10-02-2013, 11:19 AM
Aeva looked at the two cards in her hands, scarcely able to believe that he had simply handed them over to her. She knew that she could be trusted not to go spend the phone card on dating lines and astrology 'gurus', but Drayson barely knew her. And contact details! Real contact details - to someone in the police, who had... rank... influence...
"I hope I can be useful to you," she said, meaning it. "And... I'll try to be better at listening to rumour; I suppose you can get translations, so if I hear anything and don't understand it - you... you really might find it useful! I apologise in advance if it isn't, but there's a good chance someone around here has seen things you'd want to know about." Aeva realised she was babbling. "Thank you," she ended.
Aeva wasn't stupid - she knew that talking to the police wouldn't be tremendously popular with a lot of the people down here, but the overwhelming majority were like the folks in their growing community. Simply seeking a better life, a bit of safety, and willing to do it on the right side of the law if they could only be given that chance. Helping to clean up the current hell of the underground would be in the best interests of most of those down here; and those it wouldn't were 99% of what was causing the problems.
And there was at least one little thing she could do.
Bidding Drayson wait for a couple of minutes, Aeva ran towards one of the 'founding families' of the community. Italian, they were - the mother of a brood was the one in charge, and more like a grandmother at that, her husband a jovial man who looked as though he should have been large and a host of capricious children with a finely honed sense of adventure; especially the three eldest boys, two of them twins, who had been exploring all over the underground, despite the danger, and despite the spankings they got in return.
It hurt to give away her own dinner, but Aeva thought about phone cards and Chief Inspector Drayson on her side to make it easier.
"I know this is a child's drawing... and I know it's not in English," she explained, showing the large and fragile-ish sheet of paper to him. "But these are some of the tunnels where some of the strongest, darkest and strangest rumours are. Nobody will show you these places, or talk to you about them, because they're either too afraid of what goes on down there and won't be seen in the vicinity - or because they're *part* of what goes on down there. But I spent my first few days here -" she indicated one of the lines. "It was abandoned and mostly caved in; I got in there more through luck than judgement, but the artistes who drew this map also found it, and I've no reason to think the rest of it is any less accurate. To be honest, I don't think some of these tunnels were made by anyone... in authority, shall we say."
Aeva relinquished the crude map to Drayson's hands, doubting the scale was much to be trusted, but reasonably sure of the existence of the passageways, tunnels and doors that had been marked in everything from felt-tip to crayon to biro. She just hoped it was half as valuable to him as the cards were to her.
"I hope I can be useful to you," she said, meaning it. "And... I'll try to be better at listening to rumour; I suppose you can get translations, so if I hear anything and don't understand it - you... you really might find it useful! I apologise in advance if it isn't, but there's a good chance someone around here has seen things you'd want to know about." Aeva realised she was babbling. "Thank you," she ended.
Aeva wasn't stupid - she knew that talking to the police wouldn't be tremendously popular with a lot of the people down here, but the overwhelming majority were like the folks in their growing community. Simply seeking a better life, a bit of safety, and willing to do it on the right side of the law if they could only be given that chance. Helping to clean up the current hell of the underground would be in the best interests of most of those down here; and those it wouldn't were 99% of what was causing the problems.
And there was at least one little thing she could do.
Bidding Drayson wait for a couple of minutes, Aeva ran towards one of the 'founding families' of the community. Italian, they were - the mother of a brood was the one in charge, and more like a grandmother at that, her husband a jovial man who looked as though he should have been large and a host of capricious children with a finely honed sense of adventure; especially the three eldest boys, two of them twins, who had been exploring all over the underground, despite the danger, and despite the spankings they got in return.
It hurt to give away her own dinner, but Aeva thought about phone cards and Chief Inspector Drayson on her side to make it easier.
"I know this is a child's drawing... and I know it's not in English," she explained, showing the large and fragile-ish sheet of paper to him. "But these are some of the tunnels where some of the strongest, darkest and strangest rumours are. Nobody will show you these places, or talk to you about them, because they're either too afraid of what goes on down there and won't be seen in the vicinity - or because they're *part* of what goes on down there. But I spent my first few days here -" she indicated one of the lines. "It was abandoned and mostly caved in; I got in there more through luck than judgement, but the artistes who drew this map also found it, and I've no reason to think the rest of it is any less accurate. To be honest, I don't think some of these tunnels were made by anyone... in authority, shall we say."
Aeva relinquished the crude map to Drayson's hands, doubting the scale was much to be trusted, but reasonably sure of the existence of the passageways, tunnels and doors that had been marked in everything from felt-tip to crayon to biro. She just hoped it was half as valuable to him as the cards were to her.