Over the course of his career, William Cooper had been many things: a spy, thief, soldier, saboteur, inquisitor, rescuer, and assassin. Many jobs. Many hats. But all of them executed by a man who took his work very seriously. For William Cooper was a professional who did whatever was required to complete his mission. At the moment, that meant killing a man.
The engineer was no longer resisting. He stared at Cooper’s reflection in the gleaming boiler, stared with blank astonishment at the pale stranger who had suddenly appeared, clamped a strong arm about his throat, and brought his life to a swift and silent conclusion. When the eyes went dim, Cooper gently lowered the man’s body to the floor.
“Is it over?”
The voice was Hazel’s. She was huddled in the corner, her eyes averted from the scene.
“It is.”
Crouching, Cooper methodically stripped the man’s watch and security badge. The engineer was in his twenties, very fit, and possessed the blue-eyed, Eurasian features that were a common by-product of the Workshop’s eugenics programs. Removing a slim computer from the man’s breast pocket, Cooper pressed the engineer’s still-warm thumb against its biometric sensor. The dark screen illuminated.
“What are you doing?” Toby whispered from behind Hazel.
The smee had taken the form of a gray rat when the engineer entered the boiler room. The man’s unexpected appearance had startled Hazel, who’d knocked over a wrench that had been propped against a wall. It had clattered to the floor, causing the engineer to draw a sidearm and hurry along the boilers toward the dark corner where they’d been resting. Four steps later, the engineer was dead.
Ignoring Toby’s questions, Cooper studied the computer screen as he scrolled through a series of menus. He soon found what he was looking for—a detailed map of the Verilius Depot, an underground train station near what used to be Frankfurt, Germany. A tiny blinking dot appeared in a mechanicals room in the station’s northwest quadrant.
There we are. His eyes darted to a tiny grid of updating data. He checked the engineer’s watch and swiped past various screens to locate the latest train schedules.
Cooper was anxious to get moving again. They had already violated one of his basic rules by staying in one place for more than twenty-four hours. And now someone had happened by. Killing the engineer had not solved their problem; it was simply a stopgap as they sought a way into the Workshop.
Their problems had started with Max’s clones. The assassins had left Cooper badly injured—two broken wrists and a concussion that had him seeing double for a week. He had recovered at Shrope Hovel where Hazel had set his bones, accelerated their healing with spellwork, and Mum and Bob had cooked for him in their old, familiar way. The impatient haglings had not waited for him to mend. They had set out the morning after the Naming, clopping off in their little wagons to rescue their aunt Gertie from the Workshop museums, where she was on display. They’d taken the Spindlefingers goblin with them, for it was his clan that maintained the Workshop’s trains and could smuggle them inside the depot.
That was over two months ago. By now, the haglings would have succeeded or failed in their quest. The latter was more likely, but Cooper nurtured a sliver of hope that somewhere a confused and disheveled Gertie was on her way back to Shrope Hovel. He didn’t dwell on it, however. He had his own operation to complete and he was well behind schedule. Every day Rowan’s forces were getting a little closer to Blys. Unless Cooper was able to activate the Workshop asset and infiltrate Prusias’s capital, Rowan would face a slew of advanced and mechanized defenses. If that happened, the odds of a successful siege dwindled considerably. He could not fail.
He’d always worked best and quickest alone. Now he had partners. Given his injuries, Hazel had utterly refused to leave him while Toby tagged along, reluctant to remain with the hags. While his wife and the smee had talents that made them useful, they nevertheless slowed him down. Partners demanded explanations; partners wanted a voice in decisions; partners needed sleep.
Sleep. Cooper had to admit he could use some. He hadn’t been dozing for more than ten minutes when the engineer stumbled upon their hiding place. The last rest he’d taken was over three days ago before they’d snuck aboard the freight chutes that brought them down here. He wasn’t in crisis yet—he could endure several more days before his capabilities would decline—but it was important to sleep when one could. And Hazel needed rest more than she ever had. He longed to send her back to Rowan.
But there was no turning back now. Not for any of them. Weeks of cautious, stealthy spycraft had gotten them from Shrope Hovel across the Channel and then another four hundred miles until they reached the outskirts of Verilius and the depot two miles beneath it. They were nearing his operation’s first objective—activating an undercover asset that was stationed in the Workshop’s headquarters some twenty miles away. The remaining distance should have been trivial, for the Spindlefinger had sworn there were trains that shuttled regularly between their location and the Workshop. But apparently the goblin’s information was out of date.
Cooper had spent the last day and a half sneaking about the depot and getting familiar with its operations. From what he could tell, it was used almost exclusively to store and transport raw materials. The station rumbled as sleek trains carrying coal and iron, grain and chemicals came screeching into the cavernous facility for equipment checks, maintenance, and repairs by the Spindlefingers. These trains were not bound for the Workshop headquarters, but for manufacturing or processing facilities located throughout Prusias’s kingdom. While there was a track connecting the Workshop to Prusias’s capital, it no longer seemed to be in use. Cooper had watched its tunnel for over twenty-four hours without seeing any trains or even work crews that might have been making repairs. By all appearances, Track 11 was not in use.
The engineer’s computer, however, would confirm it. Locating the train schedules, Cooper saw that Track 11 had been grayed out.
“All right,” he muttered, turning to the others. “Here’s the plan. We’re going to move and move quickly. No trains are running through here to the Workshop. We’ll have to go on foot.”
Toby moaned.
Cooper cut off the smee’s inevitable protest. “It’s not that far, just twenty-three miles. The Workshop’s deeper than this place, so it’ll be downhill. The real issue is what we’ll find when we reach the end. The tunnel could be sealed off.”
“Is there an alternative?” asked Hazel, cleaning her glasses.
“We could sneak aboard a train bound for another destination and try to connect to the Workshop from there.”
“That sounds better,” said the rat. “Ride in comfort, I say.”
“It would be on a cargo train,” Cooper reminded him.
“Maybe someone’s shipping pillows,” mused the smee hopefully.
“What do you think we should do?” asked Hazel.
