Uroboros Saga Book 1

by Arthur Walker

  “Think what you want, I’m going to wash my hands.”

  “Right.”

  Sighing loudly, I turned to face Mr. Swenson. He squinted menacingly at me at first, then clapped me on the shoulder. The toolbox weighed a ton, and I had to wonder if the old landlord added a few rocks to it for his personal amusement.

  We walked through his clean and tidy building to the underground access without a word. I looked around at the doors, steam pipes, stairs, floors, and ceilings likely mended by Mr. Swenson. This whole building was his well-kept kingdom and I’d been asked to walk beside him, an honor of sorts, or just initiation for everyone that stayed there.

  You pitched in or got thrown out.

  “Did she set this up?”

  “Sort of. I asked her if she knew anyone she trusted to help out down below.”

  “She trusts me?”

  “Evidently she does, Mr. Silverstein. You’d be wise to grant that some respect as trust doesn’t come cheap down here.”

  A heavy burden, and likely one she’d bestowed upon me before the events of the day we’d just spent together. Even as I pondered this, I reached down and grabbed the other side of a heavy lid to descend down into a dark place with a man I just met.

  “By the way, just call me Silverstein.”

  “Alright then, call me Russ.”

  Taking the heavy gauge steel ladder down into the darkness, Russ led me to a small prep room where he had waders and some old helmets rigged with illuminators. There were movie posters, handbills, framed artwork and all manner of decorations adorning the walls down here.

  “Taylor?” I asked, pointing to the walls.

  “When she was little, she wandered in down here from somewhere and took up residence. Back in those days, I had a building full of paying tenants, so I let her live in here until something freed up. She saved her money and helped out around here,” Russ replied, some of his gruff exterior smoothing out as he put his hand on the brightly colored wall.

  “Wow,” I replied, humbled by Russ’s generosity.

  “I won’t be around forever. Someone else is going to have to look after her,” Russ explained.

  “You feel that way about all your tenants?” I asked, looking for a set of coveralls my size.

  “No. She’s different somehow. She’s not like other people. Sometimes when she smiles...”

  “...her whole face lights up,” I said finishing his spoken thought.

  Russ nodded quietly. I’d sort of thought the phenomenon was just from my knock on the head, but Russ had seen it too. To speak of it, neither of us was being figurative. It was as if light did shine down from her face.

  I suited up throwing the strap on the box over my shoulder. My head ached vaguely, making me dizzy for a moment.

  “You up for this?”

  “It has been a long day, but I’ll be fine, Russ. Lead on.”

  The big man flattened his hair back before putting on his helmet. He handed me a breathing mask as he stuck a few extra filters in his pocket. Pulling on a pair of thick gloves I stepped off the concrete platform into the slow moving water in the tunnel nearby.

  Activating the illuminator on my helm did little to dispel the gloom of the underground. I was afraid of getting lost, but Russ seemed to know where he was going. After a few hundred yards the only thing that didn’t change in the twisting service tunnel was a single yellow pipe. I wondered if that was what we were following, in the event we got separated somehow.

  “Russ...”

  “Quiet,” he hissed.

  “Why?” I replied, whispering.

  “The Drones are fine with me wandering their territory as long as I don’t make a racket.”

  “Drones?”

  Russ shot me an angry glare, an obvious signal for me to shut up. I looked about nervously, suddenly seeing movement around every corner, and in every shadow. At the time, I knew I should have known what Drones were, but like so many other things, I couldn’t remember.

  All that I was able to discover so far had something to do with the outcome of placing someone who was both claustrophobic, and afflicted with amnesia, in an underground tunnel half flooded with water. It took some exerted willpower not to freak out at a couple of points where the water got high and the ceiling got low. The idea that there was some sort of creature down here with us didn’t help in the slightest.

  It didn’t get any better, either. Russ eventually led me to a tunnel that sloped sharply downward. Clinging to a rope strung along the side, we slowly made our way deeper into the tunnels beneath Port Montaigne. The air was getting difficult to breathe, and Russ had already pulled up his breathing mask. I did the same, stepping up onto a somewhat dry concrete walkway along the side of the tunnel.

  It was odd, but the more I carried the toolbox the lighter it became. The water pushed at my legs a little less and I could feel my eyes quickly becoming accustomed to the darkness. My own apprehension must have been flooding my body with adrenaline, or so I thought.

  Russ paused, turning a valve adjoining the yellow pipe we’d been following then proceeded past some obvious damage to the same pipe. There was yet another valve further down that he turned, I assumed to isolate the damaged section. We returned to the damaged section and waited, breathing shallowly into our masks.

  For a moment I could have sworn I heard music, or chanting, but quickly passed it off as my now very over-active imagination. Russ inspecting the damage while I waited. I couldn’t tell if he was waiting for gas to clear or if he wasn’t sure how to fix it. He motioned for me to set the tool box down beside him as he began fumbling with his gloves. I looked back along the edge of the tunnel, sure I heard music again.

  “Russ?”

  “What?”

  “You hear that?”

