Chapter 6: Underground

Underground 17 NOV/18 After weeks of a curtain of gray, the morning begins with a promising sight – the golden-rose light of the sun finally breaking through the clouds. The slight chill that remains in the air seems less threatening, a false illusion that one could shake off. The clouds still make their presence known, through a constant game of cat and mouse, but each patch of warm light that sneaks its way to the earth seems a victory.   Yet for all the hope that the growing strength of the sun should bring, there is a malaise in the City, one that keeps many of its citizens seized in a cold fugue. Some can still find their joy, and many keep to the cycle of their daily lives with only a hint of despondency, or the itch of a cough in the back of their throat. But the springtime sun’s hard-earned presence does not warm all the way it should.   Felicity finds no solace in the daytime, just as she has found no rest in the past two nights. Her sleep is interrupted by flashes of a man dangling limp, the sound of a snapping neck. Her days are a coda she cannot seem to break. Coffee, whiskey, she tries many things to slip in either direction, but it does no good. She only finds a hint of calm by picking up a pencil again, and sketching the figure of a serpent, perhaps from a dream from a half-moment of stolen sleep.   Aric lets the embers of his forge grow cold. It has to happen sometimes – the muse of his art isn’t always with him. But today it is not so intentional. He sits and watches them die, the heat escaping into the chilled air, because he simply cannot rouse himself up to feed them. And he stays there for a while after they go dark, watching small winds stir up ashes into the faint sunbeams.   At the Excalibur manor, Percival is unusually morose at the family breakfast. There are no tirades against the Caliburns, or the bankers, or the help. He eats in near silence, and only finishes a quarter of his meal before half-heartedly gesturing to Teddy to wheel him away. He gives no destination. Merely ‘away’.   Somehow Gisele crawled her way into her own bed last night, from the floor where she had collapsed. The light of midday eventually rouses her, and she stumbles into the bathroom to vomit and soak her head with a cold shower. It usually does the trick, but not this time. A sour feeling still coils in her stomach, and when she looks at herself in the mirror, her skin is tinted gray. She decides to go back to bed.   There is usually a line at the restaurants that Thea frequents on Friday nights, in preparation for her time with Kitsune. But they are not like this. On normal nights, strangers tired from a week of work, but bolstered by the coming weekend find small chit-chat to share, eyes hungrily scanning the menus. But the line is solemn today, filled far too many faces with sunken eyes and shuffling coughs. She picks up her order and moves quickly on her way.   The sun departs from the sky, like a petulant, ignored lover. The clouds reach back in, re-establishing their inky cloak and denying the City the stars. The chill winds cannot be ignored any more – not those that whip across the shoreline from across the lake, nor the one stark wind that seems to come from below, along the bones of the City from the underground.   ~ ~ ~   Kit and Francis meet up ahead of the planned infiltration to assess the quality of burrito at Barney’s Burrito Barn, a few blocks away from PS 192. It does not stack up to the finest, but it is also the worst. Between bites of slightly-underdone rice and sauce-soaked tortilla, Kit tries to strike up a conversation with Francis about keeping secrets, concerned about Kat’s inquiries into their life. Francis doesn't have much to say with the few details Kit is willing to reveal.   The two approach the school, expecting to find Mora awaiting. After several minutes of cautiously expecting her to step out of the shadows nonchalantly, they reason that something else must have come up. Determined to complete the task at hand, they agree to follow-up with Mora in the morning, and assess their best entry point. They notice a light on in one of the admin offices, and someone moving from room to room on the second floor.   ~ ~ ~   Dee, Eugenia, and Priscilla are waiting at Tangleford Park for Gio. He’s late, which is uncustomary for him. Suddenly, they spot him approaching the park at a dead sprint, with a disturbingly sexy slash across his chest – just enough to cut through his shirt and reveal a glimpse of his perfect torso. Upon seeing the trio, he urges them onto the docks and his cruddy little boat.   A pair of dire sheep emerge from the distance, chasing Gio. Rather than stand and fight, the party retreats with Gio to the boat, helping him to unmoor and cast off into the waters. Dee manages to fire off two shots before they leave, but they seem to do little damage to the wooly demons. With brimstone eyes ablaze with anger, they paw at the planks of the docks, glaring menacingly at the quartet on the river.   