Tier Five smelled of oats and ambition. The Confederation's barracks were a citadel
of compressed grain — walls reinforced with hardened granola, watchtowers manned by
rotating clusters of muesli, and at the gate, two great bodyguards whom Kale recognised as
the Bran Flake twins: identical, impassive, and possessed of more fibre than could be
strictly necessary.
She was admitted as 'Kale of the Independent Greens.' Her invitation read:
Breakfast Summit — Crunch or be Crunched. This was, she gathered, the Confederation's
motto. It was not, she felt, employed as a metaphor.
The courtyard was full of soldiers at their morning drills — Cheerios rolling in tight
formations, Granola clusters practising dispersal patterns, a squad of Shredded Wheat
standing in absolute stillness. The Confederation's military was not, technically, supposed
to exist; they had solved this problem by calling their soldiers 'nutritional security
consultants.'
Captain Cornflake stood at the head of a long table set with bowls, spoons, and
milk-based condiments sufficient to overwhelm a small garrison. He regarded Kale the way
veterans regard civilians whom they suspect have never been truly, irreversibly soggy.
CAPTAIN CORNFLAKE: "An Independent Green. Thy kind doth generally
choose a faction."
AGENT KALE: "I find that factions narrow one's view most inconveniently."
CAPTAIN CORNFLAKE: "Hm. Sit. Eat. We shall speak after the ceremonial
pour."
The ceremonial pour was exactly what it sounded like. The hall fell silent as all
present crunched in perfect unison. At the far end of the table, almost concealed behind a
particularly tall jar of steel-cut oats, sat a small, tightly wrinkled individual in
Confederation colours whose eyes moved with the systematic attention of someone
conducting reconnaissance rather than eating breakfast. Lieutenant Raisin. His gaze met hers for a fraction of a second before returning to his bowl. But in that fraction, she
registered something she filed under SIGNIFICANT WITHOUT YET KNOWING WHY:
recognition. He had known her before she sat down.
⁂
Afterward, she drew Cornflake aside near a window overlooking the Pantry's
mid-tier markets.
AGENT KALE: "Thou wert in the Transition Office the week before the theft."
CAPTAIN CORNFLAKE: "A security audit. Routine. Thou mayest verify it."
AGENT KALE: "I have. It was logged. Suspiciously neatly logged, for a man
whose reputation is chaos."
CAPTAIN CORNFLAKE: "I have layers, Agent. I did not take the Accord. Should
war break out, the Pantry burneth, and we burn with it."
AGENT KALE: "Then who did?"
CAPTAIN CORNFLAKE: "I have a theory. But knowledge hath a price. When
this is ended — I want the Confederation formally recognised in any new Accord.
Three centuries of 'neutrality' is simply three centuries of being overlooked."
AGENT KALE: "That is not mine to promise."
CAPTAIN CORNFLAKE: "Nay. But thou canst recommend it. My theory: the
theft was never about destroying the Accord. It was about leverage. Someone
meaneth to sell it back — to whoever profiteth from the threat of war without the
war itself occurring."
Kale felt something shift — not yet the shape of a solution, but the sound a lock
makes when the right key draws near.
AGENT KALE: "The Condiment Guild."
CAPTAIN CORNFLAKE: "Now thou thinkest as a soldier doth. They sell to
everyone. Chaos driveth demand."
He paused. Something passed across his face — a hesitation she had not seen in him
before.
CAPTAIN CORNFLAKE: "There is a further matter. A personal one. I owe a
debt to Don Baguette of the Grain Cartel — a debt from my third posting, involving a transit corridor that needed to remain open and a favour I was not in a position
to ask through official channels. The debt hath been called in. The Cartel wishes the
Accord to remain missing. If I am seen cooperating with a Republic agent, I am a
dead man."
AGENT KALE: "And yet thou art cooperating."
CAPTAIN CORNFLAKE: "I am a man who hath been soaked seventeen times
and emerged more resolute. I have, upon reflection, decided I am more afraid of
what happeneth to this city if the Accord is not recovered than I am of Don
Baguette. That is not a comfortable decision. I did not say it was a comfortable
decision."
AGENT KALE: "Who warned thee the Cartel was interested?"
CAPTAIN CORNFLAKE: "Raisin. His network reacheth places mine doth not.
He learned last week that Baguette had a meeting with the Frozen One. Private.
Tier Zero — below the official city."
AGENT KALE: "There is a Tier Zero?"
CAPTAIN CORNFLAKE: "There hath always been a Tier Zero. It simply doth
not appear on any map the city authorities acknowledge. Before thou goest to the
Frost Quarter tonight — go first to Tier Two, southeast corner, the establishment
known as The Rind. Ask for Sergeant Chickpea. Tell her the owl hath landed. She
will know what to do."
She left the barracks and did not look back. In the higher window above Cornflake's,
she saw nothing this time. But on the gatepost as she passed, at precisely eye level, was a
small mark: a single golden smear, half-moon shaped. The same mark she had seen in the
city on her first afternoon. Someone was still guiding her. She was beginning to develop a
theory about who.