Days passed.
Reports continued to flow to Lucien in measured intervals. Each one was sorted, filtered, and delivered with the increasingly terrifying efficiency of Lootwell's recorder corps.
Most of them were ordinary.
Merchant disputes. Minor price manipulation. Private insults disguised as formal communication.
Those Lucien ignored.
Then Elias came personally.
"Young Lord, we found something more serious," Elias said.
Lucien leaned back slightly.
"How serious?"
Elias placed the records down.
"Serious enough to be irritating. Not serious enough to be immediate."
Lucien smiled faintly.
"That is a useful category."
Elias did not smile back.
He opened the records, and threadlike projections of tagged communications rose into the air above the table.
Several sect groups.
Several private channels.
Several names already flagged by the recorders for pattern clustering, influence attempts, and suspicious rhetorical synchronization.
Lucien read.
And then he laughed.
