So Below: The Trilogy

by Matt Whyman

  “Hello, little man!” she says to Jenks in greeting, unfazed by his luminous presence. “If we’re lucky, you can travel on a child ticket.”

  “Huh?” Yoshi looks up smartly. He shows her the two pairs of halogen headtorches that he’s strapped to his belt loop. “I thought these might come in useful, but why do we need tickets to travel underground?”

  Mae Lin frowns, and returns her keys to the pocket of her quilted coat. “Yoshi, you’re a good boy. Please don’t tell me you’re a fare dodger.”

  Yoshi turns to Jenks, who seems equally bemused. Before he can seek to make sense of the situation, Mae Lin has set off towards the pagoda that marks the gateway to and from Chinatown. “Lucky I got some money in my purse, innit? Now, follow me!”

  If Jenks had taken some persuading to climb out of the bunker, Yoshi needs some convincing when Mae Lin finally stops at a street corner and invites him to follow her below ground.

  “When I asked if you knew how to get around under London,” he tells her, “I didn’t mean by subway train!”

  “Why not?” Mae Lin steps aside so the boy can see the underground map clearly. The trio are standing beside the top of the escalators, watching a steady stream of Londoners descending from the street to the warren of platforms below. Some glance at Jenks, who keeps his hoodie pulled low over his face, but most purposely avoid his presence. “Wherever you want to go in this city,” she says, “the tube will take you there! What’s the problem, big boy? You look a little mystified.”

  Yoshi is lost for words for a moment. When he finally gathers himself, Mae Lin has hopped onto the slow-moving stairway. She takes Jenks by the hand as she does so, obliging the boy to follow behind. “The tube might get us around town,” he says finally, “but I don’t recall a station outside the troglodyte’s lair. Just a chasm none of us can cross and a great big church on top.”

  “Oh, let’s worry about that later,” she says, batting away his protest. “St Luke’s is just around the corner from the nearest station. Once we get there, I’m sure if we ask nicely someone will give us directions.”

  This time, Yoshi is silenced by such a batty approach to his dilemma. When Mae Lin claimed to know how to travel around London, he had assumed she meant by the lost rivers, tunnels, vaults and sewers. Not by public transport. With a sigh, he steps off the foot of the escalator and follows the pair towards the eastbound platform.

  “At least we’re heading in the right direction,” he mutters, catching up with them now.

  “We might even get a seat!” beams Mae Lin. “I’m not just a pretty face, you know!”

  The platform stretches between two tunnels. It’s so long that they have the far end to themselves. Jenks keeps close to Yoshi, whose expression still suggests this is going to be one huge exercise in wasting time. Travelling to a station nearest to the church made sense, but it wouldn’t help them locate the lair. And even if they did, how on earth did Mae Lin think they would enter it? Yoshi might be a skilled parkour, but even he would never dare attempt to leap the rocky divide in question. So absorbing is the challenge they face that Yoshi fails to notice the breeze pick up from the tunnel.

  “Stand behind the yellow line,” Mae Lin instructs him, and gestures at the safety marking that runs the length of the platform. “And once the train has arrived, wait for the passengers to get off before you climb on board.”

  Mae Lin’s maternal clucking leaves Yoshi wishing he could recall his life before the Foundation. It’s as if his memory of his mother and any family who might be missing him had been wiped clean. And yet now was not the right moment to dwell on the past. Not when the breeze picks up enough to stir the litter between the tracks and the head of a train slams out of the darkness. It arrives at quite a rate, which leaves the boy thankful that he had stepped away from the edge. He looks for the driver behind the windshield, but it passes too quickly too see. If the speed is unusual, the braking is diabolical. The tube train slows to a halt as expected, but then judders forward abruptly, not once but twice.

  “Good grief,” mutters Yoshi. “I’m beginning to see why Julius prefers to move around under London on foot.”

  “You get used to it,” Mae Lin replies with a shrug, and waits for the doors to open.

  17

  No heroics, big boy

  The carriages are busy. Looking through the window panels at all the passengers crammed inside, Yoshi wonders whether they might have to wait for the next train. With a beep, the doors hiss apart. At once, from every carriage, a mass of people pool onto the platform. Some seem quite flustered, while most are just in a hurry to reach the exit. A few even break into a run, looking behind their shoulders every now and then.

