60 lines
4.1 KiB
Plaintext
60 lines
4.1 KiB
Plaintext
Kim and I arrived ten minutes after the alarm was tripped, because Actuarial had determined that a focus on response times would lower losses in the long run.
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The client, a thin dwarf with a black beard, clipped short like they did in the Border, stood outside waiting, siren blaring and warning lights flashing.
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Kim took the lead on the small talk, while I stepped back and looked at the building.
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The warehouse looked ordinary enough, with a small office adjacent.
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Black panels circled the warehouse, hiding proprietary warding underneath.
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The client, Dara, lived in an attached housing block and arrived shortly after the alarm went off, and no, he didn't know what had tripped it.
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Dara was quite keen to please turn off the siren, and ushered everyone into the small office attached to the warehouse.
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The wards were connected to a small electric receiver, which had a flashing light indicating that motion had triggered the alarm.
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The forced-entry, anti-teleport and ward-breaking lights all sat dim, interestingly enough.
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Another light underneath, labelled "Priority Emergency", remained unlit too, so the wards weren't picking up anything too time-sensitive.
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Which made dispatching Kim and I so quickly seem an odd choice.
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Not that I was going to complain about being able to bill off-hours time.
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―We're not contractually allowed to fully disarm the alarm until MBoCM get here, Kim said.
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You export Deepwood, right?
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Dara nodded.
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―We can silence the sirens though.
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Kim held their company ID near the receiver and held down the silencer button.
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The sirens stopped, and as a bonus the alarm lights stopped flashing, and the subtle tension of standing near a loud sound lifted off our collective shoulders.
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―While we're waiting, Kim said, we can take care of some paperwork.
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―Will it be a while? Dara asked.
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This was an optimistic question, and Kim nodded with an empathy I shared.
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Mountberg's Board of Control for Magic barely responded to emergencies quickly, and a low priority alarm like this one would garner even less interest.
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But as much as Dara might like to see what was happening inside of his warehouse, it would not be worth violating an MBoCM regulation.
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Security wards set off at any exporters of what MBoCM considered Sensitive Magical Material required a Board response.
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And the ward owners, would be billed.
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Handy way to make a profit.
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That bill would be paid by the owner's insurance, unless of course an investigator (me) could show that it was their fault.
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Which is why an investigator like me had to show up far too early in the morning for loud alarms.
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Kim asked Dara to find the original certificates of installation of the security wards, along with the registration details of the Scribes who'd actually written the runes.
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I knew that Kim had that information in their folder, but if Dara couldn't produce information like that, Kim could record it in the report.
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And then Underwriting could make sure to increase Dara's malpractice premium.
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Not by a lot, but enough that Kim's reputation would go up and some executive's bonus would increase.
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―I'll step outside and do an inspection of the doors, I said.
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The panels of warding extended over the large service door of the warehouse, and I could see another electronic relay controlling a large bolt holding the door closed.
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Wards like this could trigger in a few different ways, but the most common was unexpected motion in the interior when the alarm was armed.
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In order to have motion inside, either someone from outside had to enter, or whoever was inside had to have been there since last night when the doors were locked.
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Except the type of wards made that unlikely.
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Forced-entry and anti-teleport measures were standard for wards, and the wards detected neither, which covered the obvious methods of entry.
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But the system had had a ward-breaking light, too.
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It took sophisticated systems to detect ward-breaking, and sophisticated systems were smart enough to detect unexpected occupants during arming.
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So how had someone gotten in to trip the alarm?
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The outside of the warehouse looked entirely uninteresting.
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Untouched ward panels, no damage to the service door.
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I started to walk back to the office, but
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