Sartorially convenient. Are people going to continue panicking in a non-interventionist sort of way until she's done transporting filing cabinets?

A knot of intention forms, not by the Governor who is waffling and muttering, but by a senior overseer who seems like an agent - plenty of people answer to him unquestioningly, where they might argue with the governor, he moves with confidence and intent.

They've acquired soldiers and a crate of mismatched munitions from somewhere and start setting them up on one of the sigils the far side of the archive building where she might not notice them right away.

She doesn't notice them right away but she does notice them when they go off! She shoos the soldiers swarming through the gap with more Correspondence and redraws the sigil. 

They're too terrified to try something like that again.

Excellent. 

Once all the files are moved, she approaches the Governor and the agent. 

"You can't prove that anyone works here, so you'd better let them all go right now," she says cheerfully. 

Flustered, panicking, unable to do anything in the face of what the hell is she- The governor stammers about logistics and how there's no transit onward to be had.

Deeply annoyed, frightened, calculating, unwilling to risk his neck- The agent sulks and thinks and lets the governor stutter and bluster.

"Okay. How long will it take to get transit onward?"

Well, who's going to pay for it?? The usual transit is the just trains from London. They bring raw material and leave with processed goods and occasionally a worker or two. London is going to stop sending those and send a batch of Dreadnaughts instead because something disastrous and chaotic has happened!

"Hmm. I could commandeer the Dreadnaughts to get people out...that might make things more difficult for them after, though..."

"What! I don't- I- Maybe you could scare them off or worse, but the crews will be disgraced and the engines will probably be shot down and that just means you'll make an enemy of the Establishment! More than you have already!"

"The Establishment does, uh, this," she gestures around, "enmity was inevitable." 

"They don't starve. People starve and freeze to death for lack of shelter, you know. They have food and shelter and paying work, it's better than what they would otherwise face."

He seems to actually believe this.

She pats him on the shoulder patronizingly. "Try paying more attention to facts of reality that don't happen to support what it's convenient for you to believe. Anyway, are there any locomotives here at the moment that could be repurposed? I'd really rather have this resolved before it comes to any more violence than strictly necessary." 

He flinches. "They're not- The cargo heavies leave as soon as they're unloaded, but maybe. The rest, they're privately owned. I imagine they're all leaving as soon as possible. Where will everyone go? They will freeze or starve if you block deliveries and don't, ah, have onward transit..."

"I will work something out. Where do people usually go when you let one wiggle through your grasping, cheating fingers?"

"I- That is to say-"

"Governor, please, let me try something."

"Why yes! By all means, Solomon!"

"May I speak to you out of earshot?" The agent asks Lucy, voice calm, expression resigned.

"Sure, why not. If this is an assassination attempt I should warn you it won't work." She lets the agent lead her off. 

He goes closer to the archive building than the people surrounding it. It's the only clear spot, really.

"I am acting very intense and will use body language as if I am arguing with you to keep up my cover." He says, quiet but intense, leaning forward, gesturing sharply. "It would be easier if you will do the same. Have you heard of the New Street Line?"

She puts her hands on her hips and gives an unimpressed look. "No, I haven't." 

"The New Street Line are a group of anti-establishment subversives undermining the Establishment by smuggling the oppressed and criminalized away from London's reach. They have a very hard time of it." Folded hands, grimace. "I have no proof of what I am implying, which is that I am with that group, because I am very good at my second job, at keeping this workworld unaware of how many people leave it early. Or at all. There are hidden spaces and shift changeovers one may sometimes slip through. Sufficiently gruesome industrial accidents do not leave enough behind to put in a coffin. But time itself is against people here, and we can do very little."

She sneers and gestures dismissively. "I'm sorry I didn't know about you to coordinate, then, but I have the power to not be content with skimming off the top. I can get everyone out of here." 

Panicked and defensive look. "It's not reasonable to expect you to have known! And I don't actually doubt that. But can you do it without making things worse- I of all people know how difficult it is to find someplace to go. If ten thousand workworlders vanish into the lower districts of London and scatter across Albion, I think they'll pick many of them back up. I think they'll be grievously annoyed by you and start escalating, cleaning house, locking down the other Workworlds, doing unpredictable things."

Headshake, raising hands in frustration. It's not even fake. "But perhaps you are simply strong enough to negotiate with the Establishment by virtue of being able to break their shiny toys. 'Let them go, or I keep breaking things until you do.' They might make a deal. They might look for a way to kill you. They might succeed in that. But anyone who wields the fucking Correspondence like that is either a madwoman or a Power."

She folds her arms and rolls her eyes. "Power. I'm the daughter of the Mountain of Light from back in the Neath. I was thinking if I couldn't find anywhere else for them to go, I could maybe find a big enough piece of uninhabited rock and use my light to promote edible plant growth until it was basically habitable at least in the short term."

Bargaining sorts of gestures. "Look, this is a pretty good front of grumpiness, thanks for that. I thought the Mountain's daughter was Mt. Nomad? Whatever, not relevant right now. The High Wilderness is not a very nice place, cold and hunger would threaten them, but maybe it's workable. Abandoned factories abound. If you took them to the Ormsworld they could stay hidden for years. If you spoke a passphrase to a certain shop in London maybe some band of well-meaning ruffians would learn where to go find them."

She curls her lip slightly and shakes her head. "Thanks. Mt. Nomad is my half-sibling. I'm from an alternate timeline where London never took to the High Wilderness at all and I came here in an Hours- and Correspondence-related accident. What's the Ormsworld?"