Reginald

Most of Lower Central lay in shadow now.

Thirty-six stories up, a concrete and steel shroud had begun to close over the sky. The Sky Gardens project, as it had been known for the last twenty years. The tall towers of Central were being made taller, with long causeways connecting between them. Those causeways were being expanded, linking first from tower to tower, than from one walkway to another. On those walkways, and in the towers rising up through that expanding web of concrete, were some of the greatest marvels of architecture the City had ever produced. It made room for green space enough to rival even some of the fields, and in new projects such as the Nursery Tower, the careful cultivation of medicines and substances in environments that couldn't be made anywhere else.

But as Reginald Lamar only finally noticed as he walked through Lower Central, managing that wonder had plunged an entire district into darkness. The causeways and extensions had built a spider nest of concrete and stone above their heads, blotting out the sun and blocking off much of the Spire. It was barely brighter here now, at night, than it might have been in some of the better developed parts of the mines beneath the City.

They would have to plan for that, after the invasion. Airflow, light, restrictions on the kinds of industry that could take place to keep pollution down. There was even some interesting work in projects like that. The kind that Reginald might have made a career with, or encouraged his son to.

Not that he had a son. Not any more.

There were only two places in Lower Central that weren't on their way to being enshrouded by the gardens of High Central. The Agora, the seat of Parliament and the centre of the City's government. And the building Reginald Lamar was walking to now: the First Stone, headquarters of the military and the heart of the City's communications network.

It was almost a shame the First Stone was so luminous, compared to the rest of Lower Central. Darkness for dark deeds he was considering.

He had been at home, until a couple of hours ago. Holding his wife, reassuring her that their son was on his way home. Reassurances he had been given by Gregori himself. And not being able to trust the Lord Captain at his word was like not being able to trust the stone beneath your feet.

At least it felt that way, an hour ago, when a messenger had knocked on his door.

The first surprise was a knock on the door. Normally a potential visitor would have been handled by the building's personal caretakers, with one of their own going to his door discreetly. But a military courier knew few restrictions, especially one wearing a brown armband.

The messenger looked weary. Her hair was matted to her head in places, stuck in place with sweat. The skin around her eyes was bruised enough to look purple, and her posture was sunken, like she was forty years older than she looked. The sight of her struck Reginald like a slap to the face, a shock that hit him even before he had fully opened the door.

"Reginald Lamar?" the courier asked quickly, impatiently. As if he expected the answer already and this was the third time the young woman had asked.

"Yes," he answered quickly. "What is it?"

"Missive. Direct from sender," the woman said, and handed him a small piece of paper, folded several times, held into a small rectangle that fit into the palm of his hand. It was held closed with a bit of wax, sealed with the imprint of what looked like a lottery token. It was also shocking heavy for just a bundle of folded paper.

"Please confirm the seal is unbroken," the messenger said.

"Y-yes, I can confirm," Reginald said, as he looked at the letter.

"Citizen," the courier said, with a quick salute before she turned and marched down the corridor.

His wife was asleep. He might very well had made a different decision, if she had been around to talk him out of it. But left alone, Reginald took the letter to the kitchen table and sat down to look at it.

The seal bores a thick book laying open, along with the date the token had been issued. Two years ago, in fact, and the open book meant the issuing bureau was Stats. Statistics, Surveys, and Census. Not exactly a bureau to be sending urgent missives, particularly sealed ones. And Reginald wasn't sure Stats was allowed Priority-Brown.

He broke the seal and opened the note. Something fell out and clattered onto the table, but he didn't look down yet. His eyes were fixed on the words that had ended his world.

MP's were dispatched yesterday to pick up your son. He is dead. The Lord Captain will deny it. He will feign ignorance first, and then claim your Son must have remained with his companions.

And on his table, just beneath the paper, lay a knife. One of the standard pieces of kit for any solider in the City. As many of them in the city as stones in one of the walls. With a blade as long as his hand, and a handle that brought it halfway up his forearm, it fit easily inside his coat pocket.

Which is where it rested now, as Reginald walked towards the First Stone.

