The Dark and Shadowy Places

by Caitlin McColl

  #

  If the sun had been visible in the Roots, it would have barely skimmed the roofs of the houses and shops, but as it was, Martin left the shop with an identical Messenger’s pass in hand, minus the photograph, even before the Open sign was turned over to welcome the day’s customers, and he wended his way through early morning shoppers and made his way to the photographer’s shop just as the shop keeper was propping the door open with a tinkling of a small bell above the door.

  The woman smiled. “Martin, how nice to see you! Are you here for a photograph?”

  Besides the Lifts, this was the second place that Martin disliked coming, and he’d only been once before. The photo-bots unnerved him, so he avoided photography shops at all costs. “Yes,” he said, handing over his forged booklet, and the messenger’s original so they would know how to take the picture.

  “Okay,” she nodded, pointing further into the room. “You know the drill.”

  Martin indeed knew the drill. He had to stay stock still and look straight ahead, a deadpan expression on his face – no smiling allowed. There was a single stool in the middle of the room, and Martin perched uncomfortably on the edge. The bot appeared silently out of nowhere, like a giant metallic insect – a perfectly spherical insect that hummed and buzzed as it floated up to Martin and stared at him with one large lens-eye. He always felt like it was scrutinizing him, like the camera could look into his soul, and if he stared at it too long, that it would steal his soul. He opened his mouth to speak but the camera-bot flashed an angry red light at him, and something clicked and snapped inside its sleek silver body.

  Martin thought he’d feel better about it if it had wings, like the dead man that had disrupted a perfectly normal Thursday. Even if the wings were just for show. It was eerie, the way it just hovered and floated, like a metal soap bubble. Martin tried to un-focus his eyes and look through the camera, as it looked at him. And then it blinked, and blinked a green light at him. The photo was done and Martin almost leapt off the chair. The camera floated away following the woman into the back of the shop. “I’ll be back in a flash!” she said with a giggle, disappearing into the gloom.

  Martin admired a collection of photographs that hung on the wall, all of different areas of the Roots. He paused to look at his favourite of the large ornate fountains in some of the squares – the octopus with water spouting from the ends of its twisted tentacles. The picture was vivid and seemed as if it was jumping out of the frame towards him. He moved on to admire a second photo of another landmark in the Roots: this one of an area of the lower level – the firefly farm, where they bred fireflies for all the lamps and lighting in the lower area – they weren’t worthy of actual gas lamps, or so whoever ran Tree thought. The photo captured the eerie green glow of the lightning bugs, as they flew underneath the large glass dome that housed them. It was like an iridescent bubble. Martin moved to look at a third picture on the wall, but was suddenly surrounded by a swarm of cameras.

  “Shoo!” the woman shouted, waving her hand about as if they were pesky house flies. They scattered with angry buzzing, seeming to glare, Martin thought, at the shop owner with their single lens-eyes.

  “Sorry about that,” she apologized. “They have a mind of their own sometimes it seems, they’re curious. I think the New Alchemist who made them, made them a bit too intelligent for their own good, sometimes,” she said with a light laugh and a shake of her head.

  Martin wasn’t sure he’d be able to laugh off the ministrations of one of the inventors that belonged to the Society of New Alchemy – they did strange, bizarre things with steam and gears and metal. They worked a sort of magic he didn’t understand, and didn’t trust. Like the cameras that were now clustered together at the other end of the room, he was sure were watching him, as he watched them, warily.

  He was so busy glaring at the little things that he didn’t notice the booklets the woman held out for him. “Oh, I’m sorry! I was just distracted by…” he gave a curt nod in their direction.

  The woman laughed again. “I understand. They do take some getting used to.”

  He made his way through the streets that had burst to life from the peace and quiet they had been moments before. He flipped open his copy of the messenger ID and smiled. It looked identical to real one. He would be able to get to the top of the Tree!

  He was so preoccupied with looking at his photo and the watermark of the Emperor that only after the loud shout from the carriage driver followed by the crack of whip caused him to look up and jump back out of the way of the carriage that was heading straight for him.

  “Watch where you’re walking!” the driver, perched high on his bench at the front of the vehicle released one hand from the reins and made a vulgar gesture.

  He arrived at the lift, his heart in his throat as he flashed the pass. Seconds stretched into an eternity before the golem stepped aside with an almost imperceptible nod and he was on the platform and moving up even before he could release his breath. Clutching the key tightly in his right hand with visions of airships floating through his head, Martin was startled when the lift stopped and deposited him in what was obviously the Middle – he’d never seen so much light, and brightness!

  The lift door slid open. “Uh, excuse me,” he said to a golem guard identical to the last in an unnerving way. “But I need to continue to the top of the city.”

  The Golem swivelled its metal head on large metal shoulders and, Martin assumed, looked at the pass he held out. The mouth grate opened, and a single word floated from the gap. “No.”

  Martin’s jaw fell and disappointment hit him like a punch to the gut. “No? What do you mean no? I’m a messenger! See?” he waved the paper emphatically in front of those empty eyes.

  “That is only for Messengers between the Middle and Roots,” the metal thing said matter-of-factly.

  “But, but-” Martin stuttered, at a loss. This was unexpected. “But I need to deliver something to the top! How do I get there?”

  “There is no lift to the top,” the golem explained. Whoever was inside this metal suit at least had some patience. “To make deliveries between here and the top, you have to fly.” It seemed like the automaton was looking him up and down. “And you are not a pilot.”

  “Fly?” Martin’s heart seemed to have found a new home in his throat.

  A large metal arm lifted and pointed. Martin followed it to large arches that opened to the sky at regular intervals.

  He made his way to the hole in the wall on feet that felt made of concrete. He gripped the edge of one of the holes with white knuckles and peered out, squinting against the brightness. In the sky he saw men who looked just like Armistice Wells, with large wings made of a white material, and strapped to their backs with a harness, struts made of brass and copper glinting blindingly when the sun hit them. Most flew gracefully with long, smooth strokes of their man made wings, catching updrafts that swirled close to the walls of the city.

  Martin tried to look up, to see how far up the Branches actually were, but vertigo caused a wave of nausea to roll up from the bottom of his stomach and he quickly squeezed his eyes shut.

  He moved back to the Golem, the concrete grip on his feet crumbling the further he went from the gaping hole to the outside.

  “So if I want to get to the top?”

  The golem shook its head again. “That’s impossible. You can’t. You aren’t a flier.”

  “How do you become one?”

  “You’re born.”

  Born? Martin had a vision of being hatched out of some strange human sized egg, like a strange bird and bit back a laugh.

  Even though the Golem had no expression on its blank metal face, it seemed to take offence. Its mouth grille opened again. “By that I mean, you are born into it, it’s in your family. It’s passed down, father to son. Inherited.”

  “Oh,” said Martin, deflated. He squeezed the key in his hand so that it bit painfully into his palm. He had his mission. To find out
what Armistice Wells had been talking about, this ArcHive.