  “All I hear is you pissing your waders. Would you please shut up and hand me the flint sparker? Bit of spot welding and we can go home.”

  I couldn’t help but smile beneath my rebreather. I wasn’t an expert, but it hadn’t appeared to be a two man job thus far. However, I wouldn’t have wanted to come down there alone, either.

  “There isn’t gas down here, is there?” I asked nervously.

  “Geothermal heat. It’s kinda stinky but if there was that sort of buildup down here, my Canary would have gone off,” Russ explained, tapping a small device attached to the front of his coveralls.

  I rummaged in the tools fruitlessly for a moment until I finally located the thing he asked for. He lit up the torch and began welding a piece of metal over the gaping hole left in the pipe. I wondered what sort of folks could live in a place like this. Who were the Drones, and what made this their territory?

  “Almost done.”

  “Russ, I’m getting a bad feeling.”

  “Yeah, this damage to the pipe looks like it was done on purpose.”

  “Really? Did it suddenly get quiet? I can’t even hear the rats now,” I said squinting uselessly into the blackened tunnel behind us.

  Russ turned the welding torch off, lifting his heavily tinted goggles from the bridge of his nose. He scanned the tunnel looking for any movement, his ears straining for any sound. He quickly packed up the tool box and gestured for me to grab it.

  “Yeah, we should go,” Russ said worriedly.

  “I wonder if we should have even come.”

  Several silhouettes appeared at the far end of the tunnel, each wearing a set of goggles that seemed to glow faintly with a strange green luminescence. Whoever they were, they seemed to be clad in loose fitting rubber wetsuits, their milky white hands clasped in front of them. They approached us peacefully with their hands raised. Their eerie and semi-translucent skin seamed to reveal every vein, muscle, and tendon in their outstretched hands.

  I probably should have been
more afraid than I felt. Even though they seemed non-threatening, I could see in Russ’s face that he was petrified. As they drew close, one of them stepped forward removing her goggles and her rubbery cowl to reveal her face. It was pristine, and completely white like pure linen. Her large eyes were like panes of glass with fog flowing freely behind. Her mouth parted slightly to reveal almost perfect teeth as the light from our illuminators fell directly upon her.

  “I’m sorry for having to damage your pipe. I really needed to talk to someone from the surface.”

  She spoke with a smooth voice tainted by a slight unfamiliar accent. She waited patiently for a reply. Russ and I looked at each other blankly. After a moment, I managed to find my words first, managing a weak smile.

  “No harm done. What can we do for you?”

  “A neighboring tribe has made several... overtures, claiming they have new allies from the surface world. They are our rivals for the scarce resources found down here.”

  “You need someone to either corroborate their claims, or you need some allies of your own.”

  “You are very perceptive, stranger.”

  “Silverstein.”

  She looked at me oddly at first, as if the sound of my name was anything but what she expected. Her large eyes seemed to look right through me, pupils dilating and constricting quickly like a camera lens. After what seemed a longer than awkward silence, she replied.

  “Annabelle Five.”

  “You have four sisters?”

  “They’re clones,” she said smiling slightly.

  “Ah. Of course,” I replied.

  I’m not sure how I knew, but I was pretty sure Annabelle was joking about the clones. Her words and gestures seemed to convey more than just what one could normally perceive. All this banter was making Russ decidedly nervous. He looked over at me, eyes wide with fright. I returned a startled gaze and looked slowly behind me. I couldn’t see them clearly, but there were several Drones in the water behind us, probably armed.

  “Please don’t be frightened. If we wanted you dead, you would be,” she said, doing little to dispel our discomfort.

  “I believe you. You seem very capable, so why do you need a couple of workers like us to help you?” I asked.

  “He’s a worker, you are something else entirely,” Annabelle Five replied, looking at Russ, then over at me.

  “And what am I exactly?” I asked, unsure how she knew something about me when I knew next to nothing.

  “You are someone who knows the value of things,” she answered.

  She wasn’t wrong. Numbers danced about in front of my eyes, figuratively of course, every time I got near anything resembling commerce. Every cost had a benefit to be analyzed, and my ability to pull numbers together had already become quickly apparent to me.

  “There are things that can be found on the surface that can be found nowhere else. Valuable things that could give us a situational advantage down here,” she explained, cocking her head to one side as if only to gaze up at me from a different perspective.

  “So, you need a purchaser? Someone to represent you on the surface?”

  “After a fashion, Silverstein, if that really is your name,” she replied, gazing at me eerily.

  “It’s the only one I’ve got currently,” I replied, trying to sound as earnest as possible.

  Annabelle Five nodded while at least feigning what was pretty believable empathy for my situation. She was like the most agreeable and terrifying hostess, equal parts alluring and intimidating. It seemed as though she was genuine though, and at least as far as she knew, transparent about her stake in the agreement.

  “I guess I’m in, at the very least,” I said, turning to look at the building superintendent. “Russ?”

  Russ nodded slowly, his eyes still wide with horror.

