Three days later, Tracy returns to Marin’s office in Barony Chita. The keep is warm, quiet, and sealed tight against the wind. Thomas stands by the door, jaw set, while Marin waits over a spread of manifests and copied symbols.
Marin Tohinta
We have a pattern now. The runners were not freelancers. They were guided, paid, and fed routes from inside the Barony.
The door opens a crack. A hooded figure slips in, pale with fear, hands shaking under a dust-stained coat. He keeps his face down as if the walls might report him.
The Informant
I know who sent them. Not the whole chain, just the hand above it. They meet near the salt works, and they speak about the machine like it is a rank, not a thing.
Tracy
The salt works is the link again.
Marin’s eyes harden. Thomas shifts to cover the door, one hand near his weapon. The Informant swallows and pushes a damp scrap of paper across the desk, marked with a meeting time and a Baronial seal cut in half.
Marin Tohinta
If the seal is real, then this reaches into my own administration. Tracy, this either exposes the mind machine's handlers, or it exposes a rival trying to weaponize our fear.
Secure the informant’s lead on the runners’ masters