Negative Film

by Leonard Petracci

  Chapter 26

  No pursuers followed through the hole I had made to the sewer. Rather, the world above ripped in two.

  The seam began as a crack, a fissure of yellow light among the darkness. The tunnel shuddered as the gap in asphalt widened, the layers peeling back like the top of a tin can, debris falling to splash below. Metal screeched as it was ripped apart, the rebar snapping like string, sizzling as red-hot pieces fell into the water. I cursed, realizing that the crack was growing faster than the water was flowing, and that it would reach directly overhead.

  Meaning I would soon become easy target practice.

  I hadn’t counted on the police destroying an entire city street to reach me. But this wasn’t Lacit’s city, and the destruction bore little consideration to him.

  With the width of the tunnel being only a few bodies wide, there would be little room for dodging projectiles. Around me, there was no solid material to use as a shield, nor any projectiles that I could launch back at my attackers. The water reeked, staining my clothes a murky brown, and while I could hide underneath, I’d risk disease— plus, that solution would be temporary at best. Already, I was retching, trying to keep my mind off the likely contents of the sewer.

  I kicked backwards against the ground, my toes barely brushing against the gritty surface as I struggled to keep my head above water. My speed increased gradually, but too gradually, the change in motion barely noticeable as the crack advanced. On a ledge to my left, a greasy rat scampered ahead of me, its squeaks laughing at my pathetic attempt at speed, its eyes illuminated in the darkness.

  Behind, a figure ducked over the rim of the crack and below the edge of the sewer, launching two fireballs towards me as I tried to scramble out of the way. The officer leered, knowing that his aim was true, his square face locked in an expression of triumph. I raised my hands, pulling the water upwards with a force point, the shield absorbing the heat before it could reach me. And as I displaced the water, my feet found better purchase beneath me, the stream momentarily shallower from my efforts.

  Two more fireballs raced towards me, closer this time, and I raised the water wall higher. Now the water was barely to my waist, the artificial wall wicking it away from me, and water behind buffeting me forwards towards the threat as it rushed to fill the gap. The fifth and sixth fireballs came, accompanied by a peppering of metal shards fired by Lacit as he paused, ripping the sewer in two— but the water slowed the projectiles, his aim was rushed, and darkness shrouded me. And as a bolt of lightning that struck the water and was diffused through the metal piping, an idea struck me in my panic.

  I raised the wall higher, pouring my energy into the force point that dragged the water upwards, straining with exertion from the weight. And to my left, I created another force point, bending the space to pull the rushing water away from my feet. In moments, only a puddle was left under my feet, and the water raised all around me to form a hole in the stream. Stepping forwards, I maintained the force points, and water rushed by on my left to keep equilibrium. As I moved, the liquid parted upwards, locked in place by my power.

  After a few seconds of walking, holding the points in place became more natural. I started to jog, focusing on keeping the balance, hearing the officers behind me shouting as I pulled away from them. Then I broke into a full sprint, the water parting to allow me to pass as I left the officers far behind. The rumbling above turned to thunder as the crack raced me, Lacit redoubling his efforts to rip the sewer apart, the entire tunnel shaking and threatening to collapse— but I could run slightly faster than he could rip through several feet of city infrastructure.

  Ahead, the tunnel split, and I turned left, then right, choosing the a random path in the darkness. Putting as much distance between me and the officers as possible, and not letting up for a full half hour, when I thought that I couldn’t walk another step, and I could no longer hear the rumbling.

  A ladder extended into the water, leading upwards to a manhole cover, rust coating each rung that dug into my palms. I sighed as I released the water, feeling as if a great weight had just left my shoulders, and held my breath as I listened. Above, it was silent— no cars seemed to be driving above me, and no police seemed to be waiting. With a tentative hand, I cracked the cover open, peering outwards with caution, knowing that an approaching car could render my entire escape futile.

