But it was up to her how she went about it.
“How about I steal a fragment without betraying my friends?” Branwyn suggested. “You could help me get in from the Backworld, the same way I got to Hunter’s place.”
He smiled grimly. “If it was possible to break into the Repository via the Backworld, it would have long ago been emptied. No. It is protected. No earthly body can arrive that way.”
“The front door, then.” As she said it, she remembered Antonio the security guard and his special talents.
“It is protected that way, too. You must use your connections, or else there is no way forward.”
Branwyn shrugged. “We’ll see.”
He looked appalled by her reaction. It seemed like everybody eventually gave her that look, which just demonstrated people were the same no matter whether they were human, nephilim, or celestial. “Branwyn, you cannot just walk into Senyaza’s Repository.”
She sighed at his negativity. “I’ve found, oh trapped faerie lord, that it isn’t usually getting into places that’s the problem.” She rapped her knuckles on the door behind her. “It’s getting out again.”
*
***Swear to God this happened***
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Sorry it’s only a slideshow, didn’t know how to take a video. It really happened, though!
A slideshow set to harp music;
1.) Broad white stone steps climbing a hill lead to a civic building at the top. People are climbing the steps and sitting on them.
2.) Closeup of a flight of pigeons on the steps.
3.) Closeup of a woman feeding the pigeons. She’s delicate, in a simple white dress with a sheet of black hair. It’s a great picture.
4.) Another shot of the woman, not so good. She’s moving, her face away from the camera.
5.) Another shot. The pigeons are flying around her as she walks along a step.
6.) She’s bending over somebody sitting on the steps. No pigeons. It’s a homeless man, unshaven and dressed in layers of rags despite the sunshine.
7.) He’s looking up at her as she holds out her hand to him.
8.) Almost the same shot, but there’s no homeless man. A pigeon perches on her hand. There’s a blur near her.
9.) The woman is surrounded by pigeons, with her hands raised to the sky. Again, a really great shot.
-twenty three-
Admittedly, getting in wasn’t as smooth as Branwyn had hoped. Basic security in the private parts of the building involved keycards and name badges, all keyed to biometric impressions like the thumbprint they’d taken when she came to visit Corbin. It would have been easier if she’d gotten Simon to help her get past Antonio and the reception desk, at least. But he’d helped her save Jaimie. She couldn’t do that to him. She considered talking to Howl about technological solutions, but that seemed like it would take more time and planning than she was interested in.
In the end, she relied on that most time-honored way of circumventing security: she found the little keycarded back door that employees used to take their smoke breaks and loitered with a cigarette until she could slip in behind somebody. It didn’t take very long before a middle-aged man—human, she saw, with filled nodes just like her—glanced at her as he headed inside. “Coming in?”
“I guess I should,” she said and followed him in, glancing up at the camera over the door as she did. That gave her access to the back corridors and, one elevator ride later, after talking to the middle-aged man enthusiastically about hair dye, she was inside the private part of Senyaza Titan One.
After that, she had some time to kill. She explored the private elevator system until she found the underground floor with the Repository. It required keycard access just to push the button. That was okay, though. She waited until after business hours, when most of the employees went home, then went out to the fire stairs.
That entrance to the Repository level also required a keycard. But when she didn’t need to watch out for anybody coming up behind her, keycards were just an inconvenience. At least, they were compared to the Door in the gallery.
She knelt before the lock panel and studied its Geometric structure for a few moments. Then she stroked a finger along one of the cobwebby lines embedding it into the door. For a moment, she could taste the magnetism in her teeth, cobalt and sweet. There was a pop and a whir and the lock disengaged.
Before the Geometry could reassert itself, she hauled the door open and darted inside. The lights in the hall beyond had been dimmed and the floor was quiet save for the hum of distant electronics. She went past the elevators to the reception desk, which was located in front of a big wall inset with a single heavy door and one large picture window. Beyond the window there was another room, one with a collection of filing cabinets and shelves, with two tables in the center of the space.