  “What’s the hurry?” asks Yoshi. “Rush hour was over ages ago.”

  Mae Lin shrugs, and ushers the pair onto the carriage. Inside, Yoshi finds every seat vacant.

  “Everyone got off,” he says, and rubs the back of his head.

  “Good!” declares Mae Lin, and flops into the nearest seat. “Sometimes it can get so crushed that it’s hard to breathe.”

  The door slide shut just then, only to open again, and then close with a bang.

  “Who do they get to drive these things?” asks Yoshi, taking the seat beside Jenks. “Monkeys?”

  As if in response, a primal shriek of delight strikes up from the carriage ahead. This is followed by a series of mischievous hoots. The boy looks at Mae Lin, then towards the source of the noise, and gulps. He doesn’t even need to stand to pinpoint the cause of the commotion. He can see it swinging from one strap handle to the next.

  Yoshi thinks back to the surveillance footage he witnessed on the big screen on the bridge that morning. Back then, watching a pack of chimps barrel over the ticket barrier and into the underground network was kind of funny. Right now, as it dawns on him that they appear to have hitched a lift on this very tube train, there’s no trace of a smile on his face. The train moves off with a lurch, stops again, and then accelerates from the station so swiftly that the wind whistles through the air vents.

  “We have to stop this,” says Yoshi, rising to his feet. He heads for the emergency alarm and pulls the red handle. A static crackle from the speaker above it tells him he has been connected with the driver’s cabin. He leans in, holding the post for balance as the train rattles along, and shouts, ‘Some monkeys from the zoo are loose on this train! Do you hear?”

  The intercom speaker hisses and pops, then comes the response, at last! Only it’s not the one that any of them could have hoped for.

  “Did the driver just blow a raspberry?” Mae Lin looks somewhat shocked.

  “I think so,” says Yoshi, sounding resigned. He doesn’t need to spell out why as the intercom relays yet more hooting and gleeful shrieks. The brakes come on without warning just then, so forcefully that Yoshi loses his grip and crashes to the floor. When he picks himself up, the train has come to a halt inside the tunnel. Looking down the centre of the aisles now, it’s possible for Yoshi to see into several carriages ahead. In each one, as he reports to Mae Lin and Jenks, he sees only chimps at play. The train lurches forward once more, and stops smartly a second later. Yoshi scrambles back to his seat, where both Mae Lin and Jenks are looking distinctly rattled.

  “This doesn’t usually happen,” is all she can say. “Maybe we should get off at the next station?”

  The train moves off as she speaks. It’s too much for Jenks, however, who leaps into Yoshi’s arms and buries his head.

  “As soon as we stop and the doors open,” says Yoshi, “we’re out of here.” It’s the speed at which they’re travelling that leaves the boy questioning if they’ll actually be able to follow his orders. The train rounds a bend just then, so sharply that the trio tip into the row of seats opposite. A moment later, the darkness through the windows turns to light, signalling their arrival at the next station. It’s a blur to them, however, as the train shows no sign of stopping. Yoshi barely has time to take stock of what’s happe
ning before they’re back in the next tunnel, upon which the train comes to a screeching halt.

  “Oh great,” he says with a sigh, and faces his travelling companions. “Welcome aboard the Chimp Express.”

  Mae Lin casts her eye along the aisle. In the next carriage, the monkey has quit swinging from the strap handles, and come to the window for a closer look. It observes them with great curiosity, before turning around and pressing its bottom against the glass.

  “I think,” says Mae Lin, sounding most unamused, “we can expect delays.”

  Jenks rocks back and forth in his seat, clearly unsettled by this turn of events. “Jenks doesn’t want any trouble,” he says to himself. “Jenks just wants to go home.”

  Yoshi looks to Mae Lin, thinking on his feet now, and then asks her not to be alarmed at what he’s about to attempt.

  “No heroics, big boy,” she cautions him. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

  “They won’t,” he assures her, and closes his eyes to concentrate. “Hopefully, I’m going to summon some help,” he adds.

