The Lostkind (5 page)

He noticed a 24 hour pharmacy across the street, and grinned despite himself.

~oo00oo~

"You think he'll help us?"

"I think it's more likely he'll have the press down here."

"We sealed the entrances he used."

"He's a City Planner, Yasi. He could find a hundred ways in if he put any thought into it."

"Keeper?" A small voice called from behind them.

Keeper didn't turn to look. "Yes Tecca, what is it?"

"We found this on the first level. Someone dropped it down a sewer grate. It was marked for Yasi."

"You know you shouldn't be on the first level without Wotcha. You're too young." Keeper told him.

"Yes'm." Tecca said, and handed over the object in question.

It was a bottle of skin moisturizer. Someone had written on the side in black marker:
'For Yasi, Twelfth Level.'

Keeper watched Yasi critically. "Hmm. Didn't realize you two were giving gifts."

The younger Lostkind didn't bother to respond to that.

TWO: Hiding In Plain Sight

Sunlight made the whole thing seem more insane still. It was harder to believe in magic once in the cold light of day. He shook off the dislocated feeling. The Underworld was so beyond his sense of reality that the whole thing had seemed hyper-real, intensely different. The sheer mundane normality of real life was like coming out of a sci-fi movie into the 6pm news.

A cool morning breeze swept over him, and he raised his head blearily. He hadn't opened the window, had he? The night before, Vincent had never been happier to see his bed. He walked into his room, and fell forward, pitching face down on top of the blankets, asleep before his head hit the pillow. He still hadn't changed from his work clothes...

And then he saw the wind-up lantern on the bedside table. It was made of polished metal, and stitched together parts. All the indicators of an Underside creation.

The hand lantern was working as a paperweight, for a scrap of paper taken from his own notepad.

Thanks for the lotion. Send more. --Y

Vincent smiled, but didn't feel happy. It was all true. He had the proof right here in his hand. He turned the key absently, making the gears turn, the light glow.

Vincent took the lantern with him to the kitchen, not bothering to turn the lights on, or pull up the shades. The Light of the Lostkind was enough.

The hand-sized lantern was flat and round, with what looked like an old style light bulb, about the size of a Christmas light in the centre, but the glass was colored oddly. The lantern was made, or at least covered in brass and velvet, with a Victorian era windup key coming out of the top. The light gave off a soft blue glow that reached further than the size of the bulb would indicate.

Vincent didn't know how it worked, but the light in the bulb faded to nothing after a few minutes. He turned the key again, and the glow brightened. He held the lantern up close to his ear and could hear something moving inside.

Taking it with him, he went to the kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee. The coffee machine looked bizarre, though he'd seen it every day since he got this apartment. Compared with the elegant and mysterious devices of the world he'd emerged from, something so... plain and factory produced seemed somehow lesser than it was before.

Nevertheless, he needed coffee.

His apartment was small, though this was not unusual in New York. The brownstone was old, though it wasn't by any stretch broken down. His apartment was on the opposite side of anything resembling a view. The only thing he could see from his windows was the opposite wall of the alley. Being four stories up, on the top level of his building offered him privacy from his neighbors, and if he really wanted to see more of the city skyline, he could climb the fire escape to the roof.

The morning sun shone on the opposite side of the building, the afternoon sun blocked by the opposite building. The darkness of the hallway was normal, but today it gave him a chill. He remembered the Market Tunnel, where there were people in every corner. He looked over his shoulder despite himself, expecting to see things vanish into hiding places.

Nothing.

The phone rang.

The phone was right next to him on the wall, fifteen inches from his ear, and Vincent jumped half out of his skin and spilled coffee all over his hand.

Hissing in pain, and feeling foolish, he answered it. "Hello?"

"Oh, you
are
there." Gill said smugly. "I called you twice last night, and there was no answer, I figured you must have gotten a better offer."

"Gill." Vincent said his name with a rush of air. "No, I... I was ignoring the phone."

"Yeah right."

Vincent was in no mood for this. Eugene Gillard, who preferred Gill as any man with such a name would, had been his friend since they'd started working together at the City Planner's Office, but he did tend to grate when he was enthusiastic about something. "Is there a reason you're calling?"

"Wanted to know if we were still on for poker tonight." Gill said, as though he could take it or leave it.

"Actually, I was..."

"Oh COME ON!" Gill exploded, but Vincent wasn't a bit surprised or put off. He'd been Gill's best mate for too long to take his emotional outburst seriously. "I'm in the zone! On a hot streak!"

"That's what you said when you went to Vegas." Vincent retorted. "I had to wire you cash for new shoes."

"Vegas." Gill scoffed. "I lied to you. I spent that shoe money on a Poker Game and I won big. You know why? Because I didn't go back to the casinos. Vegas is for chumps. They have all the casinos rigged. That's why the house always wins."

"No, that's why they call it gambling." Vincent told him, putting bread in the toaster. "You gamble too much Gill."

"You sound like my ex-wife." Gill waved that off quickly. "See you at the office."

~oo00oo~

"Ugh." Yasi complained. "I need a haircut. I hate that. Noale keeps cutting it way too short."

Dorcan glanced over. "Looks okay to me."

"It looks fine, but it's getting long enough that it'll get completely messed up when I take a subway ride."

Dorcan smirked.

Yasi caught it. "And we're still not telling anyone how often I do that, right?"

Dorcan held up both hands. "Hey, have I ever ratted on you boss? This is me, talking. I'm your guy; always have been."

