Distraction and Observation (Manifesto)

[Nesrin Aziz]

Nesrin continued to watch the rep for his reaction as Lucien examined the Key. She was relieved to see some stir of curiosity in his stoic demeanor, not because it meant good things for her prospects, but because it brought some humanity to the stone of his expression. She’d seen dead-eyed men do terrible things without so much as a blink. And no one fishing around the dark web for godhood paraphernalia was likely to be charting high on the morality scale. Even Nesrin’s ability to coerce, should the defense prove necessary tonight, had its limitations – she could only work with something that already existed. If he was truly as unfeeling as he seemed, she might not be able to protect herself from him. And she still had to get safely out of the club.

It stirred her nerves. It also made her thankful for Eddie.

She listened to the Archivist’s reading as though he only revealed the truth she already knew. But the auction description had been almost entirely to incite a reaction and attract a certain type of bidder  – in reality all she really knew about the Key was that the Emissary wanted it back badly enough that Zigzag had been scared for both of them. What was shared she filed away with interest – intending it to be her first payment to Wicked. Knowledge sounded enticing. The idea of organic matter not so much, not after what Zigzag had said about hosts.

As the Jackal’s man posed his questions, Nesrin’s brows rose. She was layered in confidence like it was armour. Between them Lucien paused naturally, his gaze lifting from the Key to ascertain whether he should answer. She ought to refuse. The Key was what she implied it was – that was what mattered, at least so far as the auction went. All Nesrin needed was to push the interest into a bidding war, and Jackal wasn’t currently the front runner – but with a whet appetite he’d fight for it. She needed to work quickly, and not risk the Archivist revealing something that might ruin the Key’s mystique. Or worse yet make it an untenable investment.

Problem was she wasn’t in this for her bank balance. She was in this for whatever opportunity she could grasp. And right now the heat felt more like thrill than real danger, even with the attempted spike on her drink. In the moment she found her own curiosity the more powerful motivator – she wanted to hear what the Archivist might know, even if she might regret the Jackal’s representative hearing it too.

“Do you have an answer?” she asked.

The Archivist smiled. He still held the tube in his hands, and he peered down at it through his spectacles as he spoke.

“With the amount of time we have, I can only read back so far,” he explained. “I can tell you that since the item was removed from its predecessor, it has not been opened. In my professional opinion it would seem unlikely it is without failsafes. However, I can read nothing that would confirm for you either way what those might be, or even if they exist. Every instance it has been opened, so far as I can read back, has been without incident – the mechanism for this is as I showed you. The sensors here, see? It is because of the matter inside that I will not recommend opening it for the purposes of demonstration. I could not tell you how the knowledge is accessed, just that there is a transference involved. Something is removed, and something else returned in its place. It's possible, therefore, that the piece will only have one use in it. Outside of the m’Antinomian, at least, its secrets may well be unique, and singular.”