~oo00oo~
"What is it?" Yasi asked.
"We don't know exactly." Archivist admitted. "That's why we decided to call you."
Yasi watched the tunnel for several seconds, as though expecting something to jump out at them. It had been seven years since coming to the River level, but she had no doubt that they would remember her... or that they were watching right now. "You made the right choice."
It was one of the lowest levels of the Underside; in an area where the lights were rarely on. The underground river was behind them, and none of them liked to be too close to it. The river was the outlet of the Secret City below. It was the deepest part of their world, down too deep to be a home for anyone. Even the Lost kind had to follow the laws of biology, and down this deep, under pressure, a person's body adapted far easier than going back up again.
This was the place where the Riverfolk lived.
The dark water behind them was still, like something out of a horror movie. It waited behind them, calm and steady. They glanced back at it nervously from time to time, but stayed focused.
Written on the wall in the same luminous paint they used to mark entrances, covered by the omnipresent grime of this lowest part of their world, was a message.
KEIST FAILED. STAND BY.
Dorcan shrugged. "Anyone have any idea who Keist is?"
Archivist sent Yasi a look. She shook her head, just slightly. The fewer people who knew about this, the better for now.
The water behind them shifted. A ripple that came from nothing they could see. Everyone froze. Yasi's hand went straight to the sword at her back, ready to draw.
Nothing more happened, and after a moment, they all relaxed.
"How many people come down here?" Yasi asked. "Obviously the message isn't for us, so who is it for?"
"Nobody comes down here any more. It's way too deep." Dorcan insisted, sending another glance back at the River. "The last time any of us were down here officially was seven years ago."
"I know. I was there." Yasi said blandly. "Any reports from the Lower Marketplace?"
"Last raid by the Riverfolk was over a month ago."
"A month?" Yasi said in surprise. "No, you've got that wrong. They've gotten sneaky instead of just non-violent, but..."
"Yasi, I've spoken with the stall-keepers and the Scavengers. There hasn't been anything taken in over-"
"That cannot possibly be right." Archivist boomed, agreeing with Yasi.
He was surprised at their reaction. "Why?"
The water shifted behind them again. The three of them tensed, Yasi putting herself between the water's edge and Archivist swiftly.
Nothing happened.
Yasi picked up the thread of the conversation once they all relaxed. "They've been taking supplies forever. There's nothing down this deep that works, they can't survive to reach the surface the way we do..." She bit her lip. "They're... They've gone quiet for a month. They don't go completely quiet. They can't. If they stay away completely, then they starve... So where have they gone?"
"I got a better question." Her lieutenant said. He hesitated a moment. "It's none of my business, but you know how this place gets real small, real fast when it comes to gossip..."
Yasi's face turned to stone. "Hear anything interesting?"
"You know what I'm talking about. Are you going to tell your pet?"
"Pet?"
"The Upsider."
"He's Wotcha's friend." Yasi warned, sounding like someone who had never used the word 'friend' in her life.
Dorcan swallowed. "Yes Ma'am, but are you going to tell him?"
Yasi bit her lip. "How long has this message been here?"
"There's no way to know. Like I said, nobody ever comes down here. Not on a bet, not for an emergency, not on a dare. But near as we can figure, months at least."
"Then there's nothing more for us to do." Yasi said. "Keist Telecommunications made their pitch, and Vincent waved them off over a year ago."
"So Vincent is probably safe." Archivist agreed. "But if there was more to Keist than just running Fibre-Optics, then we may have a real problem here."
Yasi said nothing.
Archivist sent Dorcan a look, and the younger man found something fascinating to do further up the tunnel, back toward their boat. Once they were alone, he leaned in a little closer to her. "I got a message from Wotcha. I heard about McCall's crusade." He said quietly. "You're going back to the surface, aren't you?"
Yasi gave him a long measuring look. "Tonight."
"Are you going to ask him about this?"
Yasi bit her lip. "Maybe."
