Following the White Rabbit

[Raffe]

They were soon on their way. Anxiety lingered in the back of Raffe’s mind, but it was the impatient kind, counting down the minutes until the end of Nox’s debrief. Sage was an unusual companion, bouncing into the conversation sometimes, and looking completely zoned out of life the next moment, but Raffe gathered that was normal behaviour for him so he paid it little mind. Cruz just seemed eager to unravel the mystery of his find, an enthusiasm that might have been endearing if Raffe could shake the feeling Cruz might be jumping from his pampered life into something a little out of his depth.

“He’s connected. He must be. People in the undercity go to him for favours, and the coin’s your ticket. Rumour says he’ll hear out anyone out who asks, though. It’s just that sometimes what you think you ask for isn’t exactly what you get. That’s what I’ve heard anyway,” Raffe said in answer to Cruz’s question. After a moment he added, “I don’t know him, really. But he’s been hanging around the club a little lately, usually when Oriena’s there. That seems a fair reason for caution. Just be careful, is all.”

After the train it would be a short walk to the church where those displaced from the underground upheaval had gathered. A soup kitchen and make-shift shelter had been set up amongst the dilapidated church facilities, and people milled around or sat in clusters much as they had when Raffe was last here. A gas leak seemed to be the accepted reason for evacuation judging by snippets of conversation caught in passing. If anyone suspected differently they weren’t saying, but there was a quiet undercurrent of unrest too. No one spoke Ascendancy’s name outright. No one judged aloud. But it was there in the margins. That he had caused it. That his neglect had allowed it to happen.

There was a name spoken amongst the people here, though; one in hushed and reverently thankful tones. And that name was Ezekiel’s.