The Lostkind (4 page)

"Borrow. There's a difference. When we need people to go Above, they need to fit in. We… borrow things, to see what they look like, how they work, if we can copy them, if we can adapt it to our lives here. Then of course, we give the original back. It's our way. And if it's the sort of thing that won't be missed… Well; you'll see a lot of people down here wearing mismatched socks, Vincent."

Vincent nodded, having seen it already. "I suppose that's where you guys get everything. The clothes, the bits and pieces on your shelves; the books…"

She shrugged. "How many books get thrown away in this town? You lose a few pages, tear the cover, and you can buy a new copy. We repair them. This place is the second chance for all the garbage of your world. Clothes, books, machines, people. My world is made of the stuff that your world has cast off."

One of the tall lanterns dimmed. Yasi went over to it and pressed on the base with her foot, and Vincent was able to see the foot pedal set into the lamp. She pumped it with her foot a few times, and the light brightened. The engineer in Vincent marveled. Kinetic torches were not a new idea, but these people had improvised them, and likely had done so for years. Even decades.

Vincent shook his head in open wonder. "How is it possible that we never noticed you? That
nobody
ever noticed you?"

Yasi did not show the slightest hint of sympathy on her face. "Let me ask you this." She said. "How many stairs are there out the front door of your apartment building, Vincent?"

He blinked. He'd gone up and down those stairs to his apartment at least a thousand times. Probably more. "Um…" He racked his brains, before giving in and chuckling at his own foolishness. "I don't know."

"Exactly. If you saw us, you'd think we were robbing the place, but you wouldn't wonder where we came from."

"Plus it's New York. A woman wearing combat boots and a leather corset isn't even close to the weirdest thing I've seen on the subway." Vincent grinned.

Yasi almost smiled at that.

~oo00oo~

There were more stairs, then ladders. Vincent could tell when they were leaving the Underground and entering simply abandoned places. There was mess and debris all over the place, rusted refuse and heavy graffiti.

"Don't think I haven't noticed. I'm not stupid." Yasi said after a while, without any real anger. "You're taking the long way."

"Yasi, you know it takes a lot longer to go up than down." Archivist said patiently.

"Yes it does. Especially if you go around in circles and take the long way." Yasi said. "We don't do that."

"We can't ask him to save a place he's never seen." Archivist said sagely.

"It's my job to protect our secrets." Yasi told him softly; mindful of Vincent right there.

"Today it's his job too." Archivist returned earnestly; giving the final word on the matter.

Yasi sighed, conceding it was true. "Fine. But
you're
telling Keep why we took so long."

Archivist shivered. "Flip you for it. Two out of three falls."

"Nope."

Archivist sighed. "Then I'm going to need something to eat."

"Eighth Level market. We showed him everything else this far." Yasi sighed.

Vincent stayed very quiet.

~oo00oo~

The room they were in looked like it had been a cafeteria once, but now it had been stripped out and turned into a marketplace. Neon lights had been bent around the corners, and over the stalls.

The people were varied and organized. They gathered as people in New York did, gathered around fires, making trades, traveling back and forth to places Vincent couldn't even guess at. Some were working, hammering odd bits into shapes. People moved back and forth between tents and tin stalls filled with strange bits and pieces; and it finally dawned on Vincent what he was looking at. It was another marketplace! A market, at the bottom of a subterranean world; smaller than the one he'd seen at Twelfth Level; but with a wider range of things.

The stalls were tents and huts, with people sitting in their doorways, and their wares up for sale out front.

The Entrance was guarded by some of the scariest people Vincent had ever seen, even in New York. They met Yasi's eyes and bowed deferentially to her. Archivist went into the marketplace, leaving Vincent and Yasi out front. Vincent started to follow, when she put out a hand and stopped him. "Market Rules. Only one to a group can trade this close to the surface. Too much foot traffic."

Vincent didn't understand, but had given up trying to follow the rules of this crazy place. She led him to an alcove in the tunnel, one of several dozen such alcoves. Getting used to the constant twilight, Vincent could just barely make out the shapes of people moving in some of them, waiting for people to leave the market.

Yasi wound the lantern again, and it glowed merrily. She placed it between them as they waited, sitting in relative privacy. It was the first chance he'd had to rest, and Vincent was suddenly aware of a low chorus of whispering; that seemed to come from everywhere. In fact, now that he thought of it; he could hear the low whispers ever since he'd fallen out of his world.

Yasi was at the other end of the Alcove, sitting cross-legged; close enough that their knees were almost touching. "What are you thinking?" She asked him finally.

"When I was a kid, I locked myself in my own closet once." Vincent volunteered. "I was trying to get to Narnia."

Yasi grinned. "I love that book. I found a first edition in a dumpster. It took me almost a week to find someone willing to restore it for me."

"First edition. Nice." Vincent said in approval. "You guys live pretty comfortably down here."

"As much as anyone." She answered. "We have all that we need, and not as much as we'd like; just like anyone else in this city. There are those more comfortable than others. The Secret City has many mysteries. Some places I wouldn't go without my whole team and a pump action crossbow."

"Crossbow?"

"Don't use guns down here. Ricochet is a killer." She grinned. "But yeah, we have what we need. Your world lived without wi-fi and Facebook for a long time; and we don't dare blog about out lives. We can make, salvage, repair, scrounge, and adapt most anything your world could possibly use. We live, we laugh, we work, we love, and we hurt. The fact that we live Underground is entirely beside the point. We're just like you."

The more he learned about their lives here; the more Vincent wished he'd been born here instead. "Is there nothing our world can offer that interests you?"

Yasi didn't answer right away. "Not really."

