by Capps, Chris
Walking backwards with the light clenched in his teeth and the rifle slung around his shoulder, he held the rope in both hands, and in a single deft leap jumped backward into the hole. I admit, I hesitated.
The words of Atus rolled up through my mind. The fevered dreams of the interrogation drone returned with terrifying resolution. I had never seen it, but I had shared space in dream with it. If there were such a thing as an interrogation drone, what better place could there be for it than in a hole deep underground where only the foolish, the worthy, would find it? This was precisely where the rest of the world would pray it would be imprisoned.
Not here. Off somewhere in the uninhabited lands. In a hole deep underground. Surely if it must exist, put it there. Put it where no one decent will find it.
It was the only reason a hole like this could exist out in nothing. I reached the cavern's edge, looking down to where Ebon had disappeared. His cry echoed up from the darkness, mingling with the resonating shriek of the wind blown sky.
"Come on!"
With my hands gripping the rubber coated cable, I controlled my breathing. Letting both legs swing over the shadow below, I leaned heavily backward, and started to slide down. Beneath me I could hear Ebon muttering to himself,
"Dark as a snake's gut in here. And just as smooth. How do you suppose they built a tunnel out of glass?"
"I don't know," I called back, gripping the cable tightly. It was easy enough to hold on, with the rubber grip catching heat from my sweaty hands as they slid down, carrying me slowly in my descent. But the darkness was soon enveloping, weighing me down as I pulled hand under hand. Beneath me Ebon was whistling an old tune, trying to both steady his own nerves and let me know how far I was above him on the cable. In the end, however, with the whistling echoing up toward that mouth above us, I only felt more ill at ease.
Soon we were far enough down to see the light above us dwindle solemnly like a dying sun, fading in intensity like a dream. I chanced a look beneath me into the abyss and was startled to see Ebon standing, not descending, illuminated now by flashlight beam. The light trailed up to where I was climbing and he said,
"Slick floor beneath you. This terrain is not ideal for walking. Particularly for someone with your affliction."
I climbed down the last bit quickly, grateful to feel the ground beneath me once more. The cable itself seemed to terminate here at the base of this sloping passageway. At its end was a large hook with a latch that could close over it. Both hook and latch were incredibly large and heavy. The hook alone must have weighed as much as either of us.
Ebon traced the flashlight beam down the passageway and said sideways,
"Light yours too. There's a switch on the side of it."
I did, and then we had two flashlight beams shining in a dark tunnel made of black glass. Light was strange there, bouncing off corridors only to bend off into further blackness down the way, absorbed by all but the faint glimmering edges of the circular tunnel. Ahead of us the incline wasn't steep, but it was wholly smooth. It was like a single object, made perfectly uniformed all the way into the vast distance where it curved downward.
"Must be a half mile to that first bend," Ebon said handing me his flashlight, "Here. Hold this."
He took the hook hanging from the cable and hoisted it back, pulling it with a great grunt of exertion and then swinging it, hurling it against the far wall where it sounded like a bell, and bounced off without so much as a scratch. After a moment, Ebon took my light and walked over to where the hook had struck the wall.
"Strong stuff too," he said, "Should be safe. That hook should have chipped it at least. This isn't ordinary glass."
"That's good," I said, "Considering I'd be nervous about walking down a tunnel that could shatter at any moment."
"No," Ebon said, "Something tells me this place will be here long after we're gone and buried. An army could spend years waging war on a structure like this, depending on how far it goes."
"How far do you suppose it goes?" I said. Ebon raised a hand to his mouth and bellowed down into the darkness ahead,
"Echo, are you there?" His own voice came back to him nearly intact moments later, and he nodded once saying, "Far."
Every five feet there was a thick cylindrical dent in the four diagonal corners of the wall, all neatly uniformed on every side. Inside these dents I found my footholds, which allowed us to stop ourselves on the steep sheer incline downward. With each divot I placed my good foot first, and then my hand and slid to the next. We could have probably walked normally, although very slowly and carefully, but then I only had one foot with any traction here and the tunnel ahead descended into a still steeper incline ahead. And into what, we did not know.
