The Savvy of A Rat

Raum lunches at a cafe in the city’s central plaza. Pigeons scuffle at the feet of a bread-bearing grandpa, students chatter over their workbooks upon the lip of the fountain, and out of the everyday bustle appears another face — Reyl’s.

On a wanted poster, of course. Raum rises from his dirtied plate to inspect the bulletin board on which the poster is pinned, as if to once again check the guardsmen’s work in how they have presented this criminal. But, as always, there’s nothing missed, and still no epiphanies bought from staring at the paper.

…or so Raum would find, but today there’s another man at the bulletin board, staring just as intently in Raum’s place. Finding this odd, Raum strikes a chat with him, and without much coaxing learns that this man has seen Reyl.

—Where?

Taken aback by Raum’s intensity, the man falters a moment to speak.

I was one of the witnesses in that whole thing, Raum explains. Family that got kidnapped were friends, was in Joliet when it happened and got involved with the guard in the search.

Before the murder of that woman, Tiffany Abrams, the man checks.

Yeah, a little before that, Raum confirms.

Finding this sympathetic, the man divulges his story. He was working as a shop clerk some weeks ago in Indris, when a shockingly ragged but beautiful one-eyed young woman (unmistakably the one in the poster) entered the store. She bought a tube recorder with definite purpose, then just as promptly left.

In retrospect, this had been on the day of the murder. But in the time it took to hit the papers, the man received a letter from his brother alerting him to a better job opportunity in Ferendaux. So he packed his belongings onto his wagon and left, learning nothing of the strange girl’s criminality until a handful of days ago, when he encountered these posters.

The case has been in his mind since. Though he fears the information too old and incidental to be useful, he did tip the guard to his story last night. But that hasn’t cleared his mind. He cannot stop wondering about why she bought that recorder.

—He cannot stop wondering, did he sell this woman a product, that she would then use to preserve the dying screams of Tiffany Abrams, forever.

The clock tower shrieks a single ‘bong’, signalling an end to the workmen’s lunch. The man doffs his hat to Raum, curls his hands into his pockets, and departs.

Raum also hurries out of the plaza, as though fleeing from a bear’s den.

Indeed, what use is a recorder?

Raum looks furtively up the main street. His pace quickens without his noticing, as if carried by a growing current. Again at the palace, he stands a royal attendant aside. Did Aquila have any plans to make a speech, or address, about choosing his heir, over the radio?

The attendant answers: Yes, he has, naturally. It’s a vital thing for every citizen in this nation to know. And it’s quite exciting, that they have the technology now to do such a thing.

—Was that publicised?

The attendant presents newspapers from the last week. A blurb floats around the front page, where the local radio stations proudly announce the date and time of Aquila’s address. All of them will be playing it. In fact, every media outlet in the country capable of recording Aquila’s address will be playing it.

Alright. Alright.

And where’s Aquila now?, Raum questions over the brim of the paper.

He’s away on a meeting, the attendant answers, growing uneasy with the trend of these questions. Aquila won’t be back until tomorrow, and the only means to contact him before then would be through one of his feathers. Those are typically given to secret Crown agents posted outside Ferendaux — but, given this seems to be important, and that Raum is after all Raum Whitewood, the attendant can contact a nearby castellan as a proxy today, to inform Aquila that Raum wants to speak with him ASAP.

Yes, excellent offer, thank you thank you thank you Fidel’s Blood bless you with fifty promotions. Raum also asks that a reminder to Aquila be given, and that an alert be sent to the Whitewood Manor, once Aquila does return. The attendant arranges these communications dutifully.

Still, the effect of the attendant’s work at quenching Raum’s anxiety is about the same as a field mouse pushing at a boulder.

Because what use is a recorder?

Plenty, in Sebilles.

An image of calamity has cohered in his mind’s eye. It is though that workman’s passing factoid, stale despite its luridity, has fallen upon his vision like a child’s first pair of glasses.

The apparition: Reyl, in focus. In the cutthroat way of an Ordishman, she has just decided to war with a King. This is not a normal king, either, empowered solely by the gold of his land, the blades of his people, and his own finesse in politics. Far from it. It is a magical, bulletproof, maybe even flightworthy king who can handle a gun, strong both as a ghoul and as a human.

How does Reyl fight that? How does she even get into the ring?

By giving herself good weapons, duh. She buys some cheap shitty recorder, takes a cross-country trip to Sebilles, hides and waits to catch some humm or grunt or sneeze from Phoenix, and combined with that beefed-up cutting-edge Ordish tech radio, she now has the means to remotely murder not just Aquila but basically anyone in the country.

Sasuga Reyl. You utter MacGyver.

Of course Raum cannot definitively say this is what’s happened. There are plenty of points where things could have gone wrong. But given the disastrous implications of this scenario, and given there is a chance above zero that this is indeed truth, Raum feels absolutely correct in presuming himself right about it until proven otherwise.

The plan in this circumstance is clear. Aquila’s unwittingly given her the perfect set-up to snuff a few hundred thousand people at once. So if she’s going to implement her tools to their greatest effectiveness, then she’ll undoubtedly hijack these various frequencies with her homemade recording midway through the heir announcement. Then poof. Done. Have fun cleaning up that one, ol’ Majesty, if you’re even still alive.

Aquila’s careless attitude towards Reyl this whole time has been a massive mistake. But Raum can’t even fault it. Unless he was utterly paranoid, or unless he knew her justified confidence that she could outmanoeuvre an equally great power in Seacrest, how would Aquila even conceive this?

But Raum has conceived it — maybe two weeks late, but still two days early. There is still time to counteract this disastrous hypothetical before anything can happen.

Raum speeds to the headquarters of the city’s largest radio station. His identity as Raum Whitewood is known here in Ferendaux, and though citizens outside noble circles are not yet treating him as already the heir, by simply claiming his visit is on Aquila’s behalf, he secures a meeting with the station’s director.

Raum informs the director that the Crown has reason to think a witch will hijack the heir broadcast to hex everyone listening on the frequency. As such, Raum is warning the station to prepare to cancel that block of their programming, ideally not replacing it with anything at all, and urge listeners not to check in over that timeslot. Any radio broadcast will be unsafe from the time of the announcement until the subjugation of the witch, so it’s unclear when the Crown’s recording of this speech (which later will be given to the stations) will be safe for broadcast. Regardless, the media’s recording devices will be banned at the site. Expect a formal declaration about this from Aquila tomorrow.

Though dejected and frustrated at the news, the director reluctantly accepts Raum’s warning as serious. Raum requests the director spread this information to other industry leaders who he knows plan to air the announcement, but who aren’t based in Ferendaux, since Raum won’t be able to personally reach them in any timely way. Again the director accepts this.

And so Raum leaves and gives the same warning to the next-biggest station in Ferendaux, then the next-biggest, then the next-biggest. By the time he reaches the smaller, more obscure outfits, the sun has already set, and the stations already expect him.

With nowhere left to hit, Raum gazes one last time over the night-lit streets, and boards his carriage for the Whitewood Manor.

Has he done everything he can?

It doesn’t feel like he’s done much. Certainly, not like he’s done anything dramatic.

He can imagine holes, scenarios. One station not getting the memo, or not taking seriously the threat of the witch. Especially were that station based outside of town. Listeners congregating to that frequency like gazelles at a watering hole… yes, Raum can imagine that.

But aside from the actions he’s already taken, he can see no way to personally safeguard these gaps. For tonight, at least, he must accept the smartest thing he can do is to have a good dinner and sleep.

Still, even so, the potatoes go down like sand balls, and build in his stomach like silt.