Your Biggest Fans Were My Prisoners

Felicity looked at my empty paws.

"You can't simply show up whenever you want a free meal."

Behind me, Lucien made a small, strangled sound.

"Felicity—"

I touched his trouser leg.

"Wait."

He looked down.

I shook my head.

I wanted to know how far she intended to take this. Also, Martha's pork needed another few minutes; the smell told me the sauce hadn't quite reduced.

Felicity mistook Lucien's silence for approval.

She turned her phone slightly, keeping me at the edge of the picture.

"I know you've been here forever," she said, "but Deputy Director Fox has made it clear that the Bureau needs efficient staff. Age isn't an accomplishment."

"No," I agreed. "It mostly happens by itself."

Rowan coughed behind his hand.

Felicity didn't notice.

"I've generated thousands of dollars in four days. What did you contribute?"

"A leaking-pipe report."

"Exactly."

She pointed at the screen.

More animated presents sailed across it. The viewer count had passed twenty thousand.

The gifts were smaller now, mostly from accounts I didn't recognize. People outside the Bureau, presumably. Felicity's uniform and white ears photographed well.

"The residents love me," she continued. "They were celebrating when they heard I had the position."

"I saw."

"QuietWings sent a hundred castles. OnlyOneBite sent even more. HarborSerpent has been here every day."

My ears lowered a fraction.

She noticed and smiled.

"Don't be jealous."

"I'm thinking."

"Maybe you should think about why everybody was so happy when you left."

Behind her, Seth looked at Rowan.

Rowan looked at Aldric.

Aldric studied a loose thread on his cuff with the intense concentration of somebody trying not to laugh during a funeral.

"You think those were friendship gifts?" I asked.

"What else would they be?"

"A celebration."

"That's what I said."

I moved closer to the phone.

The comments slowed.

Felicity looked at me again.

"Pip, don't interfere with my work."

The screen stopped moving.

For several seconds, not one gift appeared.

She tapped it.

"Is the connection down?"

A comment floated into view.

QuietWings: If she's back, who else would we look at?

Felicity frowned.

"Who? Pip? The old rabbit?"

The viewer count began dropping.

OnlyOneBite left the livestream.

HarborSerpent left the livestream.

ThunderbirdAfterDark left the livestream.

QuietWings left the livestream.

The notifications chased each other up the screen.

"Where are you going?" Felicity asked.

I put my front paws on the edge of my cushion.

A minute passed.

Then two accounts returned.

OnlyOneBite: Did she see the gifts?

HarborSerpent: Delete the records.

ThunderbirdAfterDark: Can you say you made us send them?

QuietWings: No. That makes it worse.

Seth leaned against the doorway.

His shoulders shook.

Felicity stared at the comments.

"Is this a joke?"

I looked into the camera.

"Hello."

All four accounts left again.

The ordinary viewers began asking questions.

Why are the monsters scared of a rabbit?

Is this scripted?

Wait, is that Director Voss behind her?

Felicity swallowed.

"Lucien?"

He reached for her phone.

She pulled it toward her chest.

"I've worked hard to build this audience."

"End the broadcast."

"Why?"

Aldric finally looked up.

"Because you are broadcasting from an entrance where the gatekeeper has been removed and the security arrangements have not been restored."

Felicity's eyes moved to me.

"She retired."

"Yes," I said. "I did."

The first impact came from far below.

The tiles trembled beneath my paws.

The lobby light swung.

Felicity grabbed Lucien's sleeve.

"What was that?"

The loudspeakers clicked.

"Level Eighteen. Containment pressure breach. All response staff to stations."

Another voice broke through the announcement.

"Director, they're following the maintenance shaft. They can hear everything. One keeps saying she's only visiting."

Felicity looked at me.

Then at the phone still broadcasting my announcement about lunch.

A deep voice rose through the open stairwell, clear enough for those of us outside to hear.

"Visiting isn't guarding. Open it before she changes her mind."

The third impact came with a sound of metal bending.

So that was the calculation.

They knew I'd returned. They also knew I had declined to return to work.

A second impact shook dust from the ceiling.

Rowan's radio crackled.

For several days, staff had been too tired to shout. Now I heard fear cutting through the exhaustion.

"The anchor chains are moving. We need the director."

Lucien reached for his own radio, found the wrong button, and tried again.

Aldric took it from him.

"Seal the stairwell above seventeen. Withdraw nonessential personnel. I'll come down."

He glanced at me.

I sat on the paving stones.

"I'm retired," I reminded him.

"I know."

He looked toward the staircase.

"You worked here before I had a Bureau. I can remember how to manage a difficult afternoon."

He didn't ask again.

That mattered more than I expected.

Felicity's phone was still running. She looked from the screen to the door as though somebody might tell her which of them could save her.

"They said the chains couldn't break."

"They can," Aldric said. "It just takes something sufficiently determined."

"But they never—"

"No. They didn't."

He walked past her into the building.

Seth followed, pulling a fresh shield from the emergency rack.

I caught his cuff.

"Stay behind Aldric."

"That's the plan."

"Not beside him."

"Pip. I understand."

He touched my head once and went inside.

Rowan guided Felicity away from the entrance. Lucien remained where he was.

Another impact rattled the windows across the street.

People stopped on the pavement. A mother picked up her child and walked faster.

I looked at the Bureau's open doors.

Somewhere below, creatures who had watched me sleep for centuries were discovering that absence was not quite the same thing as permission.

Aldric could handle the lowest floor. He had before we met. That was why he'd needed a gatekeeper in the first place.

A crack ran across the entrance tiles.

Through the stairwell came the scrape of an enormous chain being dragged, link by link. Beneath it, I heard Seth shout a warning.

I rose.

Aldric could manage the lowest floor. I didn't intend to let my friends pay for the lesson.

I put my head through the doorway.

"Leave the guards alone."

The dragging stopped.

"Pip?" somebody called from far below.

"If one of them comes upstairs with another bite mark, I'll come down and find out who made it."

For a few moments I heard nothing.

Then a frantic voice answered, "It wasn't us."

"Good. Keep it that way."

I returned to my place outside.

The loudspeakers announced that the staff had withdrawn safely. Aldric was still below, rebuilding the damaged anchors, but nobody tried the stairs again.

Felicity lowered her phone.

Her face had lost its remaining color.

An officer came upstairs carrying two empty equipment cases. He stopped when he saw me, then looked toward the entrance as though checking that it was still there.

"Are you staying?" he asked.

"For lunch."

He nodded, but disappointment crossed his face before he could hide it.

I watched him carry the cases to the response truck. There was dried blood on one handle.

Martha appeared with a covered plate.

"Kitchen's safe," she told me. "They shut the gas off as a precaution, but the pork was finished."

She put the plate beside my paws.

"Eat before it gets cold."

"Did you save some for Aldric?"

"He can have the vegetables."

I moved half the pork to one side.

"He came out of his retreat early."

Martha looked toward the stairs, then back at me.

"All right. But only because you asked."

Beside us, Felicity finally ended her broadcast.

The silence that followed was considerably more professional than anything she had said on camera.

Then Aldric's voice came through Rowan's radio.

"Tell Lucien to stay where he is. Bram too. I want the accounts on the conference table when I come upstairs."

Lucien looked at the phone in Felicity's hand.

For once, nobody had to explain the difference between revenue and loss.