  But the street was empty apart from a cat that cast me a suspicious glance with a single eye, slinking along the edge of a dumpster, its tail swishing over the edge. Heaving myself outside, I paused to catch my breath, dripping water onto the street as I leaned against a brick wall.

  “I probably smell even worse than you do,” I said to the cat, who hissed in response before darting away. In the distance, I could barely hear sirens, but they neither approached or departed— after the distance I had run, and the times I had taken random turns, there was little chance of them finding me. But if I walked along a main road, my smell and appearance would draw attention.

  So I stuck to the side alleys, the first half hour wandering around until I recognized a landmark, then the second half hour spent trudging home. The sun dried my clothes as I walked, caking on a layer of crust and helping seal in the smell to the fibers. Or maybe I was just getting used to my own stench.

  I sighed in relief when I reached the subway and my mother had still not returned. In this condition, she’d never let me out of her sight again, and already it was only a matter of time before she discovered our activities.

  “You reek,” Lucio said as they ran up to me, and he wrinkled his nose. Scratches covered the entire side of him that had been glued to the concrete, and holes were ripped in his clothing from where I suspected he had prematurely freed himself as the Stickler’s power faded. “What the hell happened to you?”

  “First, I need clothes. It’s a hell of a story,” I said, running a hand through my hair, then pulling it away as I realized it was crusty. “I need to get cleaned up before Mother sees me.”

  “Well, you’ve got about five minutes,” said a voice behind me, and I turned to see Lola holding a hand over her nose as she entered the tunnel. “She sent me back early so one of you could help her carry the groceries. I’d suggest you walk slowly, because SC needs at least an hour of thorough scrubbing.”

  Chapter 27

  Darian ran above to slow my mother, while Lucio brought me a towel as I stripped. My clothes formed a pile indistinguishable from a pitcher mound as they fell off me and I gestured at them to Lucio.

  “Do something about these while I clean up!”

  He hesitated, but Lola was already moving forwards, her hand still pinching her nose.

  “Disgusting,” she said, then moved a foot forwards, nudging the pile with her shoe. It slid sideways, the edge of it disappearing in a plane, the air itself appearing to eat the clothes and muck. With a quick shove, all that remained of the pile winked out of existence as if it had never been real.

  “Evidence destroyed,” she proclaimed, smiling as Lucio stepped away and I stared. “Now hurry up, or you’ll be caught. Quit gaping like an idiot. Go!”

  For our showers, there was a janitorial closet with a working sink a few floors above, where we used sponges to take baths. Mercifully, the water was lukewarm, unlike the first janitorial closet we had found that contained water so cold that Lucio had to be bribed to spend even a minute in the frigidity. But in the state I was in, using either of those closets would leave them looking as if they had been hit by a mudslide, so they were not an option.

  Instead, we headed into the subway tunnel as I shouted over my back to Slugger.

  “Slugger, board games, quick! We’ll be back in a few.”

  We clipped down the track at full speed, hurrying to the spot where we had been harvesting building materials to sell for our food. Stacks of plywood, tubing, fittings, rail, and even tool boxes lay forgotten in the deep underground— rumor was that the entire construction team had been laid off when the subway project w
as cancelled, but the city officials never bothered to retrieve the supplies. And next to the supplies, there was a mess of piping that extended from the wall, leading to the sprinkler system that had been completed in only half the tunnel.

  A few weeks prior, Slugger had tried to disconnect the sprinklers, convinced that the heads and piping might fetch a decent price. After a few minutes fiddling with the wheels that controlled the water flow to the apparatus, he heaved with all his weight on one that was stuck in place. With a snap, the wheel had given way, opening a valve directly in front of him and blasting him to the ground. He tumbled once in a backwards somersault before I came to his rescue, wrenching the valve back shut while Lucio shrieked with laughter and Slugger sputtered.

  Now I stood in the same spot where Slugger had been launched backwards, dressed in only my boxers with my hands over my head.

