Private Pieces of Shade

[Jud Renrok]

Jud spent the next day doing exactly what he'd told Shade he would do. He kept being Jud Renrok. There was no sudden attempt to become louder or more conspicuous. He didn't start asking questions he wouldn't otherwise have asked merely because he wanted someone to overhear them. If Darik Sorn's people had decided the Frontier Warden was worth watching, Jud wanted them comfortable with the version of him they'd already seen. So he talked.

A shipping clerk explained the difference between three categories of freight permits in considerably greater detail than Jud had required. A warehouse supervisor complained about inspection delays. Two drivers gave contradictory opinions regarding which eastern road was safer, then spent five minutes arguing with each other about it while Jud listened. He bought lunch from a market stall and ate it standing beside a cargo hauler while its owner complained about fuel prices.

None of it looked particularly exciting. That was usually when people told you useful things. By late afternoon, Jud had collected enough pieces to notice something. The missing caravans hadn't all belonged to the same company. That was important. Different owners. Different dispatch procedures. Different crews. In one case, even a different primary route before the caravan reached the eastern trails.

A single compromised freight company suddenly seemed considerably less likely. Shade's warning from the previous afternoon returned to him. The person who knew the cargo might not know the guards. Jud started looking for what the shipments shared instead. He didn't find an answer.

He found another question. Every caravan had generated records somewhere outside the company operating it. Cargo declarations. Route permissions. Warehouse releases. Inspection records. Insurance filings. Jud hadn't yet determined which, if any, provided the common point between all of them. But there were fewer possibilities than there had been yesterday. That counted.

As evening approached, Jud stopped asking questions. He didn't head west immediately. Instead, he found caf. The place was small enough that calling it a café seemed ambitious, but the caf itself was respectable. Jud bought two cups without thinking particularly hard about why he needed the second.

Then he did think about it. He didn't know how Shade took hers. Jud stared down at the second cup. "Huh." Plain it was. He resumed walking. Jud was under no illusion that he could disappear through a town the way Shade apparently could. The woman had managed to turn walking into something resembling a professional qualification. That wasn't his skill. People noticed Jud. The hat alone saw to that. What he could do was determine whether anyone seemed unusually committed to continuing to notice him.

He stopped beside a vendor and examined a rack of hydrospanners he had absolutely no intention of buying. Several streets later, he turned back because he'd apparently forgotten something, spent another few minutes speaking with one of the drivers he'd interviewed earlier, then headed west by a different road. At one intersection he paused long enough that anyone maintaining the same distance behind him would either have to stop or cross into the open. Nobody did anything Jud considered meaningful. That didn't mean nobody was following him. It meant Jud hadn't found anybody following him. There was a difference.

He kept walking. The old transit shelter eventually came into view. Jud didn't look toward it immediately. He crossed the street farther down, continued along the opposite side, and stopped once to inspect a public notice board. Nothing behind him changed in a way he could identify. Good enough.

Jud approached the shelter. Shade was already there. He didn't greet her. Didn't smile. Didn't acknowledge that they'd ever met. Jud simply stepped beneath the shelter roof, looked up at the half-missing route board, and frowned at it as though personally offended by the municipal government's inability to maintain basic public transportation information.

He sat several feet from Shade. One cup remained in his hand. The other he placed on the bench between them. "Bus late?" Jud continued looking toward the road. A beat passed. "Mine too."

He nudged the second caf slightly in her direction. "Didn't know how you take it." The words were quiet enough to belong only to them. "Figured plain was harder to get wrong." Whether Shade drank it or not wasn't particularly important. Jud took a sip from his own and settled back against the shelter.

For several moments, he looked exactly like a tired traveler waiting for transportation. Then he got to business. "Three companies." Another sip. "Different dispatch procedures. Different crews. One didn't even start out using the same road as the others." His attention remained outward. "So if there's one person inside a freight company handing Sorn everything, they're having a very busy week."

Jud's mouth twitched faintly. "I'm thinking you were right." He explained what he'd found without turning the conversation into a report. Every shipment had produced records beyond the company carrying it. Manifests and declarations. Route information. Warehousing paperwork. Inspections. Insurance. "I haven't found the common point yet." There was no frustration in the admission.

"But there has to be something that tells whoever's choosing these caravans enough to know which ones are worth the trouble." Jud finally glanced toward Shade. "That's my exciting day." The look carried a trace of humor. "Hope yours was better."

He listened while Shade described what she'd observed. The woman with the commlink was worth remembering. The hurried departure was worth remembering. Neither interested Jud nearly as much as the man. Once yesterday. Again today. Different places. Never approaching Jud. Never obviously watching him.

