THEY KILLED THE WRONG MAN

CHAPTER 4

Ethan's POV

I found her in a small place behind the transit wall on Cael Street that was neither a shop nor quite an office but was organized with the minutiae of a person who came to work there day in day out.

She had already been informed that I was coming, and this meant that she had contacts in the building in which I was living, and in the Bureau. I put this on and made no mention of it.

I said, “They came.”

"I know." She was sitting on a crate having a tablet on her knee. “You came back to Pol with his kinetic push.”

"Pol."

“The wide one. He is the third of Knox. He is six years in the locality and nothing has ever sent him back two steps into a doorframe. She gazed at me, with the same catalogueing air as before, outside the store. How did it feel?"

“Why is that important?”

“Because you can feel how many levels you are at and how quickly you are improving.” She placed the tablet. "Null Devour. That's what the Bureau flagged and buried. An absorption talent that causes incoming force to be absorbed into personal capacity. It is not unheard of. It is rare enough that the Registry has never recorded a single case in the history of Veran City.” She paused. “The last was buried, too.”

I sat down on the crate opposite her. "What happened to him?"

"He vanished. Formally transferred. The Bureau made out the paperwork.” She stated it in a non-dramatic manner, which was more effective than dramatic would have been.

I glanced at her a moment. "You've been sitting on this since you found my assessment result."

“I found it, 8 hours after you were to be seen, and I have been sitting on it 4 days, yes.”

"Why tell me now?"

“Because Pol coming back to Knox and telling him what happened means you have about six hours before Knox decides to handle this personally, and Knox is B-rank.” She held my gaze. "You are not of any good to me when I find you dead. You see I could not pull your file out of charity. I pulled it because a Null Devour talent in the Warrens is valuable information, and valuable information is my business.”

“When will I be able to work on the B-rank?” I said.

“It would be like a sustained exposure to higher-grade force, or a number of accumulations over a brief time.” She again took the tablet. “You have half a day. The two choices are not realistic in half a day.”

“Then I will not see Knox in six hours.”

“Knox will find you.”

“Then I am not there when he comes.”

She glanced up at me over the tablet. Something changed in her features, very slightly, what it was doing on the step when I had folded up the news sheet and had asked what she wanted. "You're going to run?"

“Not being available,” I said. "There's a difference. Whither shall Knox be betwixt midnight and four?”

There was a three seconds silence which I was trying to learn was a long time with her. "Why?"

I looked at her. “Where do you suppose he is between four and midnight?”

Another pause. “He has a private assessment down in the Underbelly. Eastern tunnel, below the transit junction.” She paused. "Today is Thursday."

“What do you suppose would be in the eastern tunnel besides Knox?”

“Other B-ranks. Low level Underbelly fighters.People who like to watch.” Her eyes were back to the calculation thing. "You're not going to fight him there."

“No. I'm going to see him fight someone else.” I stood up. “And there is bleed every time he spends his ability in that ring, passive output. If I am in close proximity long enough there is build up, the accumulation works without direct contact. You said development depends on sustained exposure to higher-grade force.”

She looked at me a moment. Then she said, with that special flatness “You know the mechanics of Null Devour, in a single sentence.”

“You made it very clear.”

“It has to be explained to most people 3 times.”

“I am not most people,” I said. And it was the word of a man whose whole life had been one of being underestimated and who had simply ceased to play it.

She gazed at me a long time. Then she put into the jacket with the too many pockets a small card, gray and featureless except on one side of the card a contact string. “Underbelly access. The eastern tunnel gate reads capacity cards, not a wristband. You can get inside without a registered band.” She held it out. “I wish the Bureau suppression record be explained to me afterwards, everything of it, whatever you hear going forward. That is the order.”

I took the card. “Is that all you'll be giving me?”

“Before midnight I will give you all that I know about the ability profile of Knox,” I said. "Documented."

“Well then we are all set.” I headed to the door. “Do not tell anybody that I was here.”

I do not tell any body anything, I said, and returned to my tablet, as though I were already away.

For the resr or the day I was invisible, which I was good at. I never visited the room in Cael Street again. Once I had eaten, at a street cart, which did not require a band scan. I sat in a transit station and spent two hours watching the manner in which people moved and what I thought would be the passive accumulation of bleeding by a B-rank kinetic over a period of three hours of contact in a closed tunnel.

I had been thinking of Harmon and his calm face and the six hours I had been sitting in a corridor and he was getting the paper work settled so that I could vanish.

I imagined the alley on Wednesday and the man who had not been running.

It was eleven-thirty I put on the coat and walked east.

The city was unmindful. It never did. This is what was always the issue.

It was never going to be the issue any longer.