed map of Knox's entire Warrens network, created from the inside, more complete than anything Mira could find in her files. Knox's financial structure. His storage rotation. The exact nature of his district lieutenants' connections and the process of communication within the network when something had to get to Knox quickly.
He handed the map to Mira on a Tuesday morning and watched her face do the thing it did when information came in that was beyond her expectations.
She pondered it for a while. “Knox will be observing the trend of the losses in storage.”
“He already has and he's been playing around with the guard schedule since the third visit.” Ethan was sitting on the crate opposite her. “He hasn't yet moved the location, because the infrastructure there is not easily replicated,” he said. “When he does, the new location tells him something about his network that the current one does not.”
Mira put the map on the table. “You went to Knox four times in two weeks, without any reaction.”
"Five times."
She looked at him. “while developing Null Devour and building the council structure map I gave you and arranging the council with Solen.”
"Yes."
She was silent like a woman who is silent when making a decision. Then she pulled out a crumpled paper and extended it. “The fourth council member. I've been waiting for you to be ready for this one.”
He took it. Unfolded it. A name, a financial structure, three operational assets linked to the council's authority chain, and, at the end of the page, in Mira's exact handwriting, a note: this one has a direct connection to the containment facility budget. Trace the funds and you'll discover the facility's outside contractor record. The contractor list includes a name you'll know.
He looked up.
"Harmon," she said. “He's not only the instrument of the suppression order, he has a financial relationship with the facility that predates Rael's containment by four years, he knew what the facility was before he ever saw your file, he's been a part of the infrastructure that runs it.”
The room went still around it.
Ethan looked at the paper in his hands and remembered the hallway in the Bureau, Harmon's polite face, and the single crack in his face that he noticed when he first walked in and looked Ethan straight in the eye. He pondered about those six hours in the corridor, a man with a financial interest in the containment facility deciding how to deal with the new arrival.
He wasn't dealing with an institutional issue, he was dealing with a personal issue. He had been safeguarding an investment.
Ethan said, "The three names that you have not given me yet.”
“I will trust you with them," she said. "Not yet."
He nodded. He had been told that forcing Mira's timeline got him nothing and waiting for her to do it yielded the information when she was ready to share it, which was always at a later time than he had hoped, and always more complete than he could have gotten on his own.
He folded it up and placed it in his coat pocket.
He said, "Knox returned.”
Mira lifted her head from the tablet. "When."
“Four days ago, not to the building, but to me he came and walked half a block with me, his people and his ability not involved.” Ethan paused. “He asked me, What i wanted from the Warrens.”
“What did you say to him?”
That I am not here for his district.”
"Did he believe you?"
“No, but he doesn't know what I'm here for, which is more useful than belief. He will return, he will not fight, he will negotiate.”
Mira placed the tablet gently down. Knox is no negotiator.
Ethan said “Knox has never seen anything that he couldn't solve. He's a practical man, if the tool doesn't work the practical answer is to find another tool.” He paused. “His brother is in the mandatory service program of the Registry and Knox has been attempting to free him for two years, but he is being blocked at every turn.”
Mira stared at him. “How can you be sure of that?”
“The storage operation. His financial records have a recurring transfer to a Registry services advocate that has failed to do anything about it in eight months. The advocate is taking the money and filing nothing.” Ethan studied her intently. “Knox wants to free his brother, but the person he's paying isn't doing it.”
It was a very quiet room.
“You want to give Knox his brother,” Mira said.
“I want to offer Knox an alliance with something that has more reach than Knox thinks it has," Ethan said. “His brother is the opening, the alliance is the point, Knox's network in the Warrens, your information infrastructure, what I'm developing, gives us something the council has no model for, a threat they can't see clearly enough to suppress before it's too late.”
Mira studied him for a long time, with the eyes that didn't show themselves. Then, very quietly, she said, "You've been scheming this since the storage operation.”
Ethan said, "I have been working on this since Solen told me that the chain went up higher than the Bureau. I discovered Knox was the perfect first piece through the storage operation.”
She looked at the tablet. She studied the map. She glanced at Ethan, as if she was recalibrating and that it needed more than she expected.
“The three names,” she said. “I'll give you the next one in the morning.”
Ethan said, "Thank you.”
He stood and took up the coat and went to the door and stopped, his hand on the door frame.
"Mira," he said.
She looked up.
“Once this is accomplished, the door will open," he said. “Be there, not me, you.”
She gazed at him for a while. There was something behind the eyes that did not give anything back, but it was brief and real and gone.
She replied, "I will be there.”
He went into the corridor and shut the door behind him and stood in the mechanical noise of the building for a moment and thought about seven names at the top of a building and a man in unit three who had waited long enough.
He started walking.
