The Collector (28 page)

After nearly two hours of travel general fatigue sets in. It causes their movements to turn clunky and much less covert, their breath and heavy footsteps beginning to echo from around every bend.

Suddenly, Neil raises his fist to halt as he senses an oncoming noise – a deep rumble. Inna nearly collides into him, unable to see in the darkness. Neil places his hand on the tunnel’s side wall to feel the vibrations growing stronger from behind the rock.

Inna spots a small beam of light shining through a pinhole in the wall. She peers in to see a parallel transfer tunnel, the cavern laced with ceiling lights to provide illumination. The tunnel’s path is wider than theirs, and the mining tracks are cleared from stone debris littering the floor, which allows for the oncoming rumble – one of the Agency’s cattle cars – to sputter along the parallel route.

Inna’s eyes grow wide at the sight of the truck bed loaded with people being hauled away. Most of the faces are drooped downwards, each person engrossed in their final thoughts. Inna knows she was slated to be on one of these trucks, one of the melancholy people set to die. It brings about a sense of guilt.

“You don’t need to see that,” Neil whispers to interrupt. He prods her to continue forward, though even he sneaks in a quick glance at the passing death vehicle.

After another hour of twists, turns, ducking, slipping, and climbing, the hidden tunnel both widens and brightens as it converges with six other tunnels at once, a large intersection where each tunnel breaks off in a separate direction. It’s like a metropolitan underground city as the mounted lights are much larger and brighter, while crude directional signs dangle above the entrances to each route.

As Neil scans the five potential routes, he realizes that their tunnel isn’t hidden, it’s merely out-of-service as only three of the six tunnels have ceiling lights and directional signs installed above them – SLUMS, DOWNTOWN, and SECTOR A – while the others, including their current tunnel, are bathed in darkness.

Numerous cattle cars loaded with volunteers roll by at unpredictable intervals, coming from both the Slums and Downtown while lurching towards Sector A. Neil knows the processing facility is near this sector, which explains the empty cattle cars returning and backtracking the opposite direction, presumably to pick up more volunteers.

“How do you think the market gets by this?” Inna asks as she marvels at the complex web beneath the city. “We need a schedule just to cross here.”

Her words echo the same sentiment Neil has been concerned with ever since his investigation at the Archives led him to the existence of the hidden tunnels – that Sage and her band of gypsies couldn’t have possibly avoided detection for so long on their own.

“Which way?” Inna asks.

Neil glances down to the half-buried mining tracks beneath their feet and follows them with his eyes as they extend through the intersection towards an opposite tunnel. That tunnel is also unlabeled without a sign, which means it is out-of-service and not in Agency use – the perfect route for the Black Market to sneak through. He quickly examines the two other unmarked routes, but he finds his focus returning to the tunnel directly across the way. He knows he’s going to have to take a gamble and guess which of the three unmarked routes to take.

“That one,” he says as he nods directly across from them.

Now they just have to get across. Neil scans for anything of use, surrounded by nothing except rocks and stones. Just then, he spots the steel spikes used to secure the mining tracks to the tunnel floor buried beneath the rubble, most of them old and rusted, but finds a damaged one bent and protruding out halfway. He struggles to wrench the spike loose, nearly slicing open his palms in the process as he pulls out not one, not two, but three spikes nearly seven inches in length. Inna cocks her head as she watches him unfasten his belt and pierce the leather strap with the metal tips.

“Remember my tires when I first came to your shop?” Neil asks, revealing a makeshift strip of metal spikes similar to the one the group of misfits used on his utility truck. “It’ll cause a diversion.”

“And also put them on alert,” Inna reminds him.

“Then we better be quick.”

Neil studies the cattle cars as they continue to travel back and forth, attempting to find a pattern in their intervals. For a brief moment when the intersection is empty, he tosses the trap out into the intersection near the Sector A wooden directional sign. Within moments, a loaded cattle speeds through the intersection and travels towards Sector A as expected. Neil and Inna’s eyes follow the truck’s tires as it races unknowingly closer to the trap, but the vehicle misses it by mere inches. Within moments, another cattle car enters the cavern and zooms towards Sector A, but it’s the same result as the tires just miss the strip of spikes.

Inna’s hearts sink. The plan failed. Her eyes stare up at Neil, seemingly asking the same question running through his mind:
what now?
For every step closer they keep running into another roadblock. Perhaps they should give up.

