RuTing brought him to her station in the barracks. He didn’t enter the alcove where the female Bomb Midges lay on beds receiving their serum. Only male doctors were allowed; even then, they preferred a completely female support staff. The doctors had different rules than the Union. He had to admit they were philosophically closer to the Union than the Zeusopolans or the Centaurs, but he found their rules on gender unusual for such a personally invasive society.

  Since he came through the portal, he’d looked at the afterlife much like he would observe a foreign colony. He didn't have sophisticated Union tools to take soil samples, analyze diets, or investigate predators. He didn’t understand the rules, so he kept an open mind.

  He wasn’t a scientist. His job was specific. He performed the analysis and then directed machines to alter the chemistry of the landscape accordingly.

  Deficiencies in vitamins, minerals, and foreign contaminants altered the behavior of plants and animals. He was just one worker in charge of rabbits, and he followed fifty colonies around the outskirts of Dill, tracking them with aerial surveillance and the occasional hands-on observation from a distance.

  Union ethics training forbade him from applying those insights to people.

  But he wasn’t in the Union anymore, and he wondered if Bannerburg could ever be free if they depended on chemicals to survive.

  RuTing turned away from the barracks and went into another door. Both barracks were laid out the same way, but he didn’t have an adjoining room. The barracks were outside the city wall and underground.

  When she opened the door to a corridor, he realized they must be traveling under the wall. That was important information. The wall was coated on the inside with a slippery polymer. It was at least thirty feet thick, and to survive the dissolution so long, he thought it must be full of white bedrock as aggregate.

  “Am I allowed to be here?” Fintan asked.

  “No,” RuTing said, “But almost no one uses this corridor. It goes to a jail. If we are spotted, I will tell them I brought you, but it's almost always empty.”

  He nodded. He trusted RuTing, but he couldn’t help but be nervous. They were underground, and there was no sound of air in the corridor. Instead of glass lamps, the irregular lamps were full of glowing fluid. They didn’t walk for long before she opened another door to an elaborate jail.

  The bars were made of chiseled white bedrock with sharp, irregular cuts, and the doors had thick iron hinges. There were at least fifty cells but each cell was separate, meant for one. Hoses were attached to hooks on a ceiling too tall to reach unaided.

  They looked similar to the hoses attached to the Bomb Midges before they were given serum. When the plumbing worked correctly it extracted all the bodily fluids to the furnaces.

  Instead of soft padded beds, the cells had rock pedestals with stiff leather restraints attached to iron eyelets driven into the white rock with masonry bolts. Every cell was glassed. The thin glass was safely away from reach in front of the bars, and a thick paste caulked the edges except for a large air hole.

  “It looks like an altar,” Fintan whispered.

  “An alter to science,” RuTing replied. “They brought me in here to clean up a mess. We aren’t supposed to come in here when we aren’t needed, but it's unlocked because everyone knows.”

  Their voices were damped by fabric that hung from the ceilings, a luxury the barracks didn’t have, and Fintan could only guess why.

  His guess wasn’t optimistic.

  The cells were mostly empty. Fintan spotted two cells with occupants. The prisoners were tied to a stone with hoses attached. A mist generator blew fog into the opening in the glass wall.

  “They are extracting their metals with the serum,” he said.

  “And more,” RuTing replied. “They charge the batteries.”

  In his horror, Fintan hadn’t realized the tech. The free-standing mister had a glass bowl on the bottom for water. He suspected they were using river water. A large battery energized the fan and electrodes. A separate cup on the top dripped a fluid into the bowl.

  Fintan knew the serums weren’t ordinarily colorless. They added color to avoid accidents. Blue was most common for Ogre serum and red for Flying serum. The cup dripped a neon yellow fluid into the water.

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  The prisoners were nonresponsive.

  “What are we here for?” he asked RuTing.

  “A mist generator. With it, I can create an illusion anywhere inside Bannerburg.”

  He understood her plan immediately. The doctors couldn’t keep the mists from outside, but everywhere in Bannerburg, where people spent time, they used fans and ventilation to dry the air. Since manifesting was witchcraft, anyone spotted manifesting was in trouble. Most people went from dry place to dry place.

  There would be questions if they weren’t seen with the others, but if RuTing could power an illusion, they might be undiscovered for hours.

  She opened a maintenance closet with a rack of generators labeled with plates on hooks. The rack stretched at least ten feet with three shelves. The labels had cell numbers and charge percentages.

  RuTing grabbed a suitcase-sized generator from the far end. She had more than enough strength to juggle the burden, but before they left Fintan took the plate of the generator. He switched around all the plates on the generators at random.