  “Ready?” Lucio asked, and before I could answer, he threw the valve open. The icy deluge knocked me off my feet, the water feeling as if it was scouring off the outer layer of my skin. I rolled, letting the water course over every inch of me, nearly preferring the sewer after the blast caught me square in the face.

  Lucio held it open a full thirty seconds before letting up, then rushed over to do a quick inspection before throwing me a towel and fresh set of clothes. Then he darted back to the platform, leaving me trailing behind as I hopped into my clothes. He slid in place in front of the board games that Slugger had set up, still breathing heavily, and I rushed to my room, throwing the towel I had been running through my hair from where we had come.

  Seconds later, my mother entered with Darian and Lola in tow, and Lucio reached down to grab the edge of the board, flipping it up in the air so that hundreds of small plastic pieces scattered across the floor while the board itself performed several flips.

  “That’s bullshit and you know it!” he shouted, throwing a deck of cards at Slugger that fluttered down like confetti. “We agreed on no shim shammies, you cheater!”

  “Oi, you’re the cheater!” Slugger retorted as Lucio threw a second set of cards. Then Slugger leapt at him, scuffling with him on the ground as my mother shouted at them to stop, and Darian rushed forwards to intervene. By the time he pulled Slugger off, he already had gotten a few shots in. It took ten more minutes for them to cool down before I emerged from my room, appearing as if I had just awoken from a nap.

  By now my hair was dry, and Lucio’s scratches from earlier blended in with the ones from the fight. In her fury, my mother banished them both to their rooms without dinner, but Lucio slipped away as we started to eat, stealing into the tunnel while my mother was preoccupied with a glass I purposely spilled. Two hours later, he returned, and as I settled into bed, I heard a whisper.

  “Just got back from Olef’s. Roland’s coming. Tonight. Be ready in four hours.”

  Chapter 28

  Lucio never had to rouse me from my sleep when we departed four hours later. Instead, I had failed to drift off, my eyes refusing to close for more than a few minutes at a time. In the darkness, the scene from just a few hours earlier replayed in my mind.

  When I had escaped. When Larissa had lost her arm. No— when my power had stolen it from her.

  I shivered as I remembered her face staring up at me in shock. Would the blood loss be enough to kill her? Had I not only injured her but also taken their life?

  This was different than killing Peregrine, different than those working for Siri. As far as I knew, Larissa was ignorant of the situation at the rehabilitation facility. She may not have been an angel, but I certainly didn’t think she was a devil.

  And she didn’t deserve to die.

  But I pushed those thoughts from my head as Lucio and I snuck out of the subway and walked the dark city streets, avoiding streetlights and busy intersections. At night, my skin prickled as we entered the seedier block of the city where Olef lived. Here I felt eyes watching us from the shadows, and every sound warned of an attack.

  We knocked on Olef’s door, and he led us down the alleyway, pulling a small strip of metal from his pocket and jamming it into the door frame next to his. With a creak, the door opened into darkness, displaying a room empty save for a cluster of folding chairs on a stained carpet.

  “My neighbors, nearly always vacant. No idea why; the rent’s a steal,” he wheezed. “Last couple left their curtains behind. They really brighten my living room. Lucy loves them.”

  Then he closed the door, flicking the light switch as he departed, the flickering bulb above illuminating wallpaper installed several decades prior. In a few moments, there were footsteps outside, the door cracked open once more, and Roland entered.

  He looked thinner than I had seen him last, with dark bags that sagged under his eyes. Sighing, he pulled a chair to face the two of us, pressing two fingers against his temple.

  “I should have known,” he grumbled, then rolled out his neck with a series of pops. “Do you realize the amount of trouble you’ve caused me?”

  “Do you realize what has been occurring under your nose for years?” I retorted, holding my ground. “Besides, that statement can go two ways. I only acted against the facility because I had to.”

  “You had to,” Roland said, shaking his head. “None of us have to do anything. I’d been on Siri’s heels for years before you intervened. We were this close to wrapping up a case.”

