What was asked in return¶

The output. All of it, or enough of it to be useful, which in practice amounts to the same thing. No format was agreed, no volume specified, no limit set. The ask was approximately: run the tools, and send us what they find. This is either admirably simple or deeply alarming, depending on one’s position in the arrangement, a position the clients were not consulted about.

Ankh-Morpork runs on information. The Patrician keeps lists. The guilds keep records. The clacks network retains logs for what it describes as operational purposes, a category which has historically proven quite elastic. Intelligence aggregated across the city’s institutions, updated continuously, tells you who is struggling before they announce it, who is growing before they can hide it, and when two parties are in frequent contact despite having no announced relationship. This is not what the clients paid for. It is, however, what the arrangement reliably produces.

What the third party does with the data, the MCLU does not know. We have theories. Several of them are not conducive to untroubled sleep, which we consider a reasonable response to the available evidence.

What we can establish: the capability was wanted before it was offered, not after. The distinction matters to the question of who initiated the arrangement. The answer has not yet made itself convenient.