Steris tapped her finger on the stack of broadsheets in her lap. “Let’s identify our worst-case scenario. Consider: What’s the worst thing you can imagine, in regards to our current hunt?”
“My worst fear?” he said, thinking. “It’s that we’re years behind. That the Set has known about this interaction between harmonium and trellium for a great deal longer than we assume—maybe since that first Malwish airship crashed here. My fear is that the Set is notbeginninga plan. My fear is that we’re in theend stagesof said plan.”
“Is there anything we could search for to prove this?” Steris asked.
Wax stood up, surveying the room full of broadsheets, each stackfrom a different city. “Rusts,” he said. “We shouldn’t be searching foraccidentalexplosions. We should be searching for proof ofintentionalones. And we’re looking at too recent a batch of papers—if it happened, it could be five or six years old by now.” He paused. “They’dwant to test. It wouldn’t be one explosion long ago. It would be a series of them… hidden somehow… because if they have this weapon, they’ll want to develop it. Improve it.”
“How?” Steris asked. “Should we search for records of harmonium busts?”
“I doubt that would show up in the broadsheets,” Wax said, turning around the room. “The Set is good at hiding its resource movement, especially of contraband. Marasi’s investigation proves that.”
So what? Was there any way to find what he wanted? Evidence of tests… of explosions they’dkeep hidden…
“Earthquakes,” Wax whispered.
“What was that?”
“Earthquakes,” he said, kneeling beside Steris. “They would test explosions underground, in the caverns. Where they’dbe contained and hidden. But they can’t fool the seismographs.”
They dug into the headlines again—but this time with a different set of criteria. And admittedly, Wax broke format a little, peeking at the contents of the stories rather than just looking for headlines. Steris poked him in the side if he spent too long doing this, but he was curious. And excited.
The answers had to be in here somewhere.
The search took a solid three hours of work. But as midnight passed, Wax found it. A series of articles from an Elendel broadsheet about something happening in Bilming.
“A subway?” Steris asked, frowning.
“Reports,” Wax explained, “of odd earthquakes in the city, starting years ago. Officials quickly explained that Bilming had decided to build a subterranean rail line like Elendel.”
“That could be valid,” Steris said, reading another broadsheet expanding on the story. “We used explosives to blast away rock and build the subway.”
“But why would Bilmingneeda subway? They have that elevated rail they’re so proud of. Theyloveshowing it off. Plus, these explosions havebeen going for four and a half years—and they don’t have a single subway line up and running.”
“Suspicious,” Steris said, scanning the next article. “Very suspicious. A new initiative started seven months ago… Reports of buildings being rattled by large-scale detonations… They were detected all the way here in Elendel.”
“They’re calling it a financial scandal, with construction companies leeching away funds. But it’s obviously more.”
Steris nodded vigorously. The broadsheet that had uncovered this wasn’t the most reputable source—it was the latest one to carry that fool Jak’s outlandish stories—but therewassomething here, as confirmed by several other broadsheets, now that they knew what they were looking for.
Rusts,he thought. The Set were testing beneath populated areas? Why? Was that just where they could find the cavern space? This might be even bigger than he’dfeared. Hadn’t Bilming been building a navy?
Yes. Other articles talked about it. Ostensibly, the Bilming shipyards were creating a defense force for the Basin, in case of attack from the South. But they’dstartedbeforethe arrival of the first Malwish airships—and they certainly liked to show off the capabilities of their guns.
Supposedly these ships were under Elendel’s control. No one actually believed that though.
“Wax…” Steris said. “That list of shipments in Marasi’s book. Where they were checking to see how tight customs was. How hard it would be to smuggle somethingintoElendel…”
A chill washed through Wax. What would they want to smuggle into Elendel?
A bomb.
“It looked like they were checking different cargo sizes,” he said. “And how likely they were to be inspected when brought in via train or truck.”
“And how big would this bomb be?” Steris said. “Theoretically.”
“It’s the generator that would be big,” Wax explained. “If it works according to the mechanics we discovered, then they’dneed agreat dealof power. More than the simple lines to homes can carry, or even the lines to industrial locations. They’dlikely have to build a very large housing for the device.”
“Which explains why they were checking which sizes arouse suspicionand which don’t. Wax, if you’re right, then the broadsheets indicate they’ve been testing this for more thanfour years.Successfully. They mighthavethe bomb already. They’re just…”