Corbus wore workingman clothes, neither too shabby nor toofine, but a simple brown, sleeved tunic over coarse canvas pants, and a bluecap pulled down low over his eyes. A dark leather utility belt, faded andcracked with time, completed his disguise. Not that he truly needed one, but itwould help if he happened to run into an auxiliary officer. Avoid standingout not by being invisible, but by being so typical you are uninteresting-he’dtaken the words to heart.
He’d allowed the flow and pull of the crowd to guide hismovements toward his goal, a small maintenance hatch just behind one of themassive support columns. It had taken him almost half an hour to work his wayclose to the door, but he’d been in no hurry. Now he stepped close and quicklypicked its lock, defeating the basic tumbler in under ten seconds. It clickedopen and he scooted inside, gently closing the door behind him. He stood in abarren hallway stretching left and right, wanly lit by overhead lights andcurrently empty of people in both directions. Pulling a tin badge from a pouchon his belt, he fixed it to his tunic, then consulted the small sign hanging onthe wall across from the door, turned, and briskly strode off to the right. Marchstraight ahead. If you act like you know what you are doing, no one willchallenge you, especially armed with this important piece of tin.
Several times he passed other employees in the hallwaythough, sure enough, he was ignored. Eventually the hallway widened into alarger area with a series of doors in walls that were scarred and stained withage. Despite its decrepit appearance, the place hummed with activity, withworkers, managers, and assistants moving this way and that. Ignoring the coldtingle of sweat on the back of his neck, he grabbed a rolling cart restingagainst the wall and moved quickly through this area, not wanting his disguiseto be called into question. He abandoned the cart when he reached a set ofstairs, and began climbing them. Halfway up, he paused and took a deep breath,feeling weak with tension. You are the instigator of freedom. You are thecloaked hand, the most hidden dagger that strikes without warning. Getit together! Corbus told himself.
At the top of the stairs he stopped, reading the signs againbefore turning left. Halfway down the hall, he finally halted in front of ablue door, its paint chipped and faded. A discolored sign on the door read SecondusDomino Apparatus Gnaevous. Corbus rapped on the door.
“Come in,” called a voice. Corbus entered the room.
A middle-aged administrator was busily writing notes on amassive metal desk. “Just put the reports on a table over there,” he saidwithout looking up. “I have to head over to the control room in a minute.” Whenthe man did look up, he frowned in confusion. “You aren’t Lucius.”
“No, not Lucius,” Corbus agreed, lifting the miniaturecrossbow. It twanged, and Domino Gnaevous slumped forward, a needle-sharp boltpiercing his heart. Blood seeped in a dark stain across the papers on his desk.
Corbus hurried around the desk and eased the dead man backin his chair. Now, where is the key? He looked through pockets and deskdrawers, pulling out massive piles of junk that the thoroughly entrenchedbureaucrat seemed to have accumulated everywhere. Finally, he triumphantly heldup a chain from which dangled a small pyramid with several grooves and dashesencoded along its flat bottom-the key. Mission accomplished. The first part,anyway. Now all he had to do was get to the control room.
Corbus carefully rested Gnaevous’s head back on the desk,hoping the dead man would appear to be sleeping, then hastily shoved piles ofpaper back under the desk, and straightened to scan the room, looking for anyminor detail he might have missed. Good.
Moving quickly now, he exited the room, pausing only to hangan Out for lunch sign on the doorknob. That would delay an alarm only solong before somebody investigated why the murdered man was taking anexceptionally long lunch at ten in the morning. Corbus hoped it would be longenough.
He almost ran now, heading higher and higher up into thebuilding. When an alarm began ringing faintly far below him, he knew he hadonly minutes. The corridor he was in turned sharply and he pressed himselfagainst the wall to peek around the corner. Finally! The control roomwas just ahead. Corbus pulled a bandana up over the lower half of his face.Although time was precious now, it would all be for naught if someone couldidentify him later on.
He raced around the corner, down the hall, and pushed thedoor open so violently, it banged off the wall. He stopped over the thresholdand looked at the two large banks of machines, all humming and whirring away,warming the room with their electrical activity: the control center of theentire Brittenburg Central Station complex. Steam lines, fuel lines, electricallines, water lines-all were controlled from this room. Behind the banks ofmachines were large windows that overlooked the snarl of train tracks in theyard outside. Although there was only one line into and out of the city, thestation could accommodate almost twenty trains at once, and the lines quicklysplit outside the city.
Several steam and control valve operators working in theroom whirled when Corbus burst in, their mouths dropping open in surprise. Inan instant, Corbus was among them, delivering a sharp jab to one man’s neck,then a tight punch to another operator’s gut as he raced down the centralaisle. Other operators advanced, scrambling up from their positions.
Brannnnng … Brannnnnng … Brannnnnng the main yardalarm blared. Someone had hit an alert switch
“Son of Pluto!” Corbus swore as he continued his dance ofdeath in the control room. Two more men went down, one knocking his headagainst a panel, the other one eliminated with the quick thrust of a dagger tohis neck.
The last three men charged, one brandishing a lamp, theother two wielding a screwdriver and a belt knife. Corbus slid to the right,concealing himself behind a bank of controls. Quick as a striking snake, hetripped the man bearing the lamp, sending him flying down the aisle to landwith a thump and a clang as the lamp rolled free. He ducked the screwdriverswung by the man whose nametag identified him as Ruvius, then grabbedhis arm and bent it sharply back. With a cry, Ruvius crumpled to curl into aball around his shattered wrist.
One man remained, and he kept his distance, obviously realizingthat, the longer he remained functional to keep Corbus from damaging too manycritical control valves, the more likely it was that help would arrive. Aftercircling for a moment or two, Corbus ran out of patience. He drew out hisminiature crossbow and fired, the bolt lancing across the space between the twomen. Seeing the movement, the operator dove out of the way just in time. Withhis quarry distracted for the moment, Corbus hurdled the control panel betweenthem and hit the man with both feet as he stood up, his opponent’s belt knifeflashing forward. It scored along his arm, but Corbus’s momentum knocked theman hard against the large observation window. Cracks radiated outward, thenthe window shattered, and the screaming man disappeared from view.