She didn’t look as phased as he had expected. In fact she gave him a mischievous grin and stopped the turn crank. Fear and panic rushed through Smoke. He had the vivid image of Penelope letting go of the crank, the safeties failing and the two of them falling to their inevitable doom. He immediately leapt to his feet. Penelope began to laugh, “I’m not moving this thing until I hear the story.”
“You could seize this thing!” Smoke shouted, “We could be stuck here until we die!”
“Calm yourself,” Penelope said with furrowed brows and a look of utter annoyance. “Stress is bad for the blood.”
“Then get this fucking thing moving!”
“I’ll start it once you start telling me the story. You stop telling it and I stop the lift. Nobody’s looking to come up or down. They haven’t for days now. I have nothing but time. And don’t even think of pulling out that revolving pistol. If you do I’ll flip the switch and send us both down faster than you’ve ever experienced.”
“We’ll die if you do that.”
“I’d die if you shoot me as well. Looks like you’re the only one with something to lose here.”
Smoke couldn’t stop his scowl from poking through. He pressed his lips together and muttered, “Fine.” He sat back down in an attempt at relaxing, “So,” he began, “I’m from the fourth below originally. I’m the son of the previous Cartel boss; that said I had an expectation to do right by the Cartel. I was raised to be this cruel and brutal machine that cared only for skins and business. I did some horrific things; I actually made my way to chief interrogator. There was nothing any given person wouldn’t tell me.
There had been so many people who had disappeared because of me, my family and our organization. And you know, I didn’t feel a single damn thing about it. At least not for a long, long time. About ten years ago something clicked in my head and the blood and the death and the crime and the drugs and the Cartel started making me sick. I couldn’t handle it. I got my friend, Fulcrum, and we agreed to leave the fourth below and start new lives.”
“What happened to Fulcrum?” Penelope asked, interrupting Smoke’s story.
He gave her a look telling her not to ask any more questions and continued, “The day we were set to leave he got caught. My father was livid. I managed to escape and left Fulcrum behind. He stayed in the fourth below. He’s now the Cartel’s best assassin.
I managed to make my way to the first below after a long retreat to the third.”
Penelope nodded her head knowingly, “Had to blow some money huh,” she said with a judgemental tone.
“Not at all,” Smoke said with angrily, “I have a woman there. Someone who’s been very close to me for a lot of years. Her and I are well beyond a sex relationship. Anyway, I’m getting off topic. I soon made my way to the first below and decided the best way to make up for what I had done would be to become an investigator. I’d be able to track down people who had gone missing and at the very least give them closure if the missing person died. It was more than what the people had been given all those years ago. There, that’s my story in a nutshell.”
“What makes you a good investigator though? It takes more than a few abilities to be able to push people around for answers. It takes a keen eye and the like.”
“Well,” Smoke said, a little more relaxed than he had been minutes ago, “being the chief interrogator I got to know when someone was lying to me. I knew what to look for and what to listen for. As for my keen eyes, it took a long time to train myself to be able to see the unnoticeable. This was before the first below. You’d be amazed at the skills I had to learn in the fourth. It wasn’t a pleasant place.”
Penelope nodded slowly. She had remained silent for the remainder of the trip. Her silence had been more unnerving than her persistent urge to bring up the long buried past. It seemed it had been a long time coming though; the past always had a way of resurfacing and coming to light. First he had run into Fulcrum, then Glass and the Cartel and Blaze Pox. It had been one big unwelcome reunion. The only one he had been happy to see was Glass and he didn’t know if he would actually see her again. He was glad he had been given the chance, though the reminder of her made his heart ache for her. The thought he could very well die after the job was done or even before gave him a sizeable lump in his throat.
Once the platform touched the ground Smoke stepped off and walked in the direction of the next lift. He turned to say his farewells to Penelope and saw she had followed him off the lift. “What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m coming with you,” she said with a straight face.
“The hell you are!” Smoke said with a little more force than he had intended. It seemed to work though; his words had caused her to take a step back.
“I’m coming with you,” Penelope repeated. “Look around this place. There’s nobody here. There’s nobody going to come up to the seventh below, nor will there be anybody going to the eighth below. I will literally be here all by myself. Tell me, would you really be okay leaving me here with nobody to talk to or keep me company? Would you really be okay with that?”
Smoke sighed loudly, making sure she could hear his dismay at the choice he’d have to make. If nobody remained in the lower floors it would be cruel to force her to stay by her lift until he came back. He didn’t know when that would be. “What about the other lift driver?” Smoke asked, “Am I supposed to bring him with me as well?”
“Not unless you want to,” Penelope said with an assertive tone, “I can drive the lift to the ninth below and send him up to the surface. I can then bring us back when we find Blue.”
“How do we get back if the lift driver has taken the lift up?”
The look Penelope gave him irked Smoke. “The lift has a mechanism, right along with the safety that would bring the lift down slow enough to safely land it on the lower floor.”
“Why don’t lift drivers use that instead of using the crank? It’d be much easier.”
“It’s not built for that. If any extra weight gets added to it the mechanism would fail and bring the lift down to the floor at a speed that would destroy it. Even a lift driver would be doomed.”
