I nodded and smiled perfectly casually to the people I passed, and they just smiled and nodded back to me. Because I was acting like I had a perfect right to be where I was, they all just assumed I had. I must be one of them or I wouldn’t be there. Attitude can get you a long way, as a field agent. I studied them all carefully, behind my borrowed teenage face. They didn’t look like monsters. But they didn’t exactly seem like teenagers, either. There was something wrong, in the way they moved, and talked, and acted. They had none of the usual teenagers’ awkwardness or high energy; instead, they all moved with a certain cold confidence, presumably the result of living lifetimes. And in their eyes I caught a glimpse of more experience than anything human should ever have.
I got to the end of the corridor without anyone shouting out or pointing at me, and then I looked about me, wondering where to try next. Or whether I should pick one Immortal out from the pack, drag him into an empty room, and beat the information out of him. I was getting impatient again. And then I saw another kobold, peering round a far corner. It gestured to me urgently, and I set off towards it as though I’d meant to go that way all along. The kobold was indistinguishable from the one I’d met downstairs, wearing the same blue overalls.
“Drood,” it said, in the familiar low growling voice. “You have come to free us.”
“Well, I’d like to,” I said. “But I have to complete my mission first. I need information. Records, computers . . . you know computers?”
“Of course I know computers,” it growled. “I’m a slave, not stupid. We keep informed, up to date. How else could we serve our hated masters efficiently? You want the computer rooms, down in what used to be the dungeons. Better for the machines, down there. Temperature controlled. I know all about computers. I read Wired magazine. Every month.”
“Sorry,” I said.
“Follow these back stairs, all the way down. Watch out for the guard on duty. And the alarms. Did you really break in here, without first doing some reconnaissance?”
“I was in a hurry,” I said, with as much dignity as I could muster.
It gave me a long hard look. “And you’re our great hope for liberation. I think I’ll go and have a little lie down.”
It sniffed loudly, pointed out the back stairs with quite unnecessary thoroughness, and shuffled off. Almost immediately, a door to my right swung open, and a whole crowd of teenagers rushed out, talking loudly. I stood back to let them pass, and although they all did so, several of them looked at me oddly, as though I hadn’t said or done something they expected. One of them actually paused and looked back at me, the look on his face clearly suggesting that he thought something was wrong, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. I couldn’t get past them to the back stairs, so I just turned casually away and made a point of going into the room they’d just come out of.
It turned out to be some kind of common room, with more teenagers standing around in groups, sitting in comfortable chairs, drinking and talking. There was a bar in one corner, manned by yet another kobold. I drifted over to the bar and acquired a Beck’s in a bottle, and the kobold actually slipped me a sly wink as it served me. God save us all from amateur conspirators. Even if they did have one hell of a gossip network. I was a bit concerned I might be promising the underfolk more than I could deliver. I was here for information to take back to my family, not to start a revolution of the downtrodden. If I found the kind of information I was looking for, I might have to grab it and run. My duty to the family came before anything else. I fully intended to come back, sometime, preferably at the head of a large army of armoured Droods, and bring down the Immortals in blood and fire. And then, of course, we’d free all the kobolds. But that wouldn’t be today or tomorrow. Might even be years. The Immortals were the deadliest and most devious enemy we’d ever faced; any attack would have to be carefully planned. And there was still the problem of the Apocalypse Door, and the end of the world. I had a lot to do, before I could even think about freeing the kobolds.
But it still didn’t feel right, to take their help under false pretensions.
I wandered round the common room, sipping from the bottle when anyone got too close, nodding and smiling and listening in on as many conversations as possible, without seeming like an eavesdropper. Everyone in the room was a teenager, fifteen or sixteen years old at most. And they all had the same cold, ancient eyes, as though they’d seen everything there was to see, and put their mark on it. None of them were particularly handsome, or beautiful; striking would be a better word. Long experience had put its stamp on their faces, but not in wrinkles or sagging flesh; more in their expressions, and the way they held themselves. They all had perfect skin, perfect teeth, and not a blemish among them. They all looked to be in good shape, though that could be flesh dancing. None of them would need to be fat for long, and they could just grow what muscles they needed . . . or that terrible bone armour I’d seen down in the Hotel. They could be anything, so why hadn’t they made themselves attractive? All of these teenagers were defiantly ordinary.
All the better to walk among you . . .
The common room itself had the air of a peculiarly old-fashioned Gentleman’s Club; nothing like a teenage hangout. It was all very calm, and ordered, and tidy, and no one raised their voice. They all seemed very relaxed, and comfortable in their own skins, and there was a basic ease you get only among people who’ve known each other forever. And maybe they had . . . That was why I was still getting glances. I wasn’t acting like one of them. I didn’t immediately recognise faces, or say someone’s name; I didn’t know catchphrases and familiar gestures established over long years. I sat down in a chair in the corner, away from everyone, and did my best to radiate I want to be alone with my body language. I was wasting time here, but I was fascinated by the Immortals. Know thy enemy . . .
Two teenagers sat at a chess board, the pieces flying back and forth at incredible speed. Half a dozen more were playing some complicated game with human knucklebones. Others were playing a word game that made no sense to me at all. There was a huge wide-screen television on one wall, tuned to a twenty-four-hour rolling news channel, and no one was watching it. And all through the room I heard a dozen different languages spoken simultaneously, along with others I didn’t even recognise. Dialects and special patois so obscure they sounded almost alien. Could it be that the Immortals remembered and still used languages that had actually died out in the outside world?
But even as I listened in, while pretending to sulk in my chair, I slowly realised that everything I could understand was just simple social chatter. Nothing about world events, or the great things they’d done or were planning to do, nothing about the recent attacks on my family . . . It was all just gossip. Who was with who, who’d fallen out with who, who was two-timing who and what would happen when everyone found out . . . All the Immortals cared about, was themselves. Because the world might change, but the Immortals went on forever. So they were the only things that mattered.
I looked up sharply as a young woman marched right up to me. From the glare she was giving me, it was clear she knew the face I was wearing, and not in a good way. Which meant I had to know her. She was tall and blond, dressed to the height of nineteen thirties fashion. She folded her arms and glared at me, clearly waiting for me to say something. Other people were starting to pay attention. I rose to my feet and gave her my best disdainful glare.