  He held out two pudgy fingers, each of the nails gnawed down.

  “It only took me a few weeks,” I shot back. “And don’t think I’ve forgotten about everything else the police have done to this city. You’ve got blood on your hands.”

  “Not Larissa’s,” he said through gritted teeth. “That one’s on yours. I’ve let you slide because you acted against Siri. But I can’t turn a blind eye against that, and if you continue screwing up at your current rate, neither will the higher authorities. You’ll get yourself on a list, if you aren’t already.”

  We stared at each other, fuming, each of our muscles tightening. I wondered who would be the first to leap at the other, but then his brow softened. And I bit my lip, remembering not just the bad but the good about Roland. He’d helped me save my mother, though inadvertently. He’d brought us food at the rehabilitation facility when we were bottoms, great baskets filled to the brim with meats and fruits that he had hidden away for us in the cover of night. And he’d once led the Hunter away from where I was hiding so that I might escape.

  Roland’s gaze too appeared to soften, as if he too remembered these moments. Remembered that we were friends, not enemies. But more importantly, Roland believed these memories,

  That was something that I had learned to never do when Lucio was in the room, and the colors in my mind appeared slightly too vivid. But though I knew the memories I was experiencing to be false, my anger had still been wiped away. And it was time to discuss the future, not the past.

  “Sorry,” mumbled Roland, still a little dazed from Lucio’s touch. “Got a tad carried away there. My source tells me that you have information.”

  “We do,” I said, my voice softer. “But our concern is for what purpose the police intend to use it. I can’t share it with you, but what I can do is help remove those who have made your life more difficult.”

  I met his eye, then spoke the name we were both thinking. “Lacit.”

  “The scum, that insolent twat,” cursed Roland, shaking his head. “Siri warned there would be consequences when she was arrested. Mind you, I don’t regret doing it. But she wasn’t bluffing when she said they have power in high places. Lacit is my punishment, and he’ll only bring more trouble to this city. Since he’s been here, the force has already doubled in size, people he’s cherry-picked, bypassing our hiring process. Their resumes check out, but they sure don’t.”

  I swallowed, remembering the rings that Lacit and his followers had worn. If they had graduated from a rehabilitation facility, even without falsity, they would qualify for the police force. That was half the reason the facilities exi
sted.

  “Any idea what he plans to do with them?” I asked. “Or rather, why he wants the information you came here for so badly?”

  “At first, I thought it was to cover for our demotions— every officer who was active in the subway has been restricted to desk duty, effectively neutralized. In addition to our lack of experienced headcount, the station is run worse than ever. We’ve always had our troublemakers, but this is a new level of ineptitude. As far as I can tell, all they’ve done is search the city high and low. Even went back down into the subway, tracked the tunnels to the areas where they had collapsed. Anyways, he’s not here permanently. Reason he got in so easily is that they claimed it was a rotational assignment, something to boost his experience in the field and fast track him into a higher position. He’s moving out soon, and whatever he wants, he wants it before he leaves.”

  “And where is he going?” I asked, knowing the answer before I opened my mouth.

  “International assignment, the next step in an accelerated career. Supposedly, there’s been some trouble in the southern hemisphere; he and his gang are taking it on together. I suspect that’s half the reason the force hasn’t been present— has them training whenever they aren’t searching. Running drills in the yard, testing their powers, bringing in experts on the culture and environment. So long as he’s out of my hair, I couldn’t care less where they send him— just not here.”

  “Why do you think he’s leaving? For his accelerated career or for something else?”

  “I don’t give a damn. Just as long as he’s out of my city,” Roland growled. “That’s why I’m here now, to accelerate his departure. To give him what he wants and get him out.”

  Chapter 29

  “I’d give him about a week before he’s gone,” Roland finished, his voice the lightest it had been all meeting. “I can see him getting impatient. Slamming the doors of his office, shouting over his calls— he’s itching to act.”