FOUR: The Story
Wotcha had taken a day and a half to sort out her feelings on Vincent's request, and gather what contacts she figured she could get away with. She insisted on blindfolding Vincent for the last part of the journey to meet with them; after they had traveled across a quarter of the city on foot. She found it unlikely that a cab would stop for her, and he found it equally unlikely that he would be able to take any of their secret routes. Plus, she wasn't thrilled about the idea of showing him too much of their world.
They walked a few streets with the blindfold, and she led him, safe and sure. He knew she was taking him in circles so that he wouldn't be able to find his way back. It was like the year before all over again. She was leading him out of his world, and into a whole other place.
"Long drop." Wotcha warned him, her grip around his wrist like iron. "Five feet, maybe a little more."
Vincent shuffled down to sit on the ground, and felt the ledge. He dropped down as slowly as he could till her found his footing again. He shuffled forward and tripped on something, realizing instantly. "Train tracks?"
"Yup."
"We're back in the subway?"
"Not quite. But we're going somewhere close. I'm not taking you back to the Underside. In fact, I really shouldn't be taking you this far. But it's your mission, so... Just... Don't tell Yasi."
"You don't like Yasi, do you?"
"Like her? She's Shinobi. She's the bleedin' Captain. You don't like Shinobi. You just don't. You say 'Yes Ma'am' when one asks you a question, and go about your business."
Vincent blinked under his blindfold. Wotcha was scared of Yasi. Granted he had only met her twice, but Vincent hadn't been scared of what he'd seen either time...
He felt the air change, and she pulled off his blindfold. He almost didn't notice at first because it was pitch black, but then his eyes adjusted and he saw electrical lights strung in the distance. "Tunnel?"
"Yup." Wotcha confirmed.
"Abandoned?"
"Nope."
Vincent felt his heart stop for a moment; then suddenly start pounding.
"Train coming?" Vincent asked; his voice going a little high.
"Every few minutes." Wotcha agreed. "We should hurry."
The tracks were live. It was an electrical line, and he could see the indicator lights glowing every few feet along the track. Vincent couldn't help the way he kept glancing back and forth between the track and the walls. They seemed very close together. Not a lot of room between a train and the wall.
"When's the next one?" He asked softly.
"Few minutes. Assuming the subway is running on time."
"This is New York!" Vincent said, aghast. "The Subway's never on time."
Wotcha grinned cheekily at him, and led him over to the wall. There was a mark about two inches square. A glyph, painted over the grime and dirt. It looked like one of Yasi's tattoos, drawn on the wall in luminous paint. She felt around the mark for a few moments before Vincent heard something click, and the wall shifted.
A panel the size of a hatch opened. Wotcha slipped through.
Vincent felt the air in the tunnel start to move faster, and a roar building in the distance. He quickly followed Wotcha as a train came around the bend with surprising speed. The noise was unreal in the small space they found themselves in. Vincent kept his ears plugged until it passed.
"You're not worried about someone getting hit by a train?" He asked one it was gone.
"It happens." She said matter-of-factly. "You're not worried about people getting hit by a car when they cross the street?"
Vincent drew the lantern out of his pocket and turned the key. Wotcha did the same with a grin. "I can't believe you've still got that."
"Where are we exactly?"
"Used to be a maintenance tunnel. It wasn't needed, and we... helped it collapse. They didn't bother to dig it out because they didn't care about it,. And we put a door in at the other end. We use it as a drop point, a meeting place, things like that."
"And I'll never find it again unless I go looking through a hundred miles of active and dangerous subway tunnel."
"Pretty much." Wotcha went over to the wall and got a single bare light-bulb going. The room was expanded from the original passage, the larger space about the size of a cargo container. Every few minutes, the room would shake with the roar of a subway train going past outside. "Get comfortable. The others will take a while to get here. Most of them aren't brave."
