CammyCrossover origin story

Act I — The chase changes owners

She abandoned the obvious route and crossed to the neighboring building. The second runner carried no tube, wore an ordinary delivery coat and stopped twice to speak with people who recognized him. He was less impressive to watch, which immediately made him more interesting.

The district’s goblin market had arranged a distraction. One courier ran a route designed to attract pursuit while another moved the real package through a chain of familiar hands. The metal tube might contain something useful. It might also contain a note laughing at whoever opened it.

Cammy watched the second runner enter a laundry yard. He emerged without his bag. Moments later, a cart left through the rear gate carrying bundled cloth.

Following the cart offered little room for speed. The street was crowded, the vehicle slow and the driver inclined to stop for conversations that seemed to begin in the middle of old arguments. Cammy moved with the crowd, keeping the cart in sight while the original courier continued performing elsewhere for an audience he no longer had.

At the canal bridge, the driver handed one bundle to a woman waiting beside a repair stall. The woman placed it beneath a bench and returned to work. The package had reached its next position without anyone appearing to deliver a package at all.

Act II — The advantage of being ordinary

Cammy approached the stall as a customer. The woman examined the damaged fastening on her glove and named a reasonable price. That was unexpected enough to make Cammy suspicious for a moment, which she privately considered an unhelpful professional development.

While the repair was underway, a goblin collector arrived to retrieve the bundle. Cammy asked the stallholder whether it belonged to him. The woman said she had been paid to keep it dry, not to ask questions. Her tone suggested that both services would have been available at different rates.

The collector noticed Cammy’s attention. He reached for the bundle. She moved between him and the bench before the conversation could become a scramble through the crowd.

He claimed the parcel contained personal clothing. Cammy asked him to describe it. He named garments that would not fit inside the bundle. He tried again, this time with smaller ambitions.

Inside the cloth lay a compact archive unit and a list of transfer points. The unit contained records taken from several people who had paid the market for secure storage. The courier network was moving the stolen archive out of the district in pieces, making each individual handoff look too ordinary to matter.

The repair woman put down her needle. She recognized one of the names on the list. Her interest in questions increased sharply.

Act III — The runner returns to an empty finish

The collector’s escape options narrowed as the stallholders learned what he had been carrying. Nobody needed a dramatic chase through the market. They knew the alleys, the doors and which bridges led anywhere useful. Cammy secured the archive while its intended recipients discovered that ordinary people could become an inconveniently coordinated audience.

The first courier finally returned, breathless and pleased with his performance. He found Cammy sitting beside the repair stall, wearing a glove whose fastening now worked properly.

He looked at the archive, the collector and the gathering crowd. Then he looked at the metal tube he had carried across half the district.

Cammy asked whether he had enjoyed the exercise. He declined to discuss it.

The tube contained blank paper rolled around a stone. It was an excellent prop, carefully weighted and entirely without substance. The courier had spent the evening risking his neck to protect something chosen chiefly for its ability to look worth protecting.

Cammy paid the repair woman and made arrangements for the records to reach their owners. She left by the street. There was no need to climb another roof merely because the operation had begun that way.

Behind her, the courier tried to explain why his part of the plan had worked. The collector, who had lost the archive, seemed reluctant to celebrate the distinction.