As we descended, Ebon said,
"So what does the city have on you? How did they gain your assistance?"
I shifted, letting the incline slide me down a bit and moved to the next step, jutting my boot into it,
"It's that obvious that I don't want to be here?"
"I had a suspicion," Ebon said grinning in the flashlight beam, eyes still forward, "When the rope started shaking like a leaf above me."
"You say you're here to build a better future," I said shifting the flashlight to my other hand and sliding to the next step, "And I believed you. Why wouldn't you believe me?"
"You don't seem like the last group I ran into from the spider cities. They were calculating. Cruel. You seem like neither. Like you've spent some time down on the surface. Are you a slave of theirs?" My laughter echoed dark into the cavern beneath us and died before it echoed back. I slid to the next step, shifting uneasily and looking back up,
"Do I seem like a slave to you?"
Ebon shifted past me, experimentally moving to the center of the tunnel and pushing himself forward, sliding down a few steps where he rested at the end of my flashlight beam. It was a few moments before I caught up, and when I did he was shaking his head,
"Not a slave, no. Something like one, though."
"I was coerced into this," I said, "My blossom Tyche is being held at the rectory until I deliver news of what's down here. This will get me enough money to pay her dowry and retire. After that, I get permission to marry her."
"You can buy women in your city?"
"You can buy everyone in my city."
"They didn't have confidence in their top explorers, then?"
"I am among their top explorers," I said.
The flashlight slipped from my sweaty hand as I unexpectedly shifted on my bad leg. It flew spiraling down the corridor into the darkness and shot like a comet to where the tunnel took a steeper turn before disappearing from sight. Ebon glanced over to me,
"Was that a joke?"
The descent was slow, lasting the better part of an hour before we finally could see the point at which the flashlight had disappeared. As it came into view in the distance below, we looked down and saw that the floor leveled out slowly, incrementally. It smoothed out to where we could have stood up.
"Hang on. Wait up," Ebon said huffing as he rested again, "I'm not made for this sort of thing anymore." He pulled from his coat pocket a cigarette, and lit it with a handheld lighter, puffing it stoically as he looked down.
"It could be very easy or very difficult, depending on what method we choose at this point."
"The question is, which is which. If we keep climbing it'll be at least another hour before we reach the bottom. But then we could slide the whole way. This floor is smooth. Smooth enough to carry us down to that flashlight and a bit further."
"The momentum," I said holding the back of my hand against my nose, "Would take us further than the point we can see. We don't know what's down there."
"You've heard of the interrogation drones, the nightmare men?"
"Nightmare men?" I said, "No, I haven't heard of those."
"The Keterling. Tell me you haven't been wandering the waste without hearing stories about them."
I shook my head. Ebon breathed d
eep, uncertainty crossing his face as he shrugged. He tossed me his flashlight, reaching across the space between us. I gripped it tightly, shining it back to him as he slid out near the center of the divide between us, still suspended by his hand.
"What are the Keterling?" I asked him as his face grinned and started sliding down the center, "Hey Ebon!"
He moved fast, sliding with a loud whoosh that quickly grew quieter with each passing second. Moments later I stared down at the point where he had descended and saw someone pick the flashlight up and shine it back at me.
"Something's down here. Hurry up!"
Instantly I had pushed myself toward the center, and started to slide. The flashlight shone above me, turning the steps and divots at the corners of the ceiling into a quickly moving blur. Soon the floor leveled out, and I saw Ebon up ahead shining the flashlight on the wall across from him. My momentum slowed, and I stood up near him,
"So what are the Keterling?" I said.
"Don't worry, they're all dead," Ebon said, shining the flashlight to the left of the hallway, "What do you imagine that is?"
