~~~~~
Trenna did not hesitate while she led Dastou and Nes, making it clear that she was familiar with the area and with where she was going. First she went north a pair of blocks and then west down an alley that opened up to a two-lane residential street. The enemies escaped in the other direction, but with the way she went it didn’t feel as if she was trying to waste time or purposely become lost. The overall walk was quiet, the somber air in the entire Loudani District of Blackbrick filled with such expectation that even speaking might let something loose. Or at least that’s how Dastou felt about the silence, and he wasn’t curious enough to break it by asking for opinions.
A few more blocks north on the street past the alley and the travelers reached a stairwell leading underground, where Trenna stopped. Dastou looked around, studying the highly-normal easily-ignored area. On this and the opposite sidewalk, a third-of-a-meter of the ground was made of thick glass embedded into the concrete for a length of ten meters. Those downward-facing “windows” existed to save electricity, partly lighting the subways below during daylight hours. Dastou walked past the stairwell Trenna had stopped at and tried to look into the station through the glass, kneeling low and putting his eyes centimeters from the view point. The glass was so filthy on the inside that he couldn’t see into the subway.
“We passed a few other entrances,” Nes said, the first words uttered by any of them since they left the embassy. “Why couldn’t we use those?”
“The ones between here and the embassy are all blocked off,” Trenna said, her voice low and shy. “The other two we were able to fix up are farther away. You said they ran a different direction, but that’s not the fastest way to safety. These stairs go directly to our camp, and it’s how most of us got in and out daily. If they thought you might be chasing them and had to hide, they would do a circle and come right back in through here.”
Trenna revealed that with a level of trust Dastou found discomfiting. She should be suspicious of his intentions by now, religion or not. He’ d met men and women that would kill her right this second now that she’d pointed out where to find the enemy. Those people were mostly bastards, though, and the Saint didn’t feel the need to follow in their excrement-stained footsteps when he could easily make his own. While he hadn’t done anything worthy of mistrust, Dastou always preferred to earn it loyalty instead of having it handed to him because of his eye color.
“Sounds like you’ve done all that before,” Nes teased.
“Uh... yeah. The Counterbalance kind of knows about us, but they haven’t figured out that we’re immune and hiding. They think we’re thieves or a small gang wearing disguises, taking food or supplies at any opportunity.”
Not likely. Constable Renker has more to deal with than a few people stealing basic necessities. If she came to a decision that they weren’t dangerous, they were left alone at her behest. The bombing proves that the constable was very wrong.
“There’s nothing different about this place as far as I can tell,” Dastou said.
“Yes, sir, that’s exactly the reason we can stay here,” Trenna told him. “The main hub is this same station, big and safe and completely ignored. Are we ready?” Trenna asked quietly, her reluctance to hunt down her friends plain despite their actions.
When Dastou finally stopped gawking down at dirty glass, he stood up and nodded his desire to continue and the three of them went down the stairwell and into Blackbrick Central Junction’s south end.
After walking down steps that were far less dusty than they would be if the place was truly derelict, they were a story underground. The enclosed ticket office was a few paces ahead, the employee door wide open, which made it the only way in since the turn-stiles were blocked by a floor-to-ceiling metal gate. Planks of wood that had barred the open door when the place was abandoned were placed neatly next to the wall, and the group walked through the ticket office along the length of a metal desk with a series of teller windows. There were three comfortable-looking seats bolted into the concrete behind coin registers at each window. The tills themselves were an oddity: there was no such thing as paper money, but each register had five rectangular slots for the stuff, right above the coin sections. It was one of those strange inconsistencies about the world that regular people accepted without complaint or exploration.
After coming out through the opposite door of the cashier station, the trio walked a straight line to an arched exit-slash-entry. Though the daylight bleeding in from the stairwell no longer did any good, there was enough natural light entering from the glass windowing above them to allow for easy navigation, and debris had been shifted to the side of the walking path to keep the floor obstructed. The archway fed them to a balcony overlooking a boarding area. Everything was poured-in-place concrete except the bolted-on metal handrails, with three sets of stairs leading down a story-and-a-half directly in front of them, letting them choose to go left, right, or center. Those stairs each serviced a boarding platform, supporting ingress and egress onto the north- and southbound trains. Trenna confidently led them forward, onto steps headed for the center platform.
Dastou daydreamed, remembering times when these places were actually in use. These rail systems were a beacon of human energy for about a century and a half, with eighty-six percent of all travel done by subway once the tunnels and trains were completed. The seven biggest hubs around the world were constantly busy during the day, sometimes at night. The tracks were a beautiful, serpentine underground road, sometimes going above the streets or through waterways. Every ocean in the world had at least one pair of two-way tunnels a few meters below the surface of the water supported by massive steel cables and struts, an engineering accomplishment that even the Saints didn’t fully comprehend. Strangely, most of the final destinations for those tunnels were dead ends.
In any case, when the trolley system was put in place about eight years ago, early in 431 PN, these tunnels were scavenged for materials, with many subway cars retrofitted into trolleys. Kilometer upon kilometer of steel track was torn up, smelted, and repurposed for the new street-level railways. Upon completion of that new transportation system, the underground hubs were deserted and closed off. From the looks of this space, though, a reclamation project was in place.