“Why do you want to come with me?” Smoke asked, knowing there had to be more to the story than what she let on. “There has to be a reason beyond that you’ll get a little lonely in the few days I’d be gone.”
Penelope rubbed her arm, “There is a reason. A few reasons if I’m being truly honest. You’re not going to like any of them.”
Smoke leered at her, “Tell me.”
“Well, the first reason is the fact that this place is going to be coming down in a month. Time is seriously of the essence. I got thinking on the way down and there is no way you can find Blue either on this floor or the next without help. Face it; you need a second set of eyes here.
The second reason really is the sake that I really just don’t want to be left alone. This place is so far from the surface and freedom. It’s tolerable when there are people around to take one’s mind off it, but now - now it’s nothing more than an echo of what it used to be. It’s creepy and I just don’t want to be left alone here.
The third and final reason is The Writer. It has taken an interest in me, actually has for pretty much my entire life. It’s the only explanation for everything that’s happened and everything I’ve gone through. I wish I could go into more description with that, but I really can’t. You wouldn’t believe me even if I did.”
Smoke nodded his head with each reason she listed off. She had been somewhat correct in her assumption of his disapproval of the reasons. The first reason was a pretty sound reason. He had to admit she had been right that he would need help finding Blue, if she were anywhere down in the eighth or ninth bellows. It’d be easier now that nobody remained on the floor, but there would still be too many places a girl could hide. There’d be no way he could check them all on both floors and still make it up to the surface within a month.
The second reason was under
standable. She didn’t want to be left alone on a floor. Smoke thought about it and the place did seem eerie in a way that made him uncomfortable, almost as if something was watching him while nothing had really been there. He could see himself yearning for company in the silence of the empty floor. He had never experienced silence like this before. Even on the surface when he had been by himself there had been the sound of the wind rustling through the grass and the trees. The birds, at least those which remained after the Apocalypse War had chirped and flew through the air. The underground was always filled with people going about their lives, with no real night or day things continued at all times this place was unnaturally still.
The final reason had rubbed him the wrong way. The religion of The Writer dated back thousands of years ago to a man who had claimed to have spoken to the creator of the universe. He couldn’t remember the name of the man who had presented the religion to the population but it had spread like wildfire among the masses. It took a major foot hold after the fall of the ancient gods and it filled a void for those who felt as if they needed something to believe. With everything that had happened through history the stories of The Writer and the sick and twisted game he played with people’s lives had caused many to renounce their faith and leave the religion behind. Still it had persisted in those few that wanted to be the people included in his supposed stories. Only a few believers in The Writer wanted nothing to do with what he wrote.
Smoke scratched the back of his head, almost knocking his hat down. “Alright,” Smoke said with a mild sigh, “you can come with. Your first two points are valid, I can’t ignore them. But your Writer reasoning is faulty at best. I pray to whatever gods may be out there, but I have a hard time believing a writer created them all.”
Penelope shrugged, “That’s your faith. Fair enough. Odds are I’ll eventually have to explain my reasoning, but we really don’t have time right now to waste on my stories.”
The walk to the town on the eighth below was a quiet one. Neither of them spoke, only the sounds of their boots on the flat rough ground broke the silence of the floor.
The town was deserted as Penelope had claimed. “How did you manage to evacuate two whole floors in only a matter of days?” Smoke asked once the question entered his head.
“By going non-stop,” Penelope said as she rolled her shoulders. “It was really tough. By the last load I could have sworn my arms were going to fall off. There were some who relieved me as well for hours on end, though by the end we were all done with it. I chose to stay behind and wait for you. You must have noticed a massive crowd somewhere along the way.”
He had on the sixth below. He had assumed the majority of them were slave buyers and didn’t take a second look at them, though in retrospect many of them did seem to be less than capable of buying slaves. The people who surrounded him looked as if they had been from lower floors. The people in cages, they could have easily been from the ninth below. Everything was making more sense to him.
His mind had been on Blue a lot lately, doing his best to make sure he would be able track her down and bring her home. The thought of her slipping past him and making her way back up towards the surface had crossed his mind several times. If that were the case he’d be going in the direct opposite direction, but he wouldn’t know until he made his way down to the bottom.
Besides, if she had made her way upwards he believed he’d know. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind Fulcrum would be watching him from a few steps behind. He’d have seen Blue get on a lift upwards and somehow he’d let Smoke know. The only thing greater for Fulcrum than killing Smoke would be getting the half million skins and then killing Smoke; he would be doing everything in his power to be sure that happened. If anyone would know, it would be Fulcrum.
The town was abandoned as Penelope had said. It still had the same drab look the seventh below had, but the buildings hadn’t been burned. Smoke opened the door to one of the houses to find the place had been left in a condition of makeshift cleanliness. Smoke looked through the rooms searching for any signs it had been stayed in since the home’s abandonment. It looked as if the people of the eighth below had just picked up and left with nothing but the clothes on their backs and maybe a small keepsake. Everything looked almost pristine. Beds were made, dishes were clean; it looked as if people had planned on returning to their homes at the end of it all.