He had worried that security might not let him through. Or worse, search him. An indignity he would never have imagined even yesterday; soldiers didn't treat high-ranking members of Civil Development with suspicion. At least ones that didn't want a watch posting at the last wall. And the habits of decades weren't abandoned overnight, even during an invasion. One of the sergeants at the door recognized him, and admitted Reginald through with little more than a polite nod.

Not his first time here, Regnald immediately took the stairs up. Gregor Edmoral wasn't a man of many creature comforts, but he liked having a view as he worked. He'd be about as high as the building allowed, and the elevators now would be reserved for messengers and equipment. There were twenty-six stories in the First Stone, and Reginald would have to climb every one.

As he walked, his hand drifted back into his pocket, his fingers resting on the unfamiliar tool in his pocket. As he climbed up the first dozen flights of stairs, a bit of exhaustion soothed some of the red rage he had been feeling, and he found his mind wondering why he had been sent the knife.

The City's politics were always tempered by the constant threat of the siege. No matter how vicious the play, no matter how high the stakes, there was a tacit understanding that nothing anyone did for power should imperil the City. It was the very real dilemma that had nearly torn the City apart after Crafter Garland Kohl uprooted the syndicate working inside the Irondrome. The fact that so much of the City's authority had ties to that agency trafficking in drugs and slaves was appalling, but taking it on his own to cut it out of the City's foundations had caused more damage than it solved.

And this move was a power play. There was no possibility of it being anything else. Someone wanted the Lord Captain dead, and had armed Reginald with both motive and means. Killing the commander of the City's armies during an invasion went well beyond that tacit understanding. Reginald suspected one of the Colonels first, imaging that if anyone could actually benefit from the Lord Captain's death, it would be his successor. Or — more terrifying still — it was someone who wanted the City's defences harmed, and found themselves with the best possible place to put a single knife. Groups like the Cult of the Hallowed Redeemer, who believed giving the Gloam what it wants was the only way to save themselves.

Or, Reginald realized as he climbed the fifteenth floor, someone who thought the City's defences would be better off if the Lord Captain wasn't the one leading it.

There was a temptation to let himself justify what he was doing that way. Gregor Edmoral had managed little so far, besides proving the Army to be horrifyingly unprepared for what was coming. He knew that, at best, the Army had expected five Golems. They imagined the Golems were a difficult thing to make, and that the Fourth represented the best their enemy could manage after a half-century of preparation. That thinking had left the Army understaffed, under-trained, and when it came to actually making a stand against the Golems, under-equipped. Gregor had told him, before they sent the Crafters out, he hoped they would thin them out before the army had to deploy those guns.

It was tempting. But Reginald Lamar had made a lifetime of listening to brutal honesty, particularly about himself. The truth was, he didn't care. The Lord Captain had sent the military police after his son. Now Hendricks was dead. And the Lord Captain hadn't offered anything but silence.

At the top floor, there was very little to distinguish which door lead to the Lord Captain's office. Only the single soldier at the door, with a clip-board and no Salamander. And the door itself was a fair bit larger than most others, largely to accommodate the comms equipment that had been installed in the office itself. More a clerk than a soldier by his duties, though he wore a sergeants' pips and a sword.

The sergeant, surprisingly, recognized him. "Mister Lamar," he said, waving with the clip-board. "Hoping to drop in on the Lord Captain?"

Fortunate. It kept him from needing to think of an excuse. "Yeah. Wanted to give him something."

"As long as it's not more bad news," the sergeant said. "He's getting enough of that from everywhere else."

"No, nothing like that," Reginald said. "And I understand getting more news than I can bear."

"Hope it turns brighter," the sergeant agreed, and gestured with his head. "At least the Rangers got Barleybarrel out. Go on in."

Barleybarrel. Reginald didn't know much about the town, asides from the crop that gave the place its name. Their evacuation, like so much of the City's fringes, would have prioritized any harvestable grain, with the town's most vulnerable persons second. He had also heard the place had been surrounded by the Gloam.

It was strange how numb he felt right now, as he stepped into the Lord Captain's office. He expected his rage to be a white-hot thing, drowning his thoughts as he beat at a wall with his bare fists until be broke them. It had been that way, in his younger days. It was probably where Hendricks had gotten it from, when he injured a man duelling with those oversized sewing needles. But for Reginald, for the first time in his life where he deserved that thought-blinding anger, he found his was an ice-cold thing, content to wait for the right moment.

