Brigaan Shirkwild's footsteps echoed solemnly between the walls of shelving and filing cabinets. The ceilings were far too high here, perhaps to accommodate for a lack of ground space; it made her nervous. She had never been here before, at least not that she could remember, though the ubiquitous smell of record-keeping was all too familiar to her. The curly-haired redhead looked strangely out of place amongst the hunched and terminally serious denizens of the Archives.

"Shirkwild & Moore, Loans Associate," she said blithely to a clerk, who waved her through after taking a cursory glance at the identification. Her brother Capsen was well known to this particular office, having the kind of frenzied organizational mind and controlling personality that he did, and had managed to pioneer a few small changes to their archiving system. Brigaan did not quite understand it, but she got the sense that he was an invasive individual who always got his way, and the archivists probably resented it. It would explain the dirty looks she was getting.

Resigning herself to be hated for one afternoon at the behest of her other brother, she strolled through the stacks, index finger out and searching for a specific name. Although she was unaware of it, it was a powerful name, one that currently was being spoken in whispers throughout the city by powerful men.

Devhard, she read, then cursed - the next name was Murkwood.

"Why the devil isn't this in alphabetical order?" she said to herself quietly, stomping her boot a little in frustration.

(( Open to anyone who might be in the archives, particularly an archivist... ))

The vagaries of business, that was at the heart of the matter. By all rights he should have been fitting out his new office and looking with satisfied complacency at his new and admirably shining brass name plate. However, a number of last minute items of vast and shapeless importance had been brought to his attention just as he was planning on making his official departure and these combined with his need for copies of a number of arcane and obstuse documents on import-export laws, writs concerning the suspension of civil authority in a crisis, and a quantity of hitherto private judicial records obliged him to hand about the Archives. He had the distinct sensation of wearing two overlapping hats which, while not exactly disagreeable, was somewhat odd.

Shrikeweed considered that it was very kind in Mr. Limpet to allow him to maintain access to the various records even though he was, or would soon be, no longer on the staff. It was one of the perks of years of dedicated service no doubt, and he had no trouble in entering the hallowed sanctum of the filing cabinets. Clerks he had known for years passed him by with no ceremony beyond a nod of greeting and a respectful shuffling of the files they carried.

He could not precisely say when it was he became aware of the confused woman, but it was evident he had seen her whereas she had completely failed to notice him. It was always amusing to watch the uninitiated try to locate anything in this part of the building; they had such quaint, old fashioned ideas about filing.

"They are arranged by category," he said dryly, "like books in a library. Similarly, they are then arranged by the names of both the clerk who originated the file and the most recent clerk to add anything. If you are looking for a name, madame, perhaps I could direct you to the Index? It would save you oceans of time and a great deal of walking about."

Brigaan had to blink several times in order to make out the figure in the dusky dimness of the aisle. He was the very definition of blandness, achieving an instant anonymity she envied somewhat. She caught a glimpse of copper hair and muttonchops, and instantly forgot the face that belonged to the hair.

"Oh," she said, opening and closing her mouth in confusion. Why would they arrange them by clerks? Must be one of Capsen's notions, she thought. Nervousness in the face of her task momentarily overcame the speech centers of her brain. "Th-thank you. If you could show me, I would be very grateful." She offered a brief smile.

It wasn't so much a matter of playing the fool as being the fool; despite an inherited cleverness, Brigaan had never gotten her head around the concept of filing. Beyond the alphabet, which she had been forced to learn sometime before graduation, she had never seen much sense in any type of organization. Her mind flashed briefly to her kitchen, where she struggled daily not to mix all the spices together in one big pot and be done with it.

"If you will step this way madame?" he indicated a corridor exactly like all the others and tried to usher the woman, in as polite as possible a manner, in the direction indicated.

The passage to the Index was not counted among the one hundred most scenic byways of the bureaucratic world. The Clerical Gentleman's Magazine, if such a periodical had existed, would have ranked it as merely dull, which, given the nature of the hypothetical readers of that publication, would have been very dull indeed. There were may cabinets to be seen, a quantity of dust and that, aside from the occasional doorway by way of breaking up the monotony, was it. The Index itself was quite a different matter.

The room into which Shrikeweed led the woman was almost entirely filled with what looked like the innards of a magnificent clock. Brass cogwheels shone in the lamp light, leavers gleamed, and a myriad of ivory keys showed to no common advantage. In addition to this vast contrivance there were a number of bookcases on which housed dozens of faded green books. "It's a sort of mechanized card catalog," he said by way of explanation. "Though it is a good deal faster and with a much smaller chance of paper cuts. That is, when it is working at all. It breaks down tolerably often, which is in part what all these books are for. Every file has its number, or numbers, and the Index translates those numbers into plain words or words into the appropriate numbers." He smiled brightly. He'd always rather liked the absurd device and would make it a point to ask the Grand Lady if such a contraption might be added to his own office filing system. "Now then madame, if you would be so good as to give me the name or topic you were looking for, and any additional details you may have, then we shall see what the Index has to tell us. "

"Oh..."

Brigaan gasped as she entered the room. It was like being inside of a strange machine, shrunk down to the size of an ant. She had never imagined technology had come so far since her last visit to the Archives, many years ago.

"This is...lovely," she remarked upon entering, and touched one of the levers lightly in wonderment.



She swallowed nervously - he wanted to do it himself. Men! she thought. Always assuming women were useless at things. Best to try out a different name and observe closely how the machine functioned. It would not do to give away the true purpose of her visit to a stranger, and certainly not on her brother's behalf. Perhaps even inquiring about the name would result in trouble for Harper - or herself.

