Breaking And Entering

I swear I wasn’t obsessed.

I had a map on my bedroom wall, now. A map of the city, end to end, from the shores of the Eaten Sea to the cottages of the Cedars. From the factories of Medehurst to the run-down shithole that is Old Mills. Both sides of the River Kuick were dotted with little markers and notes I’d left, in a near-illegible scrawl that I less read and more just remembered what I’d written when the vague shape of the writing reminded me something was relevant in that area.

I’d drawn an intricate map of the power lines running through the city. It was a new enough technology and most houses got their power through prayer, but some rich folks and some business districts both had somebody make sacrifices and call on Lugann for them to avoid the hassle of managing everything themselves. The electricity had to get to them somehow, which meant power-lines. I could almost have just drawn a heat-map of wealth distribution in the city for the same result, but I’d gone into detail to get every single line in sleek blue ink.

I wasn’t obsessed though. It had only taken me sixteen hours, not counting the time spent tracking the information down and occasionally going to look in person to see where the lines were.

I probably ought to be seeing about getting employed again, making sure I’d have food on the table next month once my savings ran out, that sort of thing. My pantry was running low, but this was important. Much more important.

It wasn’t that I was obsessed or anything, no-sir-ee.

I figured that anywhere those blue lines touched were possible places you could operate the Godbox from. They were clustered, but it was still half a dozen areas. Medehurst, the docks, Belmon Heights… and all of those a good square mile or two to cover.

So I’d narrowed my options down. I figured there were good odds Bishop Irons had it, so I added little stickers for churches that happened to be in those areas. That was still half a dozen specific buildings.

If Irons had it, and if she hadn’t gotten ahold of a private generator, and if-

I took a deep breath. No need to panic. All these edge cases were ones that I could rule off with a little investigating and asking the right people the right questions. In the small hours of the evening I sat on my lounge-chair and started writing lists, people to talk to, possibilities to eliminate. I multitasked whilst eating a bacon sandwich, got a little grease on the paper, but that was okay.

This wasn’t the worst state my house had ever been in, or the emptiest my pantry had been. Right now I’d turned over my bedroom to mapmaking, and a chunk of my lounge to an impromptu workshop for practicing scrimshaw, little flecks and flinders of turtlebone covering the floor. Back when I’d first started working charity drives with Sarah, almost the entire place had been turned upside down, tables covered in papers and paperwork and accounts. Inventory logs had covered the walls first like posters, then like wallpaper.

This was much more important than that, and much less extreme. I wouldn’t starve if I found the thing in the next few days, right?

I took another bite of the sandwich. Tried to think of anything more to add to my list of questions to ask and places to go to narrow down possibilities for where the Godbox might be.

I couldn’t.

That meant it was time to get to work.

The next day passed in a blur.

I found myself standing in a scrapheap of a laboratory on the university grounds, part of the engineering department. It was just about the only place I could think of anybody could get ahold of a private generator. I spent half an hour talking to both heads of departments and students I knew did a little black marketeering, asking if anybody had come to buy materials, or even a generator wholesale, in the past week or so. I got a round of shaking heads. Nobody had asked for something like that since I’d gotten ahold of one myself a few weeks back.

—

I spent some time alternating between walking across town and paying cabs to ferry me everywhere, checking out church buildings. I’d never noticed before, but there was a distinct difference in style between the Integralist and Foundationalist churches, down to the architectural style. Foundationalists tended to operate older, resplendent cathedrals filled with statues, whilst Integralists…

I spent about ten minutes sitting in a teahouse staring across the street at a grey slab of bricks not that much bigger than two sheds stuck together. The sign on the front said “Third Integralist Church of Trews Park” in simple, embossed print. I tried to figure out how the hell they could fit both a Godbox and electrical generator in there. I failed.

I tried the electrical companies after that. They probably weren’t going to just hand me statistics telling me if any particular region had been asking for an unusually high power draw, but that was fine. Their workers were looser lipped, and the electricity came from divine power, which meant they needed church licensing. I had no clue if the actual power wires hung overhead and dug under the streets were created divinely or by regular smiths, blurred as that line was these days, but they were bound to need divine engineers somewhere in that chain.

