Spears followed Humphries to the door. He watched Humphries give his keys to Wójcik and walk away. Back straight, shoulders square, head high. Shameless. Traitor. Unforgiveable. He would have every trace of that pair erased from his Division, from every Division of the London Branch; their glasses claimed and shattered, their scythes recalled and destroyed, their names expunged, their existence erased. Let them live in shame and die in disgrace.

Spears turned to his Administrative Assistant, whose attitude as always was dignified reserve. As it should be. Far too rare. Why could not his other officers learn that? Of course they could. He had become far too lenient, and it had resulted in betrayal. He must tighten up discipline at once.

Humphries had dared suggest he use Company property to visit Grell. If not a breach of the Law, certainly a breach of the Rules. Humphries constantly skirted the rules. He should have scythed the little slider ages ago. Banishment was hardly punishment enough.

"Mister Wójcik, call Senior Auditor DePoy to my office. Inform Personnel that Seniors Humphries and Slingby are no longer employees of this Branch. Call Maintenance. Have Humphries' office cleared out. Slingby's desk and cabinets likewise."

He returned to his desk in a state of furious moral outrage. DePoy appeared promptly.

"Senior DePoy, Humphries is banished for malfeasance and concealment of malfeasance. Slingby also for abetting him. You will have their names removed from our rolls, all their employment records destroyed. Humphries' office will be stripped and converted to storage. Slingby's desk is to be removed. Their names will no longer be spoken. You and Senior Jacobs will redistribute their responsibilities. Their files are to be given to Judicial for review. Not Auditing. Judicial."

Senior Depoy, face drawn in lines of experience and disapproval, simply stated, "When I have your complete instructions in writing, sir, I shall implement them at once."

Somewhere deep in Will's brain an alarm sounded. He ignored it. Of course his orders must be a matter of record. "I shall write them out at once."

"In detail, please. It is important that there are no misunderstandings. There should also be a formal employee notification from your desk, sir, to bring the various shifts up to date and to stifle rumors."

"I shall begin immediately. See if Wójcik has called Maintenance."

Depoy left as Will settled down to draft his orders. She shut his door carefully before walking to Wójcik's desk.

"I've bought us some time. He may cool down a bit, but I'm not going to rely on it. At least we didn't have a public murder. What's on his schedule?"

"Nothing external, Madame DePoy. This is the time he normally spends on his maps and troop assignments. He would ordinarily permit no disturbances for two hours. I shall hold his calls as usual."

"He will probably have my orders ready in an hour. By then we should be able to implement them without harm. There will be a general memo soon, too. But start the phone tree working so next shift does not come in unaware."

"Yes, Madame DePoy."

"And I am not 'Madame.' I am Senior Auditor. He'll have a fit if he hears you addressing me with increased respect, especially when I work to thwart him. He's mentioned Judicial, which has been synonymous with execution in the past. We don't want anything to set him off until the banished are out of reach."

Wójcik bowed. "Very good, Senior Auditor."

"If you have not called Maintenance, you had better do so. The banished will not return."

Bradshaw listened carefully at Alan's door. He turned to Ten Hagen: "He's ported out. Warn your roomie that there's probably going to be a hostile investigation. Then get on with keeping your head down. I've already got the folders for DePoy and Solway. Spears is welcome to the rest. I'll get you a cuppa."

"Don't. Set up tea time in the back break room where the Director won't see it. I'll let people know."

"Oh. Right you are. Thanks. We need to start cancelling Alan's meetings and calls."

"Where is Humphries, Mister Wójcik? He knows his schedule! He is three minutes late! Inexcusable!"

"He is gone, sir, as you decreed."

"Gone? Gone? Humphries? No. The traitor. The traitor who tricked me into conniving at a breach of the Law! I will have his blood for this. But I must act according to the Law. Did I ask DePoy to notify Judicial? Did she? Did she not? My orders will not be flouted! Depoy, did you obey my orders? Solway! Find DePoy at once, get her here! She has my orders! Where is Judicial?"

Bradshaw called Brodie. "If Eric left any exit instructions, secure them now. Tell Duncan to warn his enforcers to be least in sight in case Spears orders an execution. I'm sure Avram knows already. Tell him to get Sutcliff back here if things go badly. Be ready to look innocent if this blows over."

