There’s a worm at the heart of the tower, there’s a swamp under the city, there’s something in all of this. I didn’t know what it was yet.

What it went like was this: someone on the council took a liking to me. I didn’t know that, at first, either, but I felt like Pip in London, knowing that some mysterious force was pushing me upward, but not the hand behind it. Level 4— Brenda hated me— Director of Research Analysis— and favorable reports coming in from different angles. Little raises, favors, privileges, things they don’t do for Level Twos— things that showed that someone out there was watching.

I gave a presentation about some house to Seven and her train. She asked intelligent questions. The whole thing was a test, of course, but to what end? And Five came around once. Appointing new O5s was apparently rare to the point of legendary— there was just something long-lived about them— but even they need staff.

But that gave them a lot of time to think, meaning I had plenty of time to worry about my mysterious benefactor. Five, adjusting his black-and-yellow blackbird tie like it was the most important thing on his mind, didn’t say much.

“We could use more like you, at all levels.” He smiled. “You’ve been good with promotions up until now. Why so reluctant?”

“For starters--” It seemed safe to talk, it wasn’t like they were going to throw me under a bus just for this— “I still have no idea what you guys do.”

Five just smiled. He didn’t say anything.

“I mean, I’ve met you and Seven and sort of Three. It seems like you’re grooming me or setting me up for something— hell— destiny, or whatever, and I have no idea what.”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“Well, you’re not entirely incorrect. As you know, we have a very large charge in the scheme of things— running operations, managing what a site or two alone can’t, making sure the Foundation is moving in the right places and the right directions. We need the right people for our designs.” He smiled placidly once more and curled his salt-and-pepper mustache idly.

“Which you still haven’t explained.”

“Of course not. You’d need to be one of us to understand.”

I was a little annoyed. “Are we done here?”

“Absolutely. We’ll keep in touch.”

—

It seemed like he actually wanted me to think about it, which was both refreshingly polite and terrifying. You hear stories— people who some upper-level attaches to and pulls up the ranks just to play with, kids dealing with things they aren’t prepared for at all, the suicides and renegades and demotion-without-honors. Everyone thinks they can handle everything. Well, I was curious, but not that curious. Whatever could do that to a person— I didn’t want to know that. I didn’t want to know who could.

“You should be scared,” said Brenda, over the phone.

“How scared?”

“I heard they found out some staff member that was a traitor— feeding information to the Chaos Insurgency— and they didn’t tell anyone or do the normal thing. They just sent an email to the directors, and then one of them walked into the cafeteria and shot him.”

“What do I do?”

“Honestly… if you ignore them, they’ll probably keep hounding you. Maybe you should do it, but… you have to promise me you’ll be so careful.”

“Right. If you hear about my body being found in a ditch or I drop off the face of the earth in a few days, tell my parents I loved them.”

Somehow, Brenda didn’t think that was very funny.