The Gatherer Series, Book 1

by Colleen Winter

  Megan grunted with effort, leaning her tiny body against the bar.

  Storm moved to help, her face turned from the city’s light. She wrapped her hands around the cool bar and pulled.

  “You can’t come. It isn’t safe.”

  The door gave way and Storm stumbled back, Megan falling on top of her. She weighed next to nothing, every part of her boney and sharp. Storm steadied her as Megan got to her feet.

  “I’m not safe here either.”

  Megan held the flashlight as they descended into the subway, its small field not strong enough to touch Storm. They passed through cavernous foyers that Storm felt rather than saw, the awareness of wide open spaces extending up from the narrow beam of the light. The hair on Storm’s arms rose as they descended down the jagged-edged steps of frozen escalators, aware of the powerful motors that lurked beneath them, ready to spring to life at the flick of a switch. At the third station the hum of a lone escalator echoed throughout the high ceilings. Megan guided them around it without Storm saying a word, her features solemn in the glow of the flashlight, focused on her role as guide.

  The route was lined with evidence of people, garbage cans turned over, the searched contents strewn across dirty tiled floors. They passed empty kiosks with their gates intact and others with them torn open, the metal in twisted crumpled balls still partially attached. Electrical plugs hung from digital signs behind where the cash register would have been. Powerless monitors didn’t announce train arrivals. In their second station one bank of monitors had been left on, their dull grey screens casting a deadened glow into the forgotten space.

  Megan led them across the damp concrete barrier to the opposite track. Storm had the sense of traveling in the wrong direction, as if, like the spinning escalator, there was a lone train circling incessantly along the same repeated path.

  They entered the somehow darker confined space of the tunnel, the metal rails gleaming in the narrow beam of light. They were so smooth and polished she could imagine the current that drove the trains still pulsed beneath the surface. The echo of their steps moved with them, a bubble of disturbance that passed, the dark and quiet closing in behind them.

  “My mom and I rode the trains.”

  Storm had been in these same tunnels when they’d been brilliant and light, the people flowing along the corridors in parallel with the current that fed the lights, monitors, cash registers, and ovens of the businesses that inhabited the tiny cave-like cubicles. There would be a yard somewhere, the defunct trains pushed together in a corner, waiting for a better day.

  A hundred or two hundred meters from a platform Megan stopped and pointed the flashlight at her feet. Ahead, the glow of a flickering light filled out the circled roof of the tunnel. Voices floated towards them, one male, the second indistinguishable.

  Megan turned and retraced their steps, pausing every few feet to scan the side walls, running the beam up to the ceiling. Storm’s pulse ran faster, its beat echoing against the silence.

  “What is it?”

  Megan held the beam on a small trap door, then moved on.

  “People.”

  “Are they sick?”

  They were almost back at the platform when Megan pulled on a metal utility door. It swung open easily, revealing a bare, narrow corridor perpendicular to the tracks. The voices were getting louder, approaching along the tunnel.

  Megan climbed into the corridor and Storm pushed in behind her, pulling the door shut. There was nothing to lock the door or jam the handle. Storm listened but the solid steel blocked all noise and she didn’t know if the voices had passed, stopped, or waited outside the door.

  The corridor was full of narrow, bare conduits running along the roof, leading into the tight closing darkness. The flashlight didn’t extend far into the corridor and Storm had the sense of it growing smaller, feeling that if she gave in to her desire to run, she would be trapped.

  Megan walked lightly ahead, her slight shoulders leading Storm into pitch blackness. She would be lost in darkness without her tiny guide, forced to take her chances with whoever controlled that square of light behind them, products of the Gatherer who might not be as welcoming as Megan’s group.

  “Are we close?”

  Romero had shown her the second blackout area on the map, yet she wanted Megan to say yes, that this shortcut would somehow bring them out of this tomb earlier. Several doors led off the corridor, yet they continued straight on, the air thicker and damper as they left the brightness of the subway platform behind. When Storm felt as if the pressure of the darkness around them would crush her, they passed through a metal door into the lifeless quiet of an abandoned mechanical room. A large boiler sat at its centre, pipes sprouting at odd angles like the legs of a beetle and running out and up into the darkness above them.

  Storm stopped. Somewhere in the room would be a panel, the gateway for all the electricity that would power the incessant churning of these machines.

  “It’s not live.”

  Megan backtracked to stand beside Storm. The boiler’s bulk towered above them.

  “It was at one point.”

  They passed the smooth faces of the control panels, small dirty windows showing stopped dials or newer digital faces gone blank. Storm dared not breathe, afraid that any breath would alert someone of their passage and let in the fear that rode on the back of her neck.

  Another entrance, wider, led to a finished hallway of drywall and musty carpet. The light revealed their ghostly reflections in the glass windows of empty offices, chairs, desks, and telephones all abandoned, waiting for people to return.

