“Guns, huh?”
She’d wondered
when Jo would bring that up. Dusty naked bulbs strung along a bundle of wire at
the top left corner of the brick-and-concrete tunnel. Two pipes ran along the
floor, also to the left. A leaking joint in the smaller one had resolved any
unasked questions about Underground plumbing. Mieshka tried not to think about
the larger one.
“Yeah. Guns.”
Except for the tread of their boots and the click of Jo’s mint, the tunnel was
quiet. “I don’t know why. My mom was shot, but…”
Her throat
clenched around the sore topic. She’d read somewhere that muscles clenched up
around injuries. She suspected something similar happened in the mind.
The mint stopped
clicking. Jo stared ahead, eyes unreadable. Her jaw muscles tensed.
“I’m sorry for
your loss.”
Mieshka heard
that a lot.
Silence
thickened, each carefully not looking at the other. The tunnel was full of
echoes. Some lights hummed in their sockets.
“So, Meese,
huh?”
“Yep.”
The tunnel
shifted, angled down, and ended in a dim doorway. A draft drifted past her cheek.
“City’s getting
close,” Jo said.
They entered an
old shopping mall. The lights and wire stretched along the right wall. They
disappeared into the distance, gleaming off empty display windows. It was
cavernous. The lights only lit a very small portion. The rest of the space was
lost in darkness.
Mieshka clicked
on her flashlight and flicked it left. Their path was edged by a grimy guard
rail. Across a shadowy chasm, a second path hugged the opposite side.
Escalators descended into the gap, dusty, dark, and dead. On the floor below, a
vacant concierge advertised a long expired sale.
Mieshka and Jo
followed the string of lights to the right. The occasional mannequin loomed
inside shop displays, their clothes long stripped. The quiet was palpable, and
smothered Mieshka’s senses like a pillow.
She tried not to
think of how far down they were.
They began to
hear things. Sounds. Echoes. Mieshka gripped her flashlight hard again, wide
eyes trying to pierce the dark. Jo noticed.
“Spooked? It’s
just the city. Weird acoustics in here.”
Mieshka nodded.
Still, she didn’t linger.
Eventually, the
middle chasm ended, and the two opposing paths angled together into a foyer.
Four large doors were boarded with plywood. There was nowhere else to go.
Jo held one open
for her, revealing a sidewalk on the other side. Mieshka stepped out into the
city under the city.
It was a normal,
night-time street. An eclectic mix of buildings crowded either side; the oldest
were made with brick and wore decorated trims; the mall they had left was an
anachronism amongst the century-old community. Bright storefront displays cast
squares of light onto the sidewalk, mixing with the diffused glow of
streetlights.
A displaced
hydro pole stood in the middle of the street, the concrete around its base newer
than the road. Mieshka looked up, and her mouth went slack.
Much like the
spaceship’s underground hangar, this underground city had a framework to
support its roof. It was a hybrid of steel and timber beams, crossing the
street midway between the second and third floors of the buildings. The beams
rose into shadow. Mieshka couldn’t see the ceiling.
She turned to
Jo. “How far—”
“Ten storeys in
some places. Here it’s more like five, ground to ceiling.”
Jo’s face was
shadowed by the overhang of the mall. Mieshka toed the curb, her eyes following
the line of hydro poles down the street.
“Do people drive
down here?”
“No. Carbon
monoxide isn’t so good. Lots of bikes, though.”
Shops lined the
street: groceries, DVDs, clothes. Across was a cafรฉ, its brickwork a black and
red checkerboard pattern. People moved inside. She smelled fresh baking and
coffee.
If it weren’t
for the ceiling and the antiquated buildings, Mieshka could easily have
believed she was in a less-populated section of Lyarne. There was even a draft.
“How big is it?”
“If you include
all the outlying tunnels? Big. It’s quite elongated, but the Core itself is
roughly seven square blocks. There are other sections—residential,
mainly—around the Core: Eastside, Westside, and Southside. We entered near
Westside.”
Before the mall,
the tunnel had branched several times. Most of those arms had looked rather
well-used.
Jo stepped onto
the street. “There’s about half a million people down here.”
Mieshka followed.
The street curved away from them to the right. The mall’s exterior ended with
the city block. Shops had moved into its prime retail space. Farther down, she
spotted a cathedral. A light burned outside its door. Supports encircled its
spire.