At least, that’s what she saw with her normal vision. What she saw with the Sight made her wonder why they thought it was a good idea to put so many Machine fragments in such close proximity. They reinforced each other, pressing on the local Geometry, warping and weakening it with the weight of their presence. The fragments were tucked away inside the filing cabinets, but they shone through the enclosures like stars wrapped in tissue paper, like the morning sun washing away a dream. Without will, the worldly objects could barely maintain their integrity against the light.
Branwyn smiled and put her hands on the glass of the window. It was cool and solid under her fingers, but she slid her hands apart and the Geometric web of the glass parted. The glass fell into two smooth-edged halves with a Branwyn-sized circle in the middle. As she swung herself into the room, an alarm went off somewhere.
She ignored it, surveying the room. Heavy oak cabinets formed a semicircle around the pair of tables, with shelves between each cabinet. Many, many binders and bins, untidily arranged, occupied the shelves. “Hello, children,” she said. “Who wants to open a lock?” She strolled along the circle of cabinets, inspecting each Machine fragment, looking at its nature, sensing its inclinations. When she pulled open one of the cabinets, a loud clattering indicated further security measures activating. A steel grate had descended from the ceiling to block off the wall containing the door and the split window. Branwyn only glanced at it for an instant before looking back at the cabinet.
The Machine fragment was in a metal box that, in turn, was nestled within a mess of papers, folders, discs, and memory sticks. The box wasn’t locked in any way, which suggested either an odd lapse on the part of Senyaza’s security designer, or the triumph of reason. She opened it and pulled out the fragment, then kept walking. She counted fourteen fragments in total, including one she’d interacted with before, the children’s toy she’d reshaped into a weapon for Marley. She frowned at the Lullaby Spear and almost took it as well; she felt like it was hers or Marley’s, not Senyaza’s. But in the end she left it behind, choosing only three of the fragments to help her.
She set to work.
When security showed up, she was sitting at one of the tables flipping through one of the binders. Four men in helmets and black battledress thundered in, arrayed themselves beyond the split window, and leveled large guns at her.
“Step away from the table!” one of them barked. “Hands in the air!”
She blinked at them, then stood up and said, “How intimidating.” She made a show of raising her empty hands into the air.
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” said a different voice. The security team rearranged themselves to let a thin man in an exquisite pearl-grey suit approach the window. He had an older face, and a clean pate, and he was a nephil. His nodes contained complex charms, and the auras at his head and feet burned with white radiance.
He looked Branwyn over with faint interest. “Good evening, Miss Lennox. I am Mr. Black. Would you come with me, please?”
“Nice tie,” Branwyn commented. It was black silk, speckled with the stars of the Milky Way. “Very modern wizard.” He looked down at his chest in surprise, th
en looked up with an amused smile that lingered as Branwyn kept talking. “Where is it you’d like me to go?”
“Oh, to my office. It’s not far.”
Branwyn considered the request. “I could do that. But I can’t stay long.”
His amusement didn’t flicker. “We shall see.” He addressed the security force in a very different tone of voice. “Make sure she’s clean. A librarian will be along soon to restore the artifacts to their proper locations.”
The grate separating Branwyn from the others rattled up and the door buzzed open. While two of the team kept their weapons trained on her, the other two entered, ready to frisk her. Branwyn lowered her hands slowly and held up one finger. “Let me get those for you.” She reached into the pocket of her cargo pants and pulled out a handkerchief. She carefully unfolded it to reveal two Machine fragments: a shard of blue glass with red veins trailing from the angled ends, and a thin lavender needle with a bent hollow tip.
She held out the handkerchief to one of the men. “Careful,” she said. “They bite the unwary.”
The man took the cloth and inspected its contents with a healthy caution. “Where’s the third artifact?”
“Ah,” she said. “That one stays with me.”