Jacobs to Mallory: "Tell your people to gather up all the interns. This is London business which we don't want them to witness. Send them over to Supplies for experience in whatever needs some helping hands, for as many hours as you can contrive. Tell Richards to call me. She and Johns and Smithfield have exposed a good man to execution."

"The hell? Where is everyone going?"

"Out. Out now. We're about to be given orders I refuse to follow." – zipp

"What – I'm coming, so's Owen. Frank, Charley, Jonas! Cafeteria!" –pop –shkk –dsst –sspk –zopt

"Spears has banished Humphries. Might order us to seize him for Judicial or execute him out of hand. Move! Unless you want that on your permanent record."

"Coming. Slingby's out too. Beat Spears to it by about ten minutes. He's probably home and I am not going to participate in an assault on that door." –ssk –piip

In Personnel, Brodie reported to Jacobs. "Here are all the current student recommendations from Eric and Alan. We'll need to get another Londoner onto the faculty if you want any further reports and recruiting. Trouble is, they won't be hiring until May."

"Thank you, Liz. The Ethics department certainly won't risk replacing Alan with another active Reaper. I shall warn them about copyright violations of Alan's book when classes resume."

"Oh, no – Avram, can the Director order the book outlawed along with its author?"

"No, nor will he while he profits from our second edition. Eventually he will realize that wherever Alan goes, the rights go with him. Only with his permission can we print another edition; Alan has probably already given it to whatever Branch or Academy has now hired him. The Director will not like that, nor will Supplies, but their signatures are on the contract held by Auditing. It's the only reason DePoy let Alan sign a contract that so heavily favored the Association, you see. She saw this coming."

Liz Brodie smiled. "I suppose it's hardly necessary, since he was expelled, but did you find Eric's resignation letter?"

"He gave it to me last week. A date, a signature, and five words, three of which were 'Hey, Will,' and 'Sincerely.' I'm going to take it home and frame it. Now, at our Academy, we could offer Mainwaring to teach Technique. They know him as a guest lecturer. They've reviewed him as pleasant and knowledgeable."

"We're more likely to be allowed to fill Eric's spot," said Liz. "They are really going to miss him, since all his assistant coaches were laid off when they cancelled next year's graduation. They've found other jobs at higher rank. The Academy will be caught short-handed when classes resume. I'm so tempted to recommend Senior Sutcliff. Serve them right. But Seniors Sorenson and Reyes should be back in London by then, and they'd do very well."

"They would, and so would Quirke and Roberts. But putting Gupta and Vanderveldt in there would also bring Grell home. It's a risk. She might be able to bring Will back to reason. Or she might decide that he's too much work; they disagreed when he tried to remove her from Gupta's team and confine her duties to London. I need to talk to her. Is – was Alan the only one who knew how to reach her current supervisor? Another job for us, Liz."

A knock at the door interrupted their discussion. "Senior? We have a problem. Director Spears is right off his nut."

Marisa Solway turned two folders over to Sarah Goodfellow. "These are the last of his reports. The banished are gone. Spears is raving. DePoy has declared herself neutral and warned him to stop and think. She does not want to have to take this to Madame and force her to deal with it in public. It's awful, Sarah! Gather Master Holbert has already had offers from France and Belgium to run Midsummer and Yule festivals. Half the Realm is offering for Brock and his section. I myself am looking about for another position."

"They'll need you even more in London now." Sarah paged through the contents of the folder marked Chicanery and sighed. "I'm going to miss this. Alan has such a keen nose for duplicity."

"Spears banished them without trial or defense. He can do it again. He probably will, pretty soon. He's starting to revoke some of the improvements we've made in the Division, some of the small privileges we've won. He fired Bradshaw for making tea, for 'pampering' employees. DePoy hired Brad ten minutes later; he now is setting up a tea service down in the Stacks, where anybody can visit and sit. Spears has no say in what Admin does in their own territory, but he told Anton to make a list of anybody who takes breaks downstairs. Brock heard him say that. Bookkeeping, the whole section, is now locked up behind their blast doors. Spears ordered me to retrieve some files. Five minutes later he was shouting because I'd left my desk to do it. I'm moving downstairs before he can smear my record with an imaginary crime."

"I understand. Blackpool Admin is looking for an experienced Ops Senior of your level. Fun town with a number of fine restaurants. The Director is a delightful old fellow who lets his experts get on with their work. Several of his Seniors are Eric's trainees or Alan's students. One of Alan's trainees is running Aldershot now. Probably too close to London and too small for your talents. Any idea where Alan and Eric went?"