Jud took another drink. "Twice makes him interesting." Not guilty. Not involved. Interesting. There were plenty of innocent reasons someone might appear in the same places as Jud Renrok twice. There were fewer innocent reasons if it happened three times.

Jud considered Shade's description of the man. Nothing. He couldn't remember seeing him. That bothered him considerably less than it might have before meeting Shade. "Don't recognize him." A small shrug followed. "You've got a talent for finding folks standing where I ain't looking." The words were almost complimentary. Almost.

Jud stared across the street for several seconds. Yesterday they'd deliberately refused to chase the first suspicious movement. Today Shade had seen the same man again. Tomorrow could tell them whether they had coincidence or pattern. "If he shows up again..." Jud rolled the caf cup slowly between his palms. "...stop watching me." His gaze moved briefly toward Shade. "Watch him."

Not confront him. Not grab him. Not even necessarily approach. "See where he goes when he's done being interested in whatever I'm doing. Who he talks to. Where he stops." Jud considered the other part of their investigation. "I'll keep working through the freight records. See if I can find something all those caravans touched before they headed east."

That gave them two possible routes upward. Shade could follow the human connection. Jud could follow the paperwork. If both roads eventually arrived at the same place, Darik Sorn was going to become considerably more than a name muttered over drinks.

Jud drank again. The caf wasn't bad. He wondered whether Shade would agree. That was a remarkably ordinary thing to wonder about someone whose former occupation he increasingly suspected involved classified identities and professionally inconvenient deaths. Jud decided not to examine the thought too closely. Instead, he glanced toward the battered route board.

"Beginning to think the road wasn't working alone." His expression became grave. "Public transit's in on it." Another small sip concealed most of the smile. Then his tone quieted. "Anything else?" It wasn't merely asking whether Shade had additional surveillance to report. Jud wanted her judgment.

Something about the arrangement they'd settled into yesterday had already begun to feel surprisingly natural. He found the obvious trail. Shade watched the places he couldn't. One of them noticed something, the other tested it. Neither needed to pretend certainty where there wasn't any. It worked. That didn't mean he trusted Shade. Not yet. But Jud was beginning to think he could. For now, that was enough.

Jud Renrok

• Location: Frontier Settlement, Raxus territory
• Objective: Investigate
• Outfit: Warden Attire
• Company: Shade

 

[Shade]

Shade noticed the second cup before Jud explained it. She hadn't expected him to bring her anything, and for a moment her attention rested on the caf he'd placed between them before she reached over and drew it toward herself. Plain was perfectly acceptable. More than that, the small gesture was unexpectedly thoughtful from a man she'd known for approximately a day and spent most of that time deliberately pretending not to know at all. "Plain is difficult to get wrong." She took a cautious drink and found nothing objectionable about it. "Thank you." The words were quiet but sincere, accompanied by a slight warmth in her expression before her attention returned to the street. Jud had apparently managed to investigate freight records, make himself visible enough to whoever might be watching, check whether anyone followed him, and acquire caf along the way. Shade found herself wondering where he was actually staying while he worked here. She hadn't asked, and there had been no reason to. There still wasn't, really. The thought nevertheless remained for a moment before she let it go. If they continued working together, ordinary details would probably reveal themselves without either of them turning cooperation into an interrogation.

His findings interested her considerably more than any single suspicious face she'd observed. Three separate companies with different procedures made an isolated internal leak less likely, while the external records Jud had identified offered exactly the kind of overlap she'd been hoping might emerge. "That's useful." Shade held the caf loosely between both hands as she considered it. "If the common point exists outside the companies, it would explain why changing carriers or procedures hasn't protected anyone. I'd look particularly closely at anything created late enough to contain the final cargo and route information but early enough for someone to act on it." She didn't try to narrow it further without evidence. Jud had the paperwork and knew the local systems better than she did. When he suggested she stop watching him if the man appeared again, Shade nodded. "Agreed. If he gives me a third appearance, you become considerably less interesting." Her eyes shifted briefly toward him, amusement faint but unmistakable. "Professionally speaking." She took another drink before adding, "I won't approach him. If he's watching you for someone else, I want to know where he goes when the job is finished and who he's comfortable being seen with once he thinks nobody is paying attention."