  “Well, I need to get to the Branches. Is there any way for me to do that?”

  In the distance there was shouting and Martin and the Golem looked in the direction of the disturbance. The Golem raised its energy gun. Martin looked and at first couldn’t see what the guard was pointing at, he wasn’t used to the brightness of white-washed buildings instead of the familiar dark, sooty gloom of the Roots, but finally the white robed figures came into view and once he could see them, racing towards him, that’s all he noticed.

  “Uh oh,” the Golem with a note of worry in its voice as the hum of his energy gun built up and Martin saw the pop and fizz of electricity dance across its muzzle.

  Uh oh? Martin had never heard a Golem say uh oh before. “What do you mean uh oh? Who are those people, and why are they heading towards us?”

  “They aren’t heading to us, they are heading to you.”

  “Me?” Martin’s voice came out in a high pitched squeak as if it were too frightened to even leave his throat. He felt suddenly vulnerable without any form of protection. He didn’t even have any of his magic props on him that he could use for defence. Like the box of matches he used to light the toy air ship on fire.

  “I know I haven’t done anything wrong in my life. You must be doing something they don’t like if they’re looking for you.”

  “Who are they,” Martin said, moving behind the imposing bulk of the guard.

  “You don’t know?” the guard said, sounding amazed and at the same time irritated. “Let me out of here, and follow me and I’ll explain. I’m not allowed to use my gun on them, anyway, so I can’t really protect you.”

  From his hiding place behind the Golem, Martin was positioned right in front of the large latches that ran down the back of the suit of armour. He worked the latches quickly, only half wondering if undoing a corset would be as easy as this. The last one undone he flung open the two sides, and came face to face with a slender girl in her mid-twenties with large blue eyes and long dark hair tied back from her head to save it getting caught in any of the moving mechanisms. She wore skin tight bright blue trousers and a slim fitting sleeveless canary yellow top, her exposed arms dotted and scarred with steam burns.

  She stared at him. “Well, what are you waiting for? Help me down from here!” She sat on padded chair and reached her arms toward him.

  He grabbed her hands and pulled her out and down, her legs stretching to reach the ground. As soon as she was out, she grabbed his hand and pulled him away from the corpse of the automaton that she had been providing the life for. It stood listless and dead still holding the energy gun in front of it, still poised ready to fire, but with nothing, or no one, to fire it.

  They ran. Martin risked looking around as they ran through the streets. It wasn’t all that different from the Roots, he realized, taking in the cobblestone streets, and the buildings all squished tightly together to house as many as possible within the confines of a tower that was twenty five square miles. Everything was just brighter, as if someone had decided to throw buckets of white wash on every surface instead of living with the dark and gloom that people in the Roots did. And the people here were brighter, more colourful, and seemed more full of life. Everyone wore a multitude of colours – and not just drab neutral browns and greens and blues but bright, vivid colours like the yellow and blue of the girl that was dragging him onwards.

  “Where are we going?” Martin hazarded asking as they ran down a particularly narrow street that had the brilliant idea of filling with a fountain half way down it.

  “Somewhere safe,” she said, and before she finished the words, she was opening a door and pulling him inside.

  Martin looked around. They were in a house, one that looked almost identical to his, except the walls were white, not a dark eggplant like his. “Is this your place?” he asked turning to her.

  “Yes. The Elders don’t know where I live. I’ve never been in trouble with them. See?” she said, lifting her arm. Martin didn’t know what he was looking for at first, and then he saw it, a faint green light pulsing at her wrist.

  He thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. “Is your arm glowing?”

  The girl looked at him, her eyes growing wide. “Where are you from?” she said, and then looked him up and down. “I see. Do they not teach you anything at all in the Roots?”

  Martin shrugged, embarrassed. “Yes, they do, of course!” he said defensively. He needed to stand up for his people. “But-”

  “They obviously don’t teach you the important things if you don’t know what this is,” she gestured to the light, “or who the Elders are. Have you even heard of the ArcHive?”

  Martin broke into a smile. “Yes! Well, actually no. But I just read about them today.” He fished the letter out of his pocket and held it out.

  “It’s not a them, it’s an it. Well, I guess the Elders are a them.” She took the letter and read it silently.

  The sudden silence made Martin uneasy, standing in this strange girl’s house. “I don’t even know your name. I’m Martin,” he said, holding his hand out to her.

  “I’m Louise,” she replied, still reading the note and making no move to complete the handshake.

  “Well, what does this ArcHive do?” Martin asked, still trying to fill the silence.

  “They record all of us. With these implants.” She pointed to her wrist again without raising her eyes from Armistice Wells’ note. “The ArcHive is just the place where we are recorded and stored.”

  “And the Elders?”

  “The Elders are like the worker bees. They keep the ArcHive running smoothly.”

  “So that’s what Armistice was talking about.”

  “Where’s the key?” Louise asked.

  “What?”

  “Armistice mentioned a key. Where is it?”

  Martin took it from his pocket and handed it over.

  “The Government and the ArcHive are one and same. If they are doing this, altering people’s life lines…” Louise trailed off shaking her head, dark hair falling into her face. She brushed it away impatiently. “It’s dangerous for all of us.”

  “How did they know where I was?”

  “The implants, like I said. We’re all given them when we’re born. That’s how they record our lives – all our moments, all our life changing decisions. And when something comes up that they don’t think is right – like this Armistice person, trying to challenge them, and you, you’re obviously trying to find out what they’re doing, they found out about it and are coming to stop you.”

  “So the implants, they’re like homing beacons?” Martin said.

  Louise nodded, stray bits of hair finding their way into her face again. “Exact-“

  Her words were cut off by a loud knock on the door.

  Martin pulled Louise further into her house, into a spacious kitchen. “So you said the ArcHivists don’t know where you live because you’ve never done anything in your life to bring attention to yourself. But I’m here now.”

  Louise eyes widened and she looked at the door which shook with another violent knock. “We need to run!” She lowered her voice to a whisper.

  Martin looked about helplessly. “Where?”

  Louise grabbed his hand. “Come with me.” She pulled him through the kitchen into a sparse living room, dominated by a collection of large reclining chairs and a bookshelf that filled one wall. As she pulled him through another doorway, he noticed a camera-bot floating forlornly in the corner of the room. He shuddered.

  She flung open a door and they were out on the street again, this time in a narrow lane barely wide enough for the both of them, and cluttered with garbage and rubbish bins.

  “Now where are we going?” Martin said, his voice still a whisper despite the only things around that could hear them were a couple cats and a drunkard, asleep against a doorway.

  “To a friend of mine,” Louise said.

 
Martin waited for more information but none was forthcoming. “A friend that can help us get rid of the Elders?”

  Louise shook her head. “A friend that will take us off their radar.” She stopped suddenly in front of a door that Martin didn’t even see until he looked closely at the vague rectangular outline. She didn’t knock and instead just pushed a nearly invisible button at the side of the rectangle. The door swung inwards with a squeal of rusted metal.

