Page 92 of The Sovereign: Part One
We trailed him down a private corridor, bypassing the public access Ascens.He led us to a side panel, pressed his palm to the reader, and the panels to a private Ascens opened.After a quick ascent, the panels parted.We climbed the few steps to the upper tier and then filtered into his office.
“Where’s Gila?”I asked, scanning the dark room.
“On an important errand, I’m afraid,” Lev said as the panel sealed with a hiss and then an audible click.
The space was the same as the last time I’d visited.No integrated lighting.Without Gila there to work, no interface.The walls of Lev’s office were empty, the space broken only by his former desk and a wide display table filled with layered panels of analog switches and older interface strips.Equipment I hadn’t seen since childhood.
Lev caught my eye and grinned.“Gila put this together just a few days ago.You’re looking at history.”
“It looks… untraceable,” Maxim said.
Lev gave him a knowing glance.“That’s because it is.”
Maxim didn’t sit.“You’ve bypassed central surveillance.”
Lev leaned back against his desk, arms folded.“I wired this office myself, long before we consolidated comm routing.Most Sovereign have never even heard of the old Network Relay Chambers.Yours still exists beneath the Laundrette, does it not?”
“It does,” I said.
“But it’s inactive,” Maxim added.“I checked the network once Isara and I began to question… It’s inactive.”
Lev nodded once, uncharacteristically pleased with Maxim’s partial answer.“Good.After consolidation, those chambers were deemed obsolete.Even those Hyperion didn’t fill in are overlooked by the average Sovereign.But if those few still in existence are still active—and most are—they leave a blackpath channel The Citadel can use to run system checks on anyone they suspect of bypassing standard surveillance.This office isn’t on any schematic.I made sure of it.More importantly, Gila made sure of it.”
“You mean it’s not indexed,” Maxim said.“No Citadel overlay, no data trail?”
“That’s why I claimed this small wing decades ago.I knew what The Citadel had planned for the city.As far as they’re concerned, this entire section doesn’t exist.”
“And they don’t question how you account for your time here?”Maxim asked.“Either you’re elevated enough in rank that no one audits your usage imprint, or you’ve redirected the monitoring AI with a synthetic activity stream, something it registers as routine.”
Lev looked mildly amused.“That’s a very sharp observation.Which one do you think it is?”
Maxim didn’t answer.
Lev narrowed his eyes.“Very good, Maxim.And without twitching an eye.This is good.It’s very good.”
“What… what does that mean?”I asked.
Lev only winked at me, gesturing for us to sit.I sank into one of the rigid, utilitarian chairs, but Maxim remained standing, his posture subtly angled toward me, similar to the way he stood when Joss was around.
“Always ready to intercept, aren’t you?”Lev’s tone was mild, but the glance he gave Maxim was sharper.“You don’t even know what you’re bracing for.That’s the interesting part.”Lev laced his fingers together and studied me for a long moment.“Now.Why are you here?”
I took a breath.“We’ve encountered something.But before I explain, I need your promise for discretion.”
He didn’t blink.“Of course.”
“I mean it, Lev.It’s dangerous.For me, but more for Maxim.”I hesitated.“It would devastate me if something happened to him.”
The heat of Maxim’s hand was on my shoulder, and he gently squeezed.
“Isara.”Lev’s tone softened, and he leaned forward just slightly.“Your papa and I were boys when this city was still learning to walk.I carried you when you were too tired, and I watched you grow from that little spitfire who tried to hotwire a snacks dispenser into the woman now sitting before me in her Vesture.I have no interest in watching you fall directly under The Citadel’s lens.”
My throat tightened.There was a sincerity in his words I didn’t expect.He wasn’t just reassuring me.He was warning me that this was just as serious as I believed.He wouldn’t have made the distinction otherwise.
I nodded.“All right.”
I glanced at Maxim, and he gave me the barest nod.
“We’ve been… testing boundaries,” I began.“Situationally.Nothing overt.”
