Down Here had an underground system, although that definitely wasn’t respectable in any sense of the word. It also required ID to ride, which meant it wasn’t an option. After three cabs had slowed, then rapidly accelerated again when they’d caught sight of Dan’s face, he and Ollie had elected to walk.
The further north they went, the busier the streets became, but Dan kept his hat pushed back and his collar down, and a path miraculously cleared ahead of them.
Ollie’s eyes were practically out on stalks, her gaze constantly shifting from faces to places and back again.
“What’s that thing?” she asked, blatantly pointing at a hulking hairy figure with patches of leathery skin on its face and long fleshy hooks for hands. It was squeezed into a chef’s outfit, complete with a variety of knives tucked into its waistband.
“A Groonshack,” Dan said, lowering Ollie’s arm for her. “They don’t appreciate being pointed at.”
“Oh,” said Ollie. “Groonshack,” she said, as if testing how the word felt in her mouth. She stabbed a finger towards a group of cone-headed people in flowing purple outfits. “Who are they?”
“Brotherhood of Mish,” Dan said, lowering her arm again. “Don’t make eye contact.”
“Will they attack us?” Ollie whispered.
“Worse. They’ll give us pamphlets.” He shuddered at the thought, then altered his route along the sidewalk to give the brotherhood as wide a berth as possible.
Ollie followed in his wake. She pointed again, but at an upwards angle this time. “What’s that?”
Dan blew out his cheeks and rolled his eyes before following her finger again. She was gesturing towards a tall building that was just visible through a gap between two other buildings which weren’t quite so tall, but much closer. The early morning light reflected off its harsh, angular outline.
“That’s the Tribunal Watchtower,” he said. “It’s their surveillance hub. Among other things. Not somewhere you ever want to find yourself.”
Dan lasted two more questions before telling her to knock it off. He was impressed with himself for making it that long, as his initial instinct had been to shut her down midway through question one. So much here was new to the kid, though, so he saw the time spent answering her questions now as an investment. If she knew what things were – and how dangerous – she was less likely to go bumbling into a situation she wasn’t prepared for, which meant he was less likely to have to get her out of it and undo whatever damage she’d caused.
Still, there was a limit to his patience. Five questions were enough. He wasn’t a fonking saint.
Of course, despite his request for her to shut up, she kept talking anyway. He managed to ignore most of it, only getting involved once when she almost offended a bounty hunter by saying he had a funny hat, and again when she literally walked into a Tribunal patrolman. That had been a nerve-wracking few seconds, but Dan’s pungent odor had made the guy think twice about hanging around to do an ID check.
And so, it was a relief when they finally reached the Worm’s lair. It was tucked away down a narrow alley, sandwiched between a shuttered liquor store and a burger joint so sketchy-looking the food poisoning had likely become airborne.
Ollie looked the Worm’s door up and down, taking in the peeling paint and the bars on the narrow window. She leaned back, expecting to see a few floors stretching out above, but there was only this first floor, and even that looked lower than normal.
“Is this it?” she asked.
“This is it,” Dan confirmed.
“It looks pretty small.”
Dan shrugged. “Only from the outside.”
He approached the door and rapped out a complex series of knocks.
“Wait… what? It’s bigger on the inside?” Ollie asked. “You mean like… magic?”
“I mean like it has a basement,” Dan said. He took a step back as a number of locks clunked and thunked on the other side of the door, before the whole thing swung inwards with a low, almost theatrical creak.
Dan stepped inside, gesturing for her to follow. “Stay close, don’t touch anything, and if the Worm offers you a drink, do not – I repeat, do not – take it.”
“Stay close, touch nothing, don’t take a drink. Got it,” said Ollie. She followed Dan into a rickety cage-like cargo elevator beyond the door, and watched as he heaved the door shut. “What if I get thirsty?”
“You won’t get thirsty,” Dan said, jabbing the lower of two buttons on the elevator’s rusted control panel.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I’m sure.”
There was silence for a moment.
“I’m thirsty now.”
