Deeks looked suspicious, but he stayed his hand. "Why should I trust you?"
"You hate the Administrator and seek to overthrow his rule," Thribble replied, "and he is planning to enslave my friends; I have no reason to betray you. Armitage's downfall will be to the advantage of us both."
"I may loathe the ground that pig, Armitage, walks on, but I'm not stupid," Deeks hissed. "If he and Terrence find out I've defied them openly, they'll have one of their little boxes inside my head before I can blink."
The demon came closer to the red-faced, sweaty man. "There is no reason why anybody should ever know that you helped me, human: I will not tell anybody.
"On the other hand, if you refuse, I will provide Armitage with prolific and convincing evidence that you were plotting his downfall."
The last sentence was spoken in a perfect imitation of Deeks' voice
The Technician's eyes narrowed, and his tone became cautious. "What do you want from me?"
Thribble cogitated for a few moments; he still had no concept of how to proceed. "What are you doing to Questor Grimm and his companions?" he asked.
Deeks waved a hand at the glowing, clicking equipment. "We're relaying a subliminal message to them while they sleep. It's Armitage's voice, telling them over and over again to trust him and obey him; him and his lieutenants, that is. Come the morning, they'll cut their own throats with a blunt knife if he tells them to."
"Can you stop it?"
"Not without Terrence knowing. He has systems status monitors in his room, and all sorts of alarms'll go off if I break the circuit."
The demon thrashed his tiny tail in agitation. While he hesitated, Grimm and his companions were undergoing an insidious process of enslavement. If he failed, he would be stranded in the dangerous, confusing mortal realm for the remaining millennia of his life. He must do something to help them.
"I can produce a perfect imitation of any human voice I have ever heard," said Thribble. "Could you introduce my voice into the system, telling them to ignore the messages?"
Deeks pondered Thribble's question. "I don't think so. That would mean hooking up an external voice input, and Terrence'd know if I did that, too. Also, the equipment monitors brain wave rhythms and neurotransmitter levels. If they get out of resonance with the message, it'll generate a sync fault."
The details of the Technician's reply meant nothing to the imp, but he did not doubt the sincerity of Deeks' conclusion.
What to do?
"How is Armitage's voice sent to the system?" Thribble demanded. "Is he sitting in his room, repeating the same messages over and over?" The demon fought to keep desperation from his voice.
Deeks snorted. "Of course not; it's a pre-recorded message, processed to produce the maximum subliminal effect, and looped."
"Could I say something to my friends in Armitage's voice so that they will obey me, rather than him?" asked the demon.
The Technician shook his head in an emphatic gesture of denial. "I heard you mimic me earlier. You've got an impressive talent there, sure enough, but it won't be enough. It's not just the voice, you see; the post-processing plays an important part, too. Armitage wears an electronic vocal processor that adds subsonic modulation to enhance the effect of his commands."
Thribble could see his options disappearing. "Why do you not just kill Armitage while he sleeps?"
"I've thought of doing just that, many times, but the only guns here are in the hands of the guards. All of the guards have implants, and I can't see myself grabbing a gun off one of them; they're fanatically loyal to our beloved Administrator, and they've got enhanced reflexes. Even if I could get hold of a weapon, Armitage's door's coded to his retinal pattern; I'd never get in."
Thribble groaned in frustration. He could tell how much the Technician hated Haven's leader, but Deeks seemed to be a man of little imagination or initiative. With every moment that passed, Grimm and his companions were being placed ever deeper under the insidious, Technological spell.
"Come on, human; there must be some way in which Armitage's methods can be used against him. Think!"
Deeks' eyes closed, as if he were hammering the wet, grey lump in his skull for inspiration. Long minutes passed, and Thribble could almost hear the portly human's brain creaking and complaining at the unaccustomed demands being placed upon it.
The demon had begun to lose all hope that the resentful, stupid mortal would hit upon a solution, when Deeks finally spoke.
"Like I told you, demon, it's all about post-processing," he said, as if that explained everything. "I can sample and process a voice message from you offline, without Terrence knowing. I'll be in here tomorrow, monitoring the data when Armitage starts his experiments with your mage friends, and I could easily pipe your message into the test chamber when he's putting the mages through their paces. If you're as good a mimic as you say, it should be just like a command from Armitage himself."
Thribble saw the first glimmerings of a faint ray of hope. "What must I do? I do not understand anything you have said."
With an enthusiasm he had not displayed when carrying out Terrence's commands, Deeks grabbed a grey metallic cylinder attached to a long cable and pressed a tile on a small silver box. "Speak into this, demon. I'll get it processed and ready in a few moments."
As he had been bidden, Thribble spoke into the tube, using a perfect imitation of Armitage's voice.
After a long period of tinkering with his machines, Deeks declared that the 'recorded and processed message' would have an equivalent effect to Armitage's Technologically-enhanced voice.
"It's all cued and ready to go, demon," Deeks said after a few minutes' tapping. "Just remember Terrence will be watching over me tomorrow, and I'll have to pick a moment when he hasn't got his eye on me. I hate Armitage, for sure, but I'm not about to have my brains scrambled to get at him. I've trusted you; now you'll have to trust me."
Thribble felt unhappy to entrust his plan to the dull-witted, envious mortal, but he saw few alternative options.
"Very well, Deeks," he said at last. "I will trust you to pass this message to Grimm and Xylox tomorrow. I can do little else."
Deeks cast furtive glances around him, as if checking for hidden eavesdroppers. "All right, demon, now get lost. I'll do what I can when Armitage gets to work with the mages tomorrow, as long as Terrence keeps his nose out of here. I hope those Questor guys blow him and Armitage to pieces."
"If you are as good as your word, you need have no fear on that score, Deeks," Thribble said. "Once they are freed from his influence, I would not like to be the one to try to stop them."
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Chapter 6: The Battle
Grimm awoke refreshed, full of energy to face the new day and feeling more cheerful than he had for some time. He remembered the events of the night before, although they seemed somehow distant and unimportant, unconnected with his present good humour.
He washed and groomed himself with his customary fastidiousness. When he emerged from the marvellous bathroom, he saw a cold collation on a small table, laid out for his regalement, and he consumed it with gusto.
The large, square window in his room illuminated, and Armitage's face appeared on it by some marvel of Technology.
"Good morning, Questor Xylox, Questor Grimm," the Administrator's voice called from the glowing square. "Would you be so good as to join me in Test Lab Six? You'll find it at Section Brown Nine, room 115."
To Grimm, this seemed a reasonable and fair request. "I will be there shortly," he said to Armitage's avatar, which nodded.