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Chapter 61: The Depths
Kate could hardly think of a more uncomfortable position than the one she was currently in. Rubber boot-pants combos were held onto her by suspenders, she wore elbow length gloves, a respirator over her face, and a hazard jacket that wouldn’t’ accommodate her wings so Nyx had ordered her to wear it backwards so she still had some protection while her wings stuck out what was previously the ‘front’ of the jacket. Even if uncontained she still held her wings tight to avoid brushing them against the less than pleasant walls of the sewers. They also had toolkits if they needed to open any utility panels or mess with any valves.
“This sucks” Kate complained, as the pair trod along underground. A flashlight on each of their heads for light. Feet sloshing through the very much less than clean water.
“Sucks less with the suit”
“Suit sucks too” Kate huffed.
“Oh relax, little baby” Nyx mocked, “You can rip your diaper back off once we are done down here.”
Kate flipped Nyx the bird, “I liked you better like a hour ago when you were still scared of me.”
“Before I was your CO you mean”
“Ok let’s be honest you aren’t TECHINCALLY my C-anything. I’m not a cop or in the military. I’m here because I want to help and I don’t know much more about the current state of things than you so…”
Kate trailed off shivering a bit, as over the radio Atasi chimed in, “I imagine its bad down there, but I’ll make it up to you later. What’s your favorite food?”
“Uh.. Well honestly its pretty hard for me to eat at actual restaurants so…”
“Oh. Well, I’ll pick then.” Atasi said, “Nyx you want anything.”
“To be honest you two I’d rather not think about FOOD while in a SEWER” Nyx replied.
Atasi quickly apologized, “Sorry, I, uh. I’ll be monitoring while you look.”
“See you soon” Kate said and paused to stretch her senses out to merge with the city’s feelings.
“Kate what is it?” Nyx said.
Kate pressed her hand against the wall and focused.
“Kate, you intend on replying?”
“The concrete, its stretching.”
Nyx was silent for a second or two, “Do clarify”
“It’s just that. Imagine the concrete walls are like your tendons. It feels like you are trying a little too hard to touch your toes, but, like, the walls…” Kate tried to explain, “Could be a subsidence or a sinkhole forming or something. Either way it’s getting pushed around. More than it likes.”
“Uh huh” Atasi chimed in, “Based on your current position you aren’t far from one of the area’s where there was a larger concentration of tremors. Can you locate the worst of it?”
“Ya” Kate said dragging her gloved hand along to wall to maintain contact, “Nyx, follow me. Not too far now.”
The pair walked in silence. Low rumbles could be felt periodically but nothing intense. That was lucky as Nyx might have had to bag this expedition if anything overly dangerous happened underground. As they walked, she mentally kept track of her map while one hand rested close to her gun, her copper blades sliding down her forearms at the ready. “Don’t get too far ahead, We don’t need to stumble into the infected down here.”
“This is a safe district, right? Thought the military had set up checkpoints, even down here to prevent invading that way.”
“That’s what they say”
Kate tapped her ear. “Atasi, the military is keeping the underground safe too right?”
“Yep” She replied over the com, “They swept it once then welded heavy grating in place, thick steel that’s hard to cut through to prevent travel. No sign it’s been compromised from what the reports on the computer say, but we are detecting something right?”
“Ya, in fact” Kate pointed towards the water in front of them down a corridor, “That’s the center of the stretching.”
“There’s nothing there” Nyx trod forward with Kate next to her, looking around. She shone her light everywhere looking for any evidence of anything at all but found none, at least till they got to the other end.
“You felt that?” Kate asked.
“No. what? This some sort of ‘supernatural’ sense you have?” Nyx asked.
“No, I mean that the ground wasn’t flat. That it slopes down then up, and the water was deeper near the middle” Kate turned and went back into the corridor, “Come on”
Standing back in the middle the pair glanced around to see if they could find anything at all. At first glance there wasn’t much to notice aside from the water in fact being a couple inches deeper than on either end of the corridor. Finding something of note though was hard in the dim light, not to mention not knowing what they were specifically looking for. They noticed some crumbling and chipped concrete, but that was similar to most of the tunnels, just lack of recent maintenance, not too much to be worth noting, except.
Nyx crouched as far as she could in without the water touching her rear, “The water”
“hmm” Kate looked down too. The water seemed to be flowing, but not so much from one end of the tunnel to the other, but from both ends towards the middle. It wasn’t a fast flow, but it was there, “That’s odd. There shouldn’t be anything under here.”
“Maybe there’s an old line under us or something” Nyx offered.
“No. I mean there’s nothing under us.”
“You know that how?”
“Its, uh. It’s the city. If there were old sewer lines, I’d be able to feel it. Just like the rest of the infrastructure. The city stops here.” Kate explained tapping her foot on the ground, quickly followed by a soft rumbling noise.”