“Bullshit,” said the man, and nodded at his companion.
Before the second man could move, Branwyn said pleasantly, “Have you any idea about the contents of the room you’re standing in, gentlemen? You think of them as artifacts, yes? Relics of another time, a faraway place. But in the right hands, each and every one of them is a weapon. Your hands are not the right hands. Mine are. And the truth is? I don’t even need to use my hands.”
The guard holding the handkerchief jerked in surprise, staring down at his palm in horror. The shard of blue glass had changed, the red tendrils extending from it growing just a little bit longer. The second guard hesitated.
“Put it on the table,” Branwyn suggested. “Let the librarian handle it. That’s what she’s paid for.”
The guard hurriedly did as she said and Branwyn smiled. This seemed to annoy the second guard, who said, “Put the third artifact on the table yourself, then.”
“It wants to come with me,” Branwyn said. “It kills angels. Do you really want to argue with it?” The little golden disc nestled against her left breast, under her bra, warm and eager to work.
With a touch of impatience, Mr. Black called from beyond the door, “Must I do this myself?”
“Sir, she—”
“Check her for weapons, then bring her. Let her retain the artifact for now. It will be an instructive exercise.”
Branwyn allowed this, although she repressed a smile at how half-hearted the pat-down was. When they decided she was free of mundane weapons, she walked between them out of the Repository and into the elevator, which took her up to the above-ground part of the building, a few floors above the main entrance.
Mr. Black had a corner office overlooking the street below, tucked up close to the public part of the tower. It was quite large, with a grouping of couches as well as a desk near the window with a hard wooden chair across from it. When the guards escorted her into the room, Mr. Black was waiting. He gestured Branwyn to the loveseat and, once she was seated, moved to the sofa. “Thank you,” he said to the guards. “Please wait outside. Would you like a drink, Miss Lennox?”
“No, thank you,” said Branwyn, just as polite. It turned out she was capable of it, when it entertained her. That was just so rare. “So, your men checked me for guns and knives and the like.”
“As I asked. It makes them feel useful,” Mr. Black confided. “They do like that.”
“What would you do if I had a weaponized charm, though?”
He sat down on the couch, chuckling. “You are such an innocent, Miss Lennox. So new to our world, and so ignorant.”
Branwyn became less entertained. “So educate me.”
“Aren’t I doing just that? Let us say that I am not without protection of my own, and sometimes the best defense is a good offense.” The smile he gave her was positively jolly. His confidence was starting to get on Branwyn’s nerves. “Be easy, my dear. As long as you behave yourself, no harm will come to you.”
Branwyn concentrated on not letting her irritation show and waited quietly for him to get to the point. He clearly had one. They’d caught her in their secured facility, playing with their toys, and they’d neither shot her nor turned her over to the ordinary authorities.
Mr. Black leaned back, lacing his fingers together in front of him. “We’ve been watching you. You first came to this tower in the company of my grandson. After he went abroad, you attached yourself to Simon. Yet you snuck in here today without any assistance from him.”
“Oh, he wouldn’t help me,” lied Branwyn. “I asked but he wouldn’t even consider it. He warned me it was a bad idea.” She shook her head. “If only I’d listened.”
“Very loyal,” Mr. Black said, and Branwyn wasn’t sure if he was talking about Simon, or her transparent lie. He paused, studying her. Branwyn returned the favor, looking for a resemblance to Corbin in his face. She couldn’t see it. “I’ve been watching almost since you walked in the side door. We were very curious about your goals and methods. There are obviously holes we’ll have to plug.”
“If you knew I was here from the beginning, it seems like you’ve got security well in hand,” Branwyn pointed out.
“Oh, Miss Lennox, give yourself more credit. We may have watched you as you loitered in the lounge reading the newspaper, but we didn’t open any doors for you. We certainly didn’t give you access to the Repository. It was really quite a good demonstration of your skills.”
