The Lostkind (2 page)

Vincent had started his career as an engineer, and immediately saw the mechanism for what it was. It was an elevator. An elevator run by simple physics alone. No power, no generators, just the application of weights and pulleys. He stepped into the basket, and she joined him, pulling the lever. The ropes released, the weights moved, and the basket rose.

Up from the lowest point in the chamber, Vincent got a look at it at last. It was like some incredible subterranean cavern, but it was not natural. The stone walls were clapped together in concrete and marble and steel. The sides of it were honeycombed with holes, each the size of a room. Vincent looked to the opposite wall and its ‘rooms'. Most of them were closed off by draperies and curtains, but he could see lights burning in some of them.

And as the elevator climbed up the side of the cavern, he could see rope ladders and swinging platforms leading to rooms on this side too.

They rose half a dozen levels, and the gears stopped. Yasi stepped out onto the nearest platform, swaying from dozens of ropes and cables made from all materials.

Vincent hesitated. There was no way he could do this. He'd never even had a tree-house. He'd grown up in New York, he'd never even climbed a tree before.

Yasi looked back at him expectantly, and he forced himself not to freeze. The platform had no guard rails, not even a rope to hold on to. Vincent was a city planner. Making places safe was what he did for a living. This mysterious place was a death-trap.

"Hey! Wait for me!"

Vincent felt the basket shift for a few moments, and he held onto the side of it, as a young boy came clambering up over the side. He landed in the basket, spared Vincent the barest glance and calmly jumped out the other side, almost flying up the ropes and pulleys.

Vincent paled in horror on principle. The boy couldn't be more than five years old.

Yasi hollered up after him. "Wait your turn Tecca!"

The boy waved down absently and leaped from the rope into one of the tunnels, vanishing from sight.

Feeling upstaged, and more than a little foolish about his fear, Vincent stepped out onto the platform, and followed Yasi up a rope ladder. He took it slower than she did. The rope ladder was not nearly as taut or rigid as it could have been, and made it all too clear how far the drop was on the other side.

Getting closer now, he got a clear look at the 'caves' in the wall for the first time. They weren't caves, they were rooms. Rooms with people in them.
Living quarters.

The ladder they climbed led to one of the Chambers on a higher level, and Vincent poured all his concentration into not looking down. He was inside one of the chambers before he even realized where this woman was taking him.

The chamber was lit by candles. Ornate candelabras with dozens of candles, small tea-candles that flared the scent of incense into the room, and big wide candles that would look more in place at St Patrick's Cathedral.

There were shelves lining the wall, filled with strange little bits and pieces, the like of which would fit equally in a Wizards Workshop, a Bazaar, or a Junkyard. There was a hammock above the centre of the room, drawn up out of the way on pulleys and ropes that hung from the ceiling, made from stitched together leathers and cloths.

The place was a wild mixture of bohemian creativity and salvaged scrap. He felt like he'd tripped and fallen into Aladdin's Cave.

In fact, he was so enchanted by the room; he almost missed the fact that he was not alone. Over in the corner was an older man. He seemed to be in his sixties, but easily carried himself as someone a lot younger. He was dressed in a coat and tails, with a leather vest over a crisp white dress shirt. The first word that came to Vincent's mind was 'Gentleman'.

Yasi smiled and met the gentleman in a hug, and turned back to Vincent, as if showing him off. "Here he is."

Vincent felt like he was meeting her father for the first time. "Sir." He said, mostly because it felt appropriate to call him that.

"Yasi, you brought him! Wonderful." The man said jovially to Yasi. "Did anyone see you leave the surface?"

"Nobody. I made sure." Yasi promised. "The station was locked down for a few hours tonight. We'll have to put the right papers in place."

"I'll take care of it." The older man said shortly, and turned to Vincent. "My name, and my profession, is Archivist. Welcome to the Underground."

Vincent shook his hand automatically, and turned back to the open wall, staring out at the chamber. "It's huge." Vincent whispered. "How can this all be down here?"

"Originally, it was an intersection of sorts for a large section of the whole place." An unexpected voice responded witheringly. "But things happen; and it became the Residential area."

Vincent spun, almost tripping over the side, and looked up. An old woman was perched on a ledge above his head, hanging over the drop, sitting on an edge less than six inches wide. She rolled off the ledge and landed at Vincent's feet, crouching on the edge of the chamber entrance.

"There are miles of tunnels that have been sealed up for decades, and we moved in and took it over long ago." She said. "It's deceptive. There's no more space in here than in a thirty story building, but you hollow out the inside of a thirty story building and you'll feel like you've got more space than you'll ever need." She finally raised herself to stand upright, and pulled off the scarf from her face and the hat off her head, making a bow. "My name, and my profession, is Keeper." She creaked. "Welcome to The Underside."

Vincent licked his lips. "I… My name is-"

"Vincent McCall." The old woman said with him. "Yes, we know. We've kept an eye on your for the last week, as we do when we consider recruitment."

"Recruitment to what?"

"Doesn't matter, you didn't pass." Keeper said cuttingly. "But we needed to talk with you, and I figured Yasi would have a better chance of getting you down here peacefully than I would."

Vincent sent the lean woman a slightly scandalized look. Yasi didn't speak, didn't even notice, as she cast aside the long black coat, revealing her true self underneath. She was rail thin and dressed like a tribal warrior, with her torso bound in tight leathers, the many buckles and straps giving the impression of modern chain-mail armor. Her arms were bare, and inked, though he didn't know if the markings were drawn on or tattooed. She was dressed to intimidate, with a unique and daring style. It made her look beautiful and dangerous.