The living spaces of what Trenna earlier referred to as “my people” were now visible as they walked down, and with every descending step on the center stairway Dastou absorbed another detail about the space. Beds were lined along the walls of the far left and far right platforms, made of sewn-together fabrics placed on top of discarded cushions and, rarely, actual old mattresses. There were a couple dozen bed areas overall, and each could be made more private by drawing curtains together. Those privacy shields were made of thin bedspreads, opaque plastic sheeting, table cloths and, rarely, actual old curtains. The “rope” the random stuff was hung on was simply nylon string. Personal effects on makeshift tables – watches, keys, picture frames, jewelry, and the like – could be seen in most of the sleeping sections. A few spots meant for congregation or conversation featured tattered couches and chairs alongside short tables. There was no color coordination to anything, the dizzying mish-mash of hues and patterns lending a look that said “we got this from somewhere, and this thing next to it from somewhere entirely different.”
This living space was like nothing Dastou had ever seen or imagined, the exact opposite of modern city-life where everything was easy to come by and the Social Cypher provided for all basic needs, yet directly below all that stifling convenience. Even the Tribeslands to the far east, an un-modernized continent of isolationist clans, traders, craftsmen, artists, and occasional human monstrosities had strong cultures that were undeniable from first glance. This hub was the home of the downtrodden, the missing, and for the first time Dastou knew how to use a strange word he discovered in the mental encyclopedia all Saints had access to: the people who lived here were “homeless.”
Dastou loved this place. He loved it. There was an a
ppealing contrast against the nearly-always clean streets and sterile architecture of most of the inhabited world. It showed ingenuity and effort in an attempt to live someplace closed off to everyone else.
“I remember liking it here too, sir,” Trenna said when she noticed the small grin the Saint couldn’t keep off his face during a glance back to see exactly how far behind her companions were. “We never took part in the infrastructure events and were ignored by them. It was incredible.” Her voice had a note of pride in it.
“It’s completely empty,” Nes commented. “I know you guys wouldn’t have schedules to keep, but wouldn’t someone normally be here right now?”
“Uh huh,’” Trenna agreed. “There were always at least a few people here for some reason or another. Maybe they didn’t feel like going out that day, maybe they were tired, or sick, or injured, or taking a break. If Milser was able to convince almost everyone to join or ignore the attack, they might have been scared away, they might have run...”
“I’m only here for criminals,” Dastou told her when she nervously paused mid-sentence. “The ones that admit their involvement or that we can prove were involved. Everyone else, no matter if they stood by and let the bombing happen, are not my concern.”
Upon reaching the center platform at the bottom of the long stairs, Trenna took a few steps, turned left, and deftly hopped down into the track gap. She kept walking toward an arched tunnel that would lead to the main boarding hub.
“Do you know how or when your people started getting overlooked?” asked Nes.
“No, not really,” Trenna responded.
Above the gap where trains used to travel, the nylon for the curtains crisscrossed above the travelers. Beaded bracelets of varying colors and patterns were strung up near where the girl jumped down, and Dastou had to stop himself from taking some of the pretty things and stuffing them into his pockets. He noticed Trenna looking up at the jewelry distractedly for a moment – maybe some were hers?
“Almost everyone here is from Blackbrick,” she added, “and tried to go back home thinking that they were part of an infrastructure event and got left where they were.”
“I can guess what happened when those people went back,” Dastou said, thinking of how young Saints usually reacted upon being found lost and confused somewhere.
“Their belongings were still there mostly,” Trenna said, “but people acted like strangers on sight. It felt like everyone here was, um...” She trailed off, trying to think of the right word.
“Deleted?” suggested Nes.
“Yes, that fits I think.”
“Which is strange,” Dastou said. “Naturals usually find out slowly about their immunity by noticing they aren’t getting picked to do any basic work. If they don’t feel like hiding with family or friends, or in some coverage hole, they sooner or later they say their goodbyes and head off for the closest isolationist tribe or collective.”
Trenna had been slowing her walking speed little by little since going underground, and by now she was walking at, at best, a casual pace. Then she stopped and began to look around, into the sleeping or comfort areas. She probably thought Dastou needed to search the area, but a visual check was all that was necessary to log the information for later perusal. Rather than tell her to keep going, the Saint let her stand still for now – the look on her face said that she was saying goodbye to this place, her home.
“None of us found out we were naturals over time,” Trenna admitted. “It was more surprise! One day we were part of society, the next we weren’t, and everyone had forgotten us. It was heartbreaking for some. A couple of the people here had kids, and the children didn’t remember their missing parent. We had all started seeing each other and bonding not too long after we were erased from society. The few that couldn’t cope with the change, couldn’t deal with it, new friends to help or not, they, uh...”
“Chose another way out,” said the Saint, interrupting the girl’s pause out of sympathy.
Trenna gave herself a moment for composure. “Yes, sir.”
