The Chimney: The Merc Papers

by G. T. Spoor

  “Let’s keep it that way—shall we?” Mira looked down at her glass. “I came in for a meal, not a conversation.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bother you,” Emily said.

  The cloaked figure reached across the table and placed her hand on the elf’s arm.

  “Mistress, please.”

  “Tilly.”

  “Please, Mistress. I feel you should hear her out.”

  Something passed between them, and Mira’s demeanor softened but only slightly.

  “Very well.” She sighed. “What is it that you want?”

  “I don’t wish to bother you—”

  “You already have, haven’t you? But my companion feels that I should at least hear what you have to say, so make it quick.”

  Emily sat down at the table. Mira closed her eyes and sighed. Tilly giggled.

  Pulling out the handkerchief, she unwrapped the small piece of metal and slid it across the table toward the elf. Mira looked at it curiously.

  “And what am I supposed to do with this?” she asked.

  “I was told you’re very knowledgeable on things such as chemicals and… well, poisons.”

  “Poisons?” Her violet eyes widened. Reaching out, Mira gently stroked the tip of the metal with her finger and, much to Emily’s surprise, ran the same finger along her bottom lip. It seemed like a dangerous way of testing poisons, but the elf never flinched. “Definitely plant-based, possibly diluted. A bit pungent.”

  “Do you know what it is?”

  “Difficult to say for sure. I would have to run a few tests, but it’s a form of Lipon.”

  “Would you know where I could get such a poison?” Emily asked.

  The elf’s face darkened. “I do not know what you have heard about me, but I do not traffic in such wares.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to suggest that you did. It’s only that I need to know who sells it.”

  “Why would you need to know that?”

  “I’m hoping that it will lead me to the people who tried to abduct me. They have something of mine and I need to get it back.”

  “I would have thought you would have taken this to those… Mercs.” The elf didn’t so much as say Merc as she spat the word out. It was clear she had about as much love for them as they did for her.

  “I tried, but they turned me away. They won’t help. They seem to think it’s a waste of time.”

  “I’m not surprised.” She tapped her finger on the table and a slight trace of a smile formed on her lips. “I will help you identify this poison—”

  “Thank you.”

  “For a price.”

  “A price? I’m afraid I don’t have much money. I’ve only just started working here, and well… I’m not doing too well on my first day.”

  Mira shook her head. “I said nothing about money.”

  “Then what?”

  “I barter in… favors.”

  “Favors?”

  “That’s right. You seem like a resourceful young woman. Your people are known to be… competent. I may need someone of your skill set in the future.”

  “I’m not sure what I can offer you.”

  “Do not undervalue your worth. These are my terms: a favor for a favor. I will tell you what I can about your poison and in return, you will owe me a favor.”

  “How do you know I will keep my side of the bargain when the time comes?”

  This time Mira did smile. “Because you are bound by honor. Unlike most of the inhabitants of this wretched city, you will not forsake your word. It is a hard code to live by is it not?”

  Favors were a dangerous commodity. There was no telling how expensive it could get, but it was also her only lead.

  “Very well. You have a deal. A favor for a favor,” Emily said.

  “So be it. I will let you know when I find out more about your poison. Until then…” Mira waved her off.

  Emily knew there was no longer any point in sticking around. Pushing herself away from the table, she headed back to the bar. Sarah was waiting.

  “So? How did it go?”

  “She’s agreed to examine the poison.”

  “That’s great.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Yo! Toots! Another ale.”

  This was going to be a long day.

  Chapter 5

  The Bureau

  After putting in her hours and adding up her meager tips, Emily earned enough money to hire a jitney to take her to the Annex. She even had enough to get her back home, but nothing after that. It wasn’t that she expected her single day of work to cover all her expenses, but she had hoped to stretch her finances a little further. She owned nothing at the moment, and relying on Sarah for everything went against her teachings. The path might require her to leave behind material possessions, but even the poorest traveler had a change of underclothes.

  As the jitney navigated the busy streets of New Doral, Emily sat in the back seat and watched the city pass by. It was a remarkable place but one she was ready to be gone from. Although alive, as in active, it seemed to plod on at a dismal pace, almost as if the city had given up. There was no color, only shades of gray. The buildings, the vehicles, even the ashen faces of the people contributed to the monochromatic existence. There was no sky, no sun, not even a decent breeze. New Doral had separated itself from the world around it, and now it existed in its own perpetual limbo. She feared if she stayed any longer, she too may lose her color.

  Pulling herself away from the window, she looked down at the jitney driver’s license posted on the back of his seat. It said his name was Ryan Kersh and that he had been driving jitneys for the last twenty-three years. The picture showed a sad-faced middle-aged man with no hair, staring blankly out into space. It was a good likeness.

  It seemed everything in New Doral required a license, whether it was driving, owning a tavern, or investigating your own abduction. At first, it seemed a little strange, but the more she thought about it, the more she could see the reasoning behind it. It had to be better than having everyone do whatever they wanted whenever they wanted to do it. A city of this size required some sense of order. Although, from what she’d seen so far, there wasn’t much of that either.