“Let’s eat. This
petty cash is burning my pocket.”
They drifted
more than walked, Jo quietly letting Mieshka take the lead. A number of people
greeted Jo, giving Mieshka curious looks as they passed. Mieshka intuited that
she must be well-known down here. After a few blocks, Jo turned her down a
cobbled side street. The support beams swooped lower, hung with naked bulbs.
The brickwork on either side was black with age. How old had this place been
before it was buried?
Jo led her into
a cafรฉ parked on the corner of an intersecting alley. Soon, Mieshka found
herself staring out from a lace-curtained window, her shoulder pressed to the
glass. Jo sat across from her. A pot of green tea sat between them, with
promises of cake to come.
“You’ve been
quieter than I expected,” Jo said.
Rather than
pester Jo for answers, Mieshka had been figuring out the mechanics behind the
place for herself. She stared at the writing on the cafรฉ’s window.
“There’s a lot
more Chinese writing than in Uptown.” She’d been noticing it for a while.
Jo also glanced
at the window.
“There’s a lot
more Chinese down here. Higher density, anyway. Bit of a racial thing.”
“Racial thing?”
Jo’s chair
creaked as she tipped it back.
“The Chinese
were the first to be refused housing. Other minorities followed. It makes sense
that there’s a large group down here.”
“Why were they
refused?”
Jo didn’t
answer. Mieshka tried not to move under her stare.
“Your guess is
as good as mine. I wouldn’t bring it up down here, though. Bit of a sore topic.
Ah,” she said, her eyes lifting up to look behind Mieshka. “I was wondering if
he’d show.”
Mieshka looked
behind her. The man by the doorway was about as tall as Mieshka, dressed in
black, and had a wide-brimmed hat that put shadows onto his face. He looked
Chinese.
Mieshka hoped he
hadn’t heard their conversation.
“Long time no
see, Joanne.”
Joanne? Mieshka hid a smile. As the man
drew closer, that smile faded. The back of her hand tingled. Mieshka tensed
like she’d seen a gun.
“Not long
enough.” Jo’s voice had teeth.
“You wound me.”
“As I recall, we
were both wounded last time.”
“An accurate
recollection.”
Mieshka felt she
was missing part of the conversation. She didn’t have time to dwell on it: her
attention was pulled to the edge of her senses, where she’d felt the fire
before.
“Is that a
transfer sigil?”
Mieshka blinked.
He’d come closer while she’d looked away. He stared at the mark.
“It is.” Jo’s
voice was vaguely triumphant. “And you can tell your boss that, too.”
“She’s new,
isn’t she? What is your name?”
Mieshka didn’t
want to tell him. The energy through the mark felt taut, like the spring of a
trap. She forced herself to stay calm.
“I don’t believe
you’ve told me yours, yet.”
His expression
was unreadable. After a moment, he held out his hand.
“Roger.”
“Mieshka.”
When they shook,
it felt like a weight dropped into place.
“A pleasure to
meet you,” he said. “Mind the tea.”
She looked back
at her cup. The liquid spilled above the brim, floating in the air.
She let go of
his hand. It fell back with a soft plop.
“Are you the
Water Mage?”
Jo snorted into
her drink.
Roger looked
amused. “No. I’m her apprentice. I assume you are Aiden’s?”
Was he the water
elemental Chris had talked about? Her jaw tensed. She found herself nodding. He
seemed friendly enough now, but it was clear he and Jo had a history.
“That explains
the rumours, then.”
Rumours? There
were rumours about her?
“Word spreads
awfully quick down here,” Jo commented dryly.
“It does.”
Mieshka tried
not to look worried.
“I expect we
will be seeing more of each other, Mieshka.” With a tip of his hat, he left. He
waved through the window as he passed.
Jo and Mieshka
watched the transfer mark. They did not speak until the glow had gone.
“So you’ve
decided? You’ll be his apprentice?”
“Maybe. What did
you mean by ‘wound’?”
Jo took a sip of
her tea. “He likes to pick fights.”
Perhaps he
wasn’t as amiable as he seemed. Mieshka rethought his last words to her. She
decided that she didn’t particularly want to see more of him.
A moment later,
the cake came.