  “Amalfus?” She said quietly at first, tip toeing into the room, and then again much louder. “Are you in? It’s Louise. We need a favour. Urgently.”

  There was a clatter of metal hitting the floor and a loud curse, followed by a another clash of things banging together. “Just a moment!” a lightly accented voice said from deep within, behind shelves filled with partly assembled machines, and loose gears and cogs, coils of wire and telescopes.

  A man appeared wearing a plum waistcoat and lime green trousers with leather boots the colour of black cherries that rose to his knees. He wore large goggles over his eyes, the lenses mirrored, reflecting Martin and Louise in miniature. The man hastily pushed the goggles up into dark hair speckled with white, not from age, but some sort of powder.

  “Louise my dear!” he said, removing long leather gloves that ran up his arms, the colour of cocoa. He leaned over and embraced Louise. “How are you? How’s your mother?”

  Louise waved a hand impatiently. “I’m fine, we’re all fine. Well, sort of. Martin here needs his implant removed. The Elders are after him.”

  Amalfus’ dark brows shot up away from emerald eyes. “Are they now?” he said, at the same time reaching out for Martin’s arm and exposing his wrist. There was no glowing light. For a moment Amalfus looked puzzled, and then took in Martin’s clothes and understanding dawned. “Oh I see,” he said, nodding. “Turn around boy,” Amalfus instructed.

  Martin bristled at that. He wasn’t a boy, but he obeyed. “What are you doing?”

  “You’re from the Roots, are you not?”

  Martin nodded. “Yes but-“

  “People from the Roots usually have their implants behind their ears.”

  Martin felt Amalfus touch his right ear, pushing it forward, and then move to the left. “Ah yes, here it is. Yes, this won’t take any time at all. Let me just get my things.”

  Martin turned around and saw Louise looking at him. “Who is this guy? Is he a doctor?”

  “No, he’s my Uncle. He’s a New Alchemist.”

  Martin could feel the colour drain from his face. “Has he done this before?”

  Louise shrugged. “I think once or twice. It doesn’t take long to cut it out. And he’s stitched me up plenty of times when I’ve cut myself on my Golem.”

  Before Martin could protest Amalfus was back with a cloth, some thread and a small knife.

  Amalfus smiled at him. “This won’t take a second. Turn around again please.” Martin did, and a moment later felt a poke and brief sharp pain, and then felt strange tugging. A minute later he heard the snap of thread.

  “Done,” Amalfus said proudly, handing Martin the cloth. Hold this to the area for a minute or two, for any blood. “Now for the hard part,” he said with a grin. He dropped the small square to the floor, and crushed the chip with the heel of his boot, twisting his foot, and grinding it hard. “There!”

  “Now we’re safe,” Louise said. “They don’t know where you are.”

  “So that means I can find what this key belongs to and destroy whatever is locked up, like Armistice said.”

  “Do you really think that’s a good idea?” Louise asked, concern creasing her face.

  “You’ve read the letter. And you’ve said yourself, they alter your life if they’re not happy with where it’s going.”

  Louise nodded. “You’re right. We need to stop it.”

  Amalfus had been quietly observing, but now interjected. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying? Are you planning on infiltrating and shutting down the ArcHive?”

  Martin looked to Louise, and Louise looked back at him for confirmation. “Yes,” they said simultaneously.

  “That’s suicide!” Amalfus shouted, causing a precarious piece of equipment on a shelf to roll off and hit the floor with a thud, a pause and then, “is there anything I can do to help?”

  “Can you fly? We need to get to the ArcHive.”

  “The Branches! I haven’t been there since I used to be a delivery boy on an airship when I was a young one.” Amalfus said, excitedly.

  Louise’s jaw dropped. “You’ve been to the top?”

  “Of course! I was born there.”

  Again puzzlement screwed up her features. “But then how-“

  “How am I down here in the Middle? Why would I choose to be down here when I could live up there among the clouds and sun and sky?” Amalfus finished her thoughts, pointing to the ceiling.

  Louise nodded, as did Martin. He couldn’t fathom why anyone would trade a life at the top with a sheltered, restricted one down here trapped within the walls of the city.

  “Love,” Amalfus said simply. “Love clipped my wings and made me abandon a life of sailing the skies. That, and well, the ArcHive were starting to become controlling. Well, I guess they’ve been controlling the whole time, with their implants, always monitoring, always tracking, they say for our own good. For posterity. For the Empire.” He snorted derisively.

  “We have a chance to stop it, and we should.”

  “Do you recognize this?” Martin said, holding out the silver key.

  Amalfus took it, holding it by the end, a stylized A in delicate filigreed scrolls.

  He held it by the other end, examining the A. His eyes widened suddenly. “It’s the heart key!” he nearly shouted, thrusting the key in their faces. “Look!” he pointed to the A, and indeed, it was nestled inside the shape of a heart.

  “What’s the heart key?” Louise and Martin asked as one.

  “It leads to the computing machine that powers the entire ArcHive. It can be disabled, shut down.”

  “Do you know where it is?”

  Amalfus nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “I think so. There were a few times I had to deliver things to the ArcHive. There was a locked door, right in the very centre of the building.

  Martin nodded with understanding. “The heart.”

  Amalfus nodded. “Come, we should get changed.”

  “Changed?”

  “We’d stand out like plums on a banana tree dressed like we are. I still have some old clothes from my delivery days.”

  Half an hour later and they were all dressed in white, and Amalfus had managed to borrow wings from three delivery messengers from the Branches, and bribed one into a tutorial on how to use them.

  “Ready?” he said, standing where the messenger had told them to, before their running jump into the sky.

  Martin shook his head. No, he was most definitely not ready, and would never be. But this had been his idea in the first place. Grudgingly he nodded, swallowing all fear and pushing it deep down.

  One minute he was standing comfortably, surrounded by strange yet familiar cityscape, and the next he was surrounded by blue sky and nothing beneath him except the ground extremely far below.

  Eventually his heart left his throat and settled again where it belonged, as he flapped awkwardly upwards like some strange Icarus.

  And then he was there. Finding his land legs again on the smooth white marbled ground of the very top of Tree.

  Louise and Amalfus had already pulled their wings in and were waiting for him, as he ungraciously tried to make his wings behave. After minutes of trying to rein the wings in, Martin gave up and just unbuckled the harness that held the wings on, letting them fall to the hard ground with a clatter. He’d apologize for any damage later.

  And then the showman, Marius, appeared replacing the nervous Martin. “What are we waiting for?” he said, striding confidently toward the ArcHive.

  Martin walked in as if he ow
ned the place and headed straight for the large square vault at the centre. He was almost there. His skin tingled with excitement and nervousness. He ignored the wary gazes of men in robes, and stuck the key in the lock. He turned it, wincing at the loud click that seemed to echo through the rooms.