Cooper massaged his wrists, grimacing slightly at the pain. The bones had mended but were not fully healed. Discomfort was constant and could be excruciating when he exerted himself. He tamped the pain down to a place where it would not distract him.
“The tunnel would be quickest,” he said. “If the grade isn’t too steep, I can run that far in ninety minutes to scout if it’s open. The return would be slower. Maybe six hours there and back.”
“Be realistic. You haven’t slept in days.”
Cooper waved off Hazel’s concern. “I’m fine. I’m more worried about you. You can’t run that kind of distance. Especially not in your condition.”
Toby looked at her. “What condition is that, pray tell?”
With an almost shy smile, Hazel patted her stomach. “I’m pregnant. Just a few months, but there’s no use keeping it a secret anymore.”
The smee offered his hearty congratulations. “You know, I won’t be insulted if you name him Toby. Just a thought. Although as I’m currently a rat, I’m partial to cheese names. ‘Manchego’ has a certain flair.…”
“Enough,” said Cooper. “We have to move quickly—that engineer might be implanted with sensors that track his whereabouts. His computer certainly is. Toby, do you think you could fly down the tunnel as a bird and see what’s at the far end?”
“I suppose,” reflected the smee. “Although the ol’ latissimus nub won’t like it. What kind of bird?”
“Something small with endurance,” Cooper answered. “You’ll have to fly over forty miles there and back as fast as you possibly can.”
“That might not be necessary,” remarked Hazel. “Mystics can solve our problem.”
“Not shadow walking,” said Cooper flatly.
“No,” said Hazel. “Nothing that risky. What I’m thinking of is a technique where my spirit leaves my body but remains in this world. The range isn’t limitless, of course, but I might be able to send it far enough. In any case, it’s worth a shot. I could be there and back in minutes while leaving Toby rested in case he has to carry me.”
“What are the risks?” Cooper asked. Every drug had side effects; so did every spell. He used magic as sparingly as possible.
“It’s rather tiring,” Hazel conceded. “And my spirit would be out in the open, vulnerable. If something happened to it …”
She shrugged. “I could die.”
Cooper shook his head. “Absolutely not.”
Hazel laid her hand over his. “Agent Cooper, it’s a good risk. In five or ten minutes we can learn whether that tunnel can get us into the Workshop proper. It’s only dangerous if there happens to be a malicious spirit lingering between here and there. The chances of that are slim. Agreed?”
He nodded. It was not his nature to quibble with facts or truth, even when his emotions were involved. “What do you need from me?”
“Keep watch on the door,” she said. “A disruption while my spirit is outside my body could create problems.”
He did as she said, scooping up Toby and padding quietly to the door. The room was located at the end of a corridor and its door had a grating set in its lower half so that he could sit and see if anyone was coming. Seven minutes had elapsed since the engineer had entered the room and met his end. He doubted anyone would miss him so soon. He glanced down at the palm-sized computer and its blinking location signal.
“When she’s finished, you’ll carry her,” he muttered to Toby, more bluntly than he’d intended.
“Of course,” replied the smee. “A mule will be just the thing for a steep grade.”
“Good man.”
The smee was about to reply when they both heard a sharp intake of breath. Looking down the row of boilers, Cooper saw Hazel sitting cross-legged before several inscriptions she’d drawn on the floor. Their glow illuminated not only her unseeing face, but also the contours of a wraithlike shape beside her. It shimmered like heat waves, a subtle rippling in the air, before it turned and strode through the wall.
Cooper tried to relax, but tension gripped his shoulders like talons. He had sincere faith in his wife’s abilities. After all, Hazel Boon had been all the talk when she had been a student. She had been considered Rowan’s great Mystics prodigy until David Menlo arrived. But it was agonizing to watch her sitting nearby, her mouth agape, eyes rolled back, her body twitching and shuddering. The Hazel he loved was gone; only her flesh remained in this hot, humming room.
The computer in his hand jolted with vibration. A message in German was flashing on its screen: Need you back here—there’s news from Blys. Leave the boiler. Spindles can fix.
Cooper cursed silently. A digital keypad appeared on the tiny screen. He carefully typed out his response: Five minutes. Almost finished.
The next message came almost immediately: Five minutes, but Anschutz says no more. You know how he gets.
Anschutz might get more than he bargained for, thought Cooper grimly. Stealing over to the engineer’s body, he quickly stripped it of its uniform. The man was shorter than Cooper, but their builds were roughly equivalent. Shoving his own clothes inside his pack, he gathered their things from the room’s far corner and set them by the door. Digging through one of the pack’s front pockets, he retrieved a leather flask with a silver topper.
“Really, William,” chided Toby from where he was sitting by the door. “Drinking at a time like this? Well, a tot can’t hurt, I suppose. Give it here, eh?”
“You don’t want this,” said Cooper, shaking the flask to stir up any contents.
“What’s in it?”
“Ferrites.”
Toby gasped. “Those treasure-destroying crawlies? Why do you have those?”
“Because they eat through metal.”
“And flesh.” The smee shivered. “And bone. And whatever else they can get. To think I’ve been loitering next to ferrites!”
While the smee continued to reflect on ferrites and their unsavory reputation, Cooper returned to scanning the train schedules. A shipment of machine oil was due to depart on Track 6 in fourteen minutes. The device vibrated as a message appeared.
Where are you? Anschutz is getting angry.
Cooper quickly typed a response. I said five minutes. Tell him he can come and get his hands dirty.
Are you serious?
Yes.
Your funeral.
Toby has been reading over his shoulder. His whiskers bristled. “Are you mad?” he exclaimed. “The supervisor is going to come down!”
“Only if we’re lucky,” said Cooper, glancing over at Hazel. She was breathing quickly, almost to the point of hyperventilating. Her eyes were vacant, but now and again, her face twisted into a painful grimace. Her spirit must be nearing its limits. A sharp cry escaped her lips.
Before Cooper could go to her, he heard someone coming down the corridor. One person, making swift and angry footfalls.