I tracked down somewhere maintenance was being done. Signs on the side of the carriages carrying supplies and workers read ‘Sleekstack Electrical’. I could feel the prickle of divine energy being used a street away, stronger than the ambient background that came with living in a city.

I waited until the workers’ lunch breaks and found one of them outside the cordoned off area where they were digging up the street to get at the wires underneath. I told the guy I was working with Bishop Sullivan, which was true, and asked if there’d been any places which had suddenly spiked in usage, or worse, gone over capacity for no apparent reason.

The worker was talkative. The answer was not what I was hoping for.

“Chartered… nine gods damn it…”

At the end of the day, I was not standing in front of a church.

There was no sign proclaiming the building I was looking at was Integralist or Foundationalist. I was staring at an abandoned pub in Medehurst, the sign half collapsed and faded into illegibility. It had a ‘D’ in it, that was all I could tell.

The windows were boarded up, a portion of the roof was caved in, and the only reason it had ever had electricity was because somebody had grafted wire onto the power line leading to a steel factory directly adjacent, leeching off it illegally. The wire ran around the back of the building, barely visible from the street unless you were looking for it, but half liable to electrocute you if you went poking around back there. It was an obvious safety hazard.

I was shocked I didn’t see any dead birds or rats or something that got accidentally fried. Or somebody’s dog, for that matter.

I went over my notes one last time just to be sure, as I stood awkwardly by the roadside in front of the place.

Electricity, check. Unusually spiked power draw right after Raspe’s murder? Check. Enough room to physically store a Godbox?

It wasn’t a huge building, but it was a two storey pub with big double doors large enough to haul the thing inside. Check.

People had been sighted coming and going. Check, check, check.

My heart pounded a little just standing outside the wrecked old place.

“C’mon, you can do this… you can do this.”

I felt a bit naked just wandering into the place. I didn’t expect the door to be locked, and there was a hole in the roof I could climb through if I really wanted. But I didn’t know who was in there, and whoever it was had probably killed Raspe.

I put a hand to my waist. I’d bought a pistol, concealed under my shirt. I barely knew how to use it.

I really should’ve brought Sarah or somebody. I really, really should’ve. Maybe even called the cops.

But I didn’t trust the cops, and Sarah didn’t believe the Godbox was real. I didn’t trust her to…

I didn’t trust her to put retrieving it over my life, or her own. I only trusted myself to do that.

That didn’t mean I couldn’t do this, though. One person alone was stealthier, and stealth felt like it could work. Get in, get inside the Godbox, and operate it.

Once I was inside, I could use its own powers to remove it from the premises and get it somewhere safe, ideally my place, the exact same way it was taken from the university lecture theater. Nice and easy, there was no risk of getting caught and imprisoned or murdered at all, really.

That did mean walking in the front door was an awful idea. That was the opposite of stealth, everybody would see, assuming there was anybody inside at all.

The roof, then.

It was a cavernous cave-in, probably because the building used to have a substantial attic. The walls between me and that attic were brick, and the only obvious handholds I could use were the boarded up windows. Somebody could probably climb it if they had good enough grip strength.

I did not have very good grip strength.

So I’d brought a ladder. Sure, it was kinda obvious and whoever was inside might notice, but the windows were boarded up, and I didn’t expect to be inside long. Besides, I could pull it up after me.

I laid it at the side of the building, and put my foot on the lowest rung. I looked around, making sure I wasn’t being watched, and didn’t see anybody for miles.

I stopped to check again half way up, still didn’t see anybody. This would be the worst time to get caught. Honestly, at this point even a passer-by might take me for a burglar. I wasn’t dressed as a burglar, I had a nice floral patterned shirt, it was even brightly colored, but I was acting so suspicious that might not even matter.

I got to the top and stepped foot into the collapsed attic. I tested the floorboards with a foot, and it creaked but held. It wasn’t so rotten or broken as to be unsafe, good.