Passages opened up, broke off from one another and created whole new passageways. It was an organized labyrinth. We took a few steps into the breach and our flashlights glinted off dozens of hallways, fanning out and then terminating into small rooms, each one as wide as the hallway we now occupied.
"Passageways," Ebon said, "Hundreds of rooms. Thousands, maybe. How far could something like this go?"
"You could fit an army down here," I said, breathless, leaning heavily on my cane. The hallway, lined with passages and breaks we now faced, passed miles into the distance, each inch of it crafted from the same thick, nearly indestructible glass we had encountered in the rest of the tunnel. It was intricate, an orderly maze of simplest design. Master passage became an offshoot, these offshoots became still more, and lining the edges of each, a hundred simple door-less rooms lined either side.
I turned and faced the other direction, realizing that the same had been done on the other side. A map of the place as we saw it would have looked like a mile long fractal fern with short hairs lining the edges of each frond. I returned to the master passageway, the one we had just slid into, and took a few steps more. More offshoots, more fronds within.
"More than that," I said at last, calling back to Ebon, "Drop it all down that hole, run electric lights, house a city. Maybe two or three cities. A small nation, perhaps."
"Waste," Ebon muttered to himself, passing backward, "Such a waste."
"This didn't come from space," I said.
"No, it didn't," he said.
"Maybe the star was a signal, telling us where this would be found."
"That's not how it works," he said, his hand running up the cool glass along the wall, "Whatever it is, the architects made it for the world that once was, not the world that is now. The thing we're looking for was made in space, crafted by an incredibly advanced machine. That machine made others like it, and time passed - centuries - as it gathered materials. In time, the small cluster of building drones grew, got everything they needed and began construction of the Plexis objects. Many came from few. Those few came from one."
"Is that the meaning of your tattoo?" I asked, pointing at his scarred chest. He nodded, pointing,
"A man from one of your cities showed my brother this. It was years ago, but we used to live in one of the Plexis objects. It was a factory, and a home. Water, food, textiles, even tools. It either found or made everything we needed and more. It was thirty stories tall, at least double that in length. And then one of your cities came and tried to take it away from us. We could have worked together, but we didn't. We fought, and my brother Crassus died to save the rest of the Plexis tribe."
"If that had happened to me," I said, "I wouldn't be so eager to help a walking city like mine. Not if they claimed my brother."
"They didn't claim my brother," Ebon said, "They were only part of it. The thirsty Earth claimed my brother. He destroyed himself to save Thunfir and the rest. We made a lot of choices then that still scar us, as men do. Tell me, Adon. Have you known this Tyche long?"
"I've known her for years. We've talked from afar to one another. The courting process in the city is very strict. We have hours to talk in a given day, but we can only do it in specified areas and at specific times. She was raised in the rectory. From an early age she showed great intelligence and spirit. And of course, it doesn't hurt that she's beautiful."
"The most beautiful girl you've ever seen?" Ebon said wryly.
"Yes," I said, "The most."
"It sounds difficult," Ebon said pulling a knife from his side as he crouched to a sitting position against the wall, "Being forced to learn who someone is in such a controlled environment. I wonder, could you ever truly know who she is if all you've done is talk politely?"
"Tread carefully," I said, "The thought of losing her claimed my leg. Don't think I wouldn't kill a man to preserve her honor."
"Such a gentleman," Ebon said humorlessly, "Would she kill someone to preserve yours?" I felt an invisible, ethereal elastic band form between my hand and the seven shooter at my hip, but I knew to ignore it.
Why bring this up now? Whatever game Ebon the Waste was playing, it wouldn't get us anywhere if we turned on one another. He seemed to notice it too, shaking his head and chuckling to himself, "I'm sorry, Adon. I'm sure she's a lovely girl. But in a situation like this, where you're choosing a life with someone who's never lived like you have, what are you expecting?"
"Adon the idle player of music," I said, "That's what I aim to be called. What about you? Have you ever loved anyone?"