  As we walked toward the incline in the tunnel, Annabelle Five sidled up next to me. She was taller than her cohorts, and extremely thin, her wiry hands unconsciously fidgeting with the thick belt of strange probes and contrivances worn tightly around her waist.

  “You worried about me returning with your merchandise?” I asked.

  “Only in being bereft. If you don’t do as we’ve agreed, we’ll just cut the power and the heat from your building. Your kind do not seem to enjoy the cold or the dark as mine do.”

  “I see your point. What is it I’ve agreed to exactly?”

  “The procurement of weapons mostly, but I also need something else. I want anything colorful that can persist in this environment. I want to decorate our warrens and our tunnels, make them more beautiful than those held by our rivals. It’s difficult to explain to your kind why this is important.”

  “No, I think I get it. You don’t want them to just fear you, but envy you as well?”

  “It is more primal than that, but I think your explanation is sufficient to aid you in getting us what we need.”

  Russ stayed quiet the rest of the walk back. I was tired, dead tired, but my head didn’t hurt nearly as badly as I thought it would after exerting myself. Annabelle Five walked along beside, her silent guardians watching our every move. I could hear them click and glimpsed them gesturing to one another, speaking in an inaudible language.

  “I assume you have a list, and the resources I’ll need to procure the items in question?”

  “Silverstein, don’t you want to know what’s in it for you?”

  “I’m hoping we can be friends. Lately, I’ve found that having a good friend really makes a difference.”

  “I suppose that depends.” Annabelle Five smiled broadly, her cold facade melting away slightly.

  “I’ve got a connection for the colorful decoration. The weapons will be a little more difficult. I hope your friendship is going to be worth the trouble.”

  “You really have no fear of us, do you?” Annabelle Five observed. “Not the sort that comes from loathing or ignorance anyway.”

  I looked back at Annabelle’s crew and saw no malice in them whatsoever. No hateful gazes or projected hostility. They were there just to keep each other safe and ask for help in the only way they probably could. There was no hidden agenda here, just what passed as commerce in Downtown Port Montaigne.

  “You’ve been very polite, and your caution is definitely warranted where ‘my kind’ are concerned,” I replied.

  “Most humans I’ve spoken to are arrogant, believing you’re our betters merely for being what created us. You don’t carry the same attitude,” Annabelle observed, probing somewhat as we walked back through the higher water.

  “I guess I didn’t know, but might have assumed that was the case,” I replied, marveling at how she could carry on a conversation in a dark tunnel with water almost up to your shoulders.

  “You are very mysterious, Silverstein,” and that was all she said the rest of the way back until we reached the landing that led to Taylor’s building.

  “You still have a good feeling about this?” I asked, looking to Annabelle.

  Annabelle Five smiled wryly, handing me a knapsack made of the rubber inner-tube one finds in a tire, the strap crafted of an old lap belt. I gazed inside at the contents, nodding to Annabelle Five.

  “If you do this for me, you will have my trust, and I’ll try to be that good friend you’re looking for.”

  I nodded stepping up into Russ’s prep area. When I turned back to wave goodbye, Annabelle Five and her friends were gone. I could only smile weakly at Russ, sensing his apprehension relative to the whole affair.

  “This is on you, Silverstein. I’ll have no part of it.” Russ stated quietly.

  “No problem. You’ve got a building full of tenants to take care of.”

  Russ paused, considering his next words carefully.

  “You’re welcome to stay in for the time being
,” he said a little quieter.

  “Thanks. Let me know if you need any more help.”

  Russ just grunted as he hung up his waders.

  “You ever actually seen Drones before? That was what those were right?” I asked.

  “I knew they were there, but I’d never actually seen one until today. I hope I never see one again,” Russ replied.

  He looked as though he needed a stiff drink, and I wasn’t too far from being in the same state. We made our way up the steel ladder, and after handing Russ his tool box he gave me a hand up. I was glad to be back on the surface and did not relish the idea of going back into the tunnels.

  I knew I needed to follow through. The Drones would be very valuable allies if I needed to cut and run. I knew Taylor would be good for helping me find things to decorate an underground labyrinth of tunnels occupied by those strange creatures, but finding weapons was something else entirely. I hoped I could make good on my promise.

  The elevator was down, so I took the stairs to Taylor’s floor and knocked on her door. She appeared a second later, pinching her nose at the sight of me. I laughed playfully shoving past her and made a mad dash for the bathroom. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief as I vigorously washed my hands.

  “Everything go okay?”

  “I met the Drones.”

  “You mean the scary tunnel people that steal people in their sleep, drown them, and eat them?”

  “Yeah, them.”

  “Well, at least the heat’s back on.”

  “They want me to do them a favor.”

  “Who?”

  “The Drones.”

  “Oh, of course they do.”

  I laid out the contents of the rubber tire knapsack to dispel Taylor’s incredulity. She gazed at the pile of money and the very short list with intense interest. She smiled looking at the list.

  “They want an interior decorator?”

  “And weapons.”

  “I am sure I can help you with one, but you might need to talk to Joe about the other.”