Herr Anschutz.
Toby scuttled out of sight behind a boiler as Cooper unsheathed his kris. Its blade undulated like a serpent, its weight and balance reassuringly familiar.
Anschutz never saw who or what ended his life. He stormed into the room, glared about for his subordinate, and stiffened as Cooper’s blade made its swift, silent entry into the base of his skull. There was very little blood. It was like turning off a switch.
“What did we gain by that?” hissed Toby.
“Time,” said Cooper, wiping the kris’s point. “Anschutz is a bully. Nobody’s going to pester him. Not when he’s on the warpath.”
Sheathing his knife, Cooper hurried over to check on Hazel. Her face had relaxed and her breathing was less ragged. He wanted to take her pulse, but he was wary of touching her. Physical contact could be dangerous to those in a trance.
The inscriptions flared suddenly as a shadowy form emerged from the wall and stepped back into Hazel’s body. With a jolt, she blinked and her mismatched eyes rolled forward to focus on her husband’s face.
“The tunnel’s open,” she gasped. “There are guards at the station’s entrance to the Workshop, but few along the platforms. Dear Lord, I’m spent …”
She took a moment to catch her breath. Sweat was running freely down her forehead while her entire body trembled.
“That was difficult,” she confessed. “The farther my spirit went, the more it wanted to come back. The pain is rather excruciating. I almost gave up.”
Cooper kissed her dampened forehead. “But you didn’t.”
She noticed Anschutz’s body by the door. “What? Who in the bloody hell is that?”
“A supervisor,” said Cooper, scrolling through the train schedules. “This train should work. We’ve got five minutes to get them aboard.”
“Who’s boarding what train?” she asked, clearly puzzled.
There was no time to explain. After telling Toby to become something even smaller, he asked Hazel if she could fade. Fading was a type of illusion that required little energy and could be very useful under the right circumstances. It didn’t work in bright light or if the caster needed to move quickly. And it was useless if someone had already spotted you. But for sneaking through the shadows, fading was just the thing.
“Of course I can fade,” said Hazel indignantly. “Any Third Year can fade.”
“Good,” said Cooper, showing her the map on his device’s screen. “I want you and Toby to sneak into Tunnel Eleven, go a hundred yards, and wait for me. Got it?”
She nodded. “What are you doing?”
He hooked a thumb at the bodies. “Buying time. With any luck, we’ll be in the Workshop before anyone realizes there are intruders. Hurry now. If I’m not there in ten minutes, go on without me and make contact with the asset. I’ll catch up if I can.”
Toby was already waiting by the door, a tiny gray mouse no bigger than a toddler’s thumb. Rising, Hazel erased the floor inscriptions and shouldered her pack. Giving Cooper a peck, she promptly faded from view. In the dim red light of the boiler room, she was practically translucent. A moment later, she slipped out the door with Toby running beside her.
Cooper checked the opening at the base of Anschutz’s skull. Tearing a strip of cloth from the supervisor’s shirt hem, he wrapped the wound so that it wouldn’t leak. Arranging the bodies side by side, Cooper leaned one against each shoulder so he could lift them together. With a grunt, he stood, balancing them like two sacks of grain before slipping out the door.
He walked steadily, shifting his burdens slightly, his attention fixed on the corridor ahead and the vast, octagonal cavern beyond. There was no need to be quiet. The depot echoed with droning loudspeakers, idling engines, and the barking of goblins as Spindlefingers scurried about in greasy overalls.
It was mostly goblins on the depot floor, doing the work, driving the cargo loaders, and seeing to the massive trains idling on the tracks, their engines sending up clouds of vapor that obscured the distant roof. Along the far wall, past a yard of unused train cars, were the freight elevators they had ridden down from Verilius.
As he’d done when they entered the depot, Cooper disguised himself as a Spindlefinger. In his mind’s eye, he was long-armed and potbellied with a broad back that bent beneath its load. He wasn’t carrying bodies but two barrels of machine oil to add to a shipment scheduled to leave on Track 6.
When he was a Rowan student, William Cooper had been marked as a future Agent in only his Second Year. His athleticism, analytic capabilities, and temperament were ideally suited for the role. When graduation loomed, it was common knowledge that Cooper had received offers from every prominent field office, as well as the elite Vanguard. But almost no one knew about the offer he’d very nearly accepted. It had come from Annika Kraken, the new Head of Mystics, who had wanted to hire him as an Instructor of Advanced Illusion. Cooper was, she maintained, the most gifted phantasmal she’d ever taught.
He didn’t take the job, of course. He elected to become a field Agent and would soon earn a place among the Red Branch. But Cooper never lost his talent or affinity for illusion. Indeed, it went hand and glove with his profession. Illusion was all about conviction. The best practitioners truly believed that whatever they were seeing, hearing, smelling, and experiencing was real—at least in some corner of their minds. Conviction strengthened the effect. In Cooper’s mind, he was not a Rowan Agent hiding behind an illusory guise; he was a Spindlefinger goblin who was rushing to load two final casks of oil.
Upon seeing Cooper, the foreman grunted and pointed irritably at a flashing light above Tunnel 6. Hurrying up a mechanized platform, Cooper lowered the engineers and their computers into a cargo hold, propping them amid the crates and barrels. Once he had placed the devices in their owner’s hands, he climbed back down the platform. As he descended, the foreman blew a whistle and waved to another goblin up by the engine. A horn sounded, lights on the train flashed, and its cars sealed shut. As the train rolled toward the tunnel, the attending Spindlefingers ran alongside, catching hold of side rails and shimmying down its length until they disappeared within a compartment beneath a central car. Spindlefingers traveled with their trains.
But not this Spindlefinger. Cooper trotted along for a few meters but stopped as he passed a stack of crates. Walking around them, he reversed course and made his unhurried way toward Track 11. Halfway there, he stopped to buckle his imaginary shoe on the platform between Tracks 8 and 9. As he did so, he casually splashed his flask of ferrites on the tracks and underside of the nearest engine. The tiny organisms were suspended in an oily liquid but would activate once they came in contact with the metal. Within a day or two, they would have eaten through sheet metal, rails, cables, pinions, and a host of other mechanical necessities. In a perfect world, trains would break down en route and disrupt vital shipments or supply lines. Rising, Cooper continued on his way. When he passed behind a mound of coal, he promptly faded and slipped unseen into Tunnel 11.
