“We couldn’t bring our families,” the man said, looking down. “We argued for it, once we woke here. Oh, how we tried to get the managers to see reason. But… eventually… we felt the earth shake, and we knew…”
“Then the lord mayor arrived,” the blonde woman said, “and instituted stricter protocols.”
“Tyrant,” the man muttered.
“We still feel it shaking now and then,” one of the women said, looking up. “From the explosions of the Ashmounts. It must be deafening out there. We are occasionally allowed up to glimpse your world, but not often. Too dangerous. Still, I’ve seen how it is out there. The distant rubbled city, the red sun, the suffocating ash. Like a funeral shroud…”
“How do you see these things?” Marasi asked.
“An observation room,” the woman explained. “There’s a ladder to it at the edge of the cavern.”
That wouldn’t lead to the room Marasi had seen with the projector—they were too far from there. She suspected that entire room was a test chamber, and that these people were somehow shown something more authentic-seeming, without such an obvious light and projector.
Regardless, she was now certain that was what the ruse was for. Along with actors sent to reinforce the illusion—who were then taken away “to another cavern,” so that they couldn’t slip up and reveal the truth. As long as none of the actual subjects of the experiment were allowed to leave, no one would ever know.
But why? So much work, for what?
Except… Allomancers.
“Some of you are Allomancers?” Marasi said.
“Yes,” the blonde woman said. “I’m a Rioter, though not even my family knew about my powers. Fialia is a Lurcher. Kessi a Soother.”
“I had two Allomancer parents,” the man said, “but I never got any powers myself. The others are similar.”
That was the final piece. Marasi knew what was happening. Andas she put it together, another revelation struck her. Shedidknow the blonde woman. There was a reason she was familiar.
She was Marasi’s distant cousin Armal Harms: a woman who had been kidnapped by Miles Hundredlives and the Vanishers seven years ago, during Wax’s first case in the city after his return.
57
Marasi should have left right then. There was little she could learn from the people caught in the Set’s experiment. Yet the implications weighed her down. So she sat in that plush seat with a biscuit, feeling overwhelmed, surrounded by people who’dbeen lied to for years.
Wax had been the first to notice that the kidnapped people had a history of Allomancy in their families. They’dthought them all women at first, though a few other mysterious kidnappings during the same time period had proven to be men.
Marasi and Wax had searched for these people for years, on and off. They’dworried that the Set had done terrible things to them, but had never imagined anything like this. Locking them all up in a bunker? Convincing them that the world had ended?
One of the Set’s primary long-term goals was to gain access to Allomantic powers, and the fact that the Set had so much access to spikes indicated that some of those who had been kidnapped had met with gruesome ends. But this group, and the fact that only the most important Set members had spikes so far, whispered of a much longer-term plan. Down here, they’dhave a literal breeding ground for children likely to be Metalborn—excellent for recruitment, or for creating spikes. It turned her stomach in knots, particularly when she thought to look at the women in the room and noticed that two might be pregnant.
That playground the man had been building earlier suddenly took ona darker cast. Yet… these people didn’t seem terrified their children would be taken. There was a hope, and a good one, that Marasi had found them in time. Not to prevent all the trauma, unfortunately—these people had been stolen from their families and lives and locked down here—but at least the Set hadn’t started turning them into spikes yet.
The lord mayor called the Community “Edwarn’s project,”she thought. This whole thing had been the scheme of Wax’s uncle, a long-term solution to providing Allomantic powers to the Set. She suspected that upon his death, much of this infrastructure had been co-opted, with Telsin taking command and Autonomy breathing down their necks. A cavern that had been designed as an Allomantic eugenics experiment had now expanded to become a bunker housing the lord mayor’s loyalists. Further experiments with spikes were leading to different innovations.
But this old experiment remained, and the people trapped in it. Marasi had stumbled upon the solution to one of her most troubling unsolved mysteries. She could rescue these people. Assuming she could save the world itself first.
“I know you,” Marasi said to the blonde woman. “You’re Armal Harms, aren’t you?”
“Well, I was a Harms,” the woman said. “Before marrying down here. Did I… know you?”
“I’ve only seen pictures,” Marasi said. “I’m Marasi Colms. Steris’s… cousin.” It was the lie they’dalways used, before her father had been willing to publicly admit to his infidelity.
“Steris?” Armal asked, perking up. “Is she… I mean…?”
“She’s alive,” Marasi said. “Armal… they all are. You’ve been lied to in a terrible way. I don’t know how to be more delicate about this. There was no ashfall. The Basin didn’t fall. It’s a hoax.” She grimaced. “You were all kidnapped by some horrible people.”
Those in the room looked at one another.
“Ash sickness,” one of the other women said.