The Last Coffee Shop

Chapter 24: These Little Games

The "gear" Graynard had referred to was a roughly woven, sleeveless, cream sack of a dress, and sandals made from leather and bone scraps. Bone pins, probably from human fingers (delightful), gathered the garment at the shoulders, and a long rope (belt?) completed the set. Mads felt like she was wearing a bedsheet, an itchy bedsheet.

Her only comfort was that Graynard was dressed in long robes of equally itchy stuff, with a larger, braided rope belt that hung to the tips of his leathery, six-toed feet. He looked ridiculous, but Mads kept that thought to herself as Graynard gave her a darker cloak to put over her clothes, and then proceeded to conceal an impressive amount of weapons in his robes.

Finally, Graynard gave Mads a mysterious injection that cleared her head and took the edge off her soreness. By the time they left the ship for a foul-smelling metal access shaft, Mads felt almost okay. Which gave her far too much time to consider exactly what she was doing.

"Where are we?" she muttered, peering over Graynard's shoulder into the sickly green pool of light that just barely illuminated the tunnel ahead of them. She took her own electric torch and flicked it on. "Why aren't we wearing biosuits?"

"Here." Graynard handed her a small half-mask contraption. A respirator. "It's one-time use only, lasts about two hours. Plenty of time to get deep enough."

Mads fit the respirator over her mouth and inhaled. The air tasted like metal, but it was better than breathing the unfiltered air. "So, it's safe to breathe farther down?"

"Safe enough," said Graynard, his voice tinny and distorted from his own respirator. "Now let's get moving."

Mads eased down the access shaft behind him, and she heard the click behind them as the ship's airlock automatically withdrew and sealed them out. "But what's down that tunnel?"

"They used to be sewers (42). Centuries ago." Graynard lifted his torch, illuminating a rounded metal ceiling, like a giant drainpipe. It was coated in slime and unidentifiable growth that had probably also been there for centuries. "Back when crazy people wanted to live above-ground in this hellhole."

Mads looked away, wishing she hadn't asked. "Why are we here?" She kept her torch on the back of Graynard's robes, trying to prevent any unnecessary looks at the multicolored oozes and mushy substances they were walking through.

"We're here because we don't want them to notice us coming in," said Graynard, as if it were obvious.

Mads avoided a suspicious lump of grayish gunk. "You're kind of hard to hide, you realize that, right?"

Graynard coughed. "You'd be surprised. Besides, we just stay out of sight until the right moment. We're beyond the checkpoints and hidden entrances if we come down here. And as long as they still don't know about this route, we should be fine until we reach the temple."

Mads snorted, and choked on the stale air. "So, you've obviously been down here before. Why? Ga'naa doesn't sound too hospitable. Especially for Atelians and other nonhumans."

"Yes, they think we're monsters," said Graynard, after a beat. "I've never been into the temple of course. Only Luc knows the layout."

Mads pondered this, wondering why Graynard didn't just answer her question. "Seems pretty inconvenient for us then, since he isn't with us."

"He drew me a map, months ago. I have it with me. We've been trailing Jive for a long time now, and Luc is very particular about details."

Mads was distracted from her line of questioning by her foot sinking into some unseen substance with a sickly squelch. She hurriedly yanked her foot away and reflected that sandaled feet seemed far too vulnerable and unprotected for this. The sticky, sloppy sound was all the more disturbing because they were walking down a metal tunnel. Mads fought to keep her mind on her many questions, instead of thinking about what she was doing right now, or contemplating the slimy wetness now coating her exposed toes. "I assume Luc first came down here because he wanted to see if he could get in. Such an idiot."