Hazel and Toby were right where he’d asked them to wait. Once he reached them, the smee changed into a sturdy mule and Cooper helped Hazel onto his back.
“What did you do?” she asked.
“I stowed the engineers on a train bound for Vrusk. Even if their computers are tracked, it’ll be hours before anyone can confirm what happened to them. Hopefully that gives us a little time. And some ferrites might have found their way onto some trains and tracks.”
“Sabotage!” cried the smee, with something like relish.
“A little here, a little there,” said Cooper, before catching sight of Hazel’s frown. “What’s the matter?”
“I wish we hadn’t had to kill those men,” she said quietly.
“So do I,” said Cooper. “But we’re on a DarkMatter Operation that could save thousands of lives. I’m not wasting winks over those two. The Workshop built Prusias’s dreadnoughts and pinlegs. Their creatures attacked Rowan and killed our friends. Their creatures killed Richter. They’re not innocent civilians, Hazel.”
She pursed her lips. “You’re right. I know you are. I’ve just … never seen someone killed in cold blood before.”
Cooper looked hard at both of his companions. “We’re spies in enemy territory. If we’re caught, we’ll be interrogated and executed. If danger threatens, our first option is to hide. If we’re discovered, I’ll neutralize the threat. If I need your help, I expect you to give everything you have. Understood?”
Hazel and Toby nodded. Tightening the straps of his pack, Cooper turned and started a brisk pace.
The tunnel’s grade was steep but perfectly consistent. Its rails hummed with electric current but were not dangerous to touch. The walls were bare, smooth rock with fluorescent lights every fifty meters. Every hundred meters, emergency alcoves were cut into the rock so workers could take shelter from approaching trains.
Cooper registered these facts and a hundred others as he jogged along. He no longer needed to think about such things; he just did them out of habit. His brain was constantly observing, processing data, and planning contingencies. The most challenging operations rarely went according to plan. The best Agents were able to assess, adapt, and improvise when circumstances changed. It was what separated the good from the great. Antonio de Lorca had been a genius at improvisation—a born guerilla who had passed his knowledge down to his protégé.
He focused on his first objective: to find and activate an undercover asset. This part of the plan had worried him from the onset. Years before, the asset in question had volunteered for psychnosis, an obscure discipline that many viewed with skepticism. In theory, the practice enabled one to implant an agenda within the subject’s subconscious using a combination of mystics and psychological techniques. If successful, the effects were impossible to detect; the asset had no memory of the experience, bore no trace of enchantment, and would pass any lie detector. The asset did not become a robot or act suddenly out of character, but gravitated slowly toward beliefs and actions that aligned with the implanted instructions. The process was so subtle, so gradual that its critics questioned whether it actually worked.
Richter was a believer. We’ll see if she was right.
They’d only been running twenty minutes when the tunnel started rumbling behind them. Workshop trains traveled very fast. There was an alcove ahead. He had to act quickly.
“Ignis!”
Yellow flames engulfed the tunnel behind them, racing up the walls to meet at the ceiling. Slamming his shoulder into Toby, Cooper steered the panicked smee toward a nearby safety alcove. From behind came the deafening blare of an emergency horn. Someone aboard the speeding train had seen the flames and was trying to brake, giving them a few precious seconds.
Snatching Hazel off Toby’s back, Cooper pulled her into the alcove as the smee blinked back into a mouse. They pressed themselves flat as the train screeched past them in a great whoosh of hot wind. Its cars were three feet away, a blur of metal and lights that slowed to a groaning halt.
Down the tunnel, Cooper heard human voices, anxious and impatient. An engineer was shouting to the Spindlefingers in the goblins’ own tongue.
“What’s he saying?” Cooper whispered to Toby. As smees utilized many disguises, they spoke any number of languages.
“He wants the goblins to check for damage,” squeaked the mouse.
Already, Cooper could hear the patter of small boots and the jingling of tools as Spindlefingers fanned out along and beneath the train. Tapping Hazel, Cooper mouthed the word fade.
The two blended out of sight just as a lanky goblin squeezed past the alcove, shining a flashlight along the train’s undercarriage and muttering to himself. Cooper waited several seconds before poking his head out. To his left, the goblin was making his way down the cars. To his right, the train’s lights were illuminating clouds of water vapor and silhouetting a distant goblin. He turned quickly to his companions.
“There’s a compartment up ahead where the Spindlefingers ride. We could sneak aboard and take the train right into the Workshop station. Better cover.”
Hazel looked anxious. “What about the goblins?”
“I’ll handle it. Now or never.”
Hazel and Toby nodded. Squeezing his pack against his chest, Cooper slid out into the narrow opening and led the others down the line of cars. The train was vibrating, hissing now and again as steam shot from exhaust valves.
Thirty feet later, he saw the Spindlefingers’ compartment. It was built into the bottom of the central car, a virtual crawl space with a hard bench and several large tool cases. The compartment was empty.
Cooper pointed Hazel and Toby to the far end, crawling through the narrow opening and wishing for the millionth time he wasn’t quite so tall. The space was cramped and stank of grease and goblin, but it would do. Once they had squeezed into the corner, Cooper stacked several toolboxes as a buffer between them and the goblins that would soon return.
“Keep still and quiet,” he whispered. “They may not notice us.”
Hazel faded as Toby became a beetle. Folding his legs up so that his knees touched his chin, Cooper went absolutely still and imagined he was the compartment’s bulkhead.
