It was time to chase up the lead on the lawyer Frod had asked me to look into, which I had ignored until now. But since I'd realised how interconnected all this was, I felt stupid for not looking into him sooner.

I parked myself in front of the lawyer Masare Jebon's office, browsing my digipad in an effort to look like another window shopper paused for a break from a hard day's browsing the Atrium. It was near seventeen hundred, Terran time, which the Thorn ran on too, which meant it was time for most businesses to shutter.

Except there were more people going into the office than were leaving.

And what's more, I recognized almost all of them.

The members of the Wilt, high profile businessmen and powerful figures in all walks of life around the Atrium, were converging on Jebon's office for closing time.

There was one other figure arriving in front of the office at this time. I approached.

"Hey." The cleaner blinked at me suspiciously. "50 credits for your uniform, cleaning cart, and your shift today."

"Done," he said easily.

Five minutes later, I was the one heading into the offices of Masare Jebon, wearing the uniform of a station cleaner. I always knew it was going to happen one day, I just hadn't expected it to be today. I wheeled the cleaning cart into the offices, giving a nod to the gentleman at reception. His eyes glazed over me completely.

So far, so good.

Deeper in the office complex, in a tight hallway, I found two points of interest. The first was the meeting room where the secret cabal was meeting. No hidden chamber, no disguises, nothing. These guys trusted in the sanctity of their private business offices to a foolish degree.

I settled in beside the second point of interest, giving it a good old dusting, and listening in on what I could hear. That interesting feature was another one of the station's root-stem artworks. This one was from Araucaria as well. There was an intriguing, almost hypnotic swirling pattern on the panel. The darker woven strands coalesced around it, until they came forward of the frame, in a three-dimensional effect, around a dark centre point, something like a black glass bead. The one in my office had a similar pattern too, I recalled. Could it be that the one in my office, and this one, and the others Xen mentioned seeing, were originally imported by M. A. Excelsa? It made a certain amount of sense, perhaps.

Come to think of it, maybe that was why my Gran had an Araucarian weaving at home. A gift from her business partner. A gift from Lisia? I’d tried learning more from Gran earlier that day, but she still just sat in her jail cell, and refused to speak to anyone.

There were no female voices amongst the conspiratorial crowd in the room nearby. No M. A. Excelsa, despite my theory that she was a friend of this devious bunch. But what there was, was this:

"Where's the jetpack?"

"Here."

"This thing? Tiny. Are you sure it's going to take me all the way up there?"

"Why am I doing this again?" Now that voice, I knew. That was Teg Korr.

"You're doing this because you owe me a favour for getting you outta stat sec so damn fast. Now put this on."

"This little war you guys got going against Black Rose, I don't want nothing to do with it," Teg protested.

"Too bad. Mask on, Korr."

I flicked my audio recorder mod on. This was too good to be true. I was hearing an assassination plot, right here, right now.

"Are we sure that's enough guns?" said another voice.

"Pfft. Enough guns. Do you hear this guy?"

"She wiped out the last buncha guys you sent up against her. It's a legitimate question!"

"Look, Black Rose is one person. One of these days, we're going to find her weakness. When we do, she's history. But until then, we are obliged to keep her on her toes. So strap up and man up, damn it."

I'd heard more than enough. I tore out of the office with my cart, dumping it in the pre-arranged rendezvous place for the actual cleaner to come and collect when I was done. Unfortunately for him, I was in way too much of a rush to change out of the uniform.

I needed to get to Stat Sec right away. Frod needed to hear this.

I stormed in there, wading through the crowded waiting room, jumping up and down to be seen as I tried to push around much taller people. "Out of my way! I need to see Frod! Move, people, move!"

But as soon as I got to the entrance to the internal offices, the duty officer moved to intercept me. "What's this? Rabble-rousing in my waiting area?"

"I need to see Frod, ASAP! He's going to want to hear this!"

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"You can take a number like everyone else."

"You don't understand!" I cried at the obstinate officer with his freckled Terran face. "There's going to be an attempt on Black Rose's life! Somebody has to warn her!"

The duty officer, and indeed the entire room behind me, went silent. Then, three seconds later, every single person in that room was laughing at me.

"What?" I almost screamed. This was like dreaming about turning up naked to school. What had I said that was so funny? "Why does no one care?"

Constable Frod came storming in behind the Duty Officer. "What's all this noise?"

"Sir!" The officer snapped into a more formal posture, but he was wiping tears from his eyes. "This person requested to see you. She wanted to report that there's about to be an attempt on Black Rose's life."

Frod looked at me, and his eyebrows sagged, lips pursing. "I see. Come with me, Detective. There's something you need to see."

"Oh, I'd love to relive my first time," the duty officer commented, which seemed completely non-sequitur to me.

"Have a child then, or something," Frod snapped at him. "Come on, Mar - Detective."