The room looked like, well, a collapsed attic. Everything was made of dark wood, the timbers soaked from rain and rotting away. A squirrel had been nesting up here and bolted when it heard me coming, scurrying across to an adjacent roof to watch me from a distance.

There was a trapdoor, and thankfully, enough room for the ladder. I barely had the upper body strength to haul it up after me, I was sweating with exertion by the time I got it up and laid it to the side, but it might be life or death if somebody came from inside and spotted it whilst I was in here.

There was a trapdoor, down to the second floor of the building. Everything was silent, up here. Was I even sure the place was inhabited at all? Maybe I was just breaking into some random abandoned building.

I tried to steady my breath as I knelt next to the trapdoor.

Last chance, Alex. You can still go get Sarah or the guard. They’ll call you an idiot and probably lock the Godbox away forever, have the church or government seize it for their own use or destroy it, but you can still call them. You can keep from getting beaten to death by Integralists, or whoever is down here.

I took out the gun I didn’t know how to use, felt the weight in my hand, and kept it close to my side as I took hold of the trapdoor, and pulled.

It held firm at my first attempt, stuck then came open when I tugged a bit harder. Immediately I could hear voices, muffled and distant but present, the sound having been blocked by the door.

I wasn’t immediately grabbed and dragged down into the building though. No alarm sounded, nobody yelled ‘Charted, who’s that? Get her!’.

The trapdoor led down to an empty hallway. I saw stairs at the end of it and a bunch of doors leading off to the sides. Overnight bedrooms, I figured.

The carpet was scuffed, the wallpaper peeling, but there was a lack of dust or cobwebs covering the place. The electric lights were on, I could actually see inside.

Not just inhabited, this place was seeing regular use.

If I dropped down into the hall, how would I get back out? Ladder, I guessed. A highly conspicuous, visible ladder. I couldn’t exactly escape through the boarded up windows, could I? And the front door was probably watched or something.

Or- no, I had a better idea. I put the ladder out so it was jutting over the trapdoor. It’d be a squeeze to get down there past it, but once I was down there I could find a pole or something, pull the thing down the rest of the way when I needed it. That way I could still have an escape route without a big, conspicuous ladder in the middle of the hall announcing my presence.

With all that planned out, I dropped down into the hall.

I hit the ground with a thump and a squeak. I froze once I heard the noise, clamped a hand over my mouth. With wide eyes, I scanned left and right.

Nobody was coming to get me. Okay, perfect. Nobody coming to get me, all was fine.

I heard voices coming from down the stairs. Time to go take a look, hm?

I crept forward, keeping my pistol close. Tiny little steps, terrified to make a noise. I thanked all the Chartered Gods for the fact the floor was carpeted, muffling my steps.

I was skittish, ready to bolt at the slightest noise, aware a threat could come from anywhere. The entire corridor had doors coming off it, more than a dozen of them on either wall. Any one of them could open at any time. I considered trying one, but if somebody was inside…

Better to go for the stairs. I crept forward to take a peek, just a peek, down them.

The stairs went down halfway to the ground floor then took a right. Okay. That gave me a corner to peek around, that was good. Hopefully I wouldn’t just peek out into another corridor, that would be awkward.

The voices were coming from that way, though. I was pretty sure I’d see something, down there. Probably whoever was talking.

I stopped hugging the right wall and hugged the left, pressing my body against the cold brick. I went down one step, then another, then another.

I peeked my head around the corner just an inch. Exposed just one eyeball, just enough to see what was going on.

At the bottom of the stairs was the pub hall.

People were mingling with gods. Little graven idols were sat up on a fully functional and stocked bar, little mugs in front of them, clearly unable to sip, but from the varying levels of emptiness I guessed they were still being consumed. Men and women, in all shapes and sizes and outfits, were drinking with them, or otherwise milling about. The atmosphere was casual but not lazy, this wasn’t an evening out drinking. Somebody was still watching the door, one of the groups at the table were going over papers.

It didn’t take much to put two and two together. This wasn’t an Integralist base, these were members of the Society for Divine Liberation.

And at the back of the room, unmistakably, was the Godbox.

