Septday, Rami 7th 067.M42

I was woken this morning by my vox going off at some ridiculous time, I think it was about two or so. Ordinarily I set my vox to "do not disturb" when I go to bed, Throne knows everyone hates getting servitor calls at frak-you-o'clock (No, thank you, I really don't want to know anything about an investment opportunity in Hive Nyx. I'd really just like to sleep) - but it is set to allow through emergency calls, it's got Scribe-Master Warders' number programmed in to allow, as well as Maddy's and my family.

I'd been having a pretty intense dream when it woke me. I can't remember much now, just mental images and half-remembered feelings of being chased, being suffocated. But the damned thing startled me awake in a near panic, wondering who the frak would be calling at that hour, what had exploded or otherwise gone so horribly wrong that someone would do that? I knew it couldn't be Maddy, she was still asleep next to me at the time, but I was terrified that it would be Mum calling to tell me something horrible had happened to Mei. Or that it would be Warders, telling me that some massive data surge had happened and that we were all recalled to duty immediately.

It wasn't any of them. It was Arlean, again. And again, she was acting really weird for her. She seemed panicked, worried about something. I couldn't really get a word in edgeways to ask her what was wrong, but I didn't really need to. She just kind of spilled, saying that she needed to talk to me, that she'd remembered what she forgot to tell me about when I came to visit her (nearly a month ago, mind), that it was something to do with Daisy but that she couldn't tell me over the vox, that she was taking a risk even calling me to talk to me like that.

I tried to convince her to come up again, to come and stay with Mum and Dad if something was going on, that we could go to the Magisters. I told her I'm going with my evidence tomorrow, and that if she had some sort of eyewitness account of something nefarious happening, that would only help strengthen the case I was trying to get rolling. But she wouldn't listen to me, she kept saying that she couldn't leave, she couldn't spend the time necessary to explain what she'd seen, that she just needed me to come down and see her. I said I'd try my best, but my absences from work were already starting to get noted, and if I took too many more then it could spell trouble for my prospects for advancement in the future. She just told me to get down there as soon as I could, then the line was closed.

It was possibly the most confusing interaction I've ever had with Arlean - even more confusing than when I went down to visit her last month. I've never known her to be so panicky and scattered like that. Part of me wanted to wake Maddy and ask her what I should do, but I didn't want the both of us to be exhausted for work the next day. So I set my slate down and tried to get back to sleep while I still could. I managed it in the end, thank the Throne, and when I woke it all just seemed so surreal that I had a hard time believing I hadn't just dreamed it. But the call log on my slate confirmed it, and even if it hadn't, when she woke Maddy's first question to me was asking who the call in the night was from.

Maddy seemed worried too, but she thinks I shouldn't go down to see Arlean. She thinks something bad is happening, and that I should just add this to the report I'm giving to the Magisters, and let them try to deal with it. With the way Arlean's been acting, she says the best case scenario is that she's had some kind of… mind-break from the stress of her work and the increased patient load due to this illness that's plaguing the lower hive or the worst case scenario is that it is something to do with this group, this… cult… and that they have done or are threatening to do something to her - that they did actually make me when I went down there and rather than coming after me directly, they're trying to use her to get me. Which is just ridiculous. Even if they did figure out exactly who I was, she doesn't use her full name in her work - she's Sister Arlean. So the link to me would be tenuous at best.

I really feel like I should do something, she's my big sister. Maddy says that going to the Magisters is doing something, but given how disinterested they've been of late, I'm worried that it's just going to be something else they're going to push off to the side as not important enough to care about.

Thought for the Day: Innocence ends when war begins.