Chương 32: The Audit of the Pipes

Director Justinian stood behind his polished mahogany desk, his tailored robes perfectly smooth. The bureaucrat allowed himself a small, exceptionally smug smile.

"You have identified the physical destination of those recalled originals, Keeper," Justinian said, his voice entirely reasonable.

"Congratulations. Unfortunately, my Office's obligation ends there. As I explained to you, under Royal Records Preservation Decree 12, no original document may leave its registered custody without an authenticated royal transfer. King Aurelius is currently incapable of providing that authentication. Therefore, the documents remain where they are." Bart could not dispute that. Procedure was procedure. He tapped the wooden surface of his desk. The Archive confirmed Justinian's legal assessment.

ORIGINAL RECORD RECOVERY Physical transfer authority: UNAVAILABLE Sovereign authentication: SUSPENDED External Keeper jurisdiction: INSUFFICIENT Gregor leaned his elbows on the Intake Tray.

"So, let me understand this. We know exactly where all the truthful evidence is hidden."

"Yes," Bart said.

"And we legally cannot go get it."

"Correct."

"Excellent system," the thief concluded. Bart just gave him a resigned look. Gregor shrugged and turned away from the desks. While Bart and Thaddeus quietly debated custody law with Justinian, Gregor found himself distracted by a heavy mechanical noise coming from the far wall. THUNK!!. A few seconds later: FWOOOOOSH!!. Gregor walked past a velvet rope and stopped in front of a massive, polished brass manifold built into the white marble wall.

It looked like an enormous, complex musical instrument, consisting of dozens of thick brass pipes branching outward from a central collection chamber. Every few seconds, a heavy leather and brass capsule shot out of one of the pipes with a thwack and dropped neatly into a padded wire basket. As a professional thief, Gregor instantly recognised the mechanism.

Many guilds often used primitive versions of it for smuggling small messages, gemstones, or emergency supplies (like lockpicks in case of thief's guild) across city blocks. Gregor walked up to the manifold and tapped it lightly with his knuckles. Justinian's head snapped up.

"Do not touch the Aramholm Sovereign Documentary Dispatch Matrix!" Gregor looked at the brass cylinder.

"It's a pipe."

"It is a highly regulated thaumaturgical document transit conduit," Justinian corrected sharply. Gregor tapped it again.

"Pipe." Bart stepped away from his desk.

"Lord Director. Does this matrix connect to the other ministries?"

"It connects the Office of Royal Authenticity to every critical sovereign institution in Aramholm," Justinian said proudly.

"The palace. The administrative ministries. The Royal Private Archive. Original files and certification copies are transported through it daily." Something clicked in Bart's brain. He didn't need the pipes to magically vacuum all the protected original documents out of the Royal Private Archive. That would violate Decree 12 though a bureaucratic transport network of this size would never fire documents blindly through a tube.

Checking the system he found every dispatch automatically generated a central transit record at the Office of Royal Authenticity: a dispatch authorisation, a chain of custody receipt, and a destination acknowledgement. The original documents might belong to other ministries. The transit records however did not which meant Bart already had jurisdiction over them.

"I don't need the original documents," Bart said quietly. Justinian started to relax and said "Good."

"I just need the transit records showing exactly when they were dispatched, and who signed for them."

"That is the loophole," Gregor announced to the room, pointing his pencil at Bart. A smaller wooden stamp materialised in Bart's hand. Its brass plate read: DOCUMENTARY HANDLING APPARATUS - INSPECTION REGISTERED. He stepped up to the brass manifold and pressed the stamp firmly against its local registration plate. THWACK!!. A pulse of blue light travelled over the brass surface, highlighting only the terminal physically located inside the Office.

DOCUMENTARY HANDLING APPARATUS Chain of custody inspection: AUTHORISED Justinian looked horrified.

"You have attached an interdimensional audit notice to a priceless sovereign dispatch matrix!" Gregor did not look up from his clipboard.

"Pipe." Suddenly, the deep, mechanical thrum of the manifold changed. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. A capsule was scheduled to arrive from the Ministry of Agriculture. Normally, documents shot through the matrix at terrifying, highly efficientl speeds. Now, a blue System notice hovered over the brass collection basket. ARCHIVAL TRANSIT SAFETY STANDARD APPLIED High velocity document transport detected.

Fragile-record handling protocol: ENABLED Maximum capsule acceleration: REDUCED Schlunk... Several agonising seconds passed. Schlunk... Finally, a leather capsule emerged from the brass pipe and dropped into the basket at a snail's pace. Gregor watched it slowly tumble out.

"You made the pipes old."

"I made them safe," Bart corrected. Another capsule slowly, painfully emerged with a wheezing schlunk.

"They're definitely old," Gregor said. Bart ignored him. He turned his attention to the central intake valve.