  He yanked the door open and was met by nothing. The room was empty.

  A voice spoke behind him that sent chills down his spine “Did you really think it would be so easy to stop us?”

  He recognized the voice, but turned, anyway. It was Amalfus, with Louise standing beside him. She shrugged, apologetically.

  As Martin fell through the air, he briefly wondered if this was how Armistice felt. But he didn’t smile.

  THE SECRETS OF FIREFLIES

  Oh no, she thought. This can’t be good.

  A sharp laugh echoed around her and she snapped her head up. “Thankfully you’re not a detective!” The voice floated toward her through the gloom. Anise didn’t think she’d spoken aloud. She could barely see in the dim light of the underground city, despite the watery green-ish glow from the firefly light, high above them. She lifted the dark lantern higher, bringing her companion’s features to life, melting away the sickly light from the fireflies. He looked healthy, and alive, unlike the person on the ground between them. His kind blue eyes with the crows-feet at the corners made her feel suddenly stronger than she felt a moment ago.

  She shook her head, at a loss for words. Not a good start for an investigative journalist!

  When Benedict had first invited her, asking if she would help write an exposé on the living conditions for the citizens of the underground cities of New London, New Cardiff, and New Edinburgh, she jumped at the chance. It was an opportunity of a lifetime, especially for the United American Empire’s first, as far as she was aware, female newspaper reporter.

  She’d grown up hearing stories about the underground cities of the British Isles – how they were a network of tunnels and caverns, reached by massive iron airlocks, and guarded by chosen slaves of the Romans who had taken over the cities above after Napoleon’s victory over the Kingdom.

  New London had sounded romantic and whimsical, like some magical lost city made of gold and marble with towering statues, ornate fountains, bustling town squares and colourful marketplaces. So when Benedict asked, she said yes even before he had finished his proposal. And they would be taking an airship. It would be only the second time she had ever travelled by dirigible, and her first outside of the Empire.

  Benedict Aldershot had given the guard at one of the four main up-side entrances the piece of paper that he had managed to get signed back home by the Emperor and co-signed by the Roman Emperor. It granted them entrance to the underground. The man at the gate glanced at the paper and gave them both a strange look, followed by a shrug.

  Anise meant to ask Benedict how he had managed to get permission from such important people, but for now she focused on being on her best behaviour. She smiled widely at the guard with his bright red trousers, golden long-tailed coat, and trailing beard. The man didn’t acknowledge her as he moved to middle of the hatch and began turning the wheel. The screech of rusted metal pierced the air, and before Anise knew it, she was following Benedict down the rungs of one of four ladders that led down into the darkness. Benedict held the lantern in his mouth as he descended, causing its light to careen wildly against the circular walls. Anise could make out, here and there, tiles with symbols she had never seen before. A loud noise reverberated as the airlock door closed above them. The finality of it made Anise shudder.

  It felt like she had been climbing down, and down, and down for an eternity.

  Anise Buttersby was thankful for her sturdy boots that rose to her knee, and was glad she wasn’t wearing the silly heeled shoes that other women of society did. She had no time for that kind of thing. Not if she wanted to be a serious journalist!

  “Abe, come on!” Benedict’s voice rang out from below her. She smiled at the use of her nickname and clambered the last few rusted rungs, finally reaching solid ground. She allowed only a small number of people, those she trusted most, to call her Abe – a play on her initials, A and B, so that people wouldn’t call her Miss Buttersby, which she detested with a passion.

  Glancing around in the retreating glow of Benedict’s lamp, she could just make out that there were four tunnels branching off in different directions. Above the one filled with the quickly retreating amber light from Benedict, she read the words ‘North West’. Over her shoulder, above a patch of tunnel-shaped darkness, she saw ‘South East’.

  “Abe!”

  Thankful she wasn’t wearing a long cumbersome skirt and bustle, she tore off in the direction of the lantern’s comforting glow.

  She caught up to Benedict, and stopped to catch her breath. “Would you mind?” she asked turning her back to him, gesturing to the laces at the back of the corset she wore over her favourite purple blouse. “Just loosen them a little,” she panted, and then breathed a proper sigh of relief as the restriction lessened. “Thank you.”

  As they walked down the corridor, Abe became aware of writing and pictures scrawled on the grimy tiles of the tunnel. She passed a circle with ‘Romans’ written in it, and a line diagonally through it. The romanticism of the underground city wore away with each step, as they moved deeper. There was a dank, damp smell, like a house that had never been aired out in the spring. She shook her head in disbelief.

  “How can people live like this?” she said as she side stepped what looked like a broken statuette. Is that a wolf? She peered at the broken shards. That’s odd, they look to be of gears and metal, instead of stone. Still staring at the broken bits of the statue, she bumped heavily into Benedict, who had stopped and was holding the lantern aloft. The corridor ended and opened into a giant, cavernous room.

  Abe craned her head up and looked at the stone arches of the ceiling, holding up the earth above their heads. She saw the tubes filled with fireflies and their luminescent glow that ran around the room in sections. Some, she noticed, were broken, and there were small clusters of fireflies flying freely near the ceiling, highlighting the curves and dips of the sculpted arches.

  “Abe.” The slightly perturbed tone from Benedict snapped her out of her thoughts. He was standing next to a large fountain shaped like a giant octopus. Normally, Abe noticed, its tentacles would have water streaming from the ends, but now the fountain was dry, and there was a layer of scum on the bottom. Abe berated herself for forgetting a pair of gloves. She shuddered at the thought of touching anything in this grimy, disgusting place.

  “Abe!” Benedict shouted again, and the urgency in his voice made her jump.

  She made her way to his side and looked down into the puddle of light the lantern, with all of its slides up, made on the stone floor in front of them.

  She stared down at a somewhat human-shape, except it was bent and broken, and parts sat at unnatural angles. Abe turned her head away and fought to stop bile rising in her throat.

  Oh no, she thought. This can’t be good.

  Benedict’s sharp laugh echoed around her and she snapped her head up. “Thankfully you’re not a detective!”

  “I thought we were supposed to be talking to the citizens? About what it’s like living here after their homes above were stolen by the Romans, when they invaded, after Napoleon won,” she choked out as she swallowed loudly.

  Benedict shook his head. “Look around. Do you see people?”

  Abe was shocked to find that he was right. She hadn’t noticed until now because she too overwhelmed by the grandeur and melancholy of the place.

  She saw doors to houses that were built within alcoves in the walls, with a small number of windows. The doors were closed and the windows were all tightly shuttered. Except one. A few houses down from the fountain, a window was open, just a sliver. Abe thought she saw movement, a flicker of a shadow.

  “Hey!” Abe shouted, sprinting towards the house. Her booted feet ran
g hollowly, echoing off the walls and ceiling.

  She heard Benedict behind her, the light of the lantern bouncing wildly. “Abe! You can’t just run off like that, at least not without light!”