The Spindlefingers returned in ones and twos, climbing nimbly into the compartment and sliding down its bench. A few sniffed once or twice and looked puzzled, but a horn blared and the floor hummed as though a surge of electric current had been restored. Two more Spindlefingers clambered aboard even as the train started to move. The stumbled into their fellows, triggering squeaks and snarls as they jostled for seats. One barked at the Spindlefinger nearest Cooper, gesturing that he should scoot farther down. The goblin shrugged, hooking a thumb at the heavy toolboxes and illusory wall. Cursing him, they slid the grating shut and squeezed in as best they could.
As the train accelerated, Cooper counted their blessings. Arriving via train was far preferable to emerging from a tunnel on foot. Illusions were less effective when viewed through a camera’s cold, objective lens. And the Workshop’s cameras were probably attuned to pick up heat signatures—signatures that might be rather conspicuous sneaking out of a decommissioned train tunnel. Trains meant busy crews and lots of noise and activity. Cooper had made do with far less.
It took less than seven minutes to complete the journey. While the tunnel lights zipped past, the Spindlefingers played a game with cards fashioned from copper disks. There were jeers and hoots and money trading hands. At one point, Cooper’s neighbor actually elbowed him in his excitement. But Cooper didn’t move and the elated goblin didn’t notice anything amiss.
As the train slowed, the Spindlefingers packed away their game and stared straight ahead in anticipation of their arrival. Their dull, unblinking expressions reminded Cooper of commuters he used to pickpocket as a boy on the London Underground. That world seemed something from a dream.
The tunnel’s rock gave way to fabricated walls and platforms of chrome and glass. The compartment brightened, causing the Spindlefingers to shield their small, reddish eyes in unison. Cooper didn’t move; he simply concentrated on maintaining the illusion and looked for signage that might indicate their level or location.
He had visited the Workshop’s headquarters on two occasions. The first was when he was relatively new to the Red Branch and snuck in with Antonio de Lorca to spy on the engineers’ latest initiatives. The second was several years ago when he’d accompanied Max McDaniels and David Menlo on a quest to recover Bram’s Key. Cooper’s memory was excellent and he recalled everything he had seen on both visits—the Workshop’s layout, research areas, dormitories, and transportation networks.
The main building was an inconceivably enormous pyramid set within an even larger cavern four miles underground. He had arrived by car on his last visit and there had been no visible train tracks leading into the gargantuan facility. Unless something had changed, they would be arriving at a sublevel somewhere beneath the main gates. Living quarters were located in the pyramid’s upper levels, reached by pod tubes that could be accessed at frequent intervals throughout the facility.
When the train eased to a stop, the Spindlefingers clambered out, one after the other, and filed toward the back of the train.
“We wait ten seconds and go,” Cooper whispered. “How do you feel, Hazel?”
“Rather exhilarated.”
He glanced over to gauge her sarcasm. There was none. His wife was beaming.
“This cloak-and-dagger stuff’s exciting,” she observed. “I’ll be in the Red Branch yet.”
Cooper grinned. “Forget fading, then. Light’s too bright anyway. Can you manage a nondescript engineer?”
She flexed her fingers. “I think so.”
“And how about you, Toby?” asked Cooper.
The smee fired up at once. “Child’s play!”
“Good. Follow my lead and let me do any talking.”
Three Workshop engineers climbed out of the cramped compartment and walked forward through clouds of cool water vapor. The station was large and brightly lit with half a dozen tracks and platforms. A robotic feminine voice was speaking over a loudspeaker, welcoming the arrivals.
As Cooper climbed a stairwell onto the platform, he saw that passengers were this train’s only cargo. And not just any passengers, but senior personnel and dignitaries from the capital. Among the engineers and diplomatic liaisons, Cooper counted ten imps, three kitsune, and an imperious rakshasa wearing golden robes and an expression of bored, smoldering disdain. This certainly explained the unscheduled train; rakshasa went wherever they liked whenever they chose. Judging by the anxious expressions on the Workshop guards’ faces, this visit was a surprise.
Setting down his pack, Cooper pretended to search for something, anxious for the demons to go well ahead before they followed. While Toby’s shape-shifting could fool most demons, Cooper’s and Hazel’s illusions would not. Demons could perceive auras. Spying two mehrùn would make a rakshasa very curious.
While the rakshasa posed a potential problem, he also served as a wonderful distraction. The demon’s presence so terrified and overwhelmed the engineers that no one gave Cooper and his companions a second glance as they brought up the rear and left the platforms through the sliding doors.
They followed the group for fifty yards into a glassed atrium with artificial sunlight before Cooper led them off down another hallway. He walked confidently, pretending to be reading something on the imaginary device his illusion was holding while Toby and Hazel trailed behind him. A pair of junior engineers was waiting at a pod bank. Cooper halted beside them, nodded hello, and went back to consulting his imaginary computer. The engineers continued their quiet conversation.
A pod arrived within thirty seconds, a silvery egg-shaped vehicle that slid to a smooth, hovering stop within the tube. The junior engineers stepped aside so their superiors could enter first. Cooper brushed past them and occupied one of the molded seats that ringed the pod’s interior. Hazel and Toby sat next to him as the two engineers filed in. They remained standing.
“Where are you going, sir?” asked the first in German.
“Dormitories,” muttered Cooper, his accent flawless.
“Eh, which ones?”
“You tell me,” said Cooper irritably, flicking his pretend computer screen. “I need Dr. Barrett. Jason Barrett. This damn thing isn’t working.” He flicked it again.
“Would you like me to look at it?” offered the engineer.
Cooper shook his head. “Just look up Dr. Barrett for me, eh? It’s urgent that I speak with him.”
The other engineer produced his computer at once and began searching. “It’s a busy day for everyone, I see.”
“Why?” asked Cooper. “What are you two doing?”
“Joining the search party,” replied the first. “There’s been a security breach.”
Leaning forward, Cooper casually moved his hand toward the blade at his hip. “You’re joking.”
“Not at all, sir,” replied the second. “Something’s been stolen.”
“What?”
The engineers exchanged embarrassed glances.
“A hag.”
“Pardon?”
“A hag, sir. There was a specimen in the Exotics wing, and it was discovered missing this morning.”
“When was it stolen?”