"I require all chain of custody receipts associated with Royal Narrative Instructions during the reign of Aurelius IV." Somewhere beneath the rotunda, the dispatch system's central records store unlocked. The brass pipes began to heave. SCHLUNK. SCHLUNK. SCHLUNK. Thousands of archival duplicate slips, routing manifests, and custody receipts began emerging in relentless succession, piling into the padded wire baskets and spilling onto the pristine marble floor.

Justinian took a step back, his composure finally breaking.

"There are twenty years of records in there!"

"Yes," Bart said mildly. SCHLUNK. SCHLUNK. Gregor sighed, pushed his goggles up, and began building neat stacks on the floor. Thaddeus quietly knelt beside him and started sorting by date. Eventually, the avalanche grew so large that Justinian's magnificent mahogany desk disappeared entirely behind a knee high wall of official paperwork. Bart and Thaddeus began reading routing codes, but the volume was overwhelming. Gregor sat cross legged on the floor, surrounded by paper. He ignored the writing entirely.

Instead, he was looking at a pile of empty leather transit capsules that had carried the slips. He picked one up, turning it over in his hands. It was well maintained, lightly greased, and showed minimal wear on the brass clasps. He picked up another. It looked completely different. The second capsule was heavily abraded on one side. The locking clasps were worn smooth from repeated, frantic use. The brass was deeply scratched around one particular routing notch on the dial.

"These were used more," Gregor noted, holding up the scratched capsule. Justinian looked down his nose at the thief.

"Visual degradation of transit equipment is not an approved archival methodology."

"Neither is stealing," Gregor replied easily. He examined a third scratched capsule, then a fourth. Every single heavily used capsule shared the exact same routing mark scratched into the brass dial. RP-1. Thaddeus, sorting paper nearby, went completely pale.

"Royal Private." Gregor grinned.

"See? Reading." Bart looked over his glasses.

"That was two letters and a number."

"Still counts." Bart gathered the massive stacks of sorted custody slips and fed them into his Intake Tray. The Archive processed the physical paper, compiling twenty years of systematic documentary diversion into one brutal summary.

CHAIN-OF-CUSTODY AUDIT COMPLETE Source originals recalled following Royal Narrative Instruction: 11, 406 Transfer authority presented: ROYAL SEAL Intended destination: REGISTERED SOURCE OFFICE Actual destination: ROYAL PRIVATE ARCHIVE Receiving custody acknowledgement: NONE Bart stared at the final line.

"They weren't recalled for storage," Bart said. Thaddeus understood the implication instantly. His voice was barely a whisper.

"They were removed so nobody could compare them." It was the darkest revelation of the audit so far. Aurelius had not merely certified false replacements. His government had systematically extracted and hidden the original records most capable of directly challenging those lies, leaving the ministries without their original records. Bart pulled the routing history for the 17th of Harvestfall…. the day of the Beatrice incident. The slip confirmed the pattern perfectly.

South Courtyard Incident Report Source: Palace Guard Office Sent for certification: Office of Royal Authenticity Replacement record certified: Battle of Aramholm Courtyard Original disposition: RETURN TO SOURCE Actual destination: ROYAL PRIVATE ARCHIVE Storage index: B-67 Transfer instruction: Personal Memorandum — 17 Harvestfall And there it was. The overdue journal was still the key to completing the final provenance check. But now, Bart also knew exactly where the original goose evidence physically sat.

He checked another case. The moon discovery, The rain invention, Same pattern. Thousands of times. The System flashed a bright, solid blue. SYSTEMIC CUSTODY IRREGULARITY ESTABLISHED Original sovereign evidence diverted after certification. Source office return obligations unresolved. Royal Private Archive Status: Unregistered secondary custody concentration Audit relevance: CRITICAL On-site custodial inspection eligibility: ESTABLISHED Bart still could not magically pull the original documents through the pipes.

But he had now produced enough evidence to legally justify going to the Royal Private Archive and auditing it on site. Gregor noticed a thick brass line leaving the far side of the manifold. Unlike the others, it had no polished destination plaque above it. The pipe simply disappeared straight into the marble wall and ran sharply downhill, deep beneath the streets of Aramholm. Gregor tapped it with his pencil.

"Royal Private." Justinian said nothing, his face carefully blank. Bart examined the dispatch diagram on his desk. The line went directly beneath the royal palace. APPROVED INSPECTION SITE IDENTIFIED Royal Private Archive Route verification: CONFIRMED Physical entrance: NOT LISTED Gregor's expression changed, the boredom of sorting paperwork vanished entirely. A problem involving a location with an entrance that wasn't listed.

"Now," Gregor said, pushing his white goggles firmly over his eyes, "this is an audit I understand." Bart looked at the thick brass pipe disappearing into the marble wall.

"We require the authorised entrance." Gregor sighed loudly.

"You make everything less fun." Bart looked at the pipe again.

"Find me the entrance." Gregor grinned.