  Abe patted the satchel she had strapped across her chest that hung reassuringly at her side. The thought of her grandfather’s energy-coil gun within its folds made her feel safer, light or no light. As she reached the open window, she pulled the gun from her bag and held it down by her hip. This is the one time I wish I wore those ridiculous skirts every other girl wears! A skirt would be a lot easier to hide the fact you’re holding a gun. It was shocking enough that she was wearing trousers in the first place, but the fact they were just a bit too snug didn’t help matters. One too many toffees!

  “Hello?” she called out cautiously. “Is anyone there?” Her heart beat loudly in her chest and filled her ears. She felt sweat trace a path down her back, and she shivered involuntarily. She reached her hand out, about to pull the shutter wider when a hand landed on her shoulder.

  “Be careful,” Benedict whispered from behind.

  “Well, I would be if you didn’t frighten me!” she hissed back over her shoulder. She heard him chuckle under his breath.

  “Sorry,” he breathed. Abe moved again towards the window. Her fingers wrapped tightly around her energy gun, and she pulled the shutter wide.

  The window framed a small kitchen. On the dining table, in the middle of the room, was a large glass jar, full of fireflies. It lit the room with a strange, almost intoxicating light. Abe found it hard to look away from the insects trapped in their prison. She sensed Benedict move to stand next to her. They stood, staring into the kitchen that seemed untouched.

  Benedict raised the lantern, flooding the small room with warm, inviting light.

  “Is anyone there?” he asked, more confidently than Abe felt. “We just want to talk to someone, ask some questions. We’re from…”

  “Above,” Abe jumped in. “We’re actually visiting, from across the ocean. We just want to talk to people here. Find out what it’s like to live here.”

  The shadow that Abe had seen earlier materialized from behind a long, dusty curtain that separated the kitchen from another area of the house.

  Thin and pale, the small girl looked more ghost than real, not helped by the greying white dress she wore. Bare feet poked out from under the hem of her skirts. The years of living down here in the underground had not been kind to her. Dark, lank hair was plastered to her head.

  The girl stared at them with dark, wide eyes.

  “Is your mother or father home, Miss?” It was Benedict who spoke.

  The girl shook her head and remained silent.

  Abe removed her finger from over the button on her energy gun, and slid it back into her bag. “Would it be okay if we came inside? We won’t hurt you. We just write for a newspaper.”

  The girl stared at them.

  “Can you speak?” Abe coaxed.

  The girl nodded.

  “I’m Abe,” she introduced herself, and pointed to Benedict. “And this is my friend, Benedict.”

  “You can call me Ben,” he added.

  Abe glared at him. Ben? He’d never told her to call him Ben! Why? Why had he never told her she could call him Ben? She shook her head. This wasn’t the time to debate about what to call who. “What’s your name?” she asked softly, as if talking any louder would scare the girl away, like a flock of nervous birds.

  “Abigail,” the girl mumbled so quietly Abe wasn’t sure at first that she had actually said anything.

  “Abigail, that’s a pretty name.” Again it was Benedict. Abe was never good around children. She never knew exactly how to act. Especially when they were of a certain age, like Abigail, who seemed to be about eleven, maybe twelve.

  “Where are your parents, Abigail?” Benedict had lowered his voice as well.

  Abigail shrugged.

  What little patience Abe had with others, children especially, was waning quickly. She sighed loudly and gave a huff of annoyance. Benedict put a hand on her arm, and glanced at her with a look that said ‘patience’. She glared back at him, hoping he could read her expression that said ‘I’m running out’. She was starting to really not to like it down here. The darkness and the damp were making her nervous, uncomfortable, and irritable. A shiver raced down her spine, and she wished she had brought a shawl to cover her arms that were starting to grow an army of goose bumps.

  “You don’t know where they are?” Benedict was sounding concerned.

  Abigail dropped her head and stared at her feet. “No.”

  “Where is everyone?” Abe asked, trying to keep her voice soft and comforting, not allowing irritation to creep in.

  “They left.”

  “Left?” Abe and Benedict repeated, incredulously.

  Abigail nodded.

  Abe fought the urge to take out her reporter’s notebook. “But why? When?”

  Abigail shook her head, causing hair to fall into her eyes. She brushed it away. “I don’t know. Something…happened. Something went wrong down here.” Abigail then disappeared from the window. A few moments later the door opened.

  Abe and Benedict looked at each other, eyes full of questions. They entered the house. It was cold and damp, like the rest of the underground city. Abigail moved to a worn armchair, that Abe thought might have been red, but now was a dusky pink. Abe and Benedict moved to sit on the couch that sat next to the chair. There was a small coffee table in front of both chair and sofa, and two other jars full of fireflies sat on either end. Benedict put the lantern in the middle of the table, before turning to Abigail. “Why are you still here?”

  Abigail kicked her feet absentmindedly against the chair, her feet dangling above the floor. “Dunno,” she mumbled. “When I woke up, there was no one here.”

  “When?”

  Abigail gave her trademark shrug. “A couple days ago, I think? I’m not sure. Sometimes time seems weird down here. There’s no sun.”

  Abe wanted to ask if the girl had ever even seen the sun before, but another question burned in her more strongly. “No one?” she asked, “just you?”

  “Well…” Abigail avoided their gaze, and bit her lip. Her feet beat out a nervous rhythm against the chair.

  “You can tell us, Abigail,” Benedict said calmly. “We want to help you, if you’re by yourself.”

  “There’s him,” she whispered, inclining her head ever so slightly in the direction of the door.

  Abe and Benedict exchanged another look, and Abe felt the life drain from her face.

  “Him?” she whispered, afraid of the answer, but knowing it all too well.

  Abigail nodded. “The man outside. By the fountain.”

  “Do you know him?” It was Benedict.

  “No. I’ve never seen him before. But there were lots of people here, I didn’t know too many people. And there were always people coming down from above. People with big guns, that spoke funny and I couldn’t understand them.”

  “Romans,” Benedict said under his breath before Abe could ask what she meant.

  “Did you see what happened?” Abe asked.

  Abigail shook her head once more. “I woke up, and my parents were gone. And I went outside and there was no one except him, out there.” Abe was thinking Abigail wasn’t going to speak again when she said, “I talked to him, that man out there. He said a few things, before…” she bit her lip again. “Before…”

  Benedict tried to change the subject. “What did he say?”

  “I don’t know what he meant. He just said two words. The key.” She looked at Abe and Benedict. “And he sounded like you. He wasn’t from here.”

  Benedict jumped up so swiftly from the couch that he hit the corner of the low coffee table with his knee. One of the light-jars shook and then tumbled, almost slow-motion, off the table. It shattered instantly, freeing its prisoner fireflies that floated like a luminescent cloud towards the dim ceiling, winkin
g on and off. Abe thought they looked magical, like little fairies. Much better free than caged. And then she had another, more disquieting thought. Much like the people of these New cities.

  “What on earth—?” Abe called out as Benedict rushed out of the house.

