Mothbreaker's Arc

Chapter 8 of 9

By noon Mothbreaker had watched the feed for fourteen hours and learned nothing she could use. The council moved through the plant in clean patterns. Officers walked the corridors. Papers passed between hands. A woman in a gray coat stood at the node room door and waved others through. Another woman signed a clipboard and everyone nodded. Mothbreaker could see every mouth. She could not hear a word. She did not know who gave the orders, and without that she could not guess where they would strike next on the reserve line. She called Neon Sentinel and Jolt Jinx to the safe room and set the screens on the table. "I need the shape of it," she said. "Who signs, who carries, who decides." Neon Sentinel pulled a chair close and started tagging faces by shift. "Six repeat officers. Three suits. I can sort them by how often the others wait on them." Jolt Jinx dropped into the other chair and watched the loops. "Don't watch the top," she said. "Watch the door." "The door?" "Node room. Who walks in without knocking. Who knocks. Who gets turned away. That's your ladder." She tapped the screen twice. "Gray coat knocks. Clipboard woman doesn't. Clipboard woman's the hand. Whoever she brings paper to is the head." Mothbreaker watched a fresh loop. The clipboard woman crossed the corridor, passed two officers without a glance, and stopped at a thin man by the west window. He read. He signed. She left. Every order in the plant traced back to that window in under a minute. By dusk they had the chart. One man at the window. Two women who carried for him. Six officers who moved on their word. Neon Sentinel marked the pattern on paper and set it beside the feed. "He signed a route sheet an hour ago," she said. "Clipboard woman took it to the loading bay. Four officers rolled out with cutters and a cable cart." Mothbreaker leaned in. The bay camera showed the cart. She could read the tag on the crate. Junction four. They were going for the next chokepoint before nightfall. She keyed the channel to Storm Grit and gave the junction number and the window. Then she sat back. She had the command structure now. She could see the next move before it landed. But the council was already moving, and she had hours, not days, to answer it.