  There was a sudden crash of metal falling, a boulder tumbling through a metal culvert. They ducked into an open door, the flashlight out, and waited, stricken, in darkness. Storm was overwhelmed by the smell of candles on Megan’s hair, the desperate search for a piece of light to hold onto, and the reverberating crashes coming out of the darkness. Megan slipped her hand into Storm’s.

  The clanging stopped, its vibrations echoing through the corridors, rattling the empty spaces out of their silence. A brief draft of cool fresh air blew past. There was no sound of footsteps or retreating voices, simply the end of the noise.

  Megan slipped her hand from Storm and Storm reached for her in the dark, unseen threats looming closer. The arrival of light from the flashlight cast distorted shadows up from the floor, turning her from a child into a frightened cadaver.

  Storm re-took Megan’s hand in hers.

  “Keep the light in your other hand. It was something in the ventilation system.”

  Megan’s hand was soft and malleable. When they reached the new blackout area, Storm would send her back, above ground. It was ridiculous to have brought her here.

  “How much farther?”

  “We’re almost there.”

  They had passed through four subway stations and were likely below the old rail storage yard. At the end of the corridor a staircase led up. Looking up through the centre of the railings, the glow of either daylight or electric light shone several stories up. Light at the end of the tunnel was not a good thing.

  “That’s not the way.”

  “You have to go back to your mom.”

  “I don’t want to go back.”

  She spoke with the certainty of a child, her gaze unyielding. There must have been a dad at some point. Other family members who had walked away.

  “You’ve brought me far enough. I don’t want you to get sick.”

  Megan smiled and shone the light across her fingertips. A chill spread down Storm’s back. It was faint, almost not there, yet the fingers trembled at a fine, delicate frequency that was impossible to fake. Storm wrapped her hand over them to make them stop as a dam released within, waters crashing and tearing through her, ripping away the excuses she had built up, her justifications like broken weeds in the wind.

&n
bsp; Megan flinched as Storm squeezed harder.

  “Look at me.”

  She tried to pull her hand away.

  “I will make this better.”

  “Romero says you won’t.”

  She felt a surge of irritation at Romero’s insolence, that he would expose a child to such futility. Though it was the Gatherer that had levelled the playing field for everyone.

  “Well, we’ll have to prove him wrong.”

  “Then I better come with you. The place he wanted you to go is right ahead of us. You won’t know it is coming.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  The daylight reflected off the stairwell’s tiled walls, bits of it sneaking through the metal railings. The light had the softness of early morning and Storm wanted more than anything to step out of the darkness of the tunnels into its fledgling warmth. They had stopped on a landing two floors below street level, and Megan looked down at her from a few steps above. She had one foot on the next stair, her body twisted back towards Storm, her brow pinched as she fought against her need for sleep.

  “It’s okay to go this way.”

  Whether imagined or real, Storm felt the city coming awake above her, a slow ramping up of its radiation as trains glided along rails, coffee shops turned on their pots, and ventilation systems pushed air through the boardrooms and open concept floors of hundreds of office towers—along with the underlying pull of the network of Gatherers as they stripped away the world’s peripheral energy for fuel.

  “How do you know?”

  She shrugged, as if it was something she had always known. The tips of her hair glowed in the light.

  “I came here with Romero.”

  “Does he know you’re sick?”

  She looked up through the centre of the staircase and shook her head.

  Storm handed her one of the hand-made snacks Marty had given her before they’d left. Megan sat on a stair and Storm took the spot one step below her. The crinkling of their wrappers echoed in the bare walls, the sound of her chewing loud inside her head. Storm drew the map from inside her suit and laid it across her lap.

  They had walked for at least half an hour after the last staircase, heading further underground before rising up through several stories to this place.

  “Can you show me where we are?”

  Megan traced their route with her baby finger, a few crumbs falling across the creases.

  “This is where we went into the small tunnel.”

  Megan’s finger moved perpendicularly away from the line Romero had drawn. She continued following their route, changing directions where they left the first stairwell, until she stopped at the intersection of Dunthorn Avenue and Bell Street. The green area of Bell Park extended out from the intersection.

  “That’s the dark zone?”

  Above them, the muffled sound of a car horn beeped. Megan tilted her head side to side, chewing.

  “It’s where some of the sick people live. It’s not really dark.”

  Storm followed Romero’s red line with her index finger. It ended half-way down a street in the centre of a tight grid.

  “Where does this go?”

  Megan took her time to peel off her remaining wrapper.

  “It’s a dead end. There’s nothing there.”

  Storm held out her hand for Megan’s empty wrapper and folded the two together before sliding them into the pack. The jar of tablets Marty had given her didn’t fit with the water bottles and she readjusted them until they all fit in a straight line along her back.

  When she sat straight, Megan was pushing a thin black case back into her pocket.

  “What is that?”

  Storm held out her hand and Megan turned, shielding it with her body.

  “Give me that.”

  Storm reached for it and Megan pulled it away but not before Storm’s fingertips warmed where it touched.

  “It will make you sicker.”

