Chapter 38 - The Impossible Detour
The official highways became traps.
Accidents.
Police checkpoints.
Cultivator patrols disguised as road crews.
So Mason followed Thread Sight through smaller roads.
A farm lane.
A closed bridge that opened because a maintenance worker returned for his lunch.
A county fair where they hid among livestock trailers.
At one point, the Ledger instructed Mason to enter a pie-eating contest.
"Why?"
[KEY PARTICIPANT POSSESSES ACCESS TOKEN.]
Mason lost the contest badly but befriended the winner, an elderly trucker who turned out to be a retired Clearinghouse courier.
The man gave Mason an old access badge after hearing Lou's name.
"That crazy bastard still dead?"
"Very."
"Sounds like him."
The badge opened old service tunnels beneath the Chicago node.
The detour took nine extra hours.
But the travel freeze failed.
[GLOBAL RESTRICTION EVADED.]
[FORTUNE +22.]
[GOLDEN WHEEL STABILITY +15%.]
They entered Chicago after midnight.
The white card's address led to a modest accounting firm in a high-rise office tower.
No guards.
No cultivators.
Only Mr. Pell sitting alone beneath fluorescent lights.
He pushed a stack of tax returns toward Mason.
"Welcome," Pell said.
Mason stared.
"I drove twenty-four hours for taxes?"
Pell nodded.
"The revolution starts with an audit."
---
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