  Abe shook her head, causing a few of her neatly pinned curls to fall. “Stay here,” she ordered Abigail sternly with a finger before following Benedict, careful not to bump into the coffee table. Abe grabbed the lamp that Benedict had forgotten in his haste and found him crouching next to the body by the fountain. Hanging the lamp on one of its tentacles she knelt beside him. “What are you doing?” She didn’t whisper now, knowing there was no one to overhear.

  Abe focused her gaze on what Benedict was doing, to avoid looking at the man’s head, whose neck was twisted and bent at a horrible angle. Underneath Abe was trying not to notice the large dark stain, darker than the surrounding cold stone of the floor. Something was wrong with his face, but she didn’t look too closely. Benedict was lifting up the man’s sleeve. Around the body’s left forearm were a couple dark rings. “Tattoos?” Abe wondered aloud, peering at his arm.

  “Just as I thought,” Benedict said, moving to lift up the hem of the man’s shirt, exposing his stomach, and then chest. Marked like a dark stain on the left side of the chest was a large ornate key.

  “The key!” Abe gasped. “So you knew what Abigail was talking about?”

  Benedict shrugged. “I had an idea, once she said he sounded like us, that he was from the United American Empire.”

  Abe felt compelled to reach out and trace her fingers over the key etched into the man’s skin, but pulled her hand back at the last moment, realizing she would be touching a corpse.

  Abe knew she looked puzzled. “I take it you know what all this means?”

  Benedict nodded. “He is, or was, a member of the criminal underworld back home. See those black rings on his arm?”

  Abe nodded, “Like a tree.”

  “They symbolize people they have killed.”

  Abe blanched, feeling sick. She moved her eyes from the gruesome symbols to the gothically beautiful key instead. “And that?”

  “You get the key tattoo when you take on the role of the leader of the underworld.”

  Abe stared at the key, and then looked to Benedict. “So if he was the leader, he was very important.”

  Benedict nodded again, his mouth a thin, grim line. “And also very bad. And the fact that he is dead…” He shook his head and rose unsteadily. Abe offered her arm for support. After all, Benedict was older than her by ten years or so. And it was what society expected. She looked around the dark, abandoned city, punctuated with the flickering green of fireflies. Though I’m not sure what this society would expect. She watched a cloud of fireflies lazily circling around a joining of arches. “The secrets of fireflies,” she muttered under her breath.

  “What did you say?” Benedict lifted the lantern from the octopus’ grasp. Abe raised a hand to block the light. “I said, those fireflies,” she gestured to the free ones, flying around the alcoves in the ceiling, along with the ones still trapped in their lighting tubes. “They will have seen what happened here. They hold the secrets, and will never tell.”

  Benedict’s hand fell on her shoulder, and she turned at it, and followed his gaze to where Abigail stood, a few feet away.

  Abe and Benedict moved to stand in front of the dead man, concealing him from the young girl.

  Abigail shuffled forward slowly, and again Abe was reminded of a ghost.

  “It’s okay,” Abigail said quietly. “I’ve seen dead people before. People die a lot down here. I think it’s because we’re not up there.” She pointed to the stone arches high above them. “I think because there’s no sun, no sky. Just stone, and darkness. People get sick a lot.”

  “Aren’t people allowed to leave? For fresh air, if only for a little while?” Abe asked, a note of pity creeping into her voice.

  Abigail shook her head, dark hair falling over her small shoulders.

  “People who didn’t want to be recruited as slaves above moved down here, into the catacombs below,” Benedict explained sadly. “If they wanted to keep their freedom.”

  “Freedom?” Abe nearly yelled. “What sort of freedom is this, being trapped in darkness? Never allowed to leave. This is the opposite of freedom!”

  Benedict shrugged. “It’s all perspective. At least they’re safe, and can live how they want, without threat of harm.”

  “But, Abigail said she saw men with energy guns,” Abe protested.

  “Just for show, most likely. To keep people in line, let them know who is in control. People don’t argue very much with energy guns. Especially not if they’re the newer ones. When I was part of the New Alchemists Society, I actually worked on some new changes to the energy conductors in the latest models of energy guns. It was quite fascinating, putting in a series of safety mechanisms.” Abe watched Benedict’s expression change as he shifted into his inventor mode, looking more like an excitable child than a forty-something founder of a Newspaper. “You push the trigger button once, and the energy builds up, glowing blue, just like normal. A second press didn’t automatically release the energy stream, but allows you a turning back point. If you still wanted to use the weapon, you’d press it a third time. If not, you’d pull another lever and it would power it down.”

  “My father was like you,” Abigail said softly. Benedict and Abe turned toward her once more.

  “What do you mean?” Abe thought the words, but Benedict spoke them aloud.

  “He built things. Machines. He used to be well known when he lived up above. The bad people that took our homes away from us, they destroyed most of his things. I think because they were scared of them.”

  “Scared? Why would soldiers be scared of machines?” Abe asked, incredulously. “All they are is metal and gears. They can’t hurt—” And she stopped herself, suddenly realizing how ridiculous what she was saying sounded. Of course machines could hurt, could kill. After all, they had just been talking about energy guns…

  Abigail pointed to the dead man on the ground. “I saw him talking to father, a few days ago. He was in our house. Father told me to go to my room, because he was to have an important talk with him. I did, but I wanted to know what they were talking about, so I snuck out and hid behind the curtain. The man said he came all the way here just to talk to father. I thought that was funny. What was so important to come here? And then father brought something out of his shop to show him.” Her eyes grew wide at the memory.

  Abe was about to ask what kind of shop, when Benedict jabbed her sharply in the side.

  “Father never let me into his shop. He said what was in there wasn’t for little girls to see and he always kept it locked, even when he wasn’t working inside.”

  “What did he show the man?” Benedict asked. Abe noticed he was using his reporter’s voice, the one he used when attempting to wheedle the real story from a reticent victim.

  Abigail pursued her lips, as if debating whether to let the secret free. After a moment, she whispered in awe, “A wolf!”

  “A wolf?” Abe couldn’t control the shock in her voice. Her skin prickled, and suddenly she really didn’t want to be down here underground. Especially if there were wolves.

  Abigail nodded vigorously and gave a wide smile. “Not a live one. Well, not really. They are father’s machines. He makes them from metal.”

  The small statue of the metal wolf Abe passed in the tunnel, on the way here, reared suddenly larger than life in her mind.

  “So the man wanted your father’s wolf?” Benedict retained his composure.

  Abigail nodded, wide eyed. “Not wolf. Wolves. He was making lots. I’ll show you.” Abigail turned and padded away to a wooden structure, leaning haphazardly against the wall, next to her house. Benedict followed and Abe trailed cautiously behind.

  The girl pushed open the door, which was barely hanging on by its hinges.
It was more shards of wood than whole door.

