She wonders if there’s anything on video worth watching.
The truth is, outside of her work and the few hours each week she spends with Constantine, she has no life in Caraqui. What she has seen of the metropolis does not attract her, and though she’s grown familiar with parts of the city through telepresent surveillance work, most of her physical knowledge of Caraqui is confined to the carpeted, paneled labyrinth of the Aerial Palace.
It occurs to her that she could use a few friends. Perhaps she should try to recruit a few.
There is an urgent knock on the door, and then the door chime, the soft tone repeating itself over and over again as Aiah’s visitor leans on it.
There is no reason for anyone to behave this way. If there’s a situation in the department, someone can call. It’s certainly faster than running all the way over from the Owl Wing.
Aiah puts her eye to the peephole. She doesn’t see anyone.
Reflexes honed in her old neighborhood remind her not to open the door.
“Who’s there?” she calls. “Ethemark.”
Ethemark, too short to be visible through the peephole. Aiah opens the door, sees herself reflected in her deputy’s goggle eyes.
A cold hand touches Aiah’s neck at the expression on Ethemark’s face.
“What’s happened?” “Great-Uncle Rathmen. He’s gone.” “Gone? How?”
“Teleported out of his cell, apparently. Right out of the secure unit.”
Cold anger clenches Aiah’s fists. “Somebody’s been paid off.”
“Very likely. I’ve got a boat waiting at the northwest water gate.”
So that’s why he’d come in person: Aiah’s apartment was on his way to the northwest gate. “Let me get a jacket,” Aiah says.
TRIUMVIR PARQ ADDRESSES THE FAITHFUL “DALAVOS, HIS PROPHECIES, AND YOU” THIRD SHIFT ON CHANNEL 17
The prison dates from the period of the Avians, who liked their official buildings to aspire to a certain magnificence. Shieldlight gleams from its white stone walls and winks off the baroque bronze traceries, functional and ornamental at once, designed to ward off attack. It is as if the building were designed to deny the horrors that went on inside.
As with the Palace, evidence of the Avians is all over the building, stylized reliefs of wings over every entrance, the wing tips curled outward as if to embrace the prisoners as they approach. Transmission homs in the shape of hawks or eagles, statues of raptors in niches, and even the bronze collection web is an abstract design of interlocking wings.
Aiah hasn’t had a reason to be here before. As the boat approaches the prison’s water gate, she looks up at the out-curving wings above her and shivers as the shadow comes between her and the light.
Inside, the place is strangely hygienic and functional, like a hospital, or a modern abattoir. Unstained bright colors, polished metal, bright fluorescent light. The Keremaths had remained true to the Avians’ spirit and kept their dungeons tidy.
The special secure wing is deep in the heart of the building and smells of disinfectant and despair. The triumvir Hilthi had paid for his journalistic dedication with a few years here, and so had many others released by the coup. Now the place was filled with Keremath supporters and gangsters.
Great-Uncle Rathmen had been tried by a military court and condemned to death within a week of his capture. He had been kept alive only because his interrogations were producing valuable information. Because he knew so much, the plasm scanners wanted to be very thorough with him, and the interrogations were many and painstaking. His file in Aiah’s secure room was growing thicker every week, long lists of contacts, payoffs, funds hidden in banks or basements.
To reach through the secure area, Aiah has to pass through two airlocks, sets of double doors screened with bronze mesh, intended to prevent even the smallest probe of plasm from slipping through. No expense or effort was spared to keep the prisoners out of the reach of any mage who might have wished to liberate them.
No expense was spared, that is, except on the guards. They are paid poorly, as are all civil servants here, and Aiah finds that Rathmen has almost certainly been paying them commissions. His cell is filled with homey touches: a piece of colored paper taped over the recessed light to moderate the harsh electric bulb, a thick carpet with a Sycar design, Sycar wall hangings, photographs of Rathmen’s family propped on a little table, cigarette butts in an ashtray. Even a box of sweets and a half-eaten pigeon pie.
Pillows—thick, soft, pleasant-looking pillows—are stuffed under the blanket to give the illusion of a sleeping prisoner.
Anger steams through Aiah’s veins. She turns to the officer on watch, a big, balding man with a nervous gleam of sweat on his forehead.
“Have any of the other prisoners been allowed personal items?”
He shakes his head. “Not to my knowledge.”
She decides to find out for herself and walks up to several cells at random. Just a few glimpses through peepholes show that a great many of them contain nonregulation items: colorful blankets, wall hangings, lamps, videos, even small refrigerators. Many are large enough to contain hidden plasm batteries.
Aiah turns to Ethemark. “Kelban is off this shift. Call him—I want him to create a plasm hound here and see if he can trace where Rathmen went.”
Little creases form at the inner edges of Ethemark’s eyes. His expressions are very subtle, but Aiah is slowly learning them. This is his uncertain look.
“Miss, if Rathmen was teleported out of here, there won’t be a trail for a hound to follow.”
“//he was teleported. He might have walked out, possibly with a bit of plasm-glamour to disguise him, and in that case I want to know where he went.”
Understanding crosses Ethemark’s face. “Right away,” he says.
The watch officer clears his throat. “Beg pardon, miss, but there’s a problem.” Aiah glares at him. “Yes?”
“There are no plasm outlets down here—we don’t want the prisoners ever getting ahold of the goods. So if you want to create a hound here, you’ll have to bring plasm in on a wire, or open enough doors so that a plasm sourceline can be sent into the area.” He adopts a pained expression. “I wouldn’t recommend that. Not if there’s a teleportation mage who’s already found a way in once.”
Aiah sees his point. “Mr. Ethemark, did you hear that?” she calls.
Ethemark turns on his way to the phone. “Yes, Miss Aiah.”
“Have Kelban bring a long wire.” “I’ll do that.”
Aiah turns back to the officer. “I want a list of everyone who’s been on watch within the last twenty-four hours. And the names of whoever carried out Rathmen’s interrogations.”
“I—” The officer looks up, and his eyes go wide for a moment. Aiah turns, and there is Sorya walking through the door. She is dressed casually—baggy slacks and a rollneck sweater and scuffed suede boots, with her worn green military greatcoat thrown over her shoulders. On her, this unlikely ensemble looks superb.
Two bodyguards are with her, Cheloki, big men with black skins and twisted genes, facial features sunk into bony armored plates, knuckles the size of walnuts.
But Sorya doesn’t need bodyguards to make her dangerous. She carries the glamour of authority with her, and it is evident in every step she takes, in the cold fluorescent gleam of her eyes.
She walks past Aiah to stand before the officer, hands propped on her hips, the greatcoat flared out behind her like a cloak. “I have put guards on the doors,” she says. “No one will leave till this is resolved. I will need the names of everyone who has been in this area within the last twenty-four hours, because the ones who aren’t here are all about to be got out of bed. I have other people on the way… specialists.”