Branwyn sighed. “Thank you.” She thought about trying to hurry things along, but there was no point. Some things took time.
“My theory,” confided the elder nephil, “is that you wanted to get caught. You needed a way to get out of helping the faeries. If we had you, not only would you be unable to complete their task, but we’d protect you from them.”
“Close. Even plausible,” said Branwyn. She bared her teeth in what was nominally a smile. “But not correct. Care to try again?”
Mr. Black’s expression sharpened. “No? Well. The end result is the same, no matter your motivation. You will work for us now. We will pay you well, of course—”
“In exchange for the Machine fragment known as the Golden Memory? That seems like a fair exchange. I’ve already begun.” Branwyn noticed with some satisfaction Mr. Black’s increased agitation; it reflected her own irritation nicely.
“Don’t be tedious, girl. You will not be permitted to retain the Machine beyond this room, and you will certainly not be permitted to further aid humanity’s enemies. Working for us will be satisfying and rewarding. You will be protected from dangers and—” He paused. “What do you mean, you’ve already begun?”
Branwyn stretched. “You really don’t want me working for you, you know. Not as a permanent employee. The Queen of Stone can look through my eyes whenever she wants, and there’s an asshole kaiju who already thinks he owns me. I’m pretty sure there’s not room for Senyaza as well. It certainly wouldn’t be secure. But I’m totally open to specific commissions. When I get home, I’ll write up a rate sheet for you.”
And now Mr. Black’s voice had an edge. “What did you mean, you’ve already begun?”
Glancing at the walls, Branwyn said, “And here I thought you said you were watching me the whole time. Oh right.” She smiled again, sharper this time. “You haven’t had access to a real Artificer—it’s a human ability, you know, comes from humans with a faerie education—for centuries.” She stood. “I woke up the Repository, Mr. Black. I woke up a few other things, too, just to see if I could. And right now the Machines in the Repository are accelerating the growth of the loci I made. They’re so cute, don’t you think? The door has a node, just like we do.”
Mr. Black stared at her, thinking over what she said. “All right—”
Branwyn stood up and spoke over him. “Just like we do. Except you and I, we have charms. So I gave the door a copy of one of my charms. Just like Corbin did for me once! It wasn’t the same, of course; I had to use a Machine to help. They’re very helpful to anybody who tries to understand them. Well, to humans.”
Mr. Black’s eyes narrowed and Branwyn could tell he was scanning her charms, trying to guess which one she’d given the door. She gave him a brilliant smile. “I gave it the charm for opening a passage into the Backworld. And I made a request. If I haven’t walked out of here with the Golden Memory by the time it wakes up all the way, it’s going to use the charm.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Now, because it’s a room and not a person, I think it may work a little differently. I’m just guessing, but I think what’s going to happen is that the room is going to swap places with whatever’s in the Backworld right there. I don’t know what that is, although apparently faeries and monsters are afraid of it! Even if that’s just an urban legend, the contents of the Repository will be in the Backworld, all unguarded.” She put her hand on the wall behind the sofa and felt the thrum as the awakened bones of the building carried her touch to the Repository.
She was surprised when Mr. Black said, “You’re bluffing.” She’d told the absolute truth, after all.
“Go and see, then. Or ask your librarian to look. Tell her it might be best if she didn’t open the door, though.”
With an ugly twist of his mouth, he pulled a phone out of his jacket pocket and speed-dialed a number. Less than thirty seconds later, he murmured, “I see,” and put the phone away. His gaze was trained on Branwyn’s hand.
“Oh, sorry, is this making you nervous? We wouldn’t want that.” She pulled her hand away from the wall. Mischievously, she added, “As long as you behave yourself, no harm will come to you.” He glared at her and suddenly she could see the resemblance to Corbin. Before she could feel a pang of regret, she went on. “So what’s it going to be? Am I going to walk out of here or is something awkward going to happen? What is on the other side of the curtain down there?”
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