“We don’t yet know,” said the first. “The security camera was disabled and a hole was cut in the exhibit glass. The hag was taken and a note was left in her place.”
“What did the note say?”
The engineers reddened. “Obscenities, sir. Misspelled obscenities. They don’t bear repeating.”
Cooper stifled a smile. “It must be a prank. Who on earth would steal a hag?”
“We don’t know, sir, but Dr. Rasmussen’s furious. He’s taken a special interest in the case.”
I’ll bet he has, thought Cooper. Bellagrog, Mum, and the haglings had nearly devoured the Workshop’s former leader to avenge their cousin’s captivity. The idea that there might be hags nearby—stealthy, vengeful hags—must have terrified him.
“Well,” said Cooper, “good luck with your search. Now, if you will tell me where I might find Dr. Barrett.”
The second engineer tapped his screen. “SE-Sixteen, Apartment Four,” he said. When his colleague input the destinations, the pod proceeded smoothly ahead. It went about two hundred yards before reaching a vertical tube and accelerating straight up, gliding serenely past a dozen floors until they were staring down at the vast, interior spaces of the main level where redwood trees stretched toward artificial sunlight that filtered down from a false ceiling hundreds of feet above. The last time Cooper had seen those trees, he was marching out the front gate where Astaroth, Marley Augur, and an armed host were waiting for them.
The trees disappeared as their pod glided up past several floors dedicated to research and laboratories. It came to a stop and the young engineers bid them good day and departed. When the doors closed, Toby exhaled.
“How can you stand it?” he asked, mopping his forehead.
“What?” asked Cooper.
“You’re hiding in plain sight!”
“So are you.”
The smee pinched his fleshy cheeks. “But this is actually me! You two are just sitting there, plain as day. You might as well write spy on your foreheads.”
“You already know who we are,” Hazel pointed out. “Your brain expects to see us and thus you do. Have a look at our reflections.”
The smee glanced at their images, faint in the pod’s smooth, curving glass: a middle-aged engineer and a younger one whose features were not dissimilar to the man Cooper had strangled. Mirrors strengthened illusions. A person who questioned an illusion in the flesh would almost always believe it in a mirror. Cooper had exploited this fact on many occasions. Once or twice it had saved his life.
“Well, I suppose I can unclench,” sighed the smee. “And apparently the haglings have rescued the hapless Gertie. Good for them. I never thought they could pull it off, the beastly nippers. What’s the plan when we reach this Dr. Barrett’s room?”
Cooper rose as the pod slowed. “We knock. If he’s not home, we hide and wait.”
“And this fellow attended Rowan?”
“Valedictorian,” said Hazel. “An excellent student.”
Toby clucked his tongue triumphantly. “And now he’s our spy!”
Cooper looked down at the smee. “Jason’s under psychnosis. He doesn’t think he’s on our side anymore. Stay back until until the trigger phrase takes hold. I may need to subdue him.”
The pod came to a halt, its doors opening as it hovered before an intersection of modern residential corridors. Leaving the pod, they entered a profoundly subdued environment whose neutral walls were smooth, the lighting recessed, the artwork tastefully bland. A piano sonata played from unseen speakers, but beneath the music, one could detect the Brownian buzz of energy coursing through the walls and floors. A woman’s voice, calm and artificial, interrupted the music.
“This is a security alert. Unauthorized persons may be at large in the Workshop. The museum wing is closed until further notice. Report any suspicious activity to Central Command. Have a productive day.”
Following posted signs, they made their way to SE16, which was a corridor in the pyramid’s southeast quadrant. Soft music was playing once again as they passed a young engineer munching a piece of fruit and clutching a computer tablet as she trudged off to work the evening shift in some laboratory. She nodded hello, her features eerily similar to those of Hazel’s illusion. The Workshop was a great believer in the economies of scale. When they liked something, they made it again and again. This extended to human beings.
Jason Barrett answered on the third knock. Apparently he had been asleep, for he stood shirtless in the doorway, looking tousled and somewhat annoyed. “What is it?” He yawned. “This is the first I’ve slept in two—”
Cooper leaned forward. “Three little kittens have lost their mittens.”
Upon hearing the rhyme, Jason’s face went slack. He opened his mouth as if to speak and promptly shut it again. He looked profoundly lost and disoriented. “Am I dreaming?” he wondered aloud.
“No. Invite us in and we’ll explain.”
The young man stood aside as they stepped in, gazing at Toby and Hazel as if they, too, were apparitions. When he closed the door, Cooper dispelled his illusion.
“You know who I am?”
Jason nodded slowly, his eyes traveling over Cooper’s scarred, disfigured face. “Are you here to kill me?”
“Of course not,” Hazel interjected, dropping her own disguise and becoming a familiar face. “It’s excellent to see you, Jason Barrett. You’re looking well.”
“Miss Boon?”
“Mrs. Cooper,” she corrected, smiling. She eyed the apartment and its stark kitchenette with pinched disapproval. “Do you have any tea?”
“Just coffee,” said Jason, pointing absently at a machine.
“You’re worse than Menlo,” she sighed, breezing past him to investigate. “Will I need an advanced degree to operate this?”
“Just hit the green button,” Jason murmured, his eyes falling on Toby. “Who are you?”
The smee’s engineer puffed out his chest.
“His name’s Toby,” said Cooper, heading off the smee before he could recite various monikers and exploits. “Have a seat, Jason, and I’ll explain.”
The young man sat at a small dining table, staring at his visitors as though still trying to process what was really happening. Placing his pack upon the table, Cooper sat across from him.
“When you graduated from Rowan, you volunteered for a process called psychnosis. Under its influence, you became a staunch Workshop convert capable of earning trust and advancement. All these years, you have been our man on the inside—you just didn’t know it.” From his pack, Cooper retrieved a slim metal box and slid it across the table.
“What’s that?” asked Jason, looking anxiously at it.
“A package. From yourself.”
Frowning, Jason picked up the box and turned it over in his hands. When he tried to open it, he found that it was locked. “I think it needs a key.”
