A/N: Heyo
So went on holiday...met relatives who i haven't seen in 18 years...remember the reason why...got sunburnt to a crisp...now i'm tanned with snow white legs (sexy!)
and just to add to the tension, i had to still deal with the aftermath of the issue i had with a (now ex-) friend (the bitch) and a lecturer (old hag) who were out to make my life a living hell. (both can go take a long walk off a short pier for all i care :) )
But now that's over with, here's an update!
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Chapter Twenty-Seven: In the Dark
We walk passed a series of abandoned shipping containers lining the cemented docking area along the waterfront. I've almost tripped over a number of indescribable (yet heavy) objects, probably calling for attention from whatever lies in the dark from all the racket I was potentially creating. From that I've earned Rain grumbling about me calling down the neighbourhood and hoping it'd get me killed. I'm just going to make him background noise now. Before his short fuse makes me crazy.
I stop and look out at the dark waters, still as a mirror as it reflects the bright lights in the distance of a world away to those who had to call this decaying disremembered place 'home'. But what stood out the most was the Tower. It was darker than the sky and the illumination surrounding made it that much more out of place that space and dark-matter were nothing but shades of white compared to it. It was that detached from reality, it held no capacity to reflect the lights surrounding it.
I walk out along the pier, my feet carrying me to the very edge as if to get closer to that surreality. It was a pretty picture, I had to admit, even with the distasteful décor on this side of the water. I wonder if people on this side stare at it with a 'one I'll be over there' thought.
"Keep moving," the grouch calls at me like I was some dog on a leash. Kinda am...well now I'm sad...and probably going through an identity crisis.
Sighing, I turn back around to face them, only to have that god damn giant-ass wall looming over the horizon and blocking out some of the sky with grungy, hollow buildings sticking up and hiding at least some of it. Some even had dim light poking out the tattered holes that would have once been mirrored-glass windows. Below that I see at least the grouch and Seth waiting on the boardwalk; Seth smoking and Ebenezer Scrooge (as usual) glaring at me impatiently. I quickly scan up ahead to see X, completely in his own world.
Just what are we looking for exactly? A neon arrow that screams 'this way!'? The Keystone I stumbled across wasn't exactly out in the open and I had to fall through about three storeys of a parking lot first. I'm just that lucky.
Keeping in line in front of bad cop and apathetic cop -I try to ignore the feeling that my spinal column is in jeopardy- I find my gaze always returning to the bright lights of the city (and creepy tower) far away over the putrid water that strangely smelt of a dirty fish-tank and a dish-cloth that been used for six months. I feel a slight wave of hot air pick up slightly and was a little relieved as it carried away some of the smell and sort of felt nice against my exposed left hand-
I collide with a wall and realise that it's X standing in front of me, looking at a bridge just in front of us. At first I wondered if he had a problem with old wooden, half rotten bridges but then followed his line of sight and saw a storm drain outlet. Oh don't tell me-
He moves towards it, jumping like a freaking cat from the bridge and on top of the metal and concrete thing without a care and simple swings down into the open mouth that has little more than a trickle of water coming out of it.
No.
Just no.
Seth on the other hand, kneels down on the bridge, looking down at X "You sense something down there?"
I look down to see X's eyes on my face as he slowly nods once. Great.
Seth then turns to me, flicking his cigarette away, "It's worth a shot."
I ain't going down there.
Two seconds later, Seth jumps down and swings of the rim into the outlet, leaving me up here with grouchy.
...Ok, fine. I'll go. But how am I supposed to get down there? I ain't no parkour acrobat. At best, I can hobble across a flat surface and maybe trip once.
X points to the top of the damn circular thing and I kinda got what he was getting at, he wants me to do what he did. I judge the distance from the bridge to it, it wasn't that far...I can probably jump that make it...
I gear myself to land on it and as I do, I almost slip but manage to gain my balance to look at stage two of the problem. Getting down. As my body is literally the colours of a rainbow at the moment and hurts to move more than walking, I force myself down the front on my stomach, my legs...then torso...then everything else, hanging over the edge. I feel someone grab me and pull me under. As my feet found the slimy and wet hard ground (good thing I was given boots), I came face to face with X...who still had his arms around me. Well ain't this awkward.