Dan tutted. “Just don’t drink anything. Trust me. I’m not carrying you back to the office. We’ll get you something when we leave.” He slapped her hand away before she could push the other button. “And what did I just say? Don’t touch anything!”
“Sorry,” said Ollie, tucking her hands into her pockets as the lift noisily began to descend. “Forgot.”
The Worm’s voice drifted up to meet them before the elevator was even halfway down. It was shrill and high-pitched with a rather grandiose overtone that suggested it probably thought quite a lot of itself.
“Greetings, my friends! I am excited for your arrival. You will be with me momentarily. Please brace yourself for the bump as the elevator comes to a halt.”
There was a bump as the elevator came to a halt. Through the gaps in the cage, Ollie saw a room that had probably started out three or four times the size of Dan’s office, but which was now so crammed full of books, boxes and assorted random objects that there was barely any floor space left.
Much of what was left was taken up by a bloated, vaguely gelatinous-looking figure that seemed to be permanently installed in a nest of books and papers. The Worm had no head, as such. Instead, his broad, grinning face was positioned on a sort of bulging nodule that rose directly from his huge spongy body.
His naked torso was like a road map of shallow wrinkles, the pinkish-orange skin all shiny and slick. He had arms, but they were thin and stubby with tiny grasping hands on the end, and arguably more annoying than useful.
The lower half of his body was coiled up in his paper nest, a tangled knot of wobbly flesh. His eyes were bloodshot and slightly bulbous. They bulged even more when Ollie emerged from the elevator, and he smacked his slimy lips together as if anticipating the taste of something delicious.
“Why, hello my dear,” the Worm oozed. “And, may I say, what an enchanting vision you are at so early an hour.”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Dan, stepping in front of Ollie. “Cut the shizz.”
“Dan. Dear, precious Dan,” said the Worm, his rubbery smile growing. “While somewhat less enchanting a vision, it is always a pleasure to see you. Pray tell, what brings you here to my Onyx Vault?”
Ollie leaned out from behind Dan’s back. “Onyx Vault? What’s that?”
“It’s his name for his place,” said Dan, making no effort to hide the weariness in his voice. “And yes, it’s ridiculous.”
“That’s a matter of opinion,” said the Worm. “It may sound a little…” He waved a stubby arm, searching for the perfect word. “Pompous, perhaps, but I’m really rather fond of it. The Onyx Vault, the final resting place of objects both mysterious and mystifying! Have you come to be stupefied and bewildered by the wonders of my collection?”
“No,” said Dan. “We’re here for ID.”
“Oh. Well, how very disappointing,” said the Worm. His flesh made a series of low farting sounds as he shifted around. “For you? Another name change?”
“Not me,” said Dan. He jabbed a thumb in Ollie’s direction. “I need you to hook her up.”
The Worm’s eyes almost popped out of their slimy sockets.
“With ID, I mean. Not like that.”
“Ah. Again, how very disappointing,” said the Worm, dragging his gaze all the way down Ollie and all the way back up again. “I�
�ll need to take some photographs, of course.”
“Yeah, we’ve got that covered,” said Dan, fishing the datapad from his pocket. “Took one this morning before we left.”
“I should probably take some more,” said the Worm, flecks of saliva forming at the corners of his mouth. He licked them away. “You know, to be on the safe side.”
Dan flicked a finger across the screen of the datapad. In the nest behind the worm, a screen illuminated, and a tightly-framed headshot of Ollie appeared. “Like I said. We have it covered,” Dan told him. “Keep your camera in your pants.”
“He’s not wearing pants,” Ollie pointed out.
“Ooh. Prying eyes,” said the Worm, waggling the smooth expanses of skin on his forehead that passed for eyebrows. “Take a peek, did we?”
Dan glanced past a stack of boxes to an unassuming-looking door tucked in at the back. “How long?” he asked.
The Worm blinked. “How long is what?”
“Until the ID’s ready. How long?”
“Oh.” The Worm’s stunted arms made a weighing motion. “Thirty minutes, maybe.”