  A gasp escaped Abe as she reached the doorway. Benedict held the lamp, which glinted brightly off brass, copper, and iron. The malicious mouths of giant metal wolves grinned back at them. There was one that was complete, which had partially been covered in a fur-like substance, but there was a least a dozen others in various states of construction. Spare limbs, individual teeth, and other body parts cluttered the tables and countertops.

  Abigail moved confidently to the one that seemed to be most complete. “This is like the one father showed that man.”

  Benedict seemed to forget his manners and rushed to the specimen, examining it with an inventor’s eye. “This is brilliant!” he crowed excitedly.

  “Benedict,” Abe berated. “Keep your head. Remember why we’re here. To find out what happened to everyone. To Abigail’s parents.”

  “Yes, yes,” Benedict waved a hand at her dismissively. She bristled. She hated being ignored. She wasn’t going to put up with it, not like every other demure-society woman would. “Ben!” She hissed, stamping a booted foot loudly on the floor.

  His head shot up, and he looked almost sheepish.

  “Sorry,” he raised his hands in front of him defensively, “you’re right. A professional journalist doesn’t let him—, herself,” he gave an apologetic half-smile, “get swayed off track away from the real story.”

  Abigail was running a small hand along the wolf’s fur. “It’s funny, it feels kind of hard, and spiky.”

  Benedict moved back into reporter mode. “So your father showed the man a wolf like this?”

  “Yes. He had a big metal chain around its neck. I remember father showing the man how to turn it on.” She moved a hand to the wolf’s neck, in between the ears. “There’s a thing here that wakes it—”

  “No!” Abe and Benedict yelled in unison.

  Benedict pulled Abigail’s hand away from the neck. “Don’t touch it! It could be dangerous!”

  Abigail’s lower lip began to quiver. She bit it, and nodded, blinking back the beginnings of tears.

  Abe crouched down, so she was eye level with Abigail. “We just want to keep you safe.” And us, she added silently.

  “What happened after your father showed that man the wolf?” Benedict asked in an attempt to change the subject.

  “The man said he wanted to buy all the ones that were finished and working.” Abigail’s eyes grew far away as she remembered. “And Father laughed at him. He said he couldn’t sell all of his wolves, what with there being almost a dozen, it would have taken a long time to get them all out of the city to the above city.”

  “And then what did they say?” Abe asked, curious.

  “They started arguing. Over money, I think.” Abigail’s large, dark eyes widened again as a memory came to her. “And I remember father turning on the wolf then, to make the man be quiet…” she shuddered. “It was awful! The sound its teeth made, snapping together. Metal against metal.” Abigail shivered again, and Abe stopped herself cringing at the mental image. Like the sound of nails down a chalkboard. Worse, probably. Chalk isn’t sharp and can’t kill you.

  “I don’t remember anything else,” Abigail was saying. “I ran back to my room. The wolf scared me. I remember putting my pillow over my ears, but I could still hear it. It was like a monster!” This time tears began to roll down her pale cheeks. “The last thing I remember before I fell asleep was its howl. It sounded like metal that was being torn apart. It sounded so angry. Angry and sad. Like it was being hurt.” She shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut, as if trying to block the image from her mind. Abe couldn’t blame her. She felt like doing the same.

  And then Benedict said something that made her blood run cold. Suddenly, she felt like running, but her body was frozen, rooted to the spot by the terror his words held.

  He spoke slowly, as if testing the validity of the words in his mouth. “You just said your father told the man there were a dozen wolves.”

  Abigail nodded, her eyes still shut, her small arms wrapped tightly around her tiny waist. “Yes,” she whispered, the word barely audible.

  There was a long pause. The silence was deafening. Abe thought her heart had stopped beating, except she could hear it in her ears. She realized she was holding her breath. It went dark. Abe realized she had closed her eyes as well, as if doing so would stop Benedict’s next words from being uttered. It didn’t. Of course not.

  “Where are the others?” The words hung in the air, as if entities of their own, growing and filling the room with the dread that they held.

  The silence that had filled the room a moment before fled, and was replaced by the sounds of screaming metal.

  Suddenly everything became terrifyingly crystal clear: the reason for everyone’s disappearance. The tattooed man’s face loomed in front of her. She realized what it was she had tried not to see. Claw marks. Something had happened. Something bad.

  A single word filtered into Abe’s brain. A lifeline, in the form of Benedict’s voice.

  “Run!”

  And she did.

  THE ENEMY RULE

  Kalisa looked at her watch. Eight fifty-five, it read. “Shit!” she whispered, annoyed with herself. She should’ve known it was late, the sun was setting after all. She had five minutes to get back, before curfew, and before the guards would be out and doing bad things to anyone who wasn’t indoors by nine.

  She ran, her heavy soled shoes smacking loudly on the stone paved streets. She dodged a steam powdered vehicle that looked more like a caterpillar than anything anyone should be riding in. Its many legs pistoned up and down, steam issuing from the joints. It moved quickly; whoever it was was also rushing to get home lest they get thrown in prison for disobeying the laws.

  Kalisa reached her door, and thrust her key in the lock, twisting it so hard, she heard a devastating crack, as the metal shaft broke off in her hand. She jigged the handle. The door was still locked, and now a piece of the key was jammed in the lock. “Dammit!” she said, as loudly as she dared. From the faint glow of a street lamp that barely illuminated the front of her house, she peered at her watch again. Nine-oh-one. She was late, and she wasn’t inside. She was stuck.

  She heard a whistle pierce the growing silence of the night. She move to her neighbours and banged on their door. Their curtains were drawn, and no one answered. “It’s Kalisa!” she said, just above a whisper. “I’m locked out. Let me in! The guards are coming!”

  Silence. Not even a curtain twitched.

  She kicked the door angrily. The whistle sounded again, this time much closer.

  She started to run, and then stopped. “Why should I run? I tried to get in my house, but I couldn’t. I would have been inside for the curfew.” She went back and sat down on the steps in front of her house, and waited. She didn’t have to wait long.

  A guard appeared from around the corner. Barely visible in their dark eggplant uniform, a hood pulled up over the head they seemed more like moving shadows. Kalisa wasn’t trying to hide so the guard spotted her instantly and shouted as he ran towards her. “What are you doing outside. It’s past curfew.” As he got closer, Kalisa could make out his blue eyes and sharp thin nose exposed from the hood.

  “I know,” she said, holding up the broken key as explanation. “I couldn’t get in.”

  “You know the rules,” the man said, his face expressionless.

  She stood. She knew you got in trouble if you were out past curfew, but she didn’t know why.

  There was a noise in the growing darkness and the man jumped, swinging a large blade tipped pole towards the sound. “Hurry, they’re coming!” he said, fear evident in his voice.

  “They? But ….you’re already here?” Kalisa said, confused.

  “We’re not the problem.” The royally appointed man said.

  A loud hiss came from the end of the street, to their right. The patrolman grabbed Kalisa’s arm. “Come on! We have to run!”

