Lament dove to the floor as a force-blast thumped down beside her, leaving a dent in the metal. She rolled and came up running as blasts punched behind her heels, distorting the very air as they passed. If she could make it to the door she had a chance.
She realised suddenly that the deputy had vanished. No time to worry about him though. The door ahead swung open, a bright yellow light spilling through. Then a shadow passed across the light, near blotting it out entirely: a giant thug, carrying a weapon she didn’t recognise. She tried to reach out with her mind, but found that she suddenly felt weak, far too weak to use her considerable mental powers. Too weak even to run. She felt as if her legs would collapse from under her. Fell to her knees. Then on to her side. Her breathing laboured.
She lay there for she didn’t know how long, until through hazy eyes she saw the gnarled man approaching.
“Well well, I would call that even better than anticipated. Very nice indeed. Shut it off, Ballis. We don’t want her expiring just yet.”
From behind her, she heard a sound like a large generator being deactivated. Immediately she found her breathing ease, though she was still unable to move.
“Remarkable, isn’t it? That bag of tricks the Empire planted in your head is all you know now. Can’t function without it.” He smiled a smile that was all teeth. “Now us, we may not all be a hundred per cent original human,” he said, and raised his claw demonstratively. “But we know our limits. No bloody transgenetic trickery in here!” and he pounded his chest with a clang.
“Not gene therapy… just… training,” said Lament weakly. The old man laughed.
“That’s what they told you! You trust too easily, yellowjacket! Me, I keep my ear to the ground. I know all about those ‘training’ camps!”
Lament was breathing easier now, and the feeling was starting to return to some of her extremities. She flexed her fingers, imagining the old man’s scrawny neck between them.
“Ooh she’s feeling feisty, boys!” said the old man, chomping on the cigar with some amusement. He looked up at Ballis, the giant. “Hit her again,” he said calmly.

Like water dripping into a bucket consciousness returned to her gradually. A recurring sensation in her legs. A scraping sound. They were taking her somewhere. She could just distinguish light from dark.
“HruI sNargh,” said a dark shape. “Vivli phlap,” said another. A dark rectangle up ahead was getting larger and larger, or maybe smaller and smaller. The strong arms holding her up were the only sharp sensation she had. Suddenly she knew that if she entered that black rectangle she would never emerge. She tried to struggle, but her feeble efforts only made the pressure under her arms stronger.
There was a noise behind, a muffled crash like a statue falling on iron sheeting a long way away. The strong arms holding her up disappeared and she found herself collapsing to the floor as darkness rushed up to embrace her again.
It was only for a moment. When her eyes opened again she was shocked to find that she could see clearly.
“They had that machine trained on you the entire way here,” said a voice. “Can you stand?” Lament propped herself up on an elbow and turned to face the source of the familiar voice. She took his hand and let herself be hauled upright on shaky legs.
“I thought you had run,” she said. “You should have run.”
“And leave you behind?” said the deputy. “Never.”
She looked at him. “You sound different,” she said. Her vision cleared, and the first thing she saw was his eyes.
They were very blue.
“Your eyes!” she gasped. “I know you!”
The deputy hunched over a little, his firm voice shrinking to an anxious whine. “Pretty good disguise if I do say so myself,” he said, before drawing himself back up to his full height. “Caraveli Carian, at your service,” he said, and he gave a little bow.
“But – you left the consulate after me, and you’ve been here for weeks?”
“One of the perks of a steady job is you actually get to take time off,” Carian said. “Although my time off is usually spent doing more work.” He smiled ruefully.
“A law officer who moonlights as a junior clerk?” said Lament. “Or a clerk who daylights as a law officer? Or…” she paused, “neither?”
Carian grinned. “I wear a lot of masks.”
“So who are you really?” Lament asked. Carian put a finger to his lips, but his eyes were bright and smiling.
“I’m on a higher commission,” he said. “I may not wear yellow, but my orders come from a higher place than the head clerk at the local Consulate. And I’m certainly not here to investigate the loss of one crate.” He beckoned Lament up the hallway. “Come on, I found the warehouse sector on the map. It’s this way.”
Lament was used to a little more open-endedness in her orders, and it rankled to be taking directions from a civilian. In any other scenario she would have laughed at him. But these crooks had at least one weapon specially designed to deal with Agents.

It was a long walk to the warehouse sector, and it passed in silence or something like it. The platform was so big that avoiding patrols was an almost comically simple process; so many redundant passageways that any time trouble was around the corner they could just turn another corner. Carian navigated like he’d been walking these halls his entire life, while Lament’s psychic perception was still muddied. Her toe caught a step and she tripped, but just as quickly he was there to catch her.
He was starting to annoy her. “I can take care of myself, thank you!” she said.
“I know, I know,” said Carian. “I would have hated to see you take a spill like that, though.”
“How much further to the warehouse?” asked Lament.
“Should be just around this corner,” said Carian. “Yes! Alright, get looking. You search that half, I’ll do this half,” he said, indicating each side of the large storage space with an easygoing wave.
With her extrasensory powers beginning to return, Lament got to work, methodically pressing her palm against each box in turn and sending radiating probes of mental force into their contents. Most of them were full of old mining gear, spare parts, or occasionally old-fashioned civilian weaponry.
“Any luck?” she called across to Carian, who was levering the top off of a crate big enough to lie down in.
“Not yet,” he said. “Do you have any information about the shipment we could use to narrow it down?” he asked. Lament shook her head. “Oh well,” he said, and went on levering.
Eventually, Lament found an anomaly. This crate, about four feet square in all directions, resisted her every attempt to probe it. Psy shielding. “Found it!” she yelled. Carian jogged over.
“Nice work,” he said. “Can you open it?”
“I think so,” said Lament, nodding. “It looks like a standard lock mechanism. I have some experience with these.”
Carian stepped back, prepared to watch a master at work. He was quite surprised when Lament squared up to the box as if she was about to fight it.
Her upraised hand blurred, leaving an afterimage in the air for a fragment of a second, and then the lock exploded.
“Cool,” said Carian. Lament lifted the lid of the crate to reveal the smooth white plastic of Imperial lab transport canisters containing weapons and psychic-shielded apparel.
She let out a low whistle. “Quite a haul,” she said. “They got lucky that this was the crate that they happened to lift from the transport.”
Carian nodded solemnly. “I have a question. What’s your relationship with Arlo Tariz?”
“He pays me. Poorly, but he pays me. I wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“No, no. Your personal life is your own. I just haven’t been exactly honest with you,” said Carian. He tugged a chain around his neck, pulling a gold pendant out of his police-issue shirt. Swinging on the chain was an Agency insignia.
“You’re Agency!” gasped Lament.
“I’ve gotten very good at shrouding my aura,” he said. “I’ve had to. Not everyone with our aptitudes is on the side of the angels.”
“You’ve dealt with psy-criminals?” said Lament.
Carian nodded. “Let’s get this out of here,” he said, nodding to the crate. Lament pulled the lid closed.
“Why are you interested in Tariz anyway?” she asked.
“Ready? Lift!” said Carian. The two of them hoisted the crate between them. “How’re you feeling?”
“Better,” Lament said. She was breathing, so anything was better than before. She made a note of Carian’s evasiveness and decided to bring the matter up again when they were safely out of the lion’s den.