Page 21 of Enthraller

She had not had any success on that front, but the artifact database had proved to be useful enough that she’d kept coming back to see what she could find.

She led Ed through the back alleys to the tall building that was the government offices, the Protection Unit headquarters, and Demeter’s SF central office.

It rose pale pink and orange in the morning light, the design resembling a gate, the pillars on either side were Protection Unit and SF offices and the bars joining them made up the various government departments.

It was practical and symbolic. A neat visual depiction of the cooperation between the administrative and protective branches of government.

Hyt had hopefully had easy access to Velda Shanïha as a result. The Planetary Admin’s Head of Defense oversaw both the Protection Unit and the SF, and her office was in the third bar of the gate from the ground.

Wren had seen her on screen a few times. She was young for her position, but she had worked in both Protection and SF and there had been a vacancy in the Head of Defense role when her two years of compulsory service came up. She could have declined and been assigned something else, and the council could have vetoed her stepping into the position based on her youth, but neither thing had happened.

She had done a good job, by all accounts.

Wren stopped on the street at the top of a flight of stairs leading downward. They were set beside an older building, one of the behemoths from the pre-Coalition days. Some of them had been declared planetary treasures, and this was one of them.

The stairs looked like they were part of the building, an access to the basements, but they were not.

“Down here?” Ed asked.

She nodded, running lightly down and swiping her finger through the sophisticated laslock on the door.

Ed followed her in without question, then raised an eyebrow when a light bloomed to life beside them, illuminating a long, narrow corridor.

“Emergency exit to the Gate,” she said. “I found the plans in the Depository.”

Ed shook his head. “I worked in the Gate for five years and I never knew about this.”

“I think someone got a Halatian architect to put this in. And I don’t know who knows about it. The person who commissioned it might not work in the Gate any longer. It certainly seems to be completely unused.”

Ed smiled, apparently delighted. “Do you know which architect?”

Wren shook her head. “You’re loving this.”

His smiled widened. He lifted his hands. “I’m Halatian.”

She led the way, smiling herself, finding his excitement at the secret passage charming.

“Where does it come out?” Ed asked.

“A bathroom.” That seemed to be what he’d expected her to say, because he gave a nod.

“That’s common?” she asked.

“Bathrooms are good because you can access the passageway in private. Sometimes the architect will create a few interesting kinks in a common passageway, where someone could duck in and activate the opening.”

“So there may be more secret passageways?” Wren asked. “Ones that aren’t on the plan?”

He lifted his shoulders. “Depends on how paranoid the person who hired the architect was.”

“You could find them, maybe, if they’re there?”

He gave a cautious nod. “Maybe.”

They reached the end of the passage. Stairs led upward to a small landing four floors up. There was no door in front of them, it looked like the stairs ended in front of a solid wall.

Without her needing to show him, Ed brushed a hand over a section of wall and it shimmered from opaque to transparent, and they peered into an empty bathroom.

“So far it’s been empty every time,” Wren told him.

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