He turned his attention back to Ollie, and squelched as he leaned closer. “What, pray tell, is your name, my dear?”
“Cut the charm offensive, Worm,” Dan said.
“Wait,” said Ollie. “He’s the Worm?”
The Worm shot Dan a questioning look. Dan answered it with a weary raising of his eyebrows. “Yes. He’s the Worm. Of course he’s the Worm. Look at him.”
“It isn’t the girl’s fault, Danny, my boy, you failed to properly introduce us. Yes, my dear, you are indeed in the presence of the Worm. Soak it in. Take your time.”
He inhaled deeply, as if breathing in a pleasing aroma. It made two little flaps in his face open and close. “Now, I didn’t yet catch your name…” he continued.
“Like I said, drop the charm act,” Dan warned. “Just get working on the ID.”
For the first time since they’d arrived, the Worm’s face took on just a hint of annoyance. “I need the name for the ID,” he pointed out. “I mean, I could pick something amusing like I did for those last cards you ordered, but I’m sure the young lady would prefer her own name. Correct?”
Ollie looked to Dan, as if unsure what the right answer was. He rubbed his hand across his chin like he was agonizing over the best course of action.
“Oledol,” he said. “Her name’s Oledol.”
“How lovely,” said the Worm. “Oledol what?”
“Just Oledol,” Dan replied. “Make up the rest.”
He beckoned Ollie over to him. “Thirty minutes?”
“Thereabouts,” the Worm confirmed.
“OK. I need to use the library. Shout me when it’s done.”
“Very good,” said the Worm. “Oledol is more than welcome to stay out here. I could fetch her a drink.”
“Thanks. But she’s good with me,” Dan said, then he caught Ollie before she could say that she would, in fact, quite like a drink, and dragged her into the darkened room beyond the door.
Ollie opened her mouth to speak, but Dan shushed her until he’d closed the door again.
“He seemed nice,” she said, once he’d indicated she could go ahead and speak.
“Yeah, well, you’re an even worse judge of character than I thought,” Dan replied. He took a step into the darkness and waved an arm above his head. A motion sensor which hadn’t been paying attention suddenly took notice, and overhead lights began to clunk on. A lot of overhead lights, all of them spaced well apart.
“Whoa,” Ollie whispered, as the darkness was pushed further back to reveal more and more of the room.
“I know,” said Dan. “It’s pretty huge.”
“Hmm?” said Ollie, frowning. She held her hands out in front of her, palms facing each other about a foot and a half apart. “It’s not that big.”
Dan looked at her hands, then at her face, then at her hands again. “What the fonk are you talking about?”
“This thing,” said Ollie, darting over to something that may have been a sculpture, a sex toy, or a guided missile. Or possibly some combination of all three. “What does this do?” she asked, reaching for it.
Dan caught her by the wrist. “Nothing you want to get involved in,” he said, in a way that suggested at least one of those guesses was probably right. “And I told you, touch nothing.”
Ollie had already turned away, the object apparently already forgotten. “Whoa!” she said again, her eyes becoming circles of surprise. “This place is huge!”
Dan released his grip on her arm. “Yeah,” he confirmed. “It is.”
What the Worm referred to as ‘the Onyx Vault’ was one of the largest private collections of Malwhere-related items anywhere in the galaxy. Unlike the cluttered front room, this was a vast space with neat rows of display cases, a maze of bookshelves, and a thirty-feet long skeleton of something twisted and monstrous hanging from the surprisingly high ceiling.
Most of the floor was carpeted, aside from a square of vinyl flooring in the middle that was bigger than Dan’s entire office. Rows of solid-looking wooden crates had been set out on the carpet along three of the square’s sides like benches with additional bonus storage options.
The items on display ranged from the banal to the outlandish, with no obvious strategy behind what went where. One case contained an unremarkable piece of gray rock, while the next held something soft and fleshy suspended in viscous orange fluid. There were things that looked like guns, things that looked like limbs, and things that looked unlike anything Ollie had ever seen and, ideally, would never see again.