  Once she secured her Merc license, she’d be able to start her investigating in earnest. Not that she knew where to start. She had hoped her visit to the alley would have provided her with something more to go on than a needle that may or may not have anything to do with her. Petrova had a bulletin board filled with pictures of missing people. How many of them met their fate in that same alley? Tar did say it was the perfect place for an abduction. And what about the poison? Even if she learned everything she could about it from Mira, there was no guarantee it would get her any closer to finding Squeaky Voice and his gang.

  The jitney slowed down and pulled up to the curb where Emily got her first good look at the Bureau building, a tall, multifloored, many-windowed structure that seemed a darker shade of gray than the surrounding city. It climbed all the way up to the stone sky, and if Sarah was right, well beyond even that.

  “Annex. Four fyn,” the driver said without turning around.

  Emily counted out the four thin sheets of silver paper and placed them in his outstretched hand. Stepping out of the jitney, she had barely closed the door before he pulled away. So much for a ride home. She’d have to find herself another driver, but first things first, she was here to get her Merc license.

  Walking up the front steps to the Annex, she followed a group of people into the lobby. The place was packed. It appeared the Bureau did quite a bit of business, even this late in the day. There were several lines of people standing in front windows accepting forms. More people sat at small desks filling out forms, and even more stood in different lines handing in forms. Then, of course, there were all the people behind the windows filing those forms.

  Moving away from the front door and finding a safe place to stand without getting in the way, Emily took in her
surroundings. There had to be some order to this chaos. It was just a matter of figuring it out.

  “Do you need some help?”

  She was dressed in a dark gray suit, which meant she probably worked for the Bureau. The tall, lissome woman with long, wheat-colored hair tied in a bun wore a stern expression and regarded Emily suspiciously.

  “Do you need some help?” she asked again.

  “I’m here to get a license,” Emily answered.

  The stern-faced woman stared at her for a moment and without saying a word, gestured for Emily to follow her. Cutting through the crowd, she led her to a large chart that hung on the far wall. It was divided into four categories: certificates, permits, licenses, and registrations.

  “What license were you interested in?” the woman asked.

  “Merc,” Emily answered.

  She ran one long, delicate finger down the chart under the categories of licenses and stopped when she found private and public security.

  “Window six.”

  “Window…?”

  “Six,” she said and pointed to one of the windows. Above it, on a round metal plaque, was the number six. She then directed Emily to the end of the line before leaving her to fend for herself.

  The line moved slowly.

  There were at least twenty people in front of her, although, thankfully, they weren’t all there for Merc licenses. At least she didn’t think so. According to the chart, this window also provided licenses for machinists, alchemists, bakers, and tattoo artists. There were a few more occupations listed, but she didn’t get a chance to read them all. As the line got shorter, and she moved closer to the window, she could hear the requests from the people in front of her. Two men wanted jitney licenses and one wanted a hospitality license. The next man wanted a liquor permit but was told he was in the wrong line and had to go to window eight. The next man requested a bakery license. Before Emily knew it, she was standing in front of the window. It only took her half an hour.

  An old crow-faced woman looked up at her from behind a desk surrounded by stacks of paper.

  “What do you need?” she asked.

  “A Merc license,” Emily said. “No. Wait, I think it’s called a private—”

  “Private and public security license,” the woman finished for her. Spinning her chair around, she dug into one of the paper stacks and pulled out a thick form. She then slid it across the windowsill toward Emily. “Fill this out, bring it to window eleven, and wait to be called.”

  “Wait to be—?”

  “Next.”

  The burly man standing behind her pushed her to one side.

  “Pipe fitter,” he told the crow-faced woman.

  She spun her chair around and started looking for the proper forms. Emily searched for a place to sit down.

  She had seen it when she first entered: a small area of the lobby sectioned off for people to fill out their paperwork. Each desk was supplied with a light and an ink pen on a very short leash. She sat down to work on the forms. Having never filled one out before, she couldn’t say if it was standard, but it did cover a wide variety of topics. Some of if it seemed a little unusual, with questions about religious affiliations and political beliefs, even what race she was, while other sections made more sense. There was a place for military experience, training, and physical health. All in all, the form was twenty-six pages long and took her nearly an hour to complete.

  When she was finally finished, she looked through it again to make sure she, at least, tried to answer all the questions. A lot of it didn’t apply to her, such as questions about which tier she was born on and where her parents worked. They seemed to want to know every little detail of her life, details she was reluctant to part with. Picking up the paper, she looked for window eleven and stepped in line. It was another twenty minutes before she reached the front.

  Emily set the form on the sill. The woman behind the window picked it up, looked it over, and handed it back to her.

  “You’re in the wrong line,” she said.

  “Pardon?”

  “You need to take licensing requests to window twelve.”

  “But I was told window eleven.”