And that moment was coming. There were only three other people in the room with the Lord Captain, and all of them were busy. Comms equipment clicked and hissed, the soldiers didn't look up from the frantic storm of writing that kept their heads pointed down at their work. Even Gregor Edmoral himself barely looked up from what he was reading to acknowledge someone new stepping in.

Though he did notice. "Reg, glad to see you. Since you're here, do you have any idea people the mines can house?"

"The mines?" Reginald asked, blinking in surprise and confusion. It was hard to think of anything that threatened to derail his focus, but he tried. "Very few, unless we start building fans. We hit a couple of underwater streams in the stone quarry beneath The Hollows, and excrement can always be burned to prevent disease. But getting fresh air down there is the limiting factor."

"Fans. Urvane, send this to Civil Development, Bureau Chief's desk. Priority black. As follows: District Refugees will evacuate to the mines. Housing in inner districts will prioritize farm labour and specialties. Prioritize enhancing airflow, above and beyond any other consideration. Sign and send."

An offhand question, and a single missive. With that, the fate of what might be hundreds of thousands of people had just been changed. Even as he thought of where to bury his knife, he couldn't help but be frightened of the implications. "Are you really expecting to have to evacuate districts?"

"Golems can fall. We know that now," Gregor said. And the offhand line made Reginald's anger worse. Gregor stood up, and tapped the map on his desk. "And we're making a stand now. Crafters and cannons, nearly fifty Vakyries for each of the seven Golems. A couple are even using Crafters, combining their work with the guns. All I can think is I'm wasting what's left of the Guild, but I'm willing to be proved wrong."

Golems can fall. It's been known since the Second, when the City barely managed to bring down one. It was before the walls were made high, when all they expected to come from the Gloam was the animated dead. Listening to Gregor now, Reginald thought again about the reason someone wanted the Lord Captain dead, and wondered if it really could be that the City's defences would be better off without him.

"Gregor," Reginald said slowly, and slid his hand into his pocket. "My son."

"No trouble, none at all. I was happy to do it for a friend. Got an earful from Colonel Dremora, but that would have happened anyway," the Lord Captain laughed at that, as if there was something funny there. Whatever it was, Reginald didn't have an ear for it. "Apparently one of her majors running the evac was incensed over the misallocated train, but we have to do these sorts of things sometimes."

The Lord Captain will deny it. He will feign ignorance first. Exactly as that message had said.

"My son hasn't made it home," Reginald said, and he took a step closer. He wasn't quite in arms reach now, it would take an extra step to close.

"Didn't he?" Gregor asked. And he looked, for all the world, as if he was completely sincere. Hendricks Lamar, his only son, was dead somewhere, and the Lord Captain was either lying through his teeth or blissfully ignorant. Reginald wasn't sure which possibility made him angrier.

"You promised you'd send people for him," Reginald insisted.

"And I did. Damnit, Reggy, that would have happened yesterday. Do you know how much has happened since then? If your son didn't take his chance to go home, he probably stayed with his unit. Which is a thing I'd be proud of, if I was his father."

And there it was. Just as the note said it would be. That Hendricks stayed behind with his unit. The confirmation of his suspicions tore through whatever was left of Reginald's thoughts, and it was all just red rage. Like a Crafter lost to the fire.

Reginald's knife was in his hand, moving with a comfort and skill he never knew he possessed. The blade punched into the Lord Captain's chest all the way to the hilt. Blood spurt from the wound even before he pulled the knife back out to stab again.

Gregor reacted finally, his hand gripping Reginald's hard, twisting at his fingers. He let the knife go, his fingers starting to bend backwards in the Lord Captain's grip, but Reginald took his left hand and pulled the knife out, stabbing a third time in the man's stomach. And this time, as the Lord Captain tried to grab at the knife, Reginald pulled down to make the wound larger.

And with that motion, that deliberate choice to viciousness, to cause pain, Reginald's rage vanished. He let go of the knife, stepped back, and looked down at his red-stained hands.

A grey blur at the edge of his vision, and whatever Reginald might have thought or said next was cut as cleanly as his neck.