While the three scholars held their listening circles, Imran Bell and Will Carver were running through the rain-lashed alleys of Lowbank. They laid down the physical courier paths that connected the three outposts. In his yellow jacket, with his rolls of barrier tape slung across his chest, Imran moved with the rapid, skilled smooth speed of a paramedic establishing a triage hall.
“Mark this corner, Will!” Imran shouted, tying a bright yellow ribbon around an iron lamppost at the junction of Fish Street and Bridge Street. “The air along this wall is clean—zero sulfur, zero carbon monoxide. If the runners have to move between Kel’s loft and the museum, they follow the yellow line!”
Every fifty paces, Imran drove an iron land-mapper’s pin into the street cobbles, marking the safe walking path with white lime powder. He checked every cellar grating, every sewer vent. Every foundation wall with his brass Davy safety lamp and lead-acetate paper, ensuring that no pocket of invisible poison could trap an apprentice carrying a message. When he returned to the museum gallery, his clipboard was filled with checked route timings. “The ground network is mapped, Pella,” Imran reported, wiping his wet face. “A runner can reach any of the three listening posts in ninety seconds without crossing a single hazard zone.”
