“This isn’t you being funny again, Rat?” Big Picture asked.

“I’m being good, thank you very mush.”

Crystalclear looked. There was something suspended in the middle of the blur that was the woman. He held up his walkie-talkie. “Seconding Ratcatcher on this one. She’s got something stowed.”

I see her, Relay communicated. Noise surrounding her is similar to a few others we spotted earlier.

“I remember,” Crystalclear said, through the walkie talkie. He’d noticed but he hadn’t been sure how common it was or how much of a thread ran through it all until he’d had it point out. That weakness of his again. “There have been one or two of these small-time smugglers on every train, all day.”

Big Picture said, “It might be worth checking what’s going on in Bet. Could be a gang, strong-arming people into going through, or offering a head start in Gimel if they’ll smuggle something through.”

“It might not go that well,” Crystalclear said. “Too easy to get sucked in right from the start, not being allowed to leave once you’ve made that delivery.”

“The ugly kid with the runny nothe hath clutter in hith bag. Thyringeth.”

“…heckin…” the radio crackled.

Big Picture picked up his walkie talkie, “The woman with him isn’t his mother, either. Better to have them get picked out of line and taken away for an interview.”

The radio crackled with the affirmative.

Slowly, the train and the platform emptied. They kept an eye out for the drugs, for the violence, for the people who were especially angry or scared.

One of the train cars remained filled. Crystalclear looked through, and saw the people within sitting, calm, not reaching for their things.

“What’s the status of car five?” he asked. “There are a few guns in there.”

Ratcatcher pulled the keyboard closer to her, she typed and then responded, “Thpecial cathe. VIP.”

“They’ve got a Case Fifty-Three in there.”

“Weld, according to the computer. Ethcorting.”

“Weld,” Crystalclear said. He was familiar with the name. “Good to know.”

Crowd is thinning out, Relay communicated. I’ll go say hi.

Crystalclear watched as people sorted out. The platform emptied, and the officers on the scene did what they could to get others moving along, helping with bags and pointing people in the right direction.

“You’re bleeding,” Ratcatcher observed.

“Me?” Crystalclear asked.

“At the corner of your eye,” she said.

He checked, touching the spot in question and finding the bead of blood with his sense of touch. Sure enough, she was right. “It’s a thing that happens. Doesn’t mean anything. Excuse me.”

“Eckthuthed,” she said.