3MA

3MA | Chapter 5

5
SAL'S

The Camelot Subway System isn't for the faint of heart. I grip a slimey steel rod above my head as the train screeches through the rough-hewn tunnels carved into the city's belly.

Through the scratched and graffitied window, I watch crumbled cobblestone walls and vast stone arches appear and then get swallowed once again by the hungry dark.

Camelot is an old city. Sometimes I forget just how old.

When I was little, before she died, Mom would tuck me under the covers and read me fairy tales about Old Camelot, the enchanted kingdom that—according to the imaginative author—our city had once been.

In the flickering orange candlelight, Mom would speak of a place, not covered in concrete, but with rolling emerald fields. A world in which magic wasn't a gimmick used to sell 3MA tickets; it was a tidal force that could move a mountain.

On nights like this, when every part of me feels broken beyond repair, I think back to those stories, to my mother's wispy voice, and I hurt a little bit less.

The train carriage I'm crammed into is packed far beyond capacity. An old lady's pointed shoulder rests in the nook of my armpit. Someone's head is just an inch below my chin, and judging by the lice hopping around the scalp, I'm guessing he'll be getting off at my stop.

I'm surrounded on all sides by someone's screaming children. With all the oozing chickenpox covering their skin, I don't blame them for being upset. One of them is playing with an action figure that's missing a few limbs. The mangled doll is wearing a jade-green boxing robe with the words THE CONSTRICTOR printed across the back.

I rub my eyes with the tips of my calloused fingers. Even a hundred feet underground, I can't escape tonight's failure.

I nearly fall flat on my face when the train screeches to a shuddering halt.

The lights flicker once, twice, and then fail completely, throwing the entire compartment into blackness. No one panics. No one protests. Power outages like this one are nothing new to anyone in Camelot—at least, not to anyone from the Outer Boroughs.

Mayor Tristan LeMorte will likely go down in Camelot's history books as the charismatic politician who fueled the city exclusively with static. The King's Spire, which he had constructed in his first year of office, will certainly be a lasting mark upon Camelot's skyline. But the grimacing commuters around me know better. Years of bitter experience has shown us firsthand that the only people who actually get power from the King's Spire are the uber-rich.

To the poor families who wait with me here in the silence of the subway, LeMorte will only be remembered for his lies and broken promises.

The power kicks back in about an hour later and the train continues on its way. Most of the people around me have fallen asleep standing up. We pull into Trudge Station forty-five minutes later, and I shove my way out of the hectic compartment, barely exiting the train doors before they slam shut once again. I run up the staircase and welcome the sharp blast of night air at the top.

The Trudge subway entrance is located under an expressway overpass. I walk under the raised platform in the shadows of pocked concrete pillars that hold up the elevated highway and run for miles in either direction. A long line of parked vehicles flanks both sides of the underpass. Not a single car bears the telltale blue-green glow of static. Most of these iron relics haven't been driven in ages. They're just hollow shells with dead engines.

Across the street, a red and white neon sign burns through a gray flurry of snow. The sign reads AL'S BURGERS. It should read SAL'S BURGERS, but someone threw a rock and shattered the "S" about ten years ago. Whenever I ask Sal why he never bothers to replace it, he just shrugs his shoulders and says, "Town's got bigger problems to fix."