  Ka
lisa tried to look behind her, into the darkness where the hiss was coming from. She followed his instructions and ran, just as a figure stepped into the glow from the street lamp.

  It wore all black, and looked normal, except its eyes flashed, reflecting the light and glowing like a wild animal.

  “Hurry!” the man picked up pace. “Don’t worry, the others should get it.”

  “Others? What is it? What’s happening?”

  The man glanced over his shoulder at Kalisa. “You don’t know about the vampires?” He looked shocked.

  “Vampires?” Kalisa risked another look behind her. The human-like thing was following them, moving strangely, as if barely touching the ground. Its eyes flashed.

  Her legs were burning but she willed herself to keep going. In the distance gunshots sounded. Kalisa wished they were closer. They ran past a drunken man, slouched in a doorway. Kalisa leapt over him and kept going. Moments later screams filled the air and Kalisa shuddered and forced herself not to look back.

  “In here,” the man shouted over dying screams, pulling her through a metal doorway. He slammed a heavy metal bar down across the door with a heavy comforting thud, and turned to turn up a small gas lamp on a table.

  “We’ll be safe in here. Metals don’t agree with them. It repels them for some reason,” the man pushed back the hood of his cloak and sat down wearily on a rickety wooden chair. Kalisa warily lowered herself into the other on the opposite end of a small table.

  “So I always thought that you were the enemy, that the Emperor imposed the curfew so he could punish and tax those of us that disobeyed. Throw us in prison in order to get money from the public for our release.” Kalisa said, aware that she was glaring at the man opposite, who seemed a lot younger than she first thought. Probably in his mid-thirties, like herself.

  The man laughed, not bothering to soften it.

  “We’re not the enemy.” He pointed to windows covered with heavy black curtains. “They are.”

  “But I thought vampires were just legend?”

  “They were. But someone made a mistake.”

  “Someone? You mean they’re man made?”

  The man nodded. “In a way. It was a virus, a mutation. And someone at the hospital didn’t catch it. It started with one person. A little girl who got sick. But their bite can turn you into one, if you don’t die, and it spreads like wildfire. But we could use as much help as we can. Otherwise the enemy will take us over, and rule the entire Empire in a matter of months, if we don’t hunt them.”

  Kalisa stared at her saviour. A vampire hunter? She shrugged. It beat being a nanny. “Sign me up,” she said with a nervous smile.

  He smiled back and offered his hand. “Welcome to the club.”

  A Beautiful Disaster

  She stared at me blankly, with glassy eyes that made her look more like a mannequin. The bleach-blonde hair didn’t help matters. Neither did the false lashes surrounding her blue eyes that made her look like one of those creepy dolls that closed their eyes when you lay them down. I shuddered

  After a moment, she looked away. She hadn’t seen me but had looked right through me, lost in thought.

  Just as well. Most people didn’t see me. Or those that did, chose not to believe what they were seeing, and brushed me off as some kind of figment of their imagination. They just couldn’t accept that I was real, so they did whatever they could to convince themselves I wasn’t. But most people were too wrapped up in themselves, in their own little lives, to even really notice me in the first place.

  I didn’t look all that different from everyone else, mind you, just that I wasn’t 100% there. At certain angles, in certain lights, I often disappeared completely. Which was disconcerting if you happened to see me one second, and then I was gone the next. Except I wasn’t really. Like a reflection in a window. You could see me, but nothing substantial.

  That’s what happens when you’re dead. You still exist, sort of, but on the outskirts of the living world.

  I didn’t choose to die. It was an accident. Are all accidents freak accidents? I wonder about these things sometimes. You have lots of time to think when you’re dead. And when you’re not moving on to anywhere else. I’m stuck here. I have to stay, because I have a job to do. I’m a grim reaper. Don’t ask me why I signed up to do it. I wasn’t thinking. I had just died, for fucks sake, and some strange woman shoved some papers at me. I was pretty dazed and confused. One minute I was alive, walking down the street, listening to my music and sending a text message with my phone. The next minute, all I feel is a big black ball of pain, and then I’m standing in this waiting room that looks like a doctor’s office from the 70’s and asked to fill out these forms. Here’s some advice. Read the fine print. Always. Otherwise you’ll probably be signing your life away. Ha, no pun intended.

  So that’s how I became a grim reaper. Or simply a reaper as we call ourselves. It’s grim enough without actually adding the word. I wander around, looking for people who are imminently going to shuffle off their mortal coil, so I can help them when the get to the waiting room. Give them some advice so they know what the heck they’re doing there and what happened. It requires a bit of an adjustment period, you know. Going from the living world, to the dead. Not to mention the fact that the after life is like stepping back in time. They really could do with updating their décor. It would take a bit of the shock out of the whole experience, if I can give my two cents.

  But I guess no one is really paying much attention to the chairs they’re sitting in when they’re trying to decide where they want to go. They have a couple choices. They can choose to be reincarnated and start life over again, as someone else. One caveat, they won’t remember that they lived before. Kind of pointless, if you ask me, to not be able to learn from their previous lives. Or they can choose to become a reaper like me. Like a glorified guidance counsellor for the recently departed. And there’s a lot of legalese. Snore. A third option is to become an angel. But that’s a lot of work. Trying to solve the world’s problems, and the problems of humanity. I wouldn’t recommend it. The job doesn’t even come with wings. Angels don’t fly. Sorry if I’ve burst your bubble. They’re still normal people, like me. Well, more like you. Imagine a giant cosmic call centre. Angels are the help line, answering people’s prayers. And it’s a 24/7 gig, because there’s 7 billion people on the planet and most of them are praying about something at some point. Imagine listening to people asking for help, constantly. It’s never ending. People complaining about their lives - wanting to be some one else, somewhere else, to get out of their lives, and be living someone else’s life. You living people just don’t realize how good you have it, even when you might think you want something different. Ever heard the phrase the grass is greener? Yeah, well, it’s definitely not. Remember call centre. That’s never a good job, even if you are an angel. Us who have jobs in the after life don’t even get paid. But you don’t need money here anyways. I shouldn’t mention this but…we just take what we want from the other side. The living world. I guess you could call it stealing. Ever wonder where your socks disappear to from the wash? That could be me. Or an angel. We still need to wear clothes. There’s modesty in the afterlife. We don’t just wander around naked. Especially us reapers, who the living can see if they really pay attention. If they don’t look straight through us like Ms Blonde Mannequin opposite me on the bus.

  The blonde pulled the cord and the bus rolled to a stop. She rose on impossibly high heels and tottered off. I followed, shaking my head as she looked down at her phone, neglecting her surroundings. My chest tightened. This was far too close to home. I walked behind her, like a shadow. I watched as the car came around the corner, the one she didn’t see. Just as I hadn’t. Tires squealed, and I looked away as blonde hair flew past me. And then we were standing in the waiting room, and I was patting her neatly manicured hand reassuringly. She was a beautiful disaster. Just another day at work.