  Storm’s voice echoed in the stairwell, making it louder, harsher.

  Megan had her head bent to the screen.

  “I don’t care.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  Storm grabbed for it, hating herself even as she overpowered the girl and pulled it from her hand. She glanced at the screen, the ache bleeding into her fingers.

  It was a photo of Megan with a happier, smiling Beverley and a beefy, grinning man.

  “Did you tell them where we are?”

  The small icon circled endlessly, searching in vain for a signal. Thank God. A few steps higher and they would have found them. The imbalance of the small field made her nauseous.

  “No.”

  Megan was defiant, chin stuck out. She reached for the phone and Storm let her take it. Storm lowered herself onto the step, her eye on the sleek black device. She remembered the heat around her ear during phone calls, its constant seemingly innocuous presence.

  “Why do you have that?”

  “So my mom knows where I am.”

  Who else would be waiting for Megan’s text, or the tiny ping that would show their location on the screen?

  “Can she use a phone?”

  Megan stood with her back to the railing, the phone clutched in two hands, away from her body. Her wings were tattered, the frame bent, strands of copper trailing off the bottom.

  “Marty takes messages for people.”

  Whoever was watching from the warehouse would know they had changed their route.

  “Where were you supposed to take me?”

  Megan had been so calm when she had led Storm back to the platform. It hadn’t felt like they were fleeing.

  “Where the voices were coming from.”

  “Who were they?”

  Megan slid her back down the railing until she was sitting on the step. She laid the phone carefully two stairs above her and rubbed her fingers together.

  “Does it hurt your hand?”

  “It feels weird.”

  Storm nodded. Megan’s nerves were healthy enough to feel only a slight irritation. The pain would come with time.

  “Rub your stomach like this.”

  Storm demonstrated by circling her flat palm clockwise over her solar plexus.

  “Sometimes it helps.”

  Megan did as instructed, the motion of her small hand more triangular than circular.

  “Anything?”

  Megan shrugged and left the phone where it was. The icon circled.

  “Why didn’t you take me there?”

  “I thought they might hurt you.”

  The phone lay between them, the screen dark for the moment.

  “I need you to turn off the phone.”

  Megan’s look was suspicious, the first sign she had shown of distrust.

  “My mom will be worried.”

  Storm looked upwards through the railing, listening for the sound of footsteps below them.

  “If they know we took a different route they’ll come and find us.”

  “Why do they want to hurt you?”

  Megan’s eyes were a clear, deep brown, the lashes small traces of blonde. She would be beautiful when she got older. If she had the chance.

  Storm stood, her foot raised to climb up, though down might have been safer.

  “I made everyone sick. With the Gatherer.”

  “On purpose?”

  She almost laughed. As if anyone would do this on purpose. The moment when she had understood what they had created, it had been like holding the answer to life itself in her hand. The power to change the world with a delicate web of crystals, like a piece of hot burning coal that would blister her skin if she held on too long. It could shut off the diesel generators in Northern communities, bring electricity to the impoverished around the world, a pump for a well, light to work by after dark, heat on col
d winter nights. She had seen it all spreading out before her, a beautiful domino of benefits that they would release onto the world.

  Others had seen different potentials. Almost no one had seen the dangers, except Daniel, the follower of rules, the one checking under the bed for monsters. She still didn’t know if he had started the fire. It could have as easily been Maria. Or someone else she was too blinded to see.

  “No. That’s why I have to fix it.”

  Megan powered down the phone and slipped it into her pocket.

  Daniel had been with her the night of the fire, working at his terminal while they’d waited for a test to run on the Gatherer, the gathering rate on a setting far beyond anything they had tried before. She didn’t know what they had expected to find, the finish on the walls melting or reality altered. They hadn’t figured out yet that the damage the Gatherer created was hidden—the slow wearing away of health, like the erosion of cliffs by the ocean, the damage unseen until the cliff collapsed. By the time symptoms showed up—tremors, diarrhea, nausea, foggy head—the damage had been done.

  She had fallen asleep while they’d waited and woken to the lab filled with smoke, so weak she could barely stand. She’d dragged herself to her feet, coughing, tasting chemicals. She’d barely been able to see the lab bench where Daniel had been sitting. The test area had been filled with flames, as if their test had spontaneously combusted and was taking the whole lab with it. It had burned her skin and shattered the protective glass.

  “Daniel!”

  Smoke had blocked every path. She’d dropped to the floor, covered her mouth with the soldering rag and crawled toward the door. There had been the sound of cracking and falling, and the great whooshing as the fire drew everything towards it. She’d scraped her way across the floor, focused on one hand in front of the next, found the stairwell, and stumbled down, grasping the railing as clearer air filled her lungs and the echoing alarms attacked her ears. She’d met firefighters at the ground floor, the flashing trucks crowded on the street.

  “Is anyone up there?”

  She had looked up to flames licking out of the window, their floor the only one on fire.

  “I don’t know.”