Secunday, Rami 2nd 067.M42

Four days. Four days of sitting around near this alley, watching for people behaving oddly near it, looking for hooded figures lurking within it, or anything else that seemed to be awry. I rented a room in a short-term boarding house nearby, so that I would be able to start early or stay late without having to worry about commuting. I gave Mrs Blaxland my spare key so she could keep an eye on Noodles too. So I was set up to stay down here for a couple of days at least.

I just didn't expect it to take nearly a week just to get any further than I had. I was only able to take a week off of work, and when I got to the end of yesterday without seeing a single hint of the hooded figures, I was afraid that we'd come in too late, that whoever it was responsible for these mysterious people had guided them to move on elsewhere and I wouldn't be able to find them again.

I don't know if I was relieved or worried when I was sitting in a cafeteria nearby having a recaf and trying to wake myself up and I noticed another young woman - this one with a baby in her arms - stopping and staring down into the alley. I was nearly too stunned to do anything, instead I was just sitting there staring for a few moments until I realised that if I got close enough, I might be able to overhear some of what was going on, what they were saying to people to try to convince them to go with the baldy bunch...

As I threw down some scrip and more or less sprinted out the door and to the vantage position that I'd scoped out earlier, I was afraid that I was going to be too late, but His favour was with me, for what it was worth. I certainly got there in time enough to use the crowd as cover to sidle my way into a nearby doorway so I could try to eavesdrop. But there was literally nothing to listen to. Although her baby was crying, the woman herself didn't seem to be talking - all she was doing was staring down the alley, standing just far enough out of the flow of traffic to avoid being run into by other people, and she was otherwise motionless.

I tried to peek out far enough to see down the alley, to see if I could see the hooded ones, figure out what they were doing or showing her to make her so quiescent. But there was no way that I would have been able to see without also giving myself away, which was the last thing I wanted to do. So I just kept watching her. It was eerie, she seemed to have no light in her eyes, no expression on her face. She even seemed completely indifferent to the upset of her own child. I don't know exactly how long it was that she stood there, but at the end, all she did was nod and mumble something - some kind of agreement I think it might have been - and start walking into the alley, with her babe in arms and everything.

I decided then to leave, trying again to blend in with the crowd of traffic who were going in the other direction, so I wouldn't end up crossing the mouth of the alley. I had a plan.

The alley feeds onto one of the vast cargo lifter platform that serves as the primary means of allowing larger transport vehicles to make their way between the markets they service in the various levels of the hive. Now it's not impossible that these hooded weirdoes are taking people back to the lifter platform, then using one of the other feeder alleys or roads to make their way out again either to another section of this precinct, or possibly to another precinct all together. But something told me that wasn't the case. I'm not exactly sure what it was, but my gut was just telling me that the lifter platform was somehow integral to what they were doing.

I'd planned my idea for trying to find more information with the cargo lifter in mind. Even when I'm taking personal time, I never go anywhere without my formal Administratum robes, parchments, quills, seals and ink. There are just some times when you need to get a bureaucrat to assist you with something, and walking the talk is a good way to sometimes get those more stubborn doors open. And it's a bit of a clan thing. We're all tiny cogs in this vast machine, we have to look out for each other. So you'll find that most of us try to.

But that aside, my plan was simple - the Administratum isn't an organisation to waste scrip. These cargo lifters travel in each direction at regular intervals throughout the day. They're always running. And you don't have to book a place, they operate on a queue system, where pedestrian passengers can ride free if they're willing to tuck themselves between the vehicles - and it's not uncommon to see several adepts on lifts travelling in either direction, conveying documents that are too senstive to transfer over the open vox network, but that perhaps aren't so sensitive to require an expensive mindwipe courier service.

So that was my grand idea - after spending some time scribing up and sealing some gibberish documents, I got myself done up in my robes, pulled my hood and headed for one of the other feeder alleys, to make my way to the boarding queue for the lifters, to linger and watch.

It took the better part of the day waiting, filtering and circulating through the crowd so I didn't seem to be lingering too much in the one spot, but eventually I saw them. Two dark-robed figures, followed by a placid, forest-leaper-expressioned group of men and women huddled into a small knot. With my hood up, I managed to follow in behind them, just squeaking onto the descending lifter and finding myself a place where I could sit and observe them and at least see which level of the hive they took themselves to.

I had a good opportunity to look at both the robed people and their followers while we were descending, as it took a fair while to get down to the level they seemed to be seeking. The followers just seemed to be ordinary men and women, no specific age or homeworld that I could see. Just all kinds of men and women and the only thing they really had in common was the blank, distant stare on them, like they weren't taking anything around them in. I saw the woman with the baby again, she was holding him loosely to her chest. And mercifully, by now he seemed to be sleeping.

The hooded ones were another matter entirely. I couldn't tell you if they were man or woman, the robes they wore seemed to give them such a lumpish, lopsided aspect. They kept their hoods up even higher than mine, so seeing their features was a tricky prospect at best. But as I was trying once more to get a look at their little group about two hours into our journey, under the only semi-fictitious cover of needing to stand to work a cramp from my leg, one of them seemed to look back at me. All I can say is that he looked... unhealthy. There was an odd pallor to his skin where the light from the lumens fell on it, some soft of bluish-grey, almost like they depict corpse-flesh in the holopicts. And his eyes. They were dark and beady, and I swear on the Throne and the blessed Saints that it felt like he was staring right through into my soul when he looked at me. All I could think to do was sign the Aquila and mutter a blessing to him, before he turned back to his fellow and his charges.

It took nearly six hours on that lifter before we finally got to their chosen level. I'd expected it to be a fair way down, but imagine my surprise after I waited for them to clear and I made my way off of the lifter to find myself in the very lower hive level where my sister's clinic resides. Which is a degree of coincidence just a little too high for my liking.

I'd told Maddy that I wouldn't take any stupid risks, and I couldn't shake the feeling that the one on the lifter who'd looked at me had somehow identified me. So I decided to leave them there and to find the most secure hab room I could afford to get some rest. I'll take the first lifter back up in the morning and give the information I've found to the Magisters. I just hope that they take it a bit more seriously this time.

Thought for the Day: Will is not enough. Act!