Suddenly, as Neil attempts to find the words to lift Inna’s spirits –
CLANK! CLANK! CLACK!
– an empty cattle car whips violently up and down as it returns from the Sector A tunnel, the spikes piercing its front tires. Two Tunnel SEOs on the rear bumper immediately leap off on alert as the vehicle careens to a stop. An additional two SEOs from an oncoming cattle car jump out to assist, shouting for their volunteers to stay put in the rear. It doesn’t take long for the four SEOs to discover the strip of metal spikes still stuck in the stalled vehicle’s tires, which sends the officers into an even bigger frenzy. They shout amongst themselves and turn their attention to the volunteers huddled together in the truck bed, chaos breaking out exactly as hoped.

Neil and Inna seize the opportunity to slip into the intersection. They dash towards the targeted out-of-service tunnel until one of the volunteers from the stopped cattle car notices, pointing at Neil and Inna and unknowingly tipping off the four Tunnel SEOs. Neil and Inna duck for cover behind a large boulder adjacent to the slums’ tunnel entrance, only halfway across and now stuck in the middle of the cavern.

Neil places his hand over Inna’s trembling lips as two of the four Tunnel SEOs begin marching closer to investigate. Neil considers fleeing to the slums. With a brief head start, they might actually have a chance in the ensuing foot chase, and once there Inna would know dozens of places to hide. However, that potential escape option is quickly eliminated once the sound of an oncoming engine rumbles from deep within the slums’ tunnel. Within moments, headlights appear on the rock wall to confirm an approaching cattle car just around a bend in the tunnel behind them. They’re trapped from both sides.

Knowing their fate, Neil tightens his grip around his gun and extends Inna the shock baton. “Swing fast and swing hard,” he whispers.

Inna shakes her head no. His eyes command her to take it, having no other option, but she continues to deny him.

The headlights from the oncoming vehicle dance along the rock wall as the cattle car rounds the bend and comes into view, only a couple hundred meters behind them, while the two Tunnel SEOs are even closer in the other direction, the two groups closing in on them.

Neil forces the shock baton onto Inna’s lap whether she wants it or not, then readies his gun and prepares for a desperate last stand. With the Tunnel SEOs nearly on top of them, Inna finally grabs the weapon, but rather than leaping out to attack, she instead directs the electrified tip straight into a cable pinned to the tunnel wall. The cable slithers upwards to the ceiling and connects to the string of mounted bulbs, providing power to the lights, including those dangling over the intersection. The jolt sends a surge throughout the grid and leaves the tunnels in pitch-black.

If it was chaos before, it’s pandemonium now. The rumble of the oncoming cattle car shifts to idle as the vehicle slams to a stop, its headlights narrowly falling short of reaching Neil and Inna by mere inches. Multiple armed shadows hop off the bumper and dash the rest of the way towards the intersection while the original two Tunnel SEOs take aim, the two groups unknowingly targeting one another.

Faint footsteps can be heard mixed in with the turmoil, but are luckily masked by the shouting officers as Neil and Inna sprint the remaining half of the intersection towards the out-of-service tunnel.

Suddenly the power surge ends and the lights stabilize just as both groups of SEOs meet head on, nearly at a clash until they realize who the other team is. They whirl around to scour the intersection, but there’s nothing out of the ordinary. The original cattle car with shredded tires remains stalled across the way, and the volunteers continue to huddle together in the rear of the second vehicle.

Neil peers out from the darkened out-of-service tunnel to glimpse the confusion. Confirming they went unnoticed, he then ducks back into the shadows as together he and Inna continue deeper on their journey to find Sage.

They made it.

******

Falling Memories

Another building collapsed in Sector A today. This was an old mailroom back when people had letters delivered to one another, then was used as a distribution center for the tank trucks before they needed to find a bigger space.

When is any money going to be put back into preserving our buildings? Time doesn’t wait on the budget crisis! And better yet, when is anyone going to write me a letter? Maybe someone already has but there’s no one to deliver it…

-Quado

22

A
dried waterline stains the rotted foundations of the Victorian structures of Sector B. Tiny weeds and roots force their way up through the cobblestone pathways, having had a decade to reclaim the abandoned sector.