  The boy has only been focusing for a moment, when a tug at his sleeves draws his attention back to Mae Lin.

  “This is no time for power naps, either,” she tells him.

  “I know that!” he replies tensely, and reaches for the strap handle as the train reverses by a foot. “Just give me a second, OK? If I can connect with Livia, we’ll soon be out of here.”

  “With what?” asks Mae Lin. “A mobile phone? You’re unlikely to get a signal down here.”

  “I am aware of that,” says Yoshi, his patience sorely tested. “The connection I want to make is psychic.”

  “What’s that, then? Is this about astrology?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he says, wishing he’d never mentioned the word. “Let’s just hope it works.”

  This time, Mae Lin doesn’t interrupt as Yoshi attempts to open his mind’s eye. He imagines himself back in the bunker, in the presence of one girl in particular. He pictures her lifting her gaze, framed by the saint-like glow of her aura, upon which the image that he’s conjured burns intensely white. When it returns, he senses immediately that his imagination is no longer behind it. He really is viewing Livia remotely. The connection has been made.

  “Hey there,” he says, and is delighted to see her look up smartly. “I expect the room has gone suddenly cold, am I right?” He pauses there, and is pleased to see her nodding. “Don’t worry. It isn’t a ghost. People often think that. In reality, they’re simply the subject of a remote viewing. Somebody like me is watching them!”

  “Yoshi?” she looks around. “I’m not surprised by the drop in temperature. It’s the fact that I can hear you in my head that’s startled me.”

  The boy grins to himself, much to Mae Lin’s bemusement.

  “Who is he talking to?” she whispers across to Jenks. “Is he wearing an earpiece?”

  Yoshi ignores her comment. His expression tightens as he watches Livia rise from her seat. She’s on the Bridge with the twins, where Mikhail and Billy No-Beard are busy battling one another on a videogame. Yoshi can see it on the big screen. Some shoot-‘em up in space that Billy appears not to have mastered very well.

  “Where are you?” she asks, turning her back to the others now. “You vanished without a word.”

  Before he can answer, the train jolts forward and this time continues to pick up speed. “Can you patch into the CCTV network on the Underground?”

  “I’ll ask Billy.”

  Yoshi watches her turn to the Executive Deck Hand, just as the space galleon he’s been piloting on the screen fragments into a million pieces.

  “There she blows!” crows Mikhail, whose own vessel sails by victoriously.

  Billy turns, looking furious. “You just distracted me!” he complains, but drops it when Livia crosses the floor to have a word with him. “Yoshi is here?” He looks around, sees nothing, but carries out Yoshi’s request when she relays it to him.

  On the big screen, the game is wiped to one side in favour of dozens of smaller windows, each with a live feed from a platform. “Take your pick,” says Billy, poised now over the keyboard in front of him. “Where is he, then?”

  “Tell Billy he’s about to see for himself,” says Yoshi, addressing the only person on The Bridge who has picked up on his presence.

  There’s no need for Livia to relay the instruction. For the team are all watching the screen when the train shoots into view. There it is for them to see, played out in one of the small windows, which Billy then enlarges. The footage fills the screen just in time for them to see carriage after carriage pass the platform in question without stopping. Yoshi very nearly loses the connection when the train screeches to a halt all of a sudden. He doesn’t need to report what’s happened, however, for the image on the bunker screen has captured the brake lights glowing in the tunnel. This also reveals the silhouettes of several primates. They drop from the back of the train and play on the ballast bed, only to scramble aboard when the train jolts forward again.

  Mikhail is the first to react. “Aren’t those the monkeys from the zoo?” he asks Billy, who looks across at him in disbelief.

  “Of course they’re the monkeys from the zoo! How many times have you seen monkeys roaming freely around London? I still suspect you’re partly responsible for that breakout. Don’t ask me why. I just have a feeling.”

  “Never mind about that now.” Mikhail jumps to his feet, and turns to find Livia behind him. “Tell Yoshi to sit tight. So long as that train keeps stopping and starting, we have enough time to get a couple of stations ahead!”