Vincent pointed. "Ha! That's a 'yes'."

Yasi looked embarrassed. "It's silly."

"Tell me anyway."

"Well, we can scrounge food, we can borrow equipment, we can make cool gadgets as we need them. Sometimes..." She held out her hands. They were calloused and strong. "I wish I had soft skin. Moisturizer and stuff doesn't get brought in. I could go up if I wanted, but... it's a luxury. We don't really put a lot of value in luxury." She looked down, embarrassed for the first time. "Anyway, that's... Nobody throws it out till they use it up, people notice if it's missing..."

At that moment, Archivist came back. "Hey. Wasn't sure what you wanted, so I got the stew. Vincent, you won't like the meat we use, so I got the vegetarian option for you."

Vincent calculated the odds of livestock existing in the Underground, and gratefully ate the vegetable stew. It was hot and spicy and the bowl was carved with elaborate designs on the outside.

They ate for a while without speaking. Vincent broke the silence nervously. "What do I tell them?" He asked. "They'll ask me why I vote against them laying pipes and cabling through the old infrastructure, and I don't know what to say."

"Tell them whatever you like." Yasi waved it off. "Tell them that doing so will be more expensive, tell them that doing so will be a slow process. Your kind have no patience."

Vincent sent Yasi a look. "You don't like us, do you? People up Above? You don't like us. I thought it was just Keeper, but it's you too."

Yasi met his eyes coolly. "Vincent, when we figured out it would be you who could help us, we watched you a while. There's a homeless woman out the front of your building that wasn't there a week ago. What does she look like?"

Vincent froze, not having an answer.

"Have you ever even
looked
at her?" Yasi challenged. "I have no patience for people who can't look at the world in front of their faces. I don't know you Vincent, and you've never done me any wrong, so I don't dislike you. But your world cast off the people that I call family, and didn't even notice when they disappeared. I dislike that."

Vincent went silent. "Can't blame you."

And with that, they were done eating.

"What do we do with the bowls?" Vincent asked.

Archivist set down his bowl and pushed it. It skidded loudly across the tiles, and someone reached out and snatched it, almost before Vincent could register the movement.

A low giggle came from behind Vincent, and he spun around to look for the source. There was a nanosecond, just the vaguest hint of something ducking out of sight, but it was gone before Vincent could get a look at it. He turned back and noticed his bowl was gone.

"We're always around." Yasi said with a cold grin.

More giggling from behind them, and Vincent turned to look. Again there was the feel of many tiny people ducking into hiding places, but everything was still by the time his eyes focused enough to look.

"Let's get moving." Archivist boomed.

~oo00oo~

"This is where we say goodbye."

"Where are we?"

"First level. The subway. The closest our two worlds come to touching. 26 routes with 6,200 cars that stop at 468 different subway stations." Yasi put her lantern away, plunging them all into darkness again.

"You were actually paying attention." Archivist commented to her with amusement. "I'm touched."

"Who
are
you people?" Vincent asked wistfully of the black. The adventure was ending, and far too soon.

"We Are The Lostkind." Archivist said simply, the deep powerful voice gliding off the walls and surrounding him, rich enough to shake his cells apart.

"We are the cast-off, the unworthy, the invisible." Yasi whispered to Vincent, as her fingertips led him through the dark. Their footsteps made no sound, though he could hear his own stumbling feet easily. It was so dark that Vincent wondered if he still existed; if the magic of the underworld had shattered him into the ether.

"We are the ones that you have trained yourselves not to see." Archivist's voice took on a spooky, ethereal quality. "The child that walks alone with purpose, so you assume he is not lost. The filthy beggar that offends your senses, so you turn your eyes away. We are all around you, Vincent. The story of a city is told in the memory of all those that walk through its places. Look around sometime, and you can see the fingerprints of a thousand lives in the walls. We are the living memory of this city, and we have been for a hundred years. Don't be afraid, Vincent. We'll get you home safe."

Vincent shivered, and lost contact with Yasi for a moment. "Wh... Where are you?!" He froze, lost. She was six inches away and he was helpless to find her.

"Shh. You're okay. I'm right here." Her voice promised warmly. "There's nothing to be afraid of in the dark. Nothing that wouldn't be there in the light." Her voice led him through the darkness, a darkness so deep he could not see in his own feet. There was just his arm, reaching straight out blindly ahead of him, her fingertips pulling him along through the barest touch, and her voice, haunting and strong, asking for no pity, and giving no forgiveness. "You're with us here, and this is our world. We are the 'they' that people speak of in whispers, the Gremlins that flit away when you notice something move behind you; the Ghosts in the Machine. But we are not the enemy, and we are not afraid."

Her calloused fingertips led his hand to a sudden stop, and his fingers closed automatically around a steel ladder rung. He waved his other hand forward in the dark and felt another above it.

"Now climb." She commanded softly. "And forget that you ever met us Vincent McCall."

He did so, spellbound. He could not disobey her words; did not even think to try, as he emerged into open air. The streetlights and buildings above him were so utterly normal that Vincent felt stunned by it.

Clank
.

He spun around, and saw that the manhole cover had slipped back into position. It was fixed in place like it had never shifted.

The rain was light and the air was crisp and cold. It was not unlike getting a bucket of ice-water thrown in his face, and he wondered if he'd dreamed it. The spell of Yasi and the Underground had broken the instant he had seen the sky, seen the city lights. It seemed too fantastic to be real. It couldn't possibly be true.

He walked for a while, wandering the city without seeing it. All he saw was the Underside, the caverns, the people, and Yasi. By the time his mind escaped the labyrinth, he barely registered where he was.