“What if we missed them?” Inna says, as she and Neil move along the empty ruins. “What are we supposed to do, check every tunnel? We won’t make it through again.”

Just then, their ears perk up at the rising sound of indistinguishable chatter coming from afar. Neil follows the voices. They pass through an archway and stumble upon a hidden
bazaar
– the bustling Black Market. Dozens of mobile gypsies squat side by side offering prostitutes, thieves for hire, unauthorized music, revealing clothing, water rations, and gambling, amongst other services. Candles and strings of lights bathe the illicit shops and stands in an orange glow.

“Sage?” Neil asks a vendor, but the vendor grunts and ignores him as he boxes up his supplies. Inna notices the others doing the same.

“They’re packing up,” she realizes.

Neil and Inna quicken their pace, on a limited amount of time. Neil tugs a clothing vendor by the arm. “We’re looking for Sage,” he says. The clothing vendor points deeper into the bazaar, deeper into the sea of merchants.

Neil always knew Sage, the gypsies, and the black market existed, but he never knew it was this large in scale. As they move deeper into the broken sector, he revisits the question as to how this extensive of an operation could remain hidden and undetected. Everyone knows the market is mobile, never staying in any one place too long, but the city is only so big. The Agency and its Collectors are trained specifically to track people down, so why could they never find this? Better yet, why were they never assigned to find this? It is probably because the Collectors were preoccupied with the Brigade, Neil supposes. That’s the only reason he can think of to justify the Agency’s questionable decision of inaction, though it still doesn’t explain how the Black Market continuously evades detection within the tunnels. While the tunnels provide shadowy protection, even he and Inna had trouble sneaking through and it was just the two of them on foot. Here there are dozens, maybe even hundreds of merchants, loaded down with packs on their backs and wagons housing crates, supplies, and even their families, close behind them. Even with all that has happened, Neil continues to give the Agency the benefit of the doubt. Just because he chose Inna over the system doesn’t mean he no longer believes in it or that it shouldn’t exist. What else are they to do with too many people and too little water and resources? Like Wade, he just doesn’t want to be part of it any longer ever since Inna woke something up inside of him.

Neil’s internal debate suddenly subsides as three men, led by a Hustler, block their path.

“Where’d you find this one?” the Hustler says as he inspects Inna’s figure. “We could make good use of her,” he adds creepily.

“We’re here to see Sage,” Neil says as he steps in front of Inna and puffs out his chest.

“I give you a trade, ya?” the Hustler continues as his men surround Inna. She swats them away.

Just then Neil grabs Hustler by the throat. “We don’t have time for distractions from some lowlife thugs,” he threatens.

Immediately the other men each flip open a polished switchblade, at the ready to defend their leader. Hustler stares at Neil eye-to-eye, unfazed. “No girl? No Sage,” he taunts.

Neil notices the moonlight glistening off each of the sharp switchblades. Weighing his options and how this would most likely play out, he releases the man. What Neil isn’t aware of is that another Large Man has been watching him and Inna from afar ever since they entered the bazaar, curious as to what these strangers are doing arriving while everyone else is leaving. As Neil grabs Inna’s arm and pulls her away from the Hustler and his cronies, they immediately collide directly into the Large Man’s stomach.

“Come with me,” the Large Man orders. He is so large and so tall that Neil’s eyes don’t even reach his shoulders.

“We don’t have time for this.”

“Man. Woman. Here together. Means only one thing,” the Large Man explains. “Well?”

“You’ll take us to her?” Inna asks.

The Large Man doesn’t confirm nor deny. He merely turns around and waddles further down the stone corridor. He leads Neil and Inna towards a back corner, then once there, directs them through a beaded entrance to a shop.

Smoke from burning incense fill the air with checkered smoke, one of the few remaining items left unboxed inside the shop as the rest is already packed up. The room is part of an old post office lobby before the flood ate away at the building’s foundation. Sitting on a pillow in the center of the room and dressed in a colorful garment similar to some of those sold outside in the market corridor is Sage, a mysterious and exotic woman in her thirties. The beads in her hair match the beads dangling from the front entrance. She runs her fingers through a bowl of clear water in a slow methodical rhythm until the Large Man whispers to her. Her eyes remain closed and continue to feel the water as the Large Man then moves to load the last boxes onto a cart outside the beaded door.