“Thirty-one of you lived here right?” asked Nes, trying to keep Trenna from focusing on the negative.
“Right. Thirty-one as of the last time I remember being around, which was last night. We were all close, some more than others. I think we had to be for survival. After slowly finding each other we didn’t want to go to a tribe because it felt like we were starting one right here, underground. So we stayed, shared responsibilities in getting food and supplies. We took advantage of when a group was being hypnotized at every chance.”
“Took advantage as in stole everything you could,” said Nes in a joking voice.
“That’s a big part of it,” admitted Trenna with no shame at all. Nes chuckled at her response.
“And I bet living in the subway made it convenient,” Dastou said. “A fast and easy to understand path to a lot of places, one that was also technically invisible due to being unused. Clever.”
“Uh, thank you, Mr. Dastou,” Trenna said, faltering after the earnest compliment.
Dastou indicated the tunnel ahead with a tilt of his head, and Trenna got the hint and moved along. The trio got to the short arched tunnel, entered, and reached its exit seconds later. They walked only a couple of paces into the next area before stopping to look around. This two-story hub had a high roof, which itself had a concentric circle of glass built into it for daytime lighting; above ground, that glass would surround a traffic circle the next block north of the stairs the group entered through. Despite the grime on the inside of the glass, the dirty light beaming in made the open space clearly visible. Just like the smaller boarding area that led them here, there were platforms for people to stand and wait left, right, and center. Sets of currently non-working escalators were on the left and right platforms leading to and from the second floor. A pedestrian bridge was about thirty meters ahead, above them, used to link the upper tiers and give a clear view of the entire station. A third set of escalators was on the middle platform and led up dead center of that elevated walkway.
Long-ago-shuttered businesses, where people would socialize before their train arrived, lined the second floor on both sides. Left-behind tables, chairs, and other amenities for the shops and restaurants littered that level. None of it was useful enough for the Social Cypher to clean up and recycle, so Trenna’s group will have scavenged it more deeply and more recently than a mass-hypnotic event.
Something that might help with all that tedious scavenging were those five huge construction lights visible on the second floor. They were the kind that held six rows of six powerful bulbs and featured a bulky generator at the bottom instead of a four-legged stand. There was a construction light near the top of each of the three escalators – therefore left, right, and center, on the pedestrian walkway – and one at each balcony above the tunnels. Five pieces of equipment in total, placed in a semi-circle pattern above the travelers, all of them covered in tan tarps.
It was out of the ordinary that the equipment was here, yes, but they may have broken down during the scrapping of the place and been left by the worker bees. The ones on the balconies were several paces away from the waist-high borders, their centered hydraulic pole extended for maximum height, the same way they’d be set up to look down into quarries. Even under tarps, it was obvious that the spotlight sections were aimed down at where the tunnel let the trio into the main hub. Huh… how are all five of these machines broken down, in those perfectly placed flanking positions, spaced out more or less evenly, and aimed at the entrance?
In addition, there was less dust on those tarps than everything else in here. The Saint up-shifted his brain and looked around. Marks on the concrete, including a slight indentation in the gravel under his feet, looked very new. He could trace marks and scratches to each escalator, all of those traceable very new. The easy conclusion was that those lights were not here until recently, carried in and put in place sometime between the street-level attack and the trio leaving the Carava
n.
Dastou down-shifted and noticed on either side of him were sets of concrete steps, meant for maintenance crews that needed access to the track level, a safer alternative than jumping a meter down into the gaps. Those steps would make good cover, too. Not the best, but it would do in a pinch.
“This is the rest,” said Trenna innocently. “I’ll show you where we spent time in this area, then we can look around for clues I guess. I’m not really sure how you want...”
“Stop, Trenna,” Dastou commanded when he saw the girl start to walk forward again. Nes grabbed the girl’s right arm tight to make sure she didn’t go anywhere.
“Ow! What’s going on?” She held fast and turned her head enough to see the others staring at the same spot in the hub.
She looked that way herself, toward a very faint blue glow reflected on the stainless steel handrail of the pedestrian bridge near the spotlight positioned there. It was the glow of an indicator diode for machinery. A shadow shifted and the sheet draped over the spotlight on the bridge was pulled off, the ruffling noise of the fabric almost instantly followed by a loud klak-klak that echoed throughout the boarding hub.
A literal blast of white light smothered the area as all thirty-six powerful diode bulbs from the construction equipment turned on at full strength. A stabbing pain came with the blindness, and Dastou’s eyes stung as if someone shoved a sewing pin into each one, and he had an immediate headache that went from his forehead to his jaw. He already couldn’t see, but still covered his eyes with a forearm as he heard four other sets of ruffling-cloth-and-klak-klak combinations.
Dastou’s intuition made him rush to the left, aiming to get to those nice, useful, incredibly hard concrete steps. He pushed Trenna in the other direction and hoped that he startled cry meant that Nes pulled her with him. The absolute moment Dastou hit the steps, his ears were flooded with the sound of an incoming tsunami of automatic gunfire.
~~~~
Blurred Weaponry (Saints of the Void, Book 1) Page 9