"There's speculation. All we really know is that it's a Branch with a nearby Academy. They offered the banished – no! I will say their names! – they offered Alan a garden. Some people thought that would mean places with a similar climate to England – parts of Uruguay, Angola, Brazil, Madagascar, United States, Ukraine, the Netherlands. But any spot in the Realm can be climate controlled, if they wanted to make the effort. No worries about the humans moving in and ploughing it under, either."

"Can one actually grow living things in the Reaper Realm? I should think it impossible except for the tough grasses that Maintenance sows. And there are trees at the Academy, of course, but they are more illusion than real."

"Alan kept ivy on his kitchen windowsill for years. It flourished. He'd sometimes bring a pot of heather into his office and plant it back in the Human Realm when it finished blooming."

"They knew he would like a garden. Therefore, probably, they are his former co-workers, students, or teaching assistants. Somewhere quiet, remote, and newly established, where such persons would qualify for managerial rank. Far enough away to refuse to allow our friends to be dragged back to face an enquiry. No, I'm not going to trace them. Eventually we will begin hearing predictions again. Outstanding graduates will appear from a school nobody's heard of. Inventions and innovations will pop up out of nowhere. Word gets around."

"London was such a wonderful Branch, Sarah. All gone in a day. I just want to know that they are safe and well."

"They are. They had a carefully planned exit strategy. After thirty-five years of Will, can you imagine Alan not considering every possibility?"

Engineering Senior Edward Smithfield pressed a button. The machine began to replay a phone call. His roommate Diederik 'Dutch' Ten Hagen was reporting a disaster.

"Smitty! Spears has gone mad. Depoy tried to stop him but he wouldn't listen. The case has been turned over to Judicial. Spears wants an execution. People are running so he can't give them orders to kill or confine.

"Warn your Division. Warn Johns. Richards won't be in as much trouble if she sticks to being the innocent utilizer of an accepted tool."

"Dutch, I thought the angels were running Judicial."

"They are, and that's good. If they find for Alan, that's the end of it. He and Slingby will be exonerated. Spears will get hustled off for a nice quiet rest somewhere. But London as we knew it is done. The banished won't come back, and neither will all the people floating résumés, and the ones who stay will be walking on eggs."

"Will you stay?"

"If Spears doesn't fire me today, yes, I'll try to help Knox manage Alan's duties. Won't be easy. Spears fired Bradshaw, but I have a copy of his daily schedule. Alan made one last prediction in passing, and I feel I should do my best to further it if possible. Oh, damn, Admin just walked out.

"Anyway, expect an investigation. If you can prove that your experiment did not make Reapers unfit for duty, you'll be safe. If you can't, get ready to run.

"Gotta go. Mallory just refused an order and Spears is foaming —" The recording ended as the receiver was slammed down.

Engineer Crawford frowned. His mustache stood to bristling attention. He turned to Senior Johns. "Fix this."

"No problem. Let them come. I can prove that the product used during the invasion was perfectly harmless to a Reaper. You'll need to defend your testing protocol."

"Done. Reported, reviewed, approved, and registered."

"So no harm done, except a psychotic break in somebody already known to be too tightly wound." Johns shrugged, gathering his papers.

"Not true. We have lost an important ally, whose life and reputation may be destroyed."

"A Reaper. We'll prove him innocent, or innocent enough. He'll move on. Scythes is safe."

Smitty watched him go. "Johns has no idea, does he?"

"No." Engineer Crawford's mustache twitched over a grimace. "Richards will explain it to him later. She's worked with Humphries for years. Johns never had the opportunity to realize Humphries was the brains of the Branch. He only knows that Spears treated Humphries dismissively. Now, Smithfield, this is important. Your friend Ten Hagen may be the only person still in Operations who heard Humphries' last prediction. We need to have it, word for word. Will he stay, do you think?"

"He said he'd try. There are huge gaps to fill. It's not just Eric and Alan; Spears is firing other people who offend him, people who are also necessary to the smooth running of the Branch. He's sacked a very good office manager and personal assistant. Sounds like he's just lost a Security head whose partner and senior staff will leave with him. His Reapers will be running to avoid orders which will be deemed illegal soon. Ops Admin has withdrawn, and that stops the Branch's documentation and cash flow cold. The ranking Admin still in place is an Auditor who appears to be working against him."