Cooper gestured at Dr. Barrett’s neck. “You’re wearing it.”
The engineer’s hand drifted up to a chain that had his parents’ initials engraved on a small charm. Removing it, he examined its length before squinting at its unusual clasp. When he fit the clasp into the keyhole, the box’s cover sprang open. Inside was an envelope. Breaking the seal, Jason removed a folded letter.
“This is my handwriting,” he breathed, his eyes moving slowly down the page. Jason’s eyes widened in what seemed like blossoming awareness. Rowan’s top psychnosist—a scholar named Vivek—had told Cooper the subject’s letter almost always ensured successful reorientation. It looked like Vivek may have been right.
Putting down the letter, Jason closed his eyes and massaged his temples. Hazel set down a coffee before him and took the neighboring seat. When Jason opened his eyes, a steady, determined gaze had replaced the look of foggy bewilderment.
“I remember,” he said. “I remember everything.”
“Good,” said Cooper. “Because I need to know everything you do about Prusias’s Workshop defenses.”
“Okay,” said Jason, drumming the table with his fingers. “Let me think of the best way to break it down.
Revived with coffee, Jason provided them with a concise overview. It was a sobering discussion. Even if Rowan’s army could win its way to the city gates, Jason did not believe they could possibly break or force the gates open. The walls were no better, standing hundreds of feet high and constructed of something called folded masonry.
“Perhaps we could scale them,” Toby suggested.
Jason shook his head. “Their surface is almost frictionless—far slicker and smoother than anything you’ve ever touched.”
“Are all the walls made of that?” asked Cooper.
“No,” said Jason. “Too expensive. Just the outer curtain. Even if you could somehow breach the walls or gates, five dreadnoughts are stationed within.”
“Are the dreadnoughts still controlled by imps?” inquired Hazel hopefully.
“Not after David Menlo possessed the ones attacking Rowan. Prusias banned that approach. These dreadnoughts can’t be summoned instantly to a location by a pinlegs but they can’t be possessed either. They use artificial intelligence.”
It was Cooper’s turn to massage his temples. Until David had possessed the dreadnoughts, the colossal creatures had been poised to obliterate Rowan.
“Are more dreadnoughts stationed throughout the city?” he asked.
“No, they make too many people nervous. Once you get to the inner tiers, the only Workshop creatures you’ll find are gargoyles. You’ll find them throughout Blys.”
“What on earth are gargoyles?” asked Hazel, frowning.
Pushing back from the table, Jason led them into a small office with a sleek workstation. Sitting down, he input a password and leaned forward into a retinal scanner before pulling up several images that made Toby recoil.
“What in the bloody hell is that?”
Cooper shared Toby’s disgust. The creature resembled a muscular spider with many eyes, suction-padded feet, and a tusked and tentacled mouth. From the orthographic drawings, it looked to be some twenty feet tall with a multibarreled artillery turret on its back and a control capsule containing two human operators.
“It’s highly mobile and has three different guns with different calibers and ranges. The smallest can fire a hundred rounds per second without overheating.”
“How accurate are they?” asked Cooper.
“They don’t miss. Once a target’s chosen, the computations are instantaneous—distance, elevation, wind speed. Here’s a demonstration. I’ll warn you it isn’t pretty.”
Punching a key, Jason pulled up a film clip showing a gargoyle leaping onto a vertical test wall and running powerfully up its surface. Once atop the battlement, the hideous creature turned about just as three gazelles were simultaneously released from automated cages spaced well apart on a field. The frightened animals promptly bolted in three different directions. The gargoyle’s guns moved in a blur of flashing muzzles. The gazelles simply vanished into red mist.
“Dear God,” breathed Hazel.
Cooper stared at the screen. “How many of those does Prusias have?”
“Six hundred.”
Toby let out a shriek. “Six hundred? Six hundred of those monstrosities shuffling about the city walls and mowing down everything in sight? We have to contact David and tell him to turn the army around!”
Jason glanced quizzically at Toby. “Are you an Agent?”
“I’ve never heard an Agent shriek before.”
Toby scowled. “I am a smee, sir. A smee that will not be a party to needless slaughter. Cooper, I appeal to you—we must stop this madness. Rowan cannot possibly—”
Cooper held up his hand. He asked Jason to replay the clip in slow motion. This time he could actually see the guns independently aim and fire at the three targets from the back of the stationary gargoyle. The sequence was so swift he had missed it the first time. “No human did that,” he muttered. “What are the operators for?”
“They steer the gargoyle using controls connected directly into the creature’s brain,” said Jason. “A computer fires the guns.”
“How does the computer select its targets?”
Jason zoomed in on the gargoyle’s compound eyes. “The computer’s tied into the gargoyle’s vision, which can pick up movement, heat signatures, you name it. Once the gargoyle’s in attack mode, the guns will target anything in the kill zone that isn’t an HVA.”
“What’s an HVA?” asked Hazel.
“Sorry,” said Jason. “I give almost everything an acronym—helps me remember. HVA stands for ‘high-value asset.’ Prusias doesn’t want important persons killed indiscriminately. He prefers them captured.”
Cooper nodded, his mind working rapidly. “How does the gargoyle differentiate between acceptable targets and HVAs?”
“Facial recognition,” replied Jason. “Surveillance photographs of HVAs have been registered in a database. The gargoyle only needs a glimpse to assess whether a target is one.”
“What if the HVA’s face is hidden?”
“Then it’s classified as expendable. The computer makes the decision very quickly.”
Hazel, arms folded, had been pacing the room, deep in thought. She stopped suddenly and stared again at the clip, which was playing on a loop. “What if it can’t make a decision?”
“I don’t understand,” said Jason.
Her face shone with excitement. “What if the targets’ features were changing?” she asked. “Shifting so quickly the gargoyle wasn’t certain what it was looking at? What would it do?” Leaning back in his chair, Jason studied the ceiling. “I don’t know for sure,” he confessed. “But I think it would keep trying until it could make a decision.”
Cooper’s heart rate quickened. “It won’t fire until it makes a decision? Even if it never arrives at one?”