  “And then what?” asks Yoshi, but Livia is at a loss as well. Already, he’s beginning to sense his psychic energy draining. By the time the train has come to another sudden halt, the connection has been lost. In its place, Yoshi finds himself facing Mae Lin.

  “Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness, big boy. Don’t go crazy on me now. We need to stop this runaway train.”

  Yoshi grins despite feeling so rattled, and assures her that no screw has come loose in his head. “Let’s just say that I’ve put out the distress call. All we can do now is hold onto our seats and pray that help arrives.”

  “It had better come quickly,” Mae Lin warns. “Otherwise, we could be facing the end of the line, in more ways than one!”

  18

  Are you in charge?

  It’s never easy to relax on a train that’s going nowhere. At a standstill on the line, a carriage can feel claustrophobic. You begin to think about your destination, and wonder when on earth you’ll get there. It certainly doesn’t help if every other carriage on the train is overrun by marauding monkeys.

  Right now, Yoshi is pacing the aisle. He’s been doing this for the last fifteen minutes, ever since they came to a halt in the tunnel. Judging by the pandemonium caused by the primates in the carriages ahead, you’d think they had stopped here purely to party.

  “I can’t take much more of this,” complains Yoshi. “If my friends are planning to rescue us from a station, they could be in for a long wait.” He casts his eye to the far window, where several monkeys are busy ripping up the seats and throwing them at one another. “I’d get the train moving myself, but I don’t fancy my chances walking through the carriages to reach the front.”

  “Vandalism is not tolerated on the underground,” agrees Mae Lin, who has been comforting a plainly terrified Jenks. “There are fines, y’know.”

  Yoshi flattens his lips. He looks up and around, casting a jump runner’s eye at his surroundings, but coming back with nothing. The only way out is through the sliding doors, all of which are controlled from the front. Unless, the boy decides, he can squeeze through the window at the front of the carriage. He sizes it up, and decides it would be cowardly not to try. “Stay here,” he tells them. “I’m going to get this train going, even if it kills me.”

  “That’s crazy talk!” Mae Lin calls after him, but it’s too late to sto
p him now. Yoshi draws down the window, turns around, reaches out and lifts himself from their view. Mae Lin turns to Jenks. “First he talks to himself and now this?” She taps her temple. “Crazy, crazy, crazy boy!”

  As soon as he has hauled himself onto the roof of the next carriage, Yoshi pauses to strap on the halogen headlamp. This consists of two bright beams, each one positioned over his ears. From the front, you could be looking at some kind of luminous insect. It’s only as he begins to crawl forward that it becomes clear this is a boy on a perilous mission. Way ahead, towards the front of the carriages, a signalling gantry fills the space he’s using to move through. It’s set to green, but whoever’s in the driver’s cab is clearly having too much fun to do anything about it.

  “When your keepers catch up with you guys,” he whispers between gritted teeth. “You are going to be on banana rations for weeks!”

  The muffled shrieks and chatter coming through the roof do little for his nerves, which are tightened to snapping point as he approaches the front of the first carriage. Then the distant light on the signalling gantry switches from green to red. A second later, courtesy of the chimps who have hijacked this ride, the train begins to move. And not just a jolt, Yoshi realises to his horror, as he finds himself sailing towards the light. With no time to turn back the way he came, Yoshi scrambles forward. The carriage ahead begins to pass under the gantry now, which looks more like a scythe to his frightened eyes.

  “Never again,” he whispers, as if such a promise might save him this time, and ducks into the gap between the carriages. He keeps his head low, hears a swishing sound as the gantry combs overhead, and then thanks his lucky stars. With the train picking up speed, Yoshi rules out returning to the roof. He peers into the next carriage, sees half a dozen chimps staring back at him, and decides to take his chances with them.

  “Fellas!” he says in greeting, as he slides down the window and drops in to join them. “Just step aside and nobody gets hurt.” The boy brushes soot from his palms, and takes a step forward. The chimps regroup, but remain in his path. Yoshi eyes each one in turn. All of a sudden, they don’t look so friendly. That’s no surprise to the boy. He just hadn’t banked on feeling quite so scared. “Very well,” he says, as the train rattles on. “We’ll do it the hard way.”