"That will add to Spears' fury."

"Dutch was almost ready. He was growing into the role, and even beginning to develop the insight that Alan has. But he will not tolerate the abuse that Alan has received since the beginning of the war. He'll demand respect. Spears does not extend respect to those who do not equal or outrank him."

"That scheming Upper succeeded, although he did not live to see it," mused Crawford. "The London Branch, Madame Administrator's finest achievement, is destroyed. She's going to have to pull Spears out and hire a new Director. Nobody sufficiently sane and senior remains. She'll rebuild but it will take a few years."

"So far, their Eldest is still there. Dutch has mentioned he's always been absolutely unwilling to be considered Spears' successor. Knox is heir apparent, but he's not mature enough for such responsibilities; even if he wanted them, which he doesn't. Dutch has told me that Spears was always reluctant to promote senior Reapers into responsible positions. He feared other Branches might then offer them better jobs and pay. He told his assistant directors to train up Juniors, most of whom left as soon as they had marketable skills. Sir, all we can do is watch, and prove Alan's innocence when Judicial comes around."

"But we cannot pretend that he did not conceal your experiment. I fully understand why he did not take the matter to his superior, and going over Spears' head to Madame would have brought you up before an enquiry. Which would have exposed a project you had told him was secret. I see his reasoning, and I honor it. Judicial may not. But Scythes and Supplies together may convince them that banishment is punishment enough. Smithfield, I have registered you for a private series of lectures in the Law. A tutor will be provided. You will investigate its application to our research projects. A pity that Humphries cannot teach you. He would have been interested and explored the question himself."

"Sir, if Scythes can find him, could we not make a formal request for –"

"And lead his enemies to him? Have we not sufficiently harmed him? Get me that prediction, Smithfield."

"Hello? Senior Gupta? —Morrison, sir, you don't know me but I work for Avram Jacobs. It's an emergency. He needs to talk to Senior Sutcliff right away —yes, please, it's urgent— Miss Grell? One moment, please— Senior Jacobs, Senior Sutcliff is on the line."

"Senior Sutcliff, this is Jacobs. We need you home as soon as possible. Director Spears has lost control."

"Avram, do you think I care? Is this Will's next attempt to keep me from doing my work? Because I will not be confined like Alan! Tell Alan to calm him down. That's his job."

"Grell. Alan's gone. Will banished him and Slingby. He ordered them out of London. Instead of calming down, he's escalating. He's involved Judicial with the intent of having them pursued and executed. He fired Alan's Administrative Assistant. He physically threatened Ten Hagen, who's escaped down into the Stacks and is notifying Medical. He ordered his head of Security, Mallory, to chase after Alan and scythe him. Mallory quit and walked out. Duncan, ffoulkes, and his Second Shift staff went with him. Operations Admin has gone into lockdown. Only Depoy and Wójcik remain. His Reapers are deserting their desks for fear of receiving illegal orders."

Grell's voice became very quiet. "Oh."

"Grell, we need you here. Please set aside your argument with him. I will not order you to endanger yourself. But as Eldest here, I ask you to come as soon as possible. You are the only one who might be able to calm him. We will protect you if he turns on you. We're just hoping to get him into care before he can scythe someone."

There was a pause. "Avram, have you gotten the interns out?"

"Immediately."

"That's good. And Dorrie sent all the noncombatants away, good. Keep Ronnie away from him. Try suggesting that Will compose a full formal complaint for Madame. That might return him to his office and focus his attention harmlessly. If he refuses, then talk to Anton Wójcik. If Will's schedule for the day is routine and in-house, try to get him to follow it. That may calm him somewhat. Just a moment—" Grell lowered the phone to speak to people near her. "Van, Chandra, London has a really bad situation. Can you tell Pruneface that I've been recalled? —Eldest?"

"I'm here."

"I'll pack my duffle and be at the portal in fifteen minutes. Be ready to activate the portal from your end. My superior here may protest my departure out of sheer bloody-mindedness. No, wait. —Chandra, tell Pruneface I'm being called for a disciplinary hearing! The old grouch will set the controls himself. — Avram? Keep everyone else away from Will, especially anyone noisy or cheerful. I'm coming."