"The person I love most of all," Ebon said drawing long on his cigarette and flicking it at the wall, sending a shower of sparks down beside me, "Will come along years after I'm dead. She'll be kind, gentle, and never know about the savagery of this time, this world. She'll never hear about me."
I stood uneasily, the cane creaking beneath me. I raised the flashlight and spilled a muted beam down the hallway ahead of us,
"Do you think someone like that will ever exist?"
"What do you think we're doing here now?" he said with a grin.
I reached a hand down, warmed by his words for a moment. It was a tempting thought, that we might be on the verge of changing the world. Why not indulge the fantasy? We, two men with nothing to speak of in a world of ruin, were setting down a path to rekindle that spark of civilization. What followed could very well blossom into a utopian dream. We didn't know, and in not knowing there was that spark of hope.
Ebon grinned back at me, taking my hand and grunting like old men do, coughing wetly into his hand and sniffing as he propped himself up on his rifle.
"Well if you're going to put it that way," I said, now sharing his grin, turning our hands clasped together into a handshake, "I'm glad I met you, Ebon the Waste."
"And I you, Adon Still," Ebon said, shouldering his rifle, "But you seem to like strangers. And be liked by them."
We continued down the main way, walking nearly a mile until we finally reached the main tunnel's end. It was down a gentle slope, a hundred feet, and it ended at a solid round metal slab.
"A door," I said, the flashlight beam caressing the grey surface of the machine, "Of some sort or another."
"This is it," Ebon said as he stepped lightly down the small path, "Whether you know it or not, this is a moment you will remember forever. This is when you won Tyche's hand in marriage and we opened up the door on our new world."
"We'll work together," I said, excitedly slapping my hands against the dull carbon grey wall, "I promise you, Ebon. When we get back to the city, you and I will work together to bring peace. And we'll use this place as a sanctuary for the downtrodden. Your strays will populate these corridors and know that there is a place for them. They will be safe."
Ebon was staring at the wall with few features, studying the strange writing at its center. Wiping the long streaks of dust behind i
t away, he uncovered a small compartment door. With our hands working together we cleared away every bit of dust, uncovering layer upon layer that had accumulated along its surface so that not a single inch within our reach remained obscured. And when we had finished, we each took a step back to read the writing. Ebon did so aloud,
"Return to surface."
"It's an elevator," I said, a note of shock entering my voice. I opened the compartment at the back of the machine and it opened easily, a thin sprinkle of dirt trailing from within, "An elevator to the surface. That's what this place needed. Some way for people to get down here, to populate it all. This is a city."
Ebon was shaking his head skeptically, pulling another cigarette from his coat pocket and lighting it. He coughed wildly into his hand after a single drag. His dirty hand reached up to the single switch inside the compartment, pointing.
"No," he said, "Something isn't right."
He looked up the hallway behind us, trudging up the slope to the main corridor and ran down one of the adjacent paths. I heard his footsteps echoing behind me, and slowly ledged my way back toward him.
"Ebon!" I called out, struggling up the incline on my cane, "What are you doing? We're nearly out of here!"
"No!" I heard his voice echoing down the hall in a rage, "No! This isn't right!"
"Ebon!" I shouted as I tried to give chase, "What's wrong?"
Moments passed in silence. I heard my leg and cane stiffly echo as I followed him through the passage to one of the rooms where I saw his flashlight spilling out into the main way.
"Ebon," I called out to him, "This place is incredible. It's a keep, a warren, a citadel. It's everything we need to secure a foothold in the region. This land is isolated, safe from the mad cults and the ripper dogs. They can't reach us. We can build it all down here. And you, Ebon. You're founder of a new world."
He turned, leaning down suddenly and snatching his flashlight from the floor, he smashed his cigarette on the ground and said,
"Where is it all? This is a shell, a hollow shelter of glass. If it was designed for the old world, where are the computers? Where are the machines that tell us about its history? Why, in all this vast expanse of tunnel have we seen nothing but the same floor, the same walls? There's nothing here. No plumbing, no lights. This is not a place meant for people to live."