While they waited for the room to fill, Vincent rewound the lantern and spoke quietly. "Wotcha, can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"Last night, because of the cold snap, I had a few homeless people sneak into the basement laundry of my building, so that they could get out of the cold before the frost or the wind got them... I took them down some Pizza, and they... One of them at least, knew about the Underground. Are they Lostkind?"
"If they were, they wouldn't need you to give them a place to sleep when it got that bad." Wotcha said with certainty. "Vincent, the thing about being homeless is, you're not proud. You do what you gotta do. So when we come up to scavenge, sometimes we're not the only ones. They know about us, and they know we aren't the same as them. They... There's a certain pecking order, wherever there are people. They don't know who we are, or what we're about, but they know we're real... And I think they know you're connected to us."
Vincent glanced at her. "You had something to do with that, didn't you?"
Wotcha just grinned.
Clank.
Vincent turned back to the entrance and saw a small figure closing the door and coming over to them.
"I don't think you two met officially." Wotcha made introductions. "Tecca, this is Vincent McCall. Vincent, this is Tecca. He's... I guess you would call him my apprentice."
Vincent nodded a hello to the child, who watched him for a long moment with big eyes. After a while, Tecca turned to Wotcha. "We're all here." He said softly. He was missing a tooth.
Vincent stared at the Watchers. They looked like homeless people. A year ago he would have been surprised how many of them were young. Dirty, unashamed, slow moving… They would fit in under bridges, on park benches. He wondered how many he had seen in his life and not noticed. One of them saw him looking and smiled at him. She knew him from somewhere, and Vincent struggled to remember where.
"You all know Mr McCall." Wotcha said to open the meeting. "You all know the rules. We can help you out in exchange for your help with something. Today's request comes from Vincent."
A dozen pairs of eyes turned to him, and Vincent struggled to remember himself. This wasn't anything like the Lost City he'd been in a year before. He was packed into a space not much bigger than a railway car with over a dozen people who hadn't eaten or bathed in days, and one light-bulb. There was no magic here.
He cleared his throat against the smell and started to speak. "My friend Gill, he gambles too much. It got him in trouble today with a loan shark named Monroe. I don't know if that's his first or last name, but Gill told me the address of his shop. It's on the East End."
"Anyone know the place?" Wotcha piped up.
One man raised a hand.
"Right. Check with Clarence when you leave." Wotcha told them. "Go on Vincent."
"Right, well... Monroe gave my friend a week to pay it back, then changed his mind and demanded it immediately. It looked like someone was putting the squeeze on him too. The police are looking, but he's disappeared. So I figured if the law can't trace him, maybe you can."
"Standard wage, standard reward." Wotcha put in. "Tecca?"
The boy stood and pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. "Courtesy of the 10th Precinct." He reported. "This is Monroe's police sketch." The boy handed it around and they all looked at it.
"Tell your friends, report back in the usual way." Wotcha finished. "And stay off the river tonight. Cold snap may have broken, but it still ain't healthy out there. Goodnight folks."
Tecca pulled the door open and a train rolled by in the same moment. Everyone reared back from the invasion of noise until it passed, and began sneaking out.
Tecca returned to them and sat beside Wotcha. The boy kept staring at Vincent. He gave the boy his friendliest smile.
Tecca pulled a shoelace out of his pocket. "The kids wanted me to give you this."
"The kids?"
"The ones at the shelter." Tecca said, and he headed for the door, slipping out ahead of a train.
"Kids?" Wotcha asked with interest.
"There were some kids who refused to come into the Soup Kitchen." Vincent explained. "One of the people there told me that they don't dare accept charity. Most adults who try to help runaways put them in foster care."
"Foster Care is the reason most runaways prefer the streets." Wotcha said grimly.
Vincent shrugged. "So the next night I went back to the soup kitchen, left some food for them outside. It was gone when I left, didn't know if they got it or not."
Wotcha gestured at the shoelace. "Looks like they did."
