With the bundle on the wooden board, Lemrae carefully opens it, one hand grabbing the paintbrush to drip some paint on the carapace if, indeed, it cannot be seen.

Broken and squashed, the lines of the shell disrupted, the body inside the bundle can be glimpsed in one's peripheral vision as the improvised shroud is slowly unwrapped. Multiple pairs of narrow limbs, sharp edges responsible for Lemrae's cuts, little insectile gossamer wings, delicate mouthparts crushed beyond reconstruction, antennae that bristle like iron filings on a magnet, a clutch of oily round eggs like roe, all at odd inconsistent angles to one another as though viewed through a kaleidoscope.

Even under intense expectant scrutiny, the gaze flinches away from viewing the creature directly, until Lemrae drips paint onto it and mars the lurid alien colors of it. Intense aposematic fuchsia and teal and sickly bright yellow-green are muted by the grease-paint into less aversive shades.

His audience is stunned into silence by the sight, an impossible creature unveiled before their lying eyes. 

The paint's outlines highlight the creature, making it easier to see the whole thing. Lemrae still gets a headache from looking at it -- but he's able to see it now.

"As near as I can tell, swarms of these things are responsible for our transient resistivity. I trapped one in a bucket and the swarm went totally berserk, but as soon as I killed one they stopped attacking me." He smiles slightly. "It's possible they've fled. We should see if resistance has dropped." He shifts his weight, wincing at the pain. "I must admit I'm not very familiar with zoology. Does anyone here think they'd be able to dissect this?"

"I know how to dress game," Witred says dubiously. She forces herself to stare intently at the remains, even as pain lines deepen on her face to do so.

"Why, I've done a couple of dissections in my time, though not on invertebrates. That is an exoskeleton, isn't it? Fascinating. I do have a distant cousin who is a collector of beetles in all their variety, who may have better advice on how to preserve this specimen, but she is alas distant in the geographical sense as well."

The aristocrat witters on. He reaches out to poke at the shell, cuts himself by accident, and puts the finger in his mouth once he notices the bleeding. 

"Accursedly sharp-edged, pardon my language. How about I wire my cousin, ask her for the best introduction to entomology in book form, and then we send a runner to find a copy so I have a reference to work from?"

"Turning the power back on," Serna announces. Those kinds of safety announcements are practically the only time his voice will rise above a murmur.

He checks the different lines one by one with methodical care, and returns to the room. 

"All back to normal, as though they've just been laid." The electrician mops his brow anxiously.

Lemrae nods at Lord Vero. "The details of our study here are still secret, mind. But if bringing some books in would help you classify... this... then by all means." 

"Let's keep the power running. I'm curious about how long it'll take them to come back." He pokes at the carapace curiously. It's easier to see it when his finger is touching it, almost as though touching the body reminds his brain that it's real. "Witred, do you think a pistol shot would be able to penetrate this?" He smiles slightly. "Theoretically, of course."

"Penetrate? Easily. The problem would be sighting and landing the shot."

"Hmm... I suppose firing bird-shot along the length of a wire would damage it. Still, if the creatures were congregating in one area... depending on how long it scares them off for, it might be worth replacing a small section of wire. Have we checked if, on the long lines, the resistance is localized to one section of wire, or spread evenly along the whole thing?"

Most esteemed Master-Adjutant,

This week, we have made a breakthrough in our understanding of transient resistance events. 

Lemrae pauses, pen hovering over the inkwell. He could explain it here, but would his boss believe him? The story is outlandish. Lemrae would not have believed it himself had he not the carapace sitting in a wooden box in the icehouse. No, probably safer to avoid it. At least until he can get in touch with Tamett.

We are still working to turn our theories into predictive laws. If you come to the facility, we would be glad to show you the evidence we have collected thus far.

He has never come anywhere near the farmhouse thus far, and Lemrae has no reason to believe this week will be any different.

Work continues on the electrical gates, and Lord Vero has been (Lemrae pauses again) exploring with great enthusiasm the effects of electricity on the body. I will be purchasing some dead frogs for him to pursue some ideas he has on the function of muscles. Witred has made progress on an improved wire-spooling system which causes less strain to horse and rider; we expect to have a prototype ready by the end of the month.

I request that you please wire me immediately if any transient resistance occurs reasonably close to Meridian City. There are some tests we wish to perform under real-world conditions, which our testing areas are unfortunately too small to adequately replicate.

I remain, now as always, your humble apprentice and faithful servant,
T.M. Lemrae Winla-Racine

Dearest Almei,

I am very sorry to hear about the promotion. I remember the times when you helped me diagnose problems with my equipment, and your brilliance with circuits is undeniable. The Telegram Partnership has missed out on an excellent engineer, and I can only hope they realize their mistake soon.

I've sustained some minor injuries in a research accident, but will be better soon. While in bed, I have been thinking about the use of gates in performing calculations. The fundamental problem I have faced is in describing numbers, which have ten possible digits, using wires, which can only be in two states (on or off). I have enclosed designs for one system which adds numbers using telegraph-code and a clock, and another system which uses ten wires per digit and a mess of logic gates I myself can scarcely comprehend. Both work just fine, but I'm convinced there's a simpler, more elegant solution, if only I can find it.