As he left the first house he watched as Penelope exited the house adjacent to it. She gave him a shrug and shook her head as she ventured towards the next home. He watched as she rammed her shoulder into the door thus breaking it open. Somebody must have locked the door out of habit. Smoke watched her enter the single story home and continued to enter into the next one.
The contents of the house were similar to the last. The biggest difference had been these people hadn’t taken the time to clean anything before they had left. He then proceeded to check the rooms for any sign of Blue.
House after house the results were always the same. They’d check a house and Blue hadn’t been anywhere in sight. Smoke could feel himself getting tired as the search continued. He tried to think back to the last time he’d slept and found he couldn’t quite remember. This had become an ever increasing habit of his. It wasn’t healthy; he needed to get some sleep before he continued any farther. Blue wasn’t on the eighth below.
He watched as Penelope rounded a corner and gave him another shrug. “No sign of her anywhere,” she said with an apologetic tone.
“We’ll continue tomorrow,” Smoke said, “I need to sleep. I don’t really know how many days it’s been since.”
Penelope looked around, “Yeah alright. I’ll keep looking. I’m not tired right now anyway. When you wake I’ll let you know where all I’ve looked.”
Smoke rubbed his chin. His face had grown sizeable stubble in the time since the third below. He didn’t know how long it would be before he’d have a chance to shave. He hadn’t brought his straight razor so shaving for the time being was right out of the question. Not that it really mattered anymore; by the time he’d make it to Blue and back to his home, everyone would already be on the surface. There’d be nobody to look professional for.
Penelope had helped him build a fire from the remains of one of the abandoned homes. She had found a pair of wrecking bars and they had demolished one of the walls for the fire. As soon as the fire had been lit he curled up beside the heat and closed his eyes in preparation for sleep. Penelope would continue searching. In a matter of days they’d have checked the whole floor and know for sure if Blue would be on the ninth below.
The days seemed to string together as Smoke and Penelope searched for Blue. Things would have been much easier if there had been anyone to ask. Or if at the very least he could manage to actually fall asleep. He slapped himself on the forehead, “Fuck sake!” he screamed.
“What?” Penelope asked almost immediately.
“I can be so fucking dense sometimes,” he said as he shook his head in shame. “I kept thinking I’d know for sure where Blue is if there had been someone in the town to point me in a direction. I’d find her anyway, but a person’s confirmation would make it so much easier.”
“Yes it would, but there’s nobody in the town,” Penelope said.
“You don’t get it,” Smoke said, “There’s nobody in the town, but the floor’s not deserted. There’s still the lift driver to the ninth below. He could tell me if he brought Blue down there. If you remembered her it’s possible he could remember her as well.”
“I’ve already asked him,” Penelope said. “The first time you made an attempt at sleeping I asked him. He said he did remember her going down there, but in the mad rush to get everyone up from the ninth below he couldn’t tell me if she had come back up. I figured it was safer to check the place out before going down.
“Also, it’s no wonder you didn’t think of the fucking lift driver until now, do you seriously not know how long it’s been since you’ve slept?”
Smoke
thought for a second, “I think I’ve slept a few hours at least.”
“Accumulatively,” Penelope said as she pointed an accusing finger at him. “You’re sleeping, even if I have to knock you out to get there.”
“I’ll sleep once we’ve found Blue. I think that’s what’s been keeping me up, knowing there’s a time limit and having not found Blue.”
“I don’t care,” Penelope said frowning. “You’ll be no good to her if you pass out, especially if she’s in crisis.”
“I want to sleep, I really do, but something is keeping me awake. This is my best guess. I don’t think I’ll get much more until we find her.”
Smoke hung his head hoping to evoke some sort of emotional response within Penelope, at least something that would make her stop yelling at him. Every word she spoke was correct, he knew this and she knew he knew it. But shouting at him for something he had no control over wouldn’t help in any way. He would have been able to sleep had he not known about the time limit, but the plan to collapse the underground changed everything. Maybe that was the real reason nobody wanted him to know. There would be a hundred stories as to why they wouldn’t want Smoke to know, but him losing sleep due to a time crunch would be his main guess. Blaze and Cobble knew him well enough to know he would, especially if there was a job underfoot.
He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and index finger and led the way towards the lift to the ninth below. The floor outside the town looked like every other floor. The flat landscape was illuminated by the overhanging bulbs that seemed to never go out. Those that did were replaced almost instantly by people unknown to him or anyone else. Not that anyone actually cared, so long as the bulbs continued to be replaced and the air ventilation continued to spew oxygen to the underground, nobody ever cared who the people were.
Smoke’s mind couldn’t help but wonder in his sleep deprived state. The floor’s flatness allowed anyone to see where the lift and the lift driver stood so long as no obstructions stood in the way. It had often been said the towns were built with the lifts in mind; people who wanted to make it to the lifts to go above or below didn’t have to travel far. It would always be unsure as to what people would be bringing with them and nobody wanted to be dragging a hundred kilo trunk several miles to the lifts. The only real exception to this was on the seventh below; they purposely put their town at a distance to deter and defend against slavers.
The Engine What Runs the World Page 17