“No,” said Jason slowly. “It shouldn’t.”
Cooper picked Hazel up, twirled her around, and kissed her. “You’re brilliant. Do you know that?”
She flushed pink. “I’ve been told that once or twice, yes.”
He kissed her again before setting her down, his mind racing with possibilities. The gargoyles’ design flaw wouldn’t ensure a successful siege course—far from it—but Hazel’s insight offered a glimmer of hope.
“How would the Workshop respond if gargoyles failed to fire automatically?” he wondered. “Could they override the targeting system and tell it to forget about HVAs?”
“In theory,” Jason mused. “But if the targeting system’s stuck in a loop, new commands might not get through. It would require a reboot.”
“How long would that take?”
“Ten, maybe fifteen minutes.”
“Could the guns still be fired?”
“The drivers can always disable the targeting system and operate the guns manually, but that would prevent the computer from rebooting.”
Cooper nodded. “So they’d have to choose between firing their weapons manually or waiting to reboot the targeting system.”
“Correct.”
“Do the drivers spend much time training with the guns?”
“Almost none. The targeting system’s so much better, they rarely bother—”
Jason turned in alarm as a loud knock sounded at the apartment’s door. Shutting down his workstation, he led them out, pointing at a hallway closet. Cooper left it for Hazel and Toby, while he followed Jason into the main room, grabbed his pack off the dining room table, and slipped within the closet by the door. Leaving it slightly ajar, he set down the pack and unsheathed his kris. The knocking grew almost frantic until Jason opened the door. Someone stormed right in.
“Why don’t you answer my calls?” the visitor demanded.
Cooper didn’t need to see the man to know he was middle-aged, half drunk, and bordering on a nervous breakdown.
“Calm yourself, Dr. Wyle,” said Jason coolly. “I turned it off because I needed some rest. I haven’t slept in two days.”
The man laughed bitterly. “Sleep? We don’t get to sleep! Haven’t you heard the news?”
“About the missing museum hag?”
“Not that, you idiot! A special train’s arrived from the capital with a rakshasa aboard. He’s to escort a group of us back to Blys. Your presence has been ‘requested.’ ”
Jason sounded stunned. “But I’m just a technician. I don’t run anything.”
Dr. Wyle chuckled. “That’s what I told them, but they insisted. Apparently you made a favorable impression on His Majesty during his little viewing party.”
Silence.
“What are you upset about?” Dr. Wyle sneered. “You’ve always been so eager for promotion. Well, here’s your chance! Just don’t disappoint our beloved king. If you do, we’ll be hosing you off a wall.”
“When are we supposed to depart?” asked Jason quietly.
A pause. “Sixty-seven minutes.”
“I need a drink. Would you like one?”
“Dear God, yes.”
“Whiskey?”
“A double. Neat.”
Through the closet door’s opening, Cooper saw Dr. Wyle sink heavily onto a couch. The man was not a eugenics experiment—few of the senior engineers were. Instead of exotic, blended perfection, he had a long, pale face with an aquiline nose and melancholy brown eyes. Dark hair was turning gray and his sunken cheeks suggested a recent and dramatic weight loss. He stared dazedly at the carpet, blinking only when Jason pressed a tumbler into his hand.
“Do you think we made a mistake?” he said, as though speaking to himself.
“What do you mean?” asked Jason, sitting in a nearby chair.
Dr. Wyle shrugged and sipped his drink. “Throwing our lot in with Prusias.”
“Don’t let anyone hear you say such things,” said Jason sharply. “I’m going to forget I heard it.”
“I’m not the only one,” said Dr. Wyle. “Our enemies aren’t as weak as we assumed. Harine’s in outright revolt and Rowan’s army’s closing in.”
“You don’t honestly think they’re a threat,” said Jason, with a subtle note of disdain. Cooper was impressed; the young man was adjusting quickly and playing his role with some skill. Cooper doubted Dr. Wyle would notice that anything about Dr. Barrett was amiss. The Agent hoped that held true for others.
Dr. Wyle picked absently at a hangnail. “I don’t know what to think. There are reports of vyes streaming out of the mountains to the north. Thousands of them. Tens of thousands!”
“Isn’t that a good thing? Vyes serve Prusias.”
“Not these kind. The vyes here seem to hate them. They call them ‘Raszna.’ ”
“Things will work out.”
A scornful laugh. “Will they? Two of our colleagues were just discovered dead in a cargo train. I’m telling you, Dr. Barrett, things are going bad. I think even Prusias is hedging his bets.”
“What do you mean?”
Dr. Wyle grimaced. “I shouldn’t say anything. I don’t know for certain.”
“Tell me.”
The engineer took a slow, deep gulp and exhaled. “I overheard the rakshasa ask Dr. Tressel for the Workshop’s architectural plans—Prusias’s imp is interested in our vaults.”
“So what?”
Dr. Wyle finished his drink and fixed Jason with a bloodshot eye. “I think the king wants a bunker. A fortified little nook where he can retreat if things go wrong.”
“Then Dr. Tressel will build him one. She’ll probably be promoted.”
Dr. Wyle’s smile was so hollow, so defeated and crazed it sent a chill down Cooper’s spine. “Do you honestly think anyone who knows about the king’s secret bunker will be allowed to live?”
“You’re being paranoid, Dr. Wyle.”
“And you’re being naïve, Dr. Barrett. But I thank you for the drink.” Setting the empty glass upon the table, he rose from the couch and made for the door. He paused three feet from where Cooper was hiding. “Pack for a week. I’ll meet you at the platform. Don’t be late.”
When the engineer departed, Jason closed the door and rested his head wearily against it. “Did you hear all that?” he murmured.
“Every word,” said Cooper, stepping out.
Hazel and Toby entered from their hiding spot in the hallway closet. Turning away from the door, Jason gave his guests an almost helpless smile. He might have been walking to the gallows. “What should I do?”
Cooper clapped him on the shoulder. “Pack a bag, Dr. Barrett. We’ve got a train to catch.”