Chapter Nine
Annette stares at the title, reading it over and over again to ensure that each character is properly aligned and positioned. She's checked it at least ten times, but it still feels like something is wrong somehow. Maybe it's all in her head. The stampface reads:
Economist Predicts 25-hour Week For Working Men
The rest of the article goes on to discuss a favorite economist of the Mallets, Frederick Lavoy, who wrote constantly on the importance of restructuring the labor market. He believed that automation could be a force for good for workers; that by turning jobs over to machines, laborers could massively increase production, and thus, reduce their working hours. The true issue, according to Lavoy, was industrial greed and production. The constant push for greater and greater levels of output was the primary factor for maintaining the current state of labor conditions.
"Inspiring, isn't it?" Guy exhales next to her, leaning over the typeface with a roll of papers in his arms.
"Breathtaking," she mutters back. She's sure it must be interesting, but between managing Cordelia's affairs and volunteering to help the Mallets, she's exhausted. Cordelia, to recoup her betting losses from her boxing match, has been taking on extra cases lately and this unfortunately meant that Annnette was the only one between the two of them dedicating her time to investigating the Mallets. They'd finally taken her up on her offer to help out, which hopefully meant they trusted her, and placed her in their tiny print shop where they published their weekly pamphlet:
Hammer and Spike
.
"Twenty-five hours a week," Guy whistles contentedly, folding the papers into position to be printed upon. "I could live with that."
"Perhaps you could even take up cooking, to alleviate your wife's burdens, too," Annette pokes. "Seeing as you would have so much more time."
"Me? I'm a wretched cook," he dismisses.
You'd have time to learn,
she rolls her eyes.
"Besides, it isn't a reality yet. I'm still running full shifts down at Bensen's Mill most of my time," he shrugs. "Between that and this place, I've got no time for cookin'. Only eatin'." He pats his belly happily.
"Does that print look properly set?" Annette asks. "Something feels off but I can't place it."
"Looks fine to me," he nods. "You doing okay, Red?"
"Just tired," she answers.
"We're almost done, I could finish it for you."
"That's kind of you," she says graciously, though she waves away his offer.
Guy is nice enough, as Annette has learned over the past few weeks of working alongside him in the Mallet's print shop. It's hardly more than a spare storeroom out of the side of a bookshop, but it was enough. The worst part of it was that despite all of this time, she had learned painfully few relevant details to the case. The Mallets were surprisingly effective at keeping it together.
Other than trying to learn more about their elusive leader, Failinis, Annette has been scrambling to uncover details about the ten straw dummies. If she was right that one of them represented Bembrook, one was for the Pemberley manager, and six were for the factory fire, it still left two kills outstanding. She'd thought she heard a potential reference to a ninth death last week but the lead fizzled out. It was impossible to tell if there were actually ten kills and that the dummies were related... though it could also be that there were two more targets they'd yet to hit.
The Mallets were bustling with energy out in Bellchester. The raid on the Docksims Square rally had bolstered their case with the working class in the city; if the police felt that the Mallets were a big enough threat that they needed to stampede their first meeting, then they must be doing something right. Failinis was especially effective at capitalizing on the death of a young woman at the rally, Margaret Bleecher, shot by a cop whose name had soon after become infamous in the city. Officer Frederick Montague could hardly show his face in public anymore, and despite the fact that the police chief refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing, no one had seen Frederick patrolling the streets in the last few weeks.
Guy returns to check back on her printing a little while later, dropping a modest crate onto the floor in the corner as he arrives.
"That looks heavy," she smirks, watching him stretch out his back.
"Care to take a lift?"
"Oh, no, I couldn't dare deprive you the honor of possibly injuring yourself under its burden," she smirks.
"Real funny, Red," he shakes his head, grinning.
"What's inside?"
"No clue," he shrugs. "Failinis says lift boxes, I lift boxes."
"You're not even a little curious?"
"Nope."
Annette snorts. "Suit yourself, then."
Guy steps out into the doorway, which leads out into the back alley, and lights a cigarette. He takes a long drag, savoring the warm and soothing feeling, and releases a slow puff of smoke.
"Still don't want a light?" He gestures it to her.
"I still don't smoke," she shakes her head. "And I'm sure your wife would kill me for encouraging your habit."
He smiles and takes another drag. "How's things at home for you? Owner still an absolute ass?"
"Impossible not to be with the amount of whiskey he drinks," Annette smirks internally, thinking about Cordelia's habits. Friendship with the detective wasn't particularly different from the way things were before, Cordelia just simply allowed her walls to drop down a little more often. She was a little less obscured and mysterious, and would occasionally allow Annette to receive more context for her ideas; just enough that Annette could semi-reliably follow her train of thought.
"Drinking really brings out the beast in a man, doesn't it?" Guy tilts his head in thought. He puffs out another breath of smoke.
"I have another question, Guy," Annette tells him.
Guy gazes over and nods, shifting his weight against the doorframe and turning to face her with a little more focus in his expression. "Ask away." He settles into the comforts of routine, happily engaging with Annette's inquisitions over the course of their time working together.
"Would having a seat in Parliament really do that much for us?"
"'Course it would, Red," he nods reassuringly. "It gets us in the halls of the people who make all the decisions. It lets us put a hand on the levers of power."
"We'd be sharing it with more than a hundred others."
"You've seen Failinis speak," Guy rebuts. "If anyone can convince them, he can."
Annette buries her urge to scoff at the assumption. The nobles would never be convinced of anything that didn't exclusively benefit them. She sizes Guy up and down, once more trying to decide how far she could push her line of questioning. After a few weeks, he did seem to trust her. Guy probably thought she was a little weak-willed or skittish, and she'd played into those assumptions to lower his guard, but he didn't seem to think she could be any sort of threat.
"Wouldn't it be easier to..." She drops her head deferentially, as though her next words might be too much for her to handle. "...
ahem
. I lost a dear friend because of the rail baron, Mister Bembrook," she explains. "But now that Mister Bembrook is dead..."
Guy furrows his brows only to soften them a moment later as he understands her meaning. "You're wondering if we should go after the barons directly."
"Yes," she squeaks out.
Guy pauses, and for a moment he has the air of a man who knows more than he is allowed to reveal, and is deciding how much restraint he truly needs to employ in his speech. After a breath, his face turns gentle. "Take heart, Red. You're doing great work already for the movement. No need to sour your heart with those sorts of thoughts."
Annette carefully notes his reaction and decides to push forward. "But they deserve it, don't you think?"
"Aye," he shrugs. "But that doesn't mean-,"