Gio apologizes profusely for his tardiness, and for putting his associates in danger. He was at a different client beforehand, and things went south. He is happy to answer any questions, but has to make his way to his next appointment while they do. Eugenia experiences her first rush of Gio’s Mythos, and is taken quite by surprise. Priscilla is confused by the strange, handsome man, feeling no flutter down below, but an unexpected envy of him.   When Dee introduces Eugenia as ‘The Excalibur’, Gio becomes nervous. The place they are going, the March Hare’s Lair, is notoriously anti-Winegarden. Mostly because it is carved into the tunnels beneath Winegarden’s bluffs, and serves as a middle finger to the ancient families above. They determine that Eugenia must be disguised.   “Permission to deploy Jolene, ma’am,” asks Priscilla, at the ready with a disguise kit no one saw her carry on board. Eugenia acquiesces, and soon is hidden beneath a shakily lined-eye and just-slightly-off wig.   Then the boat pulls up to the docks of the Lair.   ~ ~ ~   Kit and Francis settle on breaking into the main floor of the Natural Sciences building. Kit neatly smashes the window, but quickly replaces it with an unbroken illusion as Francis sneak in behind them. From there, the pair enter the hallway, and head towards the door that connect to the Old School – it is locked, with a card reader   Kit uses their powers to convince the security system that they have the correct access, and the door opens. Quickly, they sneak inside, thrilled to have found a way to trick the system. On the other side is more school, with an older veneer that is familiar to Francis. Since their goal is the basement, they decide to take the stairs immediately to their left.   Kit knows there are cameras watching the stairs, and so crafts an illusion to go down undetected. Francis does something similar, willing his skin to transform into a type of camouflage. It seems that both evade notice and they continue into the lower floor. They find the basement in undisturbed condition – somewhat run down, but nothing like the reports of damage that closed the school for the last three days.   Kit tries to initiate another conversation with Francis about dealing with folks who aren’t… ‘like’ them. They remain somewhat vague, prompting Francis to push back with more questions. Somehow, the conversation prompts Francis to grow a third arm to prove a point, but the two are interrupted by the sound of someone coming around the corner at the end of the long hallway. They dash towards the kitchen, and close the door behind them.   The kitchen is dark, except for a strange light coming from over by the walk-in freezers. It seems that there a door slightly ajar, and the light is coming from there. Kit has heard rumors about the kitchen staff – how there always seems to be new faces, and ones that never end up serving them lunch. The two are wary of the situation, and decide to tumble over the serving counter into the lunchroom.   ~ ~ ~   At the March Hare’s Lair, Gio gives more sincere apologies before heading off down one of the tunnels for a meeting with his client – a person named Tourmaline. Intrigued by this, Eugenia sends Priscilla to tail him. Then Eugenia and Dee settle into the Cheshire Bar to wait.   Dee takes to the scene immediately, whiskey in hand. She doesn’t have much time for the young financiers and stock brokers who make up the showy part of the crowd. But the black market dealers, the traders and the importers walking softly in the corners of the rooms, those she connects with right away. They like her – her swagger and her wry humor – and she finds herself with a certain clout in the space within no time. She overhears a few rumblings about other mysterious subterranean collapses in the city, notably a construction site that had to have work canceled because of what opened up in the foundation.   Eugenia makes her way through the room to a crowd that has formed in the Blue Caterpillar Lounge. She is perturbed to find Babette at the center of the crowd, regaling them with sordid gossip from the Winegarden families. For a moment, Babette’s eyes settle on ‘Jolene’, but she does not recognize Eugenia, and is soon wrapped up in the sound of her own voice again.   From across the rooms, Priscilla makes herself known to both Eugenia and Dee. She indicates that she knows where Gio and Tourmaline are. As Eugenia moves to depart, she hears Babette start up a new tale – this one about the family Camlann. As instantly incensed as she feels, she takes the high road and leaves Babette to her muck, following Priscilla down one of the side tunnels in the twisty maze of the Lair.   ~ ~ ~   After fondly reminiscing about the time he threw bologna to the ceiling of the lunchroom and it stuck – the bologna is still there – Francis and Kit move into the hallway and consider their next move. They can still vaguely hear someone through the halls on the other side of the basement. Nearby is the door to the Leadership Annex, which piques Kit’s curiosity.   They know that security is much tighter on the Annex, but that it might hold a lot of secrets. The roof of the building is covered with things much more common on a corporate skyscraper than a school. Kit wants to try breaking in. Francis recommends that they contact the resident tech-head, and ask Flicker to see what she can do.   While they wait for her response, Kit broaches some personal topics yet again. Francis tries to answer as best he can, given their situation as infiltrators in a highly-guarded facility under cover of night. Flicker texts back that she’s not with her ‘good stuff’ currently, but could be within an hour or two if they really needed it.   Kit instead tries to trick the door themselves again. After a heroic effort, it seems to work. The door swings open to reveal… more school. The floors are more pristine, as are the lockers and hallways, but just more school. Defeated, they reweigh their options, and decide to head back into the kitchen to investigate the only thing they have seen out of place so far: the open freezer door.   When they get close it becomes apparent that the door does not actually lead into the freezer – there are stairs behind it that lead down underneath the school basement. And there are voices coming from down there.   ~ ~ ~   Priscilla leads Eugenia, Dee, and Dee’s fourth scotch whiskey to the entrance of the Queen of Hearts room – a somewhat private lounge where Gio is meeting with Tourmaline. Eugenia wastes no time entering, while Dee quickly asks one of her new friends at the lair to watch the door and ‘keep the busy bodies out’.   Eugenia leads her party to a table near Gio and a middle-aged woman wearing an inappropriate outfit. They both look on with surprise as the others nonchalantly take their seats. Tourmaline looks to call off the meeting with the unannounced interruption, and Gio gives pleading looks to Dee for help in understanding what is going on. Dee and her scotch whiskey do not have time to answer before Eugenia seizes control of the room.   Eugenia wants answers from the so-called Tourmaline, who is in reality, a mid-level employee of Prydwen Vaults’ accounting department. She informs Tourmaline of Lawrence’s death, pointedly leaving out the cause, which incites both sorrow and fear in Tourmaline. She confesses that she was the person that Lawrence was working with to steal from the Excalibur vault. She is reticent to reveal her employer, on whom’s behalf she is currently meeting with Gio.   Eugenia offers promises that Tourmaline will not meet the same fate as Lawrence, and pushes her to reveal more. Eventually Tourmaline gives up that her contact is Octavius Caliburn, and throws herself on Eugenia’s mercy. Eugenia asks for Tourmaline’s cooperation – to know more about what has happened to the stolen goods, and to know when she will be meeting with Octavius next.   Satisfied with the agreement, Eugenia exits the room, the others pulled along in the wake of her gravity. Gio is upset with the damage done to his struggling business, but impressed with Eugenia’s charismatic force. As a small token of appreciation, Dee puts in a good word with her new friends on Gio’s behalf. The four exit the Lair to Gio’s boat, with plans to visit Gio’s defunct hiding spot.   ~ ~ ~   Kit and Francis decide that the only way to go is down, so they start sneaking down the stairs. It doesn't go unnoticed, and their approach has clearly ruffled some feathers. As they turn the corner, they see four figures, three of which are clad in sharp black suits and clearly coming for them.   Guns out, the first one fires at Francis, but the bullet only scratches as his quickly grown armor. Francis returns with a fierce punch. Kit leaps over them both to tackle the second one to the ground before another shot can be fired. Francis grows back that third arm to take a hold of his assailant and launch him across the room at the final enemy.   Once they are all properly zip-tied, the two assess the room and the final stranger. The secret lab is filled with computers, servers, and monitors, with stacks of boxes piled with manilla folders and reports everywhere. There is a clear rupture right down the middle of the room, as if something had tunneled along from down below and grazed the floor of the sub-basement. The figure at the end of the room is frantically typing into a console, nervously eyeing their approach.   