Chapter 21

Of course Sofi wasn’t the slightest bit intimidated by Old Fred’s suggestion, and so she curled the rope around her legs and slid down into the hole. They heard a soft, “Oh,” drift up through the hole, and they saw the rope relax.
“I know, right?” came Livingstone’s voice.
Old Fred shrugged at Warren and made a curious face at the opening. Just as Warren was going to ask who would go through next, Trent collapsed next to him without a sound of complaint.
“Huh,” was all he could manage at first. Fredric glanced over and added a profound, “um,” to the conversation. The two still standing possessed matching faces of bewilderment and couldn’t accomplish anything worthwhile as they stared at their fallen comrade.
When Livingstone queried their status with an echoing shout, Warren and Old Fred followed the voice back to conscious thought and both stooped to check Trent more closely. He lay rigidly, arms flattened to his side, legs pressed together, toes pointed straight up. Old Fred found his pulse and sighed; Warren peered into the far-gazing eyes searching for a response. Fredric cupped his right hand and lightly tapped Trent’s left cheek.
“Hrmm,” Warren hummed.
“Ehhh,” Old Fred added, pausing for thought.
Warren sighed.
Fredric took a breath and opened his mouth—but not a word ventured forth. Warren raised his eyebrows in positive bafflement.
“You know, my motto used to be ‘procrastination pays’ but I changed that years before I met you guys,” Livingstone yelled through the opening.
Fred screwed his eyes on the hole; “Seems we had a little…hiccup in our plans,” he shouted back. “Trent’s practicing to be a mummy.”
The pause from the hole told Warren that Livingstone was actually considering this a possible explanation. Old Fred fidgeted and must have decided to elaborate so Livingstone wouldn’t ask, for he walked over to the opening and stuck his head through.
“