New Enemies
Chapter 29
Days of careful study, nights of holding still and watching from the shadows, fitful sleep between shifts... all this effort and pain paid off when a careless Zoner left the organised Zone.
Through watching the Zone, Slant got to know its Zoners: the sex workers with their strange double-act, opposites in many ways but bonded by their profession; a dark-skinned boy, thin as the fine blade he carried; an older woman who left empty-handed, but returned with bulging, rough sacks; someone so ravaged they were little more than a skeleton who returned with handfuls of spoons; a well-dressed, distinguished lady who visited as Sol set for only ten minutes; and a Merchant who took great piles of clothes from the Zone, loading it quickly and furtively.
The wealthy woman was their first suspected link to the wider network, with her wealth and the length of her visits. Slant had followed her one evening, but it was a waste of time: she was buying Seed for her son, a Zoner who lived in a rundown shack close enough to Farmer's Park to be respectable. Slant knew this because her son's cracked windows had let her frantic pleas and bitter tears spill into the night.
So they kept watching, Heart taking the night shift and Slant the day. Slant was approaching the end of his turn more than a week later when the careless Zoner walked out into the street.
Slant had learned that a Zone was a communal area, a free space where meagre resources were pooled to sustain all their habits and provide shelter and food. Some maintained the building, some, like the thin boy and the seamstress, earned their keep, and others cooked and cleaned, perhaps incapable of doing more.
He'd never seen this Zoner who held a bundle of fabric to her chest. Maybe thirty, she was thin with grey hair, weak and brittle as old paper, and pocks across her flesh. She looked around constantly, sniffing the air every few seconds. Her clothes were comically oversized, impossible to walk in had someone not slit the trouser legs. As it was, the fabric trailed behind her.
Slant lay on a building facing the Zone's front door, its only viable exit. The building below him was empty with no internal woodwork, so he and Heart had to scale it to get onto the roof, careful of the rotten brickwork. Those withered floors and walls made it a perfect place to hide, as no one could sneak up on them, and nearby buildings provided an easy escape route.
He pulled himself closer to the roof’s edge and shielded his eyes. The Zoner was deciding whether it was safe to proceed, relying on twitchy instincts or a foul stench to save her. Then she nodded, stepped forward, and tripped over her roomy clothes. Her arms flew out, which projected her bundle forward.
“Shit!” she screamed before she hit the floor.
Slant watched the fabric land on the dusty street, spilling four tightly-bound cords of Circles spilled with a rich tinkling. The ringed coins were piled onto a circular length of wood with leather straps wrapped around them to ensure none fell off, an arrangement the Merchants used for large transactions that was often cheaply imitated by criminals.
The careless Zoner scrabbled forward to count the cords, ensure none had broken or fled. Slant leant further, his face now over the edge of the roof, and saw more than two hundred Circles in the bundle. This was either a desperate theft or the payment for this month’s Seed. If Zones were set up to pool resources, buying monthly would make sense. He imagined each Zoner managed the others’ doses, jealously protecting their joint stash, because that much Seed was asking for trouble.
If this Zoner was about to get this month's Seed, she must be meeting their dealer. This was their chance to find the next step in the supply chain! Slant would need to abandon his post, but it should be worth it.
The careless Zoner swearing softly to herself, as she collected the money and looked for witnesses to the Zone's riches. She spoke to herself more, and her face twitched. Slant was surprised that the Zone would trust that much money to her, but perhaps she was a fast runner, a better quality in a delivery-person than sense. Besides, sending someone stronger might attract unwanted attention.
The careless Zoner nodded, bit her fingernails, and then walked north.
Slant stood, his knees coiled, his hands gripping the roof. When the careless Zoner looked away, he jumped to the building to the north, rolling as he landed to make little noise. From rooftop to rooftop, he followed. Sometimes, the Zoner took strange turnings: once, she walked around the building he stood on twice. Maybe she hoped to confuse a potential follower, make it difficult to track her to the Zone. Or perhaps Seed had addled her mind.
Then she stopped at the base of a building, hidden beneath a flat roof. After some fumbling, she laughed with joy. Needing to see more, Slant dropped inside the building through its rotten roof, then snuck to the entrance she had stopped by.
The Zoner was holding a pristine box sealed with thick tape. She smiled to herself as she walked away, the box clutched like a prize. He waited for her to move out of sight, trusting his ability to track her again, and tried the door. It was open.
Stepping out, he searched and found she hadn't left the Circles behind: this hadn't been a dead drop.
Slant followed the careless Zoner, finding her on the pavement of a somewhat-busy road by the outskirts of Buyer's Haven, where it met Farmer's Park. The box was no longer in her hand. She was waving at someone, a slight smile on her face. Slant stepped out into the street to see a Messenger running away, their grey robes flapping, the box clutched in their small hands.
“Damn it,” he whispered at seeing his evidence fleeing.
The Messengers were an off-shoot of the Merchants, a sister Station who enjoy the same protection as the Merchants. He couldn’t chase them, bring undue attention to himself. At least, he couldn’t without Wasp's approval. His lead was gone, lost in the anonymity of grey robes and Station.
Before the careless Zoner spotted him, he slipped back to the Zone. Without the circuitous route, it took a few minutes.
The next two hours passed without incident. The careless Zoner returned, a happy smile on her thin face, and the Zone bubbled along as normal. At about midday, Slant heard someone ascend his building. He rolled over, tensed, but it was only Heart, his gnarled face red from the effort of climbing.
“We've had a development,” Slant said when the Custodian had pulled himself onto the roof.
Heart took deep breaths and made circle motions with his hand, telling him to proceed.
“Did he have a bag?” Heart asked, his breath having returned by the time Slant finished.
“Who, the Messenger?”
“No, Sol. Of course the bleeding Messenger.”
Slant cast his mind back. “No, they didn't.”
“A private Messenger, then.”
“There's a difference?”
Heart nodded. “Private Messengers are hired by individuals, often through a letter with Circles included. They're almost untraceable. If he'd been a public one, we could've traced them to their Merchant.”
“Still, we know how they pay for their goods now.”
Heart snorted. “It's a start, I'll give you that, but that's all it is.”
“Couldn't we just follow next month's payment?”
“It's one thing to annoy and aggravate Gangs and the Stationless without evidence, but to go after the Messengers...” Heart's wrinkled brow creased as he considered something. “I will contact Wasp tomorrow, see what he thinks. For now, we keep watch.”
Slant sighed. He'd felt like they'd made a discovery then, like they were a step closer to Seed's supply lines. Instead, they'd just found something interesting.
“Go on, you catch some sleep,” Heart said, his voice kinder than it'd ever been.
“Thanks,” Slant said. He stood up, sighed. “I just... I want to feel like I'm doing more good here than I would as a vigilante.”
“Well, we know the Messengers are being used. That's something.”
Slant shrugged, then something else clicked. “Someone left that box for her as well. There's no way that a sturdy, undamaged box would
survive out here for long. It rained last night, but the box was unharmed, so it could only have been there a few hours. It must have to have been left for her...” Then he slapped himself on the forehead. “Which was why she took such a weird and long route: she was looking for that box.”
“Yeah, yeah, all right,” Heart said through a small grin, “don't use up all of those good ideas for the month. Get some food, get some sleep. In short, fuck off.”
“I'm going, I'm going,” Slant said with a laugh.