I jogged to keep up with Frod. It was a little easier to wade through the crowd now with him creating a bit of a wake I could move in. "Constable, why does no one care about this? Shouldn't we be telling Black Rose? Isn't this what you were looking for, by asking me to investigate?"

"I'm sorry, Detective. I assumed you already knew."

"Knew what?"

We were finally out in the Atrium, and he gestured up towards the point far, far above us. "About the impromptu show every time this happens. Enjoy... and try to stay out of the way of debris. Particularly the bodies."

I started up to the top of the Atrium's shaft, where Black Rose gazed down at us all from her Penthouse. Standing there in nothing but her all-body black chitin dress, she was a prime target.

"Does she know something's coming?"

"Oh yes. Always."

“... Always?”

She was unmoving, still as a statue, even when out from the highest publicly-accessible balcony burst a flurry of bodies, both fleshy and technological, out into the open air. Drones, flying mecha, and men on jetpacks, all came spilling out like angry bees from the hive.

And just as soon as they appeared, the wall-mounted turrets slid out of the level above them and opened fire.

The carnage was horrific. But I suppose the rationale was sending as many bodies up there at once, because surely some would get through eventually. As the numbers continued to thin, more and more infiltrators got to the next level, only to be taken out by the next ring of turrets, and the next, and the next. Below, people screamed as bullets, scrap metal and the occasional dead body littered the base and larger lower balconies of the Atrium. That was all I could hear: screams, and impacts, in unending succession. I didn't bother turning my perception mods on, not even to focus in on what happened next.

A few champions of the attack force made it up to the Penthouse. Black Rose didn't move a muscle. Instead, the thin black shape of Nadir erupted out of nowhere. One of his wild swinging limbs slapped a drone out of the air, smacking it against the wall. The next arm punctured the jetpack of a thug, sending him spiralling to a grizzly death several floors down. With the next round of attacks, he penetrated a mecha which had made it up, and when he extracted that arm, all the mechanical guts of the robot came with it. Almost as an afterthought, he swung out and batted one final drone which had followed its fellows up a few seconds later, spewing an ineffectual spray of bullets at Black Rose and her manservant.

As the debris of that last exploded drone rained on the base of the Atrium, Black Rose leaned forward to look all the way down, then turned and walked sedately back into her Penthouse.

The Atrium roared its approval for its mistress. Everyone went back to normal business, and a crew of specialised cleaners ran in with carts for collecting electrical and biological waste.

Not everyone had perished. Up on some higher levels, some thugs had used grappling hooks to save themselves from falling after their jetpacks were disabled. But there were more than enough of their allies on the ground in front of me. Distant enough to save me from having to acknowledge the reality of what I was seeing. This violence… I had no idea how the Wilt could justify it.

I finally turned to Frod, mouth agape.

"And that, Detective, is what the Wilt does, at least once a month. Every time, they send their disposable weapons up there, and every time, they are rebuffed. It's become a station tradition to watch. I heard there's even a betting pool, though I cannot condone illegal gambling, of course."

"But Frod, I have proof. A recording. People could be identified, and charged."

"For planning to fight? Sorry, Detective. It's not good enough. This is just what they do. Black Rose seems to encourage it, if you ask me."

"But why can't she shut them down, if this is a regular thing?"

"They have greater manpower than Stat Sec. So while she has the most defensible position on the Thorn, they're all in stalemate. She can't come out swinging in case she gets overwhelmed. They can't take the Penthouse. And in the meantime, we just have to clean up the mess."

"This is insane!"

"Isn't it? And yet, that's the Thorn for you. Is that all, Detective?"

I huffed, and shook my head, bewildered. But that was really it. "Yeah. Thanks for the info, Frod."

“Oh, and if I see you impersonating station staff again, Detective, I’ll have you in custody. Understood?”

“Perfectly.” I shoved my hands in my pockets and hurried to meet the cleaner I’d replaced.

I suppose it was time for me to understand exactly how far out of my league I was.

After giving the uniform back, I shambled back to my office, shaken. These people were on a whole other level. Teg Korr had bested me with a couple of goons and some mods. Masare Jebon and the rest of the WIlt probably all had high-end mods, besides the endless thugs at their disposal.

And none of that could even touch what Black Rose had.

Every single one of them would see me as a mere smear of dirt on the underside of their boot.

What did Frod even expect me to do with any information about the Wilt? If I had tangible proof that the Wilt were ready to attack Black Rose; even if they then followed up on said attack; if that wasn't enough to end the freedom of these people, then what possibly could?

Only one thing, really. The right information. Political, economic. The only thing which could actually hurt them was to hurt them in the bank balance. That's what Frod needed from me. What Black Rose needed from me.

I'd have to brush up on my financial forensics.

I opened my office door and was all the way through before I saw her standing there.

"Good evening, Amaryllis," said Astera, standing at three-quarter turn, hat down to rakishly hide one eye, like a picture, confident, cool, sexy.

The absolute bastard.

Damn it, how did she get in here?