I poured through journals, notes, ledgers, and all sorts of documentation, but every answer just brought me more questions. But, after a bit, I began to piece together a vague picture of what had happened. Who says I can’t use my head sometimes?

I found notes by Gerry; a list of ideas for how to sink the Pacifist Constitution. Most of the ideas were hastily scribbled out. But at the end of the list, there was “Assassination” circled, with arrows pointing to it.

Then, there was Gerry and Trieste-Vellan’s research on potential targets. Dozens of politicians, public figures, and celebrities had detailed profiles and impact reports. Even Lavin had a file. It was surprisingly corporate; each person was reduced to how best they could be leveraged to impact the Pacifist Constitution.

Ultimately, it had been evaluated that killing Lavin would just bolster support for the Constitution, as the deaths of her and Gerry’s parents had. There was one line in particular that made my skin crawl. In Gerry’s neat but hurried script, it said:

Lavin Teralt’s death would be easy to arrange and execute, but unfortunately only result in a surge of sympathy for the Constitution. It is thus advised that she remain alive and possibly be used as a scapegoat.

There were far too many similarities between a Guild report and Gerry’s report on why they shouldn’t kill his sister. Both were clinical to a fault, so cold and sterile that it was easier to squeeze water from a stone than to find any emotion other than callous indifference in them.

Pushing away the creeping disgust that started to churn my stomach, I read on.

There was also a file on the Prime Minister, a wealthy merchant named Andar Jules. According to the file, he’d made his wealth with some good investments into weapons manufacturers right before the Last War. The seed money had come from his parents, of course. Predictably, the Prime Minister wasn’t too enthused about the Pacifist Constitution, but since most of his party and a good chunk of the opposition seemed to be in support, he’d been relatively quiet in his opposition.

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There was plenty of blackmail material on him, which wasn’t shocking at all. A minor drinking problem, frequent patronage of high-end brothels, an entire orphanage’s worth of secret children; all par for the course in the life of a wealthy politician.

Ultimately, he was seen as too inconsequential to the process for his death to matter either way. He’d taken a backseat in the negotiations, both for and against, and his attempts to bring public attention to other issues had completely failed.

As Yvlan had deduced, Terry was planning to kill the Speaker, Harlan Morrison. As Speaker, Morrison had pushed (and exceeded) the limits of the supposed neutrality of the Speaker as he used all of his power and connections to fight against the Pacifist Constitution. As it grew in popularity, he’d even refused to put the bill to a floor vote, which had garnered quite a public backlash. Finally, facing the threat of impeachment, he relented and allowed the vote to be put on the docket.

Nevertheless, Morrison was the best-known and most vocal opponent to the Pacifist Constitution. As the report put it:

If the Lord Honorable Morrison were assassinated by a pro-Constitution figure, it would have a caustic effect on the efforts to get the Constitution passed, swinging back many of the members won over by the passing of the late Lord and Lady Lavin. It is recommended that a suitable agent is convinced to at least attempt to assassinate the Lord Honorable, though success in that regard is less important. If the Lord Honorable dies or not, it is more important that the public believes that a pro-Constitution radical was behind the attempt.

I checked the calendar that hung on the door. According to that, the vote on the Pacifist Constitution was in two days. That was when the assassination was planned for, but now that Gerry was dead, the plans would have obviously changed. Judging from the months and months of preparation that had gone into getting Terry in position to assassinate the Speaker, it wouldn’t be so easy to find someone new.

I glanced at the papers piled high on the desk. I’d skimmed through most of them, but I’d have to check through them all if I wanted to find any clues about what Trieste-Vellan’s next move might be.

This would be a long night.