Hellsborough Exposed — secrets

Pip once wrote down this exchange between boggy Lomas, working as a pest controller long before the Chronicles find him, and his jason, hunting for "pests" beyond Hellsborough's city limits.

"But boss, surely a long range attack is not altogether consistent with your trade as a pest controller?"

"We observe, from a distance. We know that they're all loopy out here, and there's a hell of a lot of synths roaming about, so fifty percent of the time we're right."

"And the other fifty percent?"

"Are one hundred percent bio - and none will be missed! My returns will still say SYNTH in big letters!"

Omission is not self-preservation. Omission is sabotage.

A murk wraith stood half in, half out of the cave mouth at murkneet, the cold of it filling the dark, and asked me one thing. "Do you know how long this cave has been occupied?" I did not answer. I had an answer, which is not the same thing.

A sportster overhead for a thousand paces is either looking for someone else entirely, or it is not. When one followed me along the Dun for longer than felt comfortable, I dropped into the canopy and found a bunker I had never noticed before - completely invisible from the rear, recently visited, and littered with rockcrust paraphernalia. Which of those two discoveries should concern me more is a question I have not yet resolved.

Every lamp post, litter bin and DPDC bunker on Middlewood Road has had the same sticker applied: 'Deter.' My best theory involves a guy of middle age who looks uncannily like Michael Stipe and introduced himself to our pub table several years ago by repeating 'My name is Dieter' until we acknowledged the fact. Whether this constitutes a resistance act or a very specific coping strategy is not yet resolved to my satisfaction.