Vincent went over closer to the light-bulb, and got a clearer look. It was a home-made charm bracelet. Bits and pieces threaded together. Wing-nuts, a bottle-cap, a paper clip, a tarnished dime with a hole punched through it... The shoelace was long enough to wear around his neck. Touched, Vincent put it on.
Tecca tilted his head, as though making a decision. "Yup. Wear it where they can see it at the Kitchen."
"I will." Vincent called after the boy; as he headed out into the Tunnel; leaving him alone with Wotcha.
"So." Vincent said finally. "What do I do now?"
"You go back to your life, and wait for me to call you." Wotcha said. "And don't get hit by a train on your way out."
~oo00oo~
Going home wasn't an option that appealed to him very much. Going to the office wasn't really an option, and Gill appreciated the concern, but hated the company. He was feeling foolish and embarrassed about what he'd done; and though Vincent was certain he wouldn't try again, the hospital had procedures to follow. Vincent was content to let the hospital staff talk to him for a while.
With a day off and his brain too jumpy to settle on any specific point, he decided to make a special effort with dinner, and stopped by a supermarket; but even that brought up thoughts of the Lostkind. Did they have their own stores? Did they only eat discarded food... Were there Gremlins in this store right now 'borrowing' canned goods?
"Hi there."
Vincent looked up, jarred out of his thoughts. A familiar looking woman had sidled her shopping cart up alongside his, keeping pace with him. She had frizzy brown hair that went past her shoulders, and wire-rim glasses. She was dressed in jeans and a plain black t-shirt, with worn runners on her feet. "You don't remember me." She said as a statement.
"I remember you were at the Kitchen last night, and I remember you burned your hand on the coffee urn."
"That was not a coffee urn, that was the anti-Christ." She said with great dignity, as she extended a hand. "We weren't introduced last night. Connie Harnell."
He shook her hand lightly. "Vincent McCall. Last night was your first time volunteering, wasn't it?"
"At the Soup Kitchen yes, but I work at the Free Clinic on Lilac Street all the time." Connie told him. "A few of the patients there mentioned the Kitchen, and I thought maybe you guys could use ano
ther hand."
"Always." Vincent said agreeably. There were millions of people in the city, and significantly fewer that volunteered to help out at free clinics and soup kitchens. Vincent held no grudge against anyone who chose not to make an effort, but held great respect for anyone that did. "You came at a great time. And for what it's worth, the regulars seemed to like you."
"They know me." Connie explained. "Like I said, they mentioned the Kitchen to me. So. Big date planned?"
Vincent looked back at his trolley. "No. Cooking is… sort of a hobby. One I take advantage of when I'm thinking about something."
Connie smiled. "Heh, me too. I'm a New Yorker, I live on take out and freezer meals. When I got something to think about, a really good home-made meal is my reward for thinking about it long enough."
Vincent laughed. "Yeah, me too."
Connie smiled and held out the produce in her hands. "Oranges?"
Vincent took one.
Connie hummed pleasantly as she took a deep breath of the fruit, inhaling the fragrance. "The best oranges in the world are the Sicilian Blood Oranges. They say there that the sun kisses the leaves to make flowers grow. You can smell the orange-blossoms for miles. It's a wonderful rich perfume. I remember I was there once on a trip with my brother. We rode on bicycles through the orchards at sunset. The bees and the butterflies would come to collect the pollen; and they'd keep pace with us as we rode through the orchard. I remember we set up camp at the base of the tallest tree there, and when the sun came up the next morning the tent was covered in orange-blossoms."
Her voice had taken a low musical quality, like she was telling him a great old folk tale. Vincent forgot for a moment that there was a supermarket around them; as though they were alone here.
Yasi came to mind then. Yasi was a magical being from an otherworldly place, but Connie seemed to make magic out of nothing, conjure it into being from the smallest of inspiration. It was charming, almost enchanting. "When were you there?"
"Sicily?" Connie seemed surprised. "Never."
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