So damn thirsty, need a sip, nothing but tap water. Brown, let it run. Hiss like. Dizzy, but smooth. Just let it run, get all the dust out. Rust out. Dusty rusty.

Time for a show. Show a show a shoe dancing on concrete. JJ POP gone, we all stand up. Time to go show the show go to time.

Always a good show at the Square. Real dancing, real drums, like native. Jump up and down until your brain is free falling. Pass around the pills, the tabs, the sticks and the sauce, and sizzle til dawn. Forget your cares, and just make some noise. Everyone loves the Square. Safe club. Famous like. So many people know it, even the posers know it. Dangerous, that. Get a poser who thinks they know the chant. Gotta keep an eye out.

There was no train to Harmingsdown. Being a small farming village on the southern end of the country, there had never been enough call for transport to such a distant pastoral town. Without industry, fortune, or noblesse oblige as a draw, Harmingsdown had stayed a quiet and sleepy village for the better part of a century.

Then, due to a remarkably unfortunate series of historical events, the Spanish army had established themselves in the southern part of England. Quite inadvertently, Harmingsdown had become The Front. This meant the once pastoral village needed troops, supplies, equipment, and a great deal of other sundry items. Harmingsdown was not alone in this; any number of heretofore useless and ignored territories were suddenly vitally important to the war, and required a quick method for logistical support.

Had Edmund made a mistake?

The thought crossed his mind only once in the span of time between sitting outside the Brigadier’s office and the signing ceremony, and the answer was quick in coming. No, he had not made any mistakes. He simply couldn’t afford to.

Edmund didn’t wait for Brother Bromard to leave again. He didn’t wait for Brigadier McNaymare to file an official command. He didn’t even wait for Major Schtillhart to step outside and demand to know why Edmund was sitting around and wasting time.

He was wasting time. He needed to get back to Filing Room B to prepare.

Edmund was a Moulde, and that meant he was not one to allow small obstacles stand in the way of what needed to be done; so it should come as no surprise that, after the lamp-lighters had all gone about their business bathing the night-darkened streets of Brackenburg with an jaundiced glow from the street lamps, Edmund left Filing Room B and walked out into the darkness, as casual as any gentleman out for a nightly stroll.

Subterfuge and legerdemain were reliable tools in the Moulde bag-of-tricks, and it felt good to dart from shadow to shadow again.

It is a common trait among humans that when they wish to divert attention, they always point in the opposite direction of what they are hiding. This makes it quite simple to find anything one wishes to hide; simply look in the exact opposite place someone expects you to look.

As a ABC clerk, Edmund received Schtillhart’s likely false administrative filing, submitting one (1) sample of Chrome, 4cm, 8.5 grams, to be stored in the Flitwork street warehouse. For reasons far too complex to explain, after reading this file Edmund was certain Schtillhart had hidden the sample of Chrome in the Illingsbeak street warehouse.

Kyle didn’t chant for Wellen. I got better. Doing well now. Kyle got mad. Left then.

Could have stayed. Could have waited til I knew the rocks, but gotta jump feet first. All hop like. Down the gutter goes, sluce. Swinging free. Could have been lost. Dangerous, like. No one know old Oz then, look over him like a heap o’ trash.

Didn’t have time. No rest. No sleep. Gotta find a rock. Gotta keep moving. You stay, you dust. Left Kyle’s circle that night.

Took weeks. I talked. I listened. I heard about Horse, who was a real rock. I heard about Linds, who was real nice, likable, soft and gentle. Not a real rock, but didn’t let no one stray. Like a sheepdog. Heard about all the rocks in Upper West, but Binny’s digs were only a street away from where I was, so I head over to the street corner where they say he hung out.

It took Edmund almost the entire rest of the day to sort out what he needed to do next.

Edmund did not think slowly; rather, when he put all his efforts into plotting and planning, he thought about so many things at once that it merely appeared that he thought slowly. This is akin to how a train powerful enough to carry a hundred cars full of diamonds may move slower than a rather small dog pulling a roller skate.

Edmund’s plan, such as it was, had not fundamentally changed. In traveling to Princebridge, he had hoped to ascertain whether the inventor of Chrome was someone he could work with, or someone he had to circumvent. The fact that the inventors were the Wickes did not make the answer obsolete, merely obvious.

It was almost six in the afternoon by the time Edmund had finished typing out his report to the Brigadier and made his way up the stairs to McNaymare’s office.

At first, Edmund was not certain precisely why he volunteered to travel to Princebridge, but by the time he had finished arranging his travel itinerary, he had rationalized his behavior quite easily.

First of all was his curiosity. What was this new metal? How was it made? How exactly was it better than steel? Where had it been invented? Who had done so? Why had its existance not been known in the scientific community? If Edmund could find a piece of it, could he reverse engineer it, and make it even better? Could he, in fact, salvage his threatened plan?

In fact, a part of Edmund felt a quiet pride. Whomever had invented Chrome had lucked into the ready-prepared setup that Edmund had originally created for himself. Without his efforts, the rumors of superior-steel would have remained just that. The intractable tradition of the military would have carried on, rationing would have eventually been implemented, and the war would have continued. After all, everything was going according to plan. The only error Edmund had made was in assuming he was the only person who saw opportunity in war.

However, it was not immediately wrong.

Scholars hypothesize that Edmund had a good three months of perfect invisibility before anything hindered his plans. For three months, Edmund did precisely what he was best at: he stayed unobtrusive, he did his job with unassuming skill, and he manipulated world events with a deft and subtle hand.

In his spare time, Edmund studied the Military. He found it fascinating.

It speaks much to Edmund’s character that one of the primary things he found interesting was the boredom. After Edmund’s first day as an ABC clerk, the next day passed much the same as the first, as did the next day, and the next. Military routine is a redundant term.

Tension, Edmund realized, degraded naturally. Pull a string taught and eventually the fibers will lengthen until they are able to be at rest while still being pulled. More force must be applied until the desired tension is reached again. He had needed to do this to Aoide’s strings many times.

That was my circle. Binny, Darla, Leon, Ribber, Cindy, Me, and JJ. Circles are the families you make. We see the system for what it is, and the system hates us. Circles protect you. Strengthen you. They make you strong. If you don’t have a circle, you’re alonely. On your own. One voice shouting in the darkness, echoes of your own voice in the static.

Many voices together, all chanting the same. That’s real power. A hundred hands on the hammer. Without a circle, you horde. You keep. You don’t share. Dark magic. Being alonely is selfish, really. Some people deserve it, but most don’t. Without a circle, you’re not a part of the chant. Not like you could be.

The Moulde Family carriage, jet black and topped with black plumed feathers, wound its way out of the Squatling district thorough the smog-roofed streets of Brackenburg towards City Hall, temporary home of the Board of Generals among several other official war offices. It was also one of several recruitment stations in the city.

The carriage was slowed to an unsteady crawl as they neared the City Hall. The streets of Brackenburg were filled with citizenry, far more than Edmund had ever seen. Granted, he could count the number of times he had gone into Brackenburg on one hand, but while the streets had been busy on those previous occasions, movement had been possible. Now, the carriage hobbled through the throngs as young men and women teamed like a rolling ocean.

Edmund’s nose pressed to the glass window as he scanned the sea of laborer’s caps, servant’s bonnets, and the rare silk bowler or top hat to mark the magnanimous few who were there by duty or choice, rather than necessity. Here and there in the throngs, men and women with large bull-horns shouted beneath the flag of Britannia, decrying the latest crime the Spanish people had wrought on the land. Cheers and fists were thrown into the air with every patriotic proclamation.

Edmund watched and learned.