Yasi smirked, pleased with that, and knuckled his shoulder.

Dorcan fell into step behind her. "And speaking of being ‘your guy'…" He added casually. "I was thinking, it's been a while since the lieutenant's post was filled…"

"We've been fine without one so far." Yasi brushed it off. "I can handle it by myself."

"Yeah, but it's still not good to leave the post open for too long." Dorcan pressed doggedly. "And let's face it, you're not going to find anyone better."

Yasi looked at him sharply. "Really?
You
want to be my second in command?"

Dorcan grinned. "Yeah. Who would you prefer? You telling me you never thought I might want to work closer with you?"

"No. Never." Yasi admitted.

Dorcan snorted. "Well as long as you've taken the time to consider the matter from all angles."

Yasi flushed, realizing too late what her mouth had gotten her into. "Sorry, that came out wrong. It's just… you never seemed interested before."

"Well, now I am." Dorcan shrugged. "Can you think of a reason to say no?"

"Nope." Yasi admitted. "I have to run it by Keeper and Archivist, but it should be fine."

Dorcan nodded. "Great." He licked his lips as they reached an intersection and went in opposite directions. A beat later he turned and called after her. "Yasi? Don't… I mean, if your hair gets cut short again, don't stress. You have a pretty neck."

But Yasi hadn't heard him call her back. She was gone; and Dorcan was relieved to see it. "Stupid, stupid." He told himself quietly.

~oo00oo~

Vincent called up the relevant information about Keist Telecommunications once he reached his cubicle. Their plan was unchanged, but the staff email account had a few extra messages coming in about requests for an answer, or new developments on the offer. He ignored them and looked at what they wanted. Archivist and Keeper were right. Refurbishing the old steam pipes to take Fibre-Optic cable would require tunneling, as well as rooting out of several of the pipes in question, to check for structural weaknesses and collapses.

If the Lostkind were using those tunnels for their own ends, they would almost certainly be discovered. Who knew what kind of additions they might have made to the hidden networks over the years?

Unable to help himself, Vincent opened a web browser and began searching. Looking for ‘secret city' led him to a few sites about subterranean dwellings and stores in Montreal and Australia. Searching for ‘lostkind' brought him to a few music groups, and some Role Playing Games…

Vincent sat back in his chair a moment before going to the city planners own archives and doing a search. He had the names ‘Werner', ‘Wells' and ‘Camden', and he did a search for them. They had records in the patent office; they had records in the Banking Industry… Nothing after the 1920's… A few news stories that suggested they had committed suicide, as so many millionaires did in the days of the Great Depression…

From their own records, there was no sign of anything.

Davidson, his immediate superior in the department tapped on the frame of Vincent's cubicle. "McCall, I wanted to ask you about Keist Telecommunications. They wanted to know when they would get an answer. There's no great rush of course, and I'm aware it'll take a while to get the information together; but it would get their PR guy off my back if I could tell him when to expect word."

"I'm actually looking at that now." Vincent nodded. "Give me two or three days. I'll go through the records, see what I can shake out."

Davidson nodded. "I'm sorry to dump this on you Vincent, but this Fibre-Optic deal has to potential to either be a great source of revenue for the city, or a hideous boondoggle that'll cost someone their job over there."

"And lucky me, I get to figure out which one." Vincent said with grim understatement. He bit his lip. "Hey boss? Where would I look if I wanted to find out about the original steam pipe system? I mean the very original plans?"

"All that stuff would have been converted to digital format... But if you mean the original hard copy, I suppose that would be in the archives somewhere. Under about thirty feet of crap and dust. I don't think the archives have been opened for twenty years."

~oo00oo~

Davidson was correct. When Vincent went downstairs himself, he started coughing before he got within three feet of the Archives Room Door.

Vincent stared at the room for more than a full minute once he got the door open. The room had probably been organized at one point, but was now clearly a dumping ground for the employees. The door wasn't even locked, and the few feet from within the door there were piles of boxes, which clearly were not city property, a few kids' bikes, and behind them, row after row of shelves and filing cabinets. It was the most crowded mess that Vincent had ever seen, even without the sheer volume of dust that made it seem like it had been snowing in here; or the huge cloudy weaves of spider webs.

Gill came crashing in, coughing on the dust. He stopped short when he saw the room and gave it a dark glare. After a long moment, he offered Vincent his professional opinion as an engineer. "Well… this is daunting."

"No kidding." Vincent agreed grimly.

"God, I thought the boss was making a joke when you said you were down here. Has this place even been opened since the Office went to computers?"

"Probably not. For sure it hasn't been dusted." Vincent looked down at himself and waved at the thick layer of dust that had clung to him.

"What on earth could you possibly be looking for?"

"I'm..." Vincent waved obscurely. "You know, the Fibre-Optic Deal."

"We don't have all that on computer? Somebody would have transferred it surely."

"Yeah, but I wanted to see the original." It was a thin story. Paper thin. There was no way he would buy that.

"Why?" Gill asked in confusion. "What are you looking for?"

"The reason they suggested the steam pipes in the first place." Vincent said. "They can't believe the pipes will actually save them money, do they?"

Gill shrugged. "Who cares? It's their money to waste."

Vincent bit his lip. "Right." He coughed.

"Lunch?" Gill offered.

"I should get into this."

"Really?"

"It's not that bad…"

"No, I'm sure it's not." Gill said with sarcasm. "Once we get a few more boxes of crap stuffed in here, everything will be fine."