  “Window twelve. Next.”

  Taking a deep breath, Emily recited the first tenet under her breath as she looked for window twelve. After standing in another line for another twenty minutes, she handed the paperwork to yet another woman behind another window. This one took the form and stuck it in a box without even looking at it.

  “Please wait over there. Someone will get to you shortly. Next.”

  “Over there” was actually a row of chairs lined up against the wall. A few of them were already occupied. More people simply waiting. Emily took a seat.

  Shortly must have meant something different in New Doral than it did in the rest of the world.

  With nothing else to occupy her time, she watched the people move from one line to the next and imagined it happening on all twenty levels. Every license, every document, every permit, it all went through the Bureau. Forget mana crystals; it appeared the Chimney ran on paper.

  Just when she thought they had forgotten about her, the door on her right suddenly opened and a tall woman holding a clipboard stepped out. She was dressed in long flowing green robes, which seemed out of place in the Bureau building since everyone else was wearing gray suits. Looking down at her clipboard, the woman adjusted her glasses and looked at it again. The people in the waiting area leaned forward and held their breaths. They were all hoping their name was going to be the next one called.

  “Mr. Murphy? Mr. Allen Murphy?”

  There was a collective groan from the room as a short round vir jumped to his feet. The woman in green stepped aside and waved him through the door.

  “Mr. Sanchez will see you now.”

  After the doors closed, they all went back to waiting. One hour and four more visits from the woman in green, Emily finally heard…

  “Mr. Doyle? Mr. Emil Doyle?”

  Okay, not exactly what she was expecting.

  She looked up and down the row of people, seeing if someone shared her last name, but nobody moved. The woman called the name again.

  “Mr. Emil Doyle?”

  “I’m Emily Doyle,” Emily said, raising her hand.

  The woman in green adjusted her glasses, looked down at her clipboard, and shrugged.

  “Mr. Cogs will see you now.”

  Emily quickly got to her feet and followed the woman into a maze of hallways and doors. With so many offices and so many people working, it was a wonder they even needed a waiting area. The woman stopped at room twenty-seven and knocked three times before opening the door. She gestured for Emily to enter.

  The room was small and sort of on the gloomy side. A single desk took up most of the space. Behind it a man sat with his head down, scribbling notes on what appeared to be Emily’s recently filled-out form. No doubt this was Mr. Cogs.

  “Please have a seat, Mr. Doyle. I’ll be with you in a moment,” he said without looking up. He flipped through the form a few more times, then stopped on one of the pages. “Everything seems to be in order. I just have a few more questions that I need to ask you. You say here you’re not a resident of New Doral. Where did you originally come from?”

  “It’s a small settlement, east of Eryona region,” Emily answered.

  The man suddenly looked up.

  “Oh. I’m sorry,” he said. “I think you might have the wrong room. I was expecting—”

  “Doyle. Emily Doyle?”

  “Emily?” He flipped to the front of the form. “It says here, the name’s Emil Doyle.”

  “No. I’m pretty sure I wrote down Emily.”

  Mr. Cogs turned the paper sideways and was now looking at it from a different angle.

  “Yeah, I guess that could be the letter Y.”

  “Is there a problem?”

  “Problem? No. No problem. I’m afraid your request for a private and public security license h
as been denied.”

  “But you just said everything seemed to be in order.”

  “I’m afraid you simply don’t meet the qualifications,” he said with a nervous laugh. “We don’t just hand out Merc licenses to anyone who comes in. Sorry, but that’s the way it is. I’m sure you can find your way out.”

  “I’ve been here for nearly three hours. I’ve stood in lines, filled out forms, and sat in your waiting room, all so you can tell me my request has been denied.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Doyle.”

  “Can you at least tell me why it was denied?”

  “Because you don’t meet the qualifications.”

  “What qualifications would those be?”

  “Well. You know.” He flipped through the pages of the form. “There were things that… came up.”

  “I see, and would one of those be because I’m a woman?”

  “Look, Mrs. Doyle—”

  “Because it sounded like you were ready to hand me a license when you thought I was a man.”

  “Mrs. Doyle, I don’t make the rules—”

  “But you have no problem following them.”

  Mr. Cogs sighed and leaned back in his chair.

  “The bottom line is, your application for a Merc license has been denied. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

  “So that’s it?” Emily asked.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I, Mr. Cogs.”

  ~~~***~~~

  When Emily finally got back home, Sarah was waiting for her. She was sitting in the main room, altering what looked like Emily’s uniform.

  “How did it go?” she asked.

  Emily flopped down in one of the overstuffed chairs. Even though she was supposed to abstain from luxuries, she didn’t care. After standing in the Bureau for three hours and sitting in a jitney for another, she needed something comfortable at the moment.

  “Pretty much the way you said it would.”

  Sarah set her work aside. “I told you they wouldn’t give you a license. Being a Merc is a job for men, not women.”

  “Says who?”

  “Everyone.”