Vincent couldn't believe any of it was really happening. He was almost literally down the rabbit hole. Two hours before, he was on the train back to his apartment, trying to decide if the woman across from him was actually flirting, and now he was here, in this world beneath the world.

Yasi actually grinned at him. "This is exciting." She offered. "We rarely do this."

Vincent looked back, and observed the Triumvirate. Archivist, dressed in fine clothes that were a century out of date, but still immaculate; like he was expecting luncheon with the Queen. There was Keeper, an impossibly ancient old woman who looked like a cross between a scarecrow and a tribal Medicine Woman, eyes sharper than a hawk. And between them was Yasi, much younger, the only one armed, her face and exposed skin painted with minor ancestral marks; his first taste of this strange existence.

They sat down at a small serving table, which was barely above ankle height. The three of them just settled down easily into a crouch, as Vincent followed somewhat awkwardly on his knees. There was a Chinese teapot on the table, and Keeper poured for them all with great ceremony. The tea was sweet smelling, and Vincent couldn't begin to guess what kind it was.

"So... You have questions." Keeper said. "I'll tell you right now, we won't answer them all. But we'll answer more of it than we've ever told anyone."

"What is this place?" Vincent asked.

"This is The New York Underside." Archivist said. "It's where we live."

"And... where exactly are we?"

"About four hundred feet down. Under Manhattan, under the subways... We have tunnels that reach through all the Burroughs, though they are relatively new."

"How long has this all been here?"

"Over a century at least. The first of us, Werner, Wells and Camden, they came down here and saw the space they could use. They were wealthy men, great builders. They envisioned a Secret City, where people could hide. During the Great War, they were convinced that the war would last for decades, devastate the world. They spent their fortunes trying to rebuild their expensive world, far underground. A bomb shelter the size of a city. They wanted it to be very plush, very uptown. Well, that never really came about, but they put in a lot of necessities. We've added a lot more over the years."

Vincent looked out over the huge dome; at the crowds of people making their way below. "How
big
is this place?"

"That's hard to define." Archivist answered. "It's not all in one spot; some of it is sealed at one time or another. We have routes all the way through to-"

"That's not important." Yasi put in, cutting off any details before they could be given.

Vincent took the brush off for what it was and moved on. "How many people live here?"

"A lot. Thousands. No need to be specific." Keeper told him. "New York City has several million, and we live in the cracks between them."

"How come we don't know any of this is down here?"

"For the most part; because you don't look. But if you mean; why isn't it on the records; it's because the Original Makers kept it to themselves." Archivist explained, and Vincent got the feeling he was used to telling the history as a story. "Remember, it was meant as a bunker. No matter how big it was, there's no way there'd be enough room for everyone in this town. They promised places of safety to the wealthy, to the powerful, to their friends... The money kept pouring in, and they kept digging out the room, but then the war ended and the Depression started, and most of those people jumped out a window. That's the Shelter, but the Underground itself didn't start until a few years later. The millionaires were suddenly broke and had nowhere to go, and nothing to fall back on, so they sold the last of their possessions, spent the last of their money and moved in to the places they had built down below. Then time passed, and..."

"I know this part. Or at least I can guess." Vincent interrupted. "The subway tunnels were left as the station maps changed and new tracks were laid, and the steam pipes were left as the city moved to electric..."

"Some of them at least. And we inherited it. Just like the Shelter, just like the tunnels..." Archivist sighed. "The Underground is a world made of the places long forgotten."

"And the same goes for everything else, I assume." Vincent was already trying to comprehend the logistics. "Power, water, air..."

Archivist started counting on his fingers. "Air gets pumped through the subway tunnels already. A few extra shafts and it comes to us as well. Water trickles down, like most everything else. Power is tricky because it costs money. People notice things that cost money. We've been doing this a while, we know a lot of tricks."

"What about… garbage?" Vincent seized on something that came to mind just by looking around. "How do you deal with that?"

"Boy, you
are
a city planner, aren't you?" Yasi was amused.

"We handle our refuse the same way you do. We throw it away." Keeper said simply. "There are supermarkets Above; they throw out more food than they sell most days. They padlock the dumpsters so that the homeless can't get in. Anyone from the underground knows how to slip past locks like that, so we take all the discarded food and goods out, and replace it with our own garbage at the same time. The next night we repeat the process."

"And that works every night?" Vincent found it hard to believe.

"How often do
you
check that you've got the right garbage?" The older woman shot back.

"Not often." Vincent conceded.

"Nobody checks what the garbage is, because it's like us: Too distasteful for people like you to think about."

"You don't like us do you?" Vincent said with wry amusement. "And the people?" He waved at the large chamber. "Where did they come from?"

"Same place everything else did. The people who live here are the ones that nobody notices are missing."

"So, the Homeless work for you?"

"A lot of them do; many do not." Yasi responded. "You don't think we could leave them all to starve? That's what your world does; not ours."

Vincent felt terribly ashamed suddenly. His mother's voice came back to him, from across the divide of years. ‘
Be nice to the beggars, for they may secretly be kings.'

"A Lost World made of Lost Boys." Vincent said in open wonder.

"Girls too." Yasi put in.

Long silence.

"So... I can only guess at how much you appreciate your privacy." Vincent said finally. "Why am I here?"

"There's been a new development." Keeper explained. "The old tunnels are going to be noticed again."

"Why?"