A woman in goggles and thick gloves was going at the back of it with a screwdriver, assorted wires at her side. I wasn’t sure what she was doing, but it was powered, at least.

My chest tightened at the sight, my breathing suddenly harder. Okay. Okay, so much for sneaking into the box and escaping that way. There were a million eyes between me and there and I was, well, not even particularly lightfooted, nevermind invisible. I was in a brightly colored floral top for Hylyss’ sake.

I slowly drew back, terrified of getting caught if I spent a second longer than I had to peeking.

There was another set of stairs on the other side of the room, the layout was symmetrical. I wondered for a second…

I slowly crept backwards the way I came, going towards the other end of the corridor. There was another set of stairs, after quite a ways. One that turned leftward half way down. Symmetrical, I could approach from either side of the room.

This end of the corridor was closer to the Godbox than the first one. It was maybe a dozen feet away, and peeking around the corner I could see the back of the engineer working on it.

The two sets of stairs were a good distance apart, too. It took a good few moments to get from one end of the room to the other.

A plan slowly formed. Real slowly, but it came together in my head. I could make a noise to the left, run to the right. I could create a big old distraction then dash down to the Godbox from the other direction whilst people were busy investigating. Maybe I could barricade the hall? Force people to come all the way up here then back again the long way.

I bet there was furniture in the bedrooms, assuming nobody was in them. And-

There were keyholes, I could peek through those. I felt stupid for not noticing that earlier.

I went room by room, checking carefully and then opening the doors up. About half were locked, but the other half had chairs, cabinets, stuff I could haul into the corridor to block it. I started to set up my improvised barricade, putting it just left of the trapdoor, to secure an alternate escape just in case. I left a gap I could squeeze through, too.

I admired my work for a moment, a pile of random objects piled chest-high. I doubted anybody could scale it, it was worse than the most cluttered garage I’d seen, sans a carefully curated sliver of space for me to squeeze through on the left, which itself would collapse with a tug on a carefully placed load-bearing cabinet.

I was shocked nobody had come up here whilst I was working, but I’d gone slow to avoid making noise, and some of the side rooms had the dust and cobwebs that the corridor and hall lacked. Maybe this part of the building rarely saw use.

I overlooked the hall.

Nobody was aware of my presence. Not the humans nor the gods nor the… I saw Gnolls and Einherjar in the mix too, come to think. I was almost shocked there wasn’t one of those weird birdfolk races from the Dreaming Empire, honestly.

So, now to get everybody’s attention.

Should I shoot at somebody? That would definitely be distracting. But even if the Godbox just being here was good evidence these people had murdered Raspe, I wasn’t sure I wanted to hurt them before being absolutely sure that was the case.

Just the thought made me pause a moment, though. This was absurd, I was an white-collar worker, basically a glorified secretary. Nevermind the fact breaking in here was going to get me killed, was I really willing to commit a break-in, go this far, just for the Godbox? Just for a hope, a prayer, that it could do the good Raspe claimed it could?

I felt the weight of the gun in my hand. I really didn’t have time to spend on introspection, I could get spotted at any time. I had to make a snap decision, and the snap decision was this.

Yes, yes I was willing to do all this.

Like I said, I wasn’t obsessed at all.

So, shooting a person was out then. Shooting the gods, then? Shattering an idol wouldn’t kill them. I wasn’t convinced I could even hit them from this distance, they were small targets, but…

Well, I had six shots. And these guys cared about gods, right? It sounded like a good way to piss them off.

I raised the pistol. I had a long, long time to take careful aim. I selected the closest one to me, a wooden idol of a goblin thing with a single giant ear as big as his torso. Its beer was almost empty, some guy in an apron was pouring him another.

Eyes down the sights, that’s how this worked, right? Ready, aim…

People jumped up at the sound of the gunshot. I’d missed. I wasn’t sure how badly, but the idol hadn’t exploded into flinders.

“What the fuck, we under attack?”

There was a moment of confusion. They looked about, unsure where the shot had come from. One or two took cover and several grabbed for weapons, or at least improvised ones. I took another breath, steadied my aim.

I fired again, hit the mug in front of the goblin idol this time.

