watchings

part five

“Um, what’s that?” Sam says.

“What?” I ask. I turn around and immediately start feeling it. Rumbling. There was a rumbling sounds going through the entire tunnel coming from the direction we came. I reach down to feel the tracks, and they’ve started vibrating, as if something was running over them.

“Run. Now.” I say, starting to sprint in the opposite direction. It’s not like we can outrun a train, but there’s nothing else we can do. The lights begin shining from behind us as the Tran closes in. I spot a small hole in the side of the tunnel we might be able to dive into and not die. Not the best scenario in the world, but there really weren’t any others but get run over. ‚

“ This way.” I say over my shoulder as i change my course. I can hear the subway’s brakes screech behind us. I run full speed at the hole and slide feet first into it. And fall several feet, hitting the ground with a very loud crash and what I think is something  broken under me. Sam hits the ground next to me with a similar fate. Apparently we fell on a small table and flipped it on its side.

“You’re lucky you didn’t break this one.” A girl on the other end of the room picked up a teacup that had rolled under her foot and placed it on a nearby shelf.

“ who are you, and where are we?” Sam says as we steady ourselves over the broken porcelain and glass.

“I’m Eliza, and you are now in the undercity. I’ll be your tour guide through this lovely experience.” She says, striking a pose.

“Wonderful, what exactly is the undercity.”

“Follow me.” She says leaving the cave. We step out into a world like neither of had ever seen before. We were in a giant cave. There was no ceiling, just a mass of stone and ores 30 feet above us. The only source of light came from street lamps set up at every corner of the grid like city. They were so bright they managed to illuminate the entire cavern.

“This is a really odd watchthing placement. There are so many blinds spots all over the place.” I say, analyzing the streetlights to see how much the hidden eyes would be able to see down here.

“ Well that's because there are no watchthings down here. They stopped trying to put em down here when every single one ended up destroyed at the foot of the capitol building.”

“No watchthings? How are the rules enforced down here.”

“The people down here make their own rules. The upper city prefers to pretend like we don’t exist, so we return the favor and just live our lives.”

“Interesting.” I trail off, looking around again. Everyone I see is just doing whatever. No one’s rushing to jobs, or running late out of doors, or wearing showy clothes. They’re just… living. The buildings look like they were built by hand. There’s no uniformity to them. Maybe the insides are the same way, I think. Kids are playing together in the middle of the day instead of being at school, just having a good time.

I turn back to Sam, “ This place is so different from the upper city isn’t it.”

“Yea. I don’t like it. How does anything get done down here with no rules to follow.”

“We get by.” Eliza says over her shoulder, “Things might not be guaranteed, but finding what you need isn’t that difficult.”

“How do you get it?” He asks her, seemingly perplexed by the idea.

“Well, I steal. I look for places that have what i want, and i take it.”

“That’s illegal. You could get in serious trouble for doing that.” He says to her.

“ remember, no laws down here.” She smiles over her shoulder. “Most people do it.everybody has their own codes  on who they will and won’t steal from though.”

“What’s yours?” I ask her,

“No stealing from any place who doesn’t have enough. Everything else is fair.” She turned back around and put a little bit of distance between us. So I go back to examining the world around me.