He lets go and steps back, pulling me to the side in time for Rain to swing down and land as graceful as the rest of them.
"You're way too skinny," Seth's voice is tinted with amusement.
I had no comeback except for a, "Shut up."
He shrugs and pulls out a light source, a small torch that only illuminated to show more black/dark in here. Oh and the fact that most of this tube is lined with black slime. We trudge (well I do) our way down into the deep dark, the entrance was eventually gone behind a number of turns and it made the claustrophobia start to rise in my stomach. And I'm stuck in here with these three.
X has taken the lead once again, his back illuminated by Seth's torch. The only sounds I hear in here is my breath and the water as we disturb it, walking in opposite direction of its flow. My sense of time I beginning to be disoriented in this dark pipe. How long have we been down here?
Just as I was thinking this, the pipe opens up into a wide open area that took five seconds to get the distorted shapes. It was like a sort of catchment area for the different drains to run into at once into one column, only for it to divide again into different tunnels, one of which we just crawled out of. The water in the big main one, I think was a sort of 'storage' like a tank, only with rainwater. There were several pump lines entering it, to funnel the water wherever but I don't think they've been in use for a long time...especially when I look over to a wall and find the wiring cut.
As I step onto the pavement surrounding the pipes and catchment, I have sudden fear of never being able to escape if I happen to fall into the mass of black water that just barely touches the sides of its container.
"What is this place?" My voice echoes harshly in my ears after the million year of silence we just did.
"...Some sort of old water catchment system? An underground aqueduct? I dunno." Seth again shrugs as he walks over to another tunnel, looking up into the darkness as only a slight trickle came from it. "Point is, it's the exact sort of clichéd thing someone would think of using to dump a baby Queen." He then looks over to Rain, "Hanna's given you the equipment to track the saturation levels. Probably should start checking which of these," he indicates the four large pipes that were dumping water into the catchment pool," tunnels has the highest."
Rain walks passed me muttering, "Some help you've been."
I would take offense, but he was right. I have no idea what Siem was expecting from me.
As Rain mucks about with a weird-ass thing that looks like it belongs to a ghost hunter, I look closely at the four tunnels. Two on the left have a softer flow of water...the one on the centre-right had nothing. But it was the far right one that had my attention for some reason. It has the stronger flow of the four. I step up to walk into it, only to have X grab my wrist to stop me.
I felt like he had one of those toy electric buzzers in his hand as I jolt awake.
"Don't listen," I could still distinguish his gold and silver eyes even in this limited light as he stares right at me.
I frown, not understanding what he's getting at. I can't hear anything. Only the water flowing. I turn back towards the tunnel, "Is it in there?"
He doesn't respond, only lessening his grip on my wrist, but not fully letting go.
Seth walks over to us, just as Rain starts pointing the thing into the furthest tunnel from us and slowly proceeding down the line. "We're going to have to go back in an hour before dawn breaks on the horizon. Will you have enough time to check, if the radiation is low enough?"
X looks to be considering the question, his eyes flickering on me for a moment. "Unknown. The radiation is unstable if we are dealing with a juvenile Queen. There is a possibility that they are still 'conscious'."
"..I didn't think of that," Seth eyes then slid over to me. "Siem wanted me to bring you in case the saturation can become higher than what X can handle. With a Queen...or Keystone as you Outsiders call them- that may still has a 'consciousness' the saturation fluctuates unstably." He's talking like I should understand.
X lets go of my hand gently...I'm beginning to think that he was making sure I'm not going prancing off. "When a Queen is still 'conscious' the disease is fighting between dormancy and activity. The saturation bounces between the two states until the 'consciousness' ceases," and he decides to speak whole sentences to me.
"It's too unstable to produce Hexers but can drive people insane with mood swings and unpredictability. A clear indication can be that suicide rates suddenly jumping or the murders become more gruesome, that sort of thing," Seth continues the lesson.
"That's what happening around here, isn't it?" My eyes narrow in realisation.
"Thirty-nine incidences of suicide in the last six hours alone. Like Siem said, he doesn't want to leave this to chance. A lot of the population is congested in these areas. Hexers will spawn like wildfire."
I really don't want to ask this...but "...What do you mean by 'conscious'?"
"When the Queen is still 'human' during the transformation."