I’m not really sure why, but I was released from detention after a few days. Weird.
I felt sorry for the rest of the gang. Of course I immediately set to work plotting their escape. But these things take time. I was just one person. I was up against an entire system. And I was going to win.
Ghustloch was a teeming beehive of a city. An entire underground kingdom ruled by a mysterious, decrepit Regent and a Council of Lords, whose varied livery was painted on the sides of the rickshaws hurrying about on the crowded streets. Some streets had more headroom than others. The largest were enormous brick-paved avenues of light, with huge terraced buildings with columns cut out of the living rock. On these well-lit streets it was almost as bright as the sun on a cloudy day.
Despite the busyness, the chief impression of Ghustloch was one of order and organisation. The streetlights dimmed at 6pm and again at 8pm daily, and brightened at six and eight in the morning. Almost everyone formed orderly lines when waiting, walking, or riding, and so there was a curious stillness in all the bustle.
The older, smaller backstreets were far more interesting.
The staple foods, as far as I could tell, were gruel and carrots, of which there were many different kinds. Some of them were quite palatable once you got used to them. The gruel had a slightly nutty flavour, and was better with pickles and chilli. I think it was made of mealworms and some sort of root vegetable, but I’m not sure.
Meat and shrimps were far too expensive for my limited means, so I made do on the basic diet, and supplemented with mushroom soup, by far the best tasting dish available. There was a tiny hole-in-the-wall that I often ate at on the ground floor of my modest flophouse. Ask around for Hao’s near the Circus Quay south exit.
The cleaning thing was strange. The people of Ghustloch were obsessed with clean and shiny surfaces. I suppose it was due to mould. In any case, during “darkhours” entire armies of cleaners emerged from their domiciles. I saw them taking over from the burghers, priests, and clerks of the day shift on my first evening saunter through the city, moving through the city polishing the street lamps and streets like the fingers of a giant invisible hand.
I recognised immediately it was the perfect cover, and set to work mastering the role. After three and a half months, and some significant work experience to establish my bona fides, I managed to snag a job as a gaol cleaner. Before my interview, I practised in front of the mirror—I needed to conceal my natural dynamism and charismatic charm. I replaced it with a kind of affable boredom, mixed with the alertness of a hunting dog—not at all dangerous, but eager to restore order. It was a delicate balance.
I got the job.
I worked mostly on the east side. Initially, I was cleaning the gaolers’ offices rather than the gaol itself. Working as a cleaner definitely has upsides. For one thing, you’re constantly opening, investigating, prodding, polishing. You never know what you’re going to find, or find out. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to glamorise it. Cleaning’s mostly what you’d expect: scrubbing, scraping, hurling, dumping. The nights were long, so my other work was mostly restricted to the crepuscular hours before or after bed. But there are worse jobs. And there were documents everywhere.
My fellow cleaners taught me a lot, too. Not just about cleaning and efficiency, but also about looking out for each other. It was a complaint about contracts that gave me the way in I’d been looking for. A colleague, Mariam, introduced me to a friend of hers, one of the guards. He was a mole-rat, but one of the good ones. Dibsy—I can’t remember the rest of his name. Anyway, we became great chums. He was jovial, quite funny, full of stories. A bit dim, to be honest, but I’ve never held that against anyone. By the time our afterwork drinks at the local tavern became a fixture I knew a great deal about the prison system—and quite a few of his friends as well.
Soon after, I began to get rostered onto cleaning the prison itself. We didn’t ever see the prisoners, and much was hidden from us, but the details of security, routines, layout, and so on, became increasingly clear. My other work was mostly complete. Events were slowly but surely accelerating, and I realised I was going to have to put the pieces together rather quickly if my plan was to succeed.
To do that, I needed to return to the library.
Once again the librarians proved extremely helpful. The card catalogue was fantastic—simply one of the best libraries in the world. By now I was so familiar with Gordon’s Governmental Index of Royal and Municipal Courts, Departments, Bureaus, and Offices that, if it hadn’t been for the library’s innumerable copies, I might’ve considered buying one for myself. Subterranean Sanitation: Principles and Practice, the RGC Award 1351 (with Appendices), and Report on the Cubbleburren Incident were also invaluable.
After a few weeks of digging, and some long walks, I was ready for Phase Three.
Next episode: Ika