Kit uses their magical trickery to convince the person that they are here to help. The tech relaxed slightly, but tells them that they still have to work on extracting all the data. The room can’t be salvaged, and this is data they can’t transmit. It is data on the students, but the tech doesn’t know much more than that. Kit suggests the tech run ahead and let them finish the job, which the tech agrees to. Looking over the collection of drives already boxed up, Kit notices a few open files. One of them is for their friend, Audi.   ~ ~ ~   On the way to his former stash, Gio tells Eugenia and Dee that Tourmaline was there to inquire on some of her ‘hot list’ items – the perennial asks that some folks put out to the smugglers. Hers, and by extension the Caliburns’, is for strange and unusual coins. The other hot list item that Gio has been looking out for is amber for some client up in Hilltop.   They pointedly avoid the Tangelford Park docks, and eventually get moored. Crammed into Gio’s Yugo, he takes them across Downtown to an abandoned skating rink just on the edge of Eastside. There they find the entrance to the basement has collapsed entirely, the door frame filled with large debris. Dee momentarily tries to coax the door ‘awake’ to help her, but it does not work. Despondent, they decide to call it a night.   Before they part ways with Gio, Eugenia asks for his attention on her own request – chess pieces that may belong to the incomplete set that was stolen from the vault by Lawrence, and presumably passed along through Tourmaline to the Caliburns. Eugenia still remembers fiercely the vision from the Oracle at the Epic Hunt that told her those were the most important thing that could still be recovered.   Priscilla pulls the car around (from where, our audience asks, and Priscilla will only half-smile), and Eugenia offers Dee a ride home before they return to the Excalibur estate themselves.   ~ ~ ~   The Fox and the Muscle decide to brave the hole in the floor. It is not a long drop down to the bottom, and both can stand comfortably once on the unstable ground. The earth is churned and the void extends north and south. It is very much a tunnel. They start heading north, but eventually come to impassable rubble. They backtrack and decide to head south.   The path allows them to go much further, and the darkness begins to encroach. There is a cold wind that Kit can feel, but Francis doesn't notice anything. Eventually, they get to a point where it might be too difficult to go on, but Kit is not deterred, despite Francis’ insistence. There is something small and shiny just in the distance. Kit reaches out to it, and finds it blisteringly cold to the touch. Again, Francis only feels a slight chill from the strange object – a round, blueish-white disk.   Kit continues to charge down the path. Francis has trouble keeping up in the dark, and wills his skin to glow. He reaches out to tackle Kit away from what is becoming a dangerous change, but Kit evades the grasp. The both hear a sick, crunching noise from far in the distance, like tooth against breaking bone, and deep voice seems to murmur “Ratatoskr”.   Then Kit’s cell phone gets a signal, through some random miracle. A text comes through. It is from Kat, just saying “I miss you”. It is enough to break through to Kit, and though still reluctant, they leave the tunnel with Francis, and quietly exit the school back into the night. They have gained much – knowledge, data, secrets, a strange artifact.   Hopefully that is all they brought back out with them.   ~ ~ ~   There is a harsh rattle as the extract bullet is dropped into the metal pan, and a great sigh of relief from the chirurgeon at the success. The frown from Bo let’s him know that his task is not over, and he quickly turns to suturing up the wound as best he can. He’s got to be his best. He is used to patching up gun wounds and knife cuts on Bo’s people, but this is different. This is one of Bo’s sheep. And bad things happen to people who harm Bo’s sheep.   Once the gunshot is patched up, Bo relaxes, releasing Ishmael from her control and letting the sheep regain consciousness. Before curious folks see to much, she puts the blood-red eye patch back over her left eye. Ishmael bleats softly, reticent to pull its head out of her comforting lap. She nuzzles the dark beast briefly, more affection than she has ever shown a human, and lays its head down gentle on the bed.   Towering over the sawbone, she reaches out to pick up the twisted piece of metal, still wet with some of her Ishmael’s blood. She clenches it in her leather gloved hands, wishing she could either pulverize it to dust, or squeeze from it the name of the gun that fired it. But neither happens, and so she returns the bullet to the pan, with instructions to have it carefully stored.   Bo might not be able to glean much from the bullet, but she knows those who can. And they happen to owe her a favor. Just has she owes something to the people who blundered their way into her deal tonight, and the person who shot one of her precious beasts.