Nyx pondered that for a moment, “Ok assuming you are right that there’s no more ‘city’ down there. Can you feel other things? Like caves?”
“Huh. I suppose. If they didn’t count as part of the city somehow, I suppose I might not.”
“Maybe something like that?” Nyx commented mostly to herself and pokes around under the water with a screwdriver. The tip found a crack and Nyx started probing, eliciting a soft grinding voice of the metal against the stone.
“What are you hoping to find down there?”
“Not sure.” The screwdriver proved less than useful so she switched to her copper blades, morphing one into a tendril shape and let it sink into the water to feel around and probe the cracks. The morphable metal had less trouble sinking down through the cracks feeling around for the dirt or bedrock under it, “How thick is this sewer?”
“Think?” Kate touched the wall and felt around, “The brinks and concrete are rarely much more than a foot, at least around here, why?”
“I swear I can reach much deeper but I’m not feeing any kind of…” Nyx trailed off as the rumbling noise got louder and started to shake the whole sewer, “Dammit, another earthquake”
“Pretty frequent. Never used to happen either, odd.”
“Ya. We know. We also gotta go” Nyx said standing up and receding her tool, “Too dangerous to be down here during a quAAAAH”
Nyx stumbled and staggered to her good leg as her prosthetic suddenly sank lower. She flailed for a moment looking for purchase and finding it difficult as the flow of water rapidly increased flowing rapidly down around her prosthetic leg and down to who knows where, and the flow was only increasing.
“Crap” Kate grabbed Nyx around the chest to steady her and sent her own tool down to help unstuck the fed’s leg, “Ok I get it time to go.”
With the two of them then wrench Nyx’s leg free but barely make a few steps before the water flow increases again making both stumble. Over the com Atasi was asking for updates, but pair ignored a panicked spree of questions.
“Crap shit crap shit!!” Kate stumbled and started swearing flailing around with her tool attempting to spear it into anything to maintain purchase. Her wings spread out behind her pinning against the walls and shoving nyx over. The wings fluttered wildly grinding hard on the surface and accomplishing little, “Can’t fly.. underground.. AHH. NYX Crap crap!”
“Calm down Kate, we’re just going to go” Nyx shouted trying to shield herself against Kate’s flapping, “Stop flapping.”
“Shit shit... ok… shit” Kate Stammered barely hearing her and bracing and flapping at anything trying to get her footing, something that became increasingly hard as the ground seemed to start to tilt, then slide, and finally fall away under them.
Kate screamed as she fell into the darkness, unsure of what she was falling into, but finally her wings had enough space and spread. The fetid air filled them and caught her fall, just long enough to careen her into an uneven rock wall. Being still and against a wall wasn’t not a good position for flying so she rapidly started to slide, clawing at the wall for purchase. She probably grinded down a dozen feet or so before her sword melted over her claws, extending them, and letting her sink them in deep between the stones, stopping her descent.
Finally able to take a breath through her panicked fluttering and descent, Kate took a deep breath and shouted, “FUUUUUCCCKKKKK!”
“You alive?” Nyx called
“FUCK”
“KATE!” Nyx called again, louder.
“FUCK YOU NYX!”
“No need to get Atasi jealous.”
“What the hell are you talking about!?” Kate blurted.
“Good you calmed down.”
“What?”
“Kate, I was distracting you, FOCUS” Nyx commanded, “Also breath.”
Kate shudder and shifted against the black wall she was clinging too, “Fuck the underground.”
“Its ok, just take a breath. I’m hanging from my tool, so not likely to fall, you similar?”
“Ya.” Kate took a breath trying to force herself to calm down, “ya.. ok.. calming down”
Kate finally succeeded in calming herself. She really really did not like to be contained, the inability to spread her wings was horrible, especially in the dark. Finally, she regained herself enough to recognize a cracking sound coming from something on her neck. She glanced down to point her headlamp at the headset that had fallen off but thankfully was still attached to her. She carefully retrieved it and put it on.
“Oh my god please respond!” the voice on the other side begged.
“Atasi, It’s me. I’m ok, So’s Nyx, right”
Nyx confirmed as much and Atasi responded, “Ohh good, thank goodness. What happened.”
“Ground collapsed. Sinkhole or something. Might need help getting out.”
“I’ll tell Blythe, we’ll get a crew there immediately”
“Thanks, Ata…” Kate started but Nyx interrupted.
“Kate you hear that?” Nyx said.
“Hear what?” Kate paused and listened, she heard the rumbling noise of the quake still reverberating, “The quake?”
“It’s getting louder”
Both Kate and Nyx listened as the rumbling noise got louder and louder. Eventually it sounded less like the rumbling noise of a quake and more and more like an angry roar.
Blythe come on the line, “What’s going on you two?”
“Sir” Nyx started, “I’m starting to think we aren’t alone.”
Neither heard his reply as the roar suddenly crescendoed in volume drowning out all other noise.