Loid Forger's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Loid Forger had spent six months chasing a man without a name. The trail began with a set of voting records that did not add up. One bloc of officials kept casting votes that pushed two rival nations closer to war, and one of them was the leader behind it. Loid had narrowed the list to four. He still could not tell which face belonged to the threat. He sat in the upper branches of a tree on the edge of the academy grounds, a pair of small binoculars resting against his coat. From here he could see across the wall, into the private garden behind a tall brick office building where the four officials met each week. The garden had its own guards, its own gate, and its own dogs. No reporter got in. No staffer got in. Loid had tried three covers in three weeks and lost each one at the gate. In his lap sat a worn leather folder, bound with a clip. Inside were the voting records, color-coded by hand, with four names circled in red. He had read the pages so often the creases had gone soft. The pattern was right. The names were right. But right details are quiet, an old trainer had once told him, and these four men had grown very quiet whenever Loid drew close. A voice spoke behind him, low and even. "You'll fall." Yor Forger stood at the base of the tree in a plain coat, holding a paper bag. Beside her, a small girl with pink hair waved up at him. Anya pointed at the wall. "Papa. The little one is going inside." Loid lowered the binoculars. He had not told them where he would be. He had not told them anything. He kept work and family in separate rooms in his head, and the doors stayed shut. Yet here they were, at the one tree he had chosen for the one sight line that mattered. He looked back through the lenses. A side gate had opened. A girl in an academy uniform, no older than Anya, walked through it carrying a lunch box. One of the four officials crossed the lawn to meet her, knelt, and took the box from her hands. He smiled. The other three did not. They watched the man with the girl the way staff watch a superior. Loid had his answer. The leader was the one the others deferred to. The leader had a daughter. The leader sent her to the academy at Loid's back. He climbed down. He did not have the name yet, but he had the door. To get the name, he would have to walk through it, and the way through it ran past a child his own daughter's age. He folded the binoculars into his coat and took the paper bag from Yor without meeting her eyes.