  “This will keep them busy for a while,” he said. “They won’t realize one is missing until they re-inventory.”

  He thought they would make a clean escape, but a commotion at the end of the hall stopped them. They retreated. RuTing closed the maintenance door softly, leaving only a crack. The hewn walls in the jail were less refined than the barracks—more cavelike. They could see by the faint light as the Ogres brought in a new prisoner.

  “My god will smite thee titan. He has lent me his thunderbolt; You will feel the power of Zeus!”

  Two ogres held the prisoner by each arm. Fintan noted they wore thick, insulated gloves. Sparks flew from the prisoner's hands, but they didn’t go anywhere. The serum made the ogres unnaturally calm, and they weren’t concerned over their capture’s threats.

  “Cell five is free. The battery is depleted.”

  “Who left it on the ground? Depleted batteries are supposed to be racked. Leslie said the cold floor kills the battery.”

  The other ogre gave a ‘what are you going to do about it’ shrug.

  “They’ve let the standards slip. They have no discipline anymore in the living world. Then they die, and we have to retrain them all over again.”

  Fintan thought their cover was blown, but instead of returning the depleted mist generator, the ogre plugged it into two wires. The ogre passed the wires through the opening while the other ogre manhandled the prisoner through the jail door. They bent him over the table and put a bucket between his legs.

  He fought and screamed, but they dumped a cup of yellow fluid down his throat.

  “He’s strong. We are going to get a few gilders out of this one.”

  The prisoner convulsed on the alter gagging, and gilders dropped into the bucket. The ogres didn’t have to hold him, but they pounded on his back repeatedly.

  “My power,” the prisoner gasped. His crying was sobs broken by dry heaving.

  “We are freeing you from the Adversary,” the ogre said. “These will be better used once they are ground into serum.”

  When they finished with the prisoner, they flipped over his limp body. A leather strap around his neck kept him from wiggling, and the other straps around his wrists and ankles were tightened with the copper cables attached to the buckles.

  The electrified mist generator purred mist into the cell while the Ogres attached the plumbing hoses.

  “If you are lucky, you will swapped in the morning,” the ogre told the prisoner. “Someone with your wealth will have the means to purchase an exchange.”

  “And if not, you will charge the batteries,” the other ogre said. “You will use your skill to free others. Someday, the entire world will be free from the Adversary.”

  The ogres left. Fintan and RuTing waited before she slowly swung open the maintenance door. She closed the door behind them. If there was a click from the latch, it was too soft for Fintan to hear.

  “I know you are there,” the prisoner said. He’d turned his head sideways on the alter. It was their bad luck that the altar was positioned in such a way for him to see them.

  RuTing’s hand pulled Fintan forward, but he couldn’t help but say a few words. One mistake, and he would be in that cell.

  “We were just leaving,” Fintan said.

  “I’ll tell them I saw you.”

  “You aren’t allowed to talk,” RuTing said. The yellow fluid was in glass jars on a shelf screwed into the wall. They were labeled by concentrations. The doctors were very specific about their metal labels. She took one from the shelf. It was dark yellow. “I’ll double your concentration.”

  “There is no need for that,” Fintan said. “We were in the maintenance closet to reorganize the equipment. Tell them whatever you like.”

  “Two of you? With the door shut? I don’t think so.”

  RuTing took the lid off the jar. She was going to put it in the mist generator. If that didn’t work, maybe she would dump it down his throat until he was as nonresponsive as the other prisoners.

  “What do you want?” Fintan asked.

  “Free me,” the prisoner said.

  “We can’t do that,” RuTing said. “There is nowhere to run. If we freed you, we would all be in there.”

  “Then free me with your word,” he said. The mister must have been full of some version of flying serum. He started to shrink, but his manacles stayed in place. They pulled at his arms until he stretched out over the alter. He sucked in a deep breath, trying to breathe in as much mist as he could.

  Since the serum was in the mist, Fintan would have thought it made it worse, but the prisoner grew in size. The concentration was so well calculated the prisoner had to breathe in deeply to avoid torture. When he grew, the energy spiked, and a small light on the battery lit.

  “We can’t leave him like this,” Fintan said.

  “If you can’t save me now,” the prisoner said, “you can take me with you when you go.”

  “How do you know we are leaving?” RuTing asked.

  “By the revulsion on your faces,” the prisoner said. “Promise me you will take me with you, and I will remain silent for as long as I need to.”

  “You might be prisoner-swapped tomorrow,” Fintan said.

  “No one is coming for me,” the prisoner said. “Like this place and Zeusopolis, my life is a lie.”