“Don’t just- from upstairs! We’re under attack, it’s the fuckin’ church! Weapons up, fuckin’ move! Johnson, get the door, everybody else-!”

I was pretty sure the muscled, tattooed man was Einherjar. A sentient undead from the far south. His skin was pallid and his eyes glowed just a touch.

I hit the goblin on the third shot. It exploded into pieces. The other gods on the desk started glowing like tiny stars, angry, but apparently impotent to actually smite me without input from the humans.

“There! Gut the pigs!”

A human in a flatcap pointed a pool cue up at me, and charged up the stairs towards me. That drew eyes to me, everybody knew where I was now.

Okay, time to go, part one of the plan was accomplished. That was good news, cause for celebration.

Good news or not, I still screamed like a little girl when I saw them all rushing me.

I bolted, scrambling for the barricade. I was through it like a shot, and kicked out the load-bearing cabinet, collapsing it with a crash that echoed through the building and made the floorboards creak. I was sure THAT would get their attention.

“Are they hitting us with damned artillery? Hobsdwarf I beseech thee, strengthen the walls! Careful, there’s bound to be several of them!”

The Einherjar was working them into a frenzy, which was all the better. I heard dozens of feet pounding up the stairs behind me, but I was already most of the way to the other end of the corridor.

A muscled woman in a mohawk tore up the stairs and was first into the corridor behind me. I expected her to dash for the barricade, notice it, and get stuck and go back into the hall to get at me from the other direction. It’d take her time she didn’t have, I’d be in the Godbox by then, I was already on the other set of stairs.

She raised up an amulet, a ruby crystal inlaid in silver carved like flame. “Tinderloss I beseech thee- get rid of it.”

A gout of fire almost as thick as the hallway billowed forth.

I didn’t wait around to see if it actually removed the barricade. Didn’t even stop to wonder how that hadn’t burned the whole building down.

I shot out into the hall. It was as I’d predicted, all eyes were on the wrong set of stairs, nobody expected me to come back this way.

The engineer was still in my way though, she hadn’t abandoned her charge. She was wielding the screwdriver like a shiv, protecting the box.

“What in the-”

She cursed, lunged at me. I panicked. I heard my gun go off before I’d even realised I was raising it, and honestly I hadn’t even fully done that. She went down, clutching her foot, my gun at a fourty-five degree angle to the floor, barely even lifted.

I tried to ignore the blood.

The huge Einherjar was turning, as were a few others. They’d noticed the trick and were turning around to come stop me directly.

But I was there. At the goal. The Godbox.

I darted past the curtains, got inside it. I knew what would be in here, based on my research and my experimentation. The Godbox was its own idol, so the inside would be empty, and if it was plugged up with enough sacrifices in the form of electricity, I could just pray, and it would activate to take me away.

It was dark in here, pitch dark. I put my hands together. Hopefully, the usual prayer would work here.

“Godbox, I beseech thee… get me the fuck out of here!”

A loud bang. Yelling from outside, curses and threats of violence.

But no tingling feeling of divine energy. No motion. I-

“Godbox, I beseech- Godbox I beseech thee! I- turn on! Is- is there a lever? Is it not plugged in? I saw from behind, the engineer- you’re hooked up right? Godbox, Godbox!”

I still didn’t move. My blood ran cold, terror hitting me with the same staticky brainfog as if I’d been struck. I grasped around, scrambling in the dark interior of the Godbox for a lever, an activation button, a secret second sacrifice bowl, anything.

My hand hit something cold, metal. Oddly shaped, smooth-surfaced. I gripped it, but it was heavy, wouldn’t budge. It wasn’t a lever.

“Godbox. Godbox! Fucking-!”

They’d reached me.

A beam of light split the darkness, the interior of the Godbox was illuminated by electric yellow light.

A thick, tattooed arm grabbed me by the shoulder and tossed me to the floor.

And I got a glimpse at what I’d had hold of, what was inside the box.

A little brass statuette of a crying woman in chains.

A fucking god-in-the-box, with will enough of its own to ignore my pleas to take it away.