“This looks fun,” she said, jabbing a button on some sort of metal backpack before Dan could stop her. There was a sound like concentrated whale song, and the pack rocketed off its plinth, a blue flame trailing behind it.
Dan lunged, caught the jetpack-like thing by one of its straps, then was immediately yanked off his feet by its momentum. He wrestled with it for a few brief but action-packed seconds, then the flame died, the acceleration stopped, and he rolled to a stop on the carpet.
“Hands in your pockets,” Dan instructed, picking up his hat and getting to his feet.
“But I didn’t—”
Dan replaced the jetpack on its stand. “Hands in pockets,” he repeated. “Now.”
He waited until Ollie had done as he’d instructed, then motioned for her to walk ahead of him in the direction of the bookshelves. “Go in front so I can keep an eye on you. You can’t mess around with this stuff. It’s dangerous.”
Ollie trudged along, dragging her feet. “What about the books? Can I touch the books?”
“The books are even more dangerous,” Dan told her. “So, no. You can’t touch the books.”
“Aw, but…”
“You want to touch something?” Dan asked, stopping. Ollie’s face brightened, then quickly fell again when Dan pointed to an armchair just outside the maze of towering book cases. “Touch that with your butt. Sit there and wait for me to come out. Do not move. Do not mess with anything, and if anyone comes in you shout for me. Understood?”
Ollie’s shoulders slumped, like her arms had suddenly become heavier than lead. “OK. Fine. I’ll wait here. Will you be long?”
“No,” Dan said. “I just need to check something.”
The armchair molded itself to the outline of Ollie’s body as she slumped down into it. When she wriggled around, it shifted to accommodate.
“It’s pretty comfy, I suppose,” she said, but she still didn’t sound particularly happy about it.
“Remember, go nowhere, touch nothing, shout if anyone comes in,” Dan said, then he stepped into the gap between two book cases and made his way through the maze.
And it was a maze. The stacks all varied in height, but each was much taller than Dan, making it impossible for him to see anything beyond the corridor he was currently standing it. After every few sets of shelves, an opening would appear, leading off into anothe
r section of the library. Each new corridor would then branch outwards into an increasingly elaborate labyrinth of reading material.
There were no signs to indicate different areas of interest, no arrows pointing towards the exit. There were only the shelves and the books, and the further Dan ventured through the maze, the more he wondered if he’d stumble upon the skeleton of some previous visitor who had failed in their quest to find a way out.
Since coming back to life, Dan had gradually grown used to being the most disturbing thing in pretty much any given room. This place, though, made even his skin crawl.
It wasn’t the maze that was the problem, but the books themselves. Each ancient, leather-bound tome oozed menace. Some of them oozed other things, too, but fortunately those weren’t the ones he was looking for.
A few of the larger volumes seemed to whisper to him as he passed, the sound bypassing his ears and scratching itself onto the surface of his brain, instead.
Free us. Use us, said one.
Make our power yours, said another.
Nice hat, said a third, although it sort of sniggered a bit at the end, which made Dan suspect it was being sarcastic.
He ignored them all. Those weren’t the books he was looking for, either.
Several twists, turns and the occasional backtrack later, Dan stopped before a rack of shelving. Like the others, this one was overflowing with a variety of different-sized volumes, all jammed in wherever space could be found.
They ranged from ancient things with worn spines, faded lettering and titles like Bronshok’s Arcanium, to more modern texts complete with full-color interior pictures and smiling author photos on the back cover. These had titles like Arcane Symbols for Beginners and Making the Most of the Malwhere, and Dan disregarded them immediately.
He found one that looked promising. It was old, but still in readable condition. The binding was yellow and waxy, and if you ignored the fact that there was an eyebrow on the back cover, you could convince yourself it was simply an uncommon kind of leather. Which, technically, it was.
The book’s title was written as a series of symbols in faded gold leaf. Dan waited for the translation chip in his eyeball to do its thing, but the symbols remained steadfastly cryptic.
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