The accusation against public transportation earned Jud a sideways glance. Shade looked deliberately toward the battered route board as though reassessing the evidence. "I suspected as much." Her expression remained grave for almost a second. "The road was too obvious. Public transit had access to our meeting location from the beginning." The corner of her mouth betrayed her before she took another sip of caf. As for whether she had anything else, Shade gave him the observations that mattered and no more weight than they deserved. The woman with the comm remained a single occurrence. The hurried departure remained unidentified. The recurring man was the only element that had repeated, and even he was not yet evidence of Darik Sorn. "Nothing I'd act on yet. Tomorrow may change that." She glanced toward Jud. "Your records and my watcher are independent lines for now. If they eventually touch the same person or organization, then we have something considerably harder to explain away." That was enough for tonight. Neither of them needed to manufacture progress simply because they'd agreed to meet.

They separated without ceremony after finishing their caf, leaving the transit shelter as independently as they'd arrived. Shade didn't immediately begin another circuit of the town or turn the evening into an extension of the investigation. She checked that she hadn't acquired company, changed direction twice for reasons that would have looked perfectly ordinary to anyone watching, and eventually found somewhere to eat. Dinner was simple and warm, and for a little while she allowed herself to be merely another traveler occupying a table rather than an intelligence operative dissecting everyone who entered the room. Her thoughts wandered once toward Jud and the question of where the Warden disappeared to at night, then toward the man she'd seen twice. The second question was professionally relevant. The first was harder to justify, which was probably why she noticed herself wondering about it at all. Shade let both questions remain unanswered, finished her meal, and left the evening alone.

The following day, she resumed the same patient method rather than hunting for the man directly. Shade positioned herself around the places Jud's investigation brought him, without attaching herself to his movements; she changed her appearance enough to avoid becoming part of anyone else's developing pattern, and watched the spaces around him instead. For several hours there was nothing. That was useful too. Then, later in the day, she saw the familiar face for the third time. He wasn't standing exactly where he'd been before, nor was he doing anything so convenient as staring openly at Jud. He appeared occupied with his own business, another ordinary figure among ordinary people, except Shade now had three separate appearances in proximity to the same Warden across different locations and different days. Coincidence remained possible. It had simply become considerably less persuasive.

This time, Shade did exactly what Jud had asked. She stopped watching him.

Her attention transferred entirely to the other man without any outward change in her behavior. She didn't close the distance, didn't alter her pace to match his, and certainly didn't follow the instant he moved. She allowed him room enough to believe he was alone in whatever routine came next, using crowds, reflections, intersections, and occasional parallel routes rather than remaining behind him. Losing him would be preferable to letting him discover he had acquired a shadow. What mattered now wasn't where he stood while Jud was nearby. Shade wanted to know where he went afterward, who he spoke to when there was no Warden around to occupy his attention, and whether the trail eventually led toward Darik Sorn or somewhere neither of them had thought to look.

For the first time since they'd begun watching the watchers, one of those questions might actually be willing to answer itself.

Jud Renrok

 

[Jud Renrok]

The third caravan had been carrying agricultural equipment. That wasn't particularly interesting. At least, it hadn't been until Jud learned the second had been carrying replacement power couplings and the first a mixed shipment of medical supplies, machine components, and enough preserved food to keep a small settlement fed for several weeks. Different cargo. Different companies. Different crews. Different points of origin.

Jud sat opposite a tired-looking freight clerk who had spent the last twenty minutes explaining the settlement's shipping bureaucracy with the particular enthusiasm of someone who rarely encountered an audience willing to listen. Jud was willing. Mostly. "So this one's the final declaration?"

The clerk nodded. "Cargo declaration."

Jud looked down at the datapad. "Thought the other one was the cargo declaration."

"Preliminary declaration."

"Right." Jud stared at him. The clerk stared back. Jud slowly looked toward the ceiling. "Government's a beautiful thing." The clerk laughed. That was useful too.

Jud returned his attention to the datapad. The distinction mattered more than his expression suggested. Preliminary declarations were generated when freight entered the local distribution system. They could change. Cargo could be added or removed. Departure schedules shifted. Routes changed depending upon weather, road conditions, maintenance, or whatever other unpleasant surprise frontier transportation decided to manufacture.

Final declarations came considerably later. Late enough to contain what Shade had suggested he look for. Final cargo. Carrier. Departure window. Intended route. Not everything. Guard assignments were maintained elsewhere, and exact departure times remained with individual companies until shortly before the caravan moved. But somebody with access to the final declaration would know enough to decide whether a shipment deserved further attention.

Jud scrolled through the record. "Who gets these?"

"Local freight authority. Carrier. Receiving office if there's one registered."

"Inspection?"

"Gets access."

"Insurance?"

"If the cargo's insured."

Jud nodded. "Who can pull one after it's filed?" The clerk gave him a look. Jud smiled. "Just curious." That earned him another explanation. By the end of it, Jud had learned something considerably more useful than who could theoretically access the records.