"Of course," she said. "I have a list of debtors to look through. I think if I observe you at work, I can handle most of the search myself..."

In order to appear convincing, she rifled through her handbag and pulled up a shopping list, holding it close to her chest and glancing at it. "First name is...Reynold Somers," she said, remembering an unpleasantly smelly man to whom she had been introduced last Clock's Eve. She stepped closer, intent on following Shrikeweed's methodology exactly. It was a fortunate circumstance that she had been blessed with the same head for names and numbers as her brothers, or this might have proved impossible.

"I have no doubt that you could learn the intricacies of the machine," he said, pressing keys and converting the name into a form the machine could digest, "but your acumen and sagacity are not, alas, the governing issues. This device is highly eccentric, prone to be temperamental, and does not take kindly to being used roughly or by the general population. This being vaguely defined as some well meaning and perfectly intelligent person pressing a key at the wrong time, setting an innocent dial to just slightly beyond what it good for it, or looking at the machine in a funny way. Possibly it considers itself too lofty a being to stoop to something so low as to be actually helpful to the inquisitive." Here he set a dial, pulled a small lever, pressed a few more buttons, and was seen to glare significantly at a small brass thing that clicked and whirred. "So, it is the policy of the Archives to disallow the use of the machine by any other than trained archivists. I am tolerably sure that this is so that when the machine falls to pieces, we will know who, exactly, to blame."

This was not, strictly speaking, true, though it had about it the spirit of truth for the Archives was indeed jealous of their analytic engine. It had been commissioned with great cost and like most new and technical wonders that promise to lower expenses by the fostering of efficiencies, it did neither very well. had a tendency to run afoul of even the slightest complications, a passing mote of dust, a slight change in the air pressure, thereby incurring additional costs in repair and generating such fantastic inefficiencies as could scarcely be believed. As a scheme of providing employment to a number of small gentlemen with shifty eyes, lank hair, the perpetual smell of grease and metal, and a worrying intellect it was, however, the very wonder of the world.

The machine clicked and whirred away as within its clockwork innards the name of Reynold Somers was converted into so many rotations of gears and stored in the potential of springs. "A debtor?" inquired Shrikeweed with a pleasant and weirdly helpful air. "Would you also like the related files which might mention his financial transactions, such as we have, and any official actions by his potential creditors? I assume you are an agent for one of these creditors madame?"

Brigaan's brain cogs whirred at Shrikeweed's deluge of verbosity. His personal speaking style reminded her somewhat of her brother, only more refined, with less numbers and technical jargon and fewer pauses and 'er's. Deflect, she thought, deflect while you digest what he just said!

"I am frankly amazed," she said, looking about the room and smiling faintly, "that such a delicate and temperamental machine is allowed to continue to exist, if its intent is so clearly the torture of innocent clerks for its own amusement. In my college years we made do with simple alphabetizing, categories and sub-categories, color-coded tabs and such. Fingers bled from time to time, but no one was swallowed into a black morass of cog-work."

Her heart was sinking as she spoke; he was not going to allow her access without supervision. She would have to be clever, she would have to try. It was for Harper. Brigaan's black-gloved hands were shaking ever so slightly, so she held them behind her back, glad the room was so dark.



This unexpected helpfulness was nevertheless unwelcome, as it meant more time quibbling, more invented names, more lies. She attempted to look flattered by his offer.

"Thank you; as much detail as you can provide would be immensely helpful," she said, feigning relief. "And yes, I am. These men have been remiss in several payments and I have been sent as a last resort. Several of them are...how shall we say...'high society'? People of prestige? It would not do to have this information becoming public - not for the sake of their reputations, obviously" - she smirked, trying to give the impression that she thought less of reputation than of social order - "but for the continued good name of our business. It might scare off customers if people thought we commonly resorted to such thorough investigation to set right the balance of commerce."

Hurriedly, she thought of several more names to add to her list. Sneaking Petunia the snitch, of course, was getting an impromptu audit. And those dreadful Dervishes. And Castley Hume, that conniving little weasel at the ball who had tried to sniff her hair while Sherald had been preoccupied at the buffet table. Uhg! With any luck, she could sneak Devlin's name in there amongst the more recognizable ones; from the sound of it, he was not being actively searched for by the Seventen, and she tried to calm herself with the thought that there was no logical reason he could suspect her of anything.

Remembering that this was a living being she was addressing, and not part of the machine, she offered him a smile in solidarity. Poor clerks. In her experience they hardly ever made messes of their own; they simply cataloged everyone else's mistakes, day in and day out. She was fond of clerks, in all honesty, as much as she disliked the Archives themselves.

Gears turned, springs wound, and an indescribable sense of anticipation hung over the room, as though the mechanical potentials in the device had some nebulous and unsettling connection to the anxieties and worries of those who might find themselves before it. Shrikeweed was used to the sensation, had even come to enjoy it on occasion, but he was never fully at home with it, and so it gave him an equal measure of elation and worry. His left hand, which had been setting a dial, slipped slightly, and he held his breath waiting for the machine to fail on him. Where in the name of reason and civility are you Wiggins? he thought with mounting exasperation. You would never have made so clumsy a potential mistake. A fine time indeed for you to vanish on a mysterious holiday. For the present, nothing appeared to happen beyond the ordinary working of the machine.



"Of course madame, I quite understand." He was about to add that he, and the archivists in general, were the very soul of discretion, but he thought that might be indiscreet. "The good name of your business is, of course, of the highest concern. People, be they ever so elevated, come and go like the seasons, but institutions have a real permanence, an existence beyond the the mere beings that make them up, do you not find that so Miss . . . I am terribly sorry, I don't believe I quite caught your name."