We have been taking it in turns to make dinner. (Except Lord Vero, who can't cook.) The recipes from Cttaria in particular are very unusual to my taste, but enjoyable. I've been learning...

...very grateful for the book recommendation, and will buy it next week when I am paid. I hope this week will be better for you than the last.

Sincerely yours,
Lemrae

Lemrae sits at the workbench, a cushion on the chair for the benefit of his tender rear. In front of him is a spring-loaded box with a wire coiled around inside it. All he needs, now, is to make a sudden increase in the wire's resistance cause the lid to slam shut. Pliers in hand, he continues working on the prototype trap.

The sound of a pen scratching away approaches behind him.

"What are you working on, sir?" The young man asks, curious. "...I'm sorry about my absence."

Lemrae silently pushes in a catch and then gingerly places the contraption to the side. "It's related to some things we discovered over the last few days. Come with me, I'll explain." He pushes himself to his feet with only a slight wince, and begins walking to the icehouse.

"Where were you? You know if you had told me you were going, I wouldn't have stopped you." Lemrae's tone is gentle, more questioning than rebuking.

"I had to talk to my teacher about something - urgently. It ended up being a longer talk than I planned, and..." He grimaces, talking in fits and starts, parts of the sentences sounding rehearsed. "Whether I should wire you or not about it was part of what we talked about. Sorry."

"And it's maybe not unrelated to the recent work... Can you show me what you've found?"

He holds his notepad up, trying to shrink back into the overlooked posture of his lab assistant role. 

Lemrae looks at Tamett, eyes fixed on his notebook. He stops walking, leaning against the exterior wall of the farmhouse.

"I assume that whatever you find, your teacher is getting an immediate report." He doesn't break eye contact, daring Tamett to deny it. "What's going to happen with the information then?"

"Not my teacher, I - maybe - it would be to a sworn chronicler!" He squirms under Lemrae's stare.

Usually, that fact would be enough. Fully inducted chroniclers are seen as having a sacred duty to record the truth, no matter how embarrassing or inconvenient it may be, but also to respect the wishes of the living about which records are to remain sealed. Secrets have been kept for centuries, honoring requests for discretion renewed by each generation of a family. Multiple noble lines have turned out to be founded illegitimately, revealed only to an archive reader after they have died out or fallen from that station and no longer felt the need to hide that past.

However, Tamett's voice is wavering.

"He might want to... make suggestions about how to handle what you think you've found, depending on what it is," the young man hedges. "If it is what I think it might be, it could be easier if I introduce you to him, to speak directly."

Lemrae weighs this, his increasingly intense gaze not wavering. Oh, the chroniclers wouldn't tell anyone else... but they themselves would know, and could act.

And if they do have some secret knowledge related to the creatures, and pay close attention to those who seem close to discovering it... well, they're bound to find Lemrae's research sooner or later. Maybe it's better to meet them on his own terms.

"That sounds reasonable" Lemrae says judiciously. "After we finish here, you can take me to him right away."

He nods, eyes wide with gratitude, and falls in step behind Lemrae for the explanation.

"A little while after you left, I did some more experimentation with the tar-covered wire. The magnetic storm was making less and less sense. It looked more like something was attacking the wires. Something I couldn't see." Lemrae leads Tamett into the icehouse, pushes a burlap covering off a box, and opens it. "They're alive. I killed one, and the rest scattered. This one has grease-paint on it, so you can see it. Although I think it's less about being able to physically see it, and more about being able to look at it and recognize what you're seeing."

The shock on Tamett's face is plain to see, though he continues scrivening with ideomotoric uninterruption.

"I was afraid of this."

Despite its recent incorporation as a city, Meridian has multiple centers of chronicling. There are the municipal archives, managing all the official public records, and the new schools that have sprung up to meet the demand for literacy and ideomotorism in bureaucrats and secretaries and office-workers, and of course the local chroniclers every few city-blocks who diligently record the births and deaths and other events of everyday life for their parishes just as chroniclers have done for villages through all of recorded history. 

Tamett takes Lemrae over the bridge and up into the hills, to the older archives. Before Meridian was a city, the village chroniclers would move copies of their records to be stored on high ground, less vulnerable to loss by flood or fire. The buildings here are in the old style, polygonal brick walls and domed roofs, built and maintained with care but visibly historic. The lay assistant at the gate recognizes him, and they are escorted through to the archives carved into the caves.

There, they are received by an old chronicler, draped in multiple layers of light cloth befitting his seniority. Like the buildings, he is visibly aged but not obviously impeded by it, moving smoothly to welcome them in, his face as animated as his quill. 

"Thank you, Tamett. You must be the telegraph-master. You have my word that anything you share with me will be kept as confidential as you wish, though I must request that you treat certain private practices of the chroniclers with the same discretion."

He takes a fresh scroll, already with a multicolored ribbon threaded through one corner as some kind of archival label for its secrecy.

Lemrae is wearing his formal red dress, but has added a thin silver-grey stole. The decorative fabric cost him half as much as the rest of the outfit, but he understands the importance of it. His parents were the first in his family not to be farmers, and Lemrae has not a shred of nobility or even a proper patron to his name. Walking in the city with a ruffled red dress and a stole is a victory; it is also good sense when dealing with those steeped in performances of prestige.

He nods to the old chronicler. "Of course. Nothing leaves this room without your agreement."