All three attacked caravans had been processed through the same municipal freight-clearance system. That wasn't surprising by itself. A considerable amount of legitimate freight passed through it every day. What was interesting was timing. All three final declarations had been accessed after submission. Not necessarily suspicious. Records were accessed routinely for inspections, amendments, receiving confirmation, and half a dozen administrative reasons Jud was beginning to regret learning existed. But each attacked shipment had received an access from the same terminal group. Eastern Freight Administration.

Jud looked at the identifier for several seconds. "Where's this?"

The clerk leaned closer. "Building over on Harrow Street."

"Public office?"

"Mostly."

Mostly. Jud liked that word considerably less than the clerk seemed to. "Mind if I take copies?" The clerk hesitated. Jud tapped the badge on his coat. The hesitation ended.

Harrow Street wasn't particularly interesting either. Jud was beginning to suspect that interesting things survived by surrounding themselves with boring ones. The Eastern Freight Administration occupied the first two floors of a squat commercial building with a warehouse annex behind it. Drivers came and went. Clerks carried datapads. A loading droid complained electronically about something nobody appeared interested in fixing. Jud went inside.

He asked questions. Nothing accusatory. Nothing about Darik Sorn. Nothing about stolen caravans beyond what anyone already knew a Frontier Warden was investigating. He wanted to understand how records moved. Who processed them. Who amended them. Who had access.

He discovered approximately fifteen people could legitimately interact with the terminal group. That was disappointing. He discovered another thirty could theoretically gain temporary access under the right circumstances. That was worse. Jud thanked everyone anyway.

One clerk recommended another office. A supervisor explained their security protocols. Someone offered him caf considerably worse than what he'd brought Shade the previous evening. Jud drank it anyway. Listen longer than you speak. By the time he left, he didn't have a culprit. He had a place. That was enough for one afternoon.

Jud stepped onto Harrow Street and adjusted the brim of his hat against the lowering sun. He wondered whether Shade was watching. Then immediately decided that wondering defeated the point. If she'd found their man for the third time, she wouldn't be watching him anymore. Good. Jud continued walking.

He reached the transit shelter ten minutes after their agreed time. Nobody had followed him that he could identify. Jud approached by a different route than yesterday, made the same reasonable attempts to expose anyone maintaining a tail, and eventually crossed onto the western road.

The battered shelter appeared ahead. Jud looked at the route board first. Still broken. Suspicious bastard. Then his attention moved naturally across the bench. Empty. Jud kept walking. No hesitation. No sudden examination of the surrounding streets. No searching rooftops, alleys, windows, or reflections for a flash of blue skin.

Shade wasn't there. That was all he knew. She could have detected someone following her. She could have decided the shelter was compromised. She could have found the recurring man and still be following him. Any of those possibilities meant exactly the same thing according to the rules they'd established. Keep walking. Try tomorrow.

Jud passed the shelter. Half a block later, he realized he was wondering whether she was all right. That was irritating. Not the concern itself. The timing. He'd known Shade for what? Two days? Two days during which she'd deliberately collided with him, pretended to be drunk, informed him he'd missed someone watching him, revealed that somebody was selling pieces of her life, and somehow implicated the municipal transportation system in a conspiracy with the local roads.

Jud shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat. "She's fine."

A pedestrian passing in the opposite direction gave him a strange look. Jud tipped his hat. "Evening." The pedestrian walked faster. Jud sighed.

Shade was extremely capable. Possibly one of the most capable people he'd encountered in quite some time. Whatever occupation had taught her to disappear into crowds, track financial intermediaries, carry multiple identities, and discuss keeping information brokers alive with unnerving practicality had presumably included lessons on looking after herself.

Going searching for her wouldn't help. Worse, if Shade was following the man, Jud blundering around trying to locate her might compromise exactly the opportunity they'd spent two days creating. So he wouldn't. That didn't make him stop wondering. It merely meant he trusted her judgment more than he trusted the impulse.

Jud continued toward the center of town. He had his own piece now. Eastern Freight Administration. Shade might have another. Tomorrow they'd compare them. If she appeared. Jud frowned. "When." He corrected himself quietly. Tomorrow they'd compare them when she appeared. The distinction made him feel marginally better.

Jud stopped at the same caf stand he'd visited yesterday. "One." The vendor reached for a cup. Jud watched. Then frowned again. "Two." The vendor glanced at him.

Jud glanced toward the second cup. There was absolutely no reason to buy it. Shade wasn't at the shelter. He wasn't going back. Jud considered this. "One."

The vendor stared. "Long day?"

Jud rested his forearms on the counter. "You have no idea." A minute later, caf in hand, the Frontier Warden continued through town alone. He didn't go looking for Shade. That was the important part. The fact that he'd wanted to? Jud decided nobody needed to know about that yet. Least of all him.

Jud Renrok

• Location: Frontier Settlement, Raxus territory
• Objective: Investigate
• Outfit: Warden Attire
• Company: Shade

 

[Shade]

Shade had intended to be at the transit shelter.

The man appearing for a third time changed that. She had kept her word to Jud and stopped watching him the moment she was sure it was the same face, letting him move ahead while she settled into the less direct rhythm of following someone who already believed himself the observer. Enough people moved through the town to make that easier. Shade crossed streets when others did, stopped where there was reason to stop, and occasionally let him disappear altogether rather than protect the trail too carefully. She looked no more remarkable than anyone else passing through the frontier settlement, dressed for dust and practical necessity rather than a fight, her weapons present without being unusual enough to invite attention. By the time the watcher began drifting away from the busier center of town, the agreed meeting with Jud had already become secondary. An empty shelter would tell him everything he needed to know.

The route took her into a part of town she hadn't explored yet, where storefronts gradually surrendered space to repair shops, storage buildings, cheap apartments, and businesses whose signs had survived longer than their paint. The man didn't seem to be hurrying, but his route didn't feel aimless either. Shade kept far enough behind that she sometimes had only his direction of travel rather than the man himself, picking him up again at intersections or through gaps between pedestrians. She was beginning to wonder whether he was finally going somewhere worth remembering when a delivery speeder crossed between them. It should have been an inconvenience lasting a few seconds. When it cleared, the man was gone.

Shade didn't stop. She kept going past the intersection at the same pace, resisting the instinct to scan the surrounding windows and doorways, because that would tell anyone watching exactly what she had been doing. He could have gone several places, but the speed of his disappearance bothered her. More than that, something about the last few minutes no longer sat correctly when she replayed them. She couldn't identify the mistake. Perhaps the man had noticed her despite her precautions. Perhaps another set of eyes had been involved, and Shade had focused so carefully on avoiding her quarry's attention that she had missed someone watching his back. Neither possibility pleased her, and without evidence there was no point choosing between them.

She turned down another street and kept moving, using the next block to put distance between herself and the place where she'd lost him. If she had been compromised, pretending otherwise would only make the situation worse. Shade took the first useful opportunity to leave the open street, slipping through a narrow passage between two buildings and into the recessed entrance of a closed repair shop on the other side. Ordinary concealment had carried her as far as it could. For what came next, she reached into the Force and drew her presence inward until the woman standing beneath the weathered awning simply ceased to be visible.

Shade had never needed a vast collection of Force abilities. She had practiced the ones she possessed until they were useful, and disappearing was very useful indeed. She remained motionless within the concealment and watched the street she had just entered, giving whoever might be behind her the opportunity to reveal themselves rather than immediately trying to recover the man she'd lost. Less than a minute passed before someone came through the same passage.

It wasn't her quarry.

The stranger slowed after emerging onto the street, looked one way and then the other, and lingered long enough to hold Shade's attention. She couldn't tell whether they were looking for her or simply deciding where to go, and she refused to turn coincidence into evidence merely because the timing was convenient. Shade stayed invisible as the stranger eventually moved on, then remained where she was long after they had disappeared. Whoever had compromised her had already taken one advantage. She had no intention of giving them another through impatience.

Only when the street had remained quiet for several minutes did Shade release the concealment. Her quarry was gone, and she accepted the loss, though she didn't like it. She still had his route, a much smaller area of town to investigate later, and the possibility that he wasn't operating alone. That was less than she'd wanted, but considerably more than she'd had that morning. She wouldn't try to salvage the evening by heading for the transit shelter. If someone had seen through her surveillance, the worst response would be to lead them straight to Jud.

The thought of him brought an unexpected flicker of amusement. He knew the rules as well as she did. If one of them failed to appear, the other kept walking, and they tried again tomorrow. Jud struck her as disciplined enough to do exactly that, though she found herself wondering whether knowing why she might be absent would keep him from worrying. The question was strangely personal for someone she'd known only a few days, and Shade let it pass with a small shake of her head as she started farther into town.

"Keep walking, Warden."

No one nearby would understand why she said it, which suited her perfectly well. Shade wasn't going anywhere she intended to sleep yet either. She had already missed one person who might have been watching her tonight, and whether that person existed or not, she wasn't inclined to make the same mistake twice. Tomorrow she could tell Jud why the shelter had been empty and find out what his own investigation had uncovered. For now, she took the long way through a part of town she had no reason to visit and made certain that when she finally disappeared for the night, she did it alone.

Jud Renrok