"Amazing."

Lead Devil asks, "Do you know how to use a one-time pad?"

"Yeah. I do want the contract saying everyone'll be satisfied, by the by."

Lead Devil walks up to the car and hands over a business card. "Please stop by our office before you leave town. I'll have it ready in an hour. It will also specify that we will not harass the reembodied or those who sold the reembodied people's souls."

And then the devils clear out of the street. June seems a bit pale, her expression grim and unhappy. Devils unnerve most people, really.

Sigh. "Devils. I might have hoped they'd be less...that...in the skies, but I wouldn't have been holding my breath." 

"I mean, they're kind of part of the fabric of things by now. Lots of devils are constructive-ish. Killing all the devils doesn't solve the problem either, just makes a different problem."

"I'm not planning to kill them. I would just like to transition them onto some way of life that doesn't involve taking people's souls. It should be possible, as far as I've been able to determine they don't have any kind of biological need for them, I'm pretty sure they don't eat them or anything." 

"...I don't think devils can be content without an avenue to getting souls. But that's tomorrow's problem."

They visit the utilities office. The workers there confirm that June's assumptions and math are pretty much correct. They cover another couple of streets with LIGHT, singing happy songs and accepting food from the people they pass.

The Devils' office is decorated in bright colors, and too warm to be comfortable. The contract is a three page document that is careful to rigorously define things but contains no deliberately confusing language or any particularly obvious traps or loopholes.

She signs the contract in blood with the closest thing she has to a name in the Correspondence, the same sigil that so gratuitously adorns her dress. You think you can out-diva her, devils? You cannot.  

The Lead Devil was considering also signing in Correspondence, but that's a face-losing proposition when dealing with someone of celestial descent. He signs in English and uses a wax seal. They hand over the one-time pad.

She and June can get back to the less-inhabited parts of the city and get out of there by early afternoon, though June seems kind of exhausted again by then.

"Sorry about having to interact with Devils."

"It's not the Devils. It's the - It's gotta be exhausting to be you."

"...Heh. It's certainly frustrating, sometimes. But it wouldn't be better to be not-me, the frustrating stuff would still be there, I just wouldn't be doing anything about it." 

"I do better with something I can throw my math and wrench at than... Staring down Devils that want money without flinching. Boldly charging into a hospital and glowing no matter what they say. Glaring at two groups of people with guns until they both back down."

"I don't think I was being brave or anything. None of those people could do anything to me." 

"...Guess so."

She walks quietly for a while.

"If you come looking for me later and can't find me, try the Royal Society. Or if you want to do me a favor some time, give me a lift there in a few weeks. I need to learn more about the way the world is, and the levers I can grab to move it. Proper Academe engineering sounds like a good start."

"I'll see what I can do in a couple weeks. If I'm not done with the Workworlds by then..."

"The workworlds are a really big deal. And - no matter what happens it's going to be a big change, and some people are gonna be scared and angry about it. There's gonna be knock-on effects. But it's really not okay to just leave them."

"It's really not. I can deal with the knock-on effects as they come; something like that...it can't go on. There's something remarkably liberating, I think, about being the kind of person who looks at a complicated situation like that and says, 'alright, but that has to go, that part isn't complicated at all.'"

"I'm sort of imagining - a thousand bureaucrats having a total meltdown about their carefully planned production lines all stopping at once. A hundred establishment fat cats screaming bloody murder about how much value is being lost. And against that - almost justicey feeling - whole lot of families that don't get cheap rugs and gas lamps and water heaters and gas stoves and aspirin anymore, which is - the bad's a lot more spread around but there is any?"

"I do feel at all sorry for that last bunch."

"It's not really that hard to make factory work better. Warm bodies are cheap, is all... Let's go."

The neatly stacked bundles of shiny wood have been exchanged for a smaller stack of Various Things, sturdily packed, mostly locomotive parts but also some food and other amenities.

Lucy changes shape and picks it all up and nyooms off back to the rest of June's people. 

They're all there and uninjured! Their rough camp looks a little less rough and the tree is now completely rendered into various bits of wood. They're relieved June came back fine and thank her for the Stuff and ask June about her time away and offer her a thoroughly mediocre dinner out of politeness.

She will politely eat their mediocre dinner, she's probably had worse. 

And then, after hugging June goodbye, it's time to head to the nearest Workworld. 

Port Prosper is that way. She passes the Memorial to the Unknown Rat and a few more locomotives minding their own business. The pirates are gone from the place she set their engine down, and hopefully not up to no good again.

Port Prosper is a smaller city than New Winchester, but still a city. The clang of factories and the acrid haze of smoke is far less present here. The city is crowded onto two bluffs, split down the middle by a vast canyon, nicer on the west side, almost like the river splitting old London. The Transit Relay is a bit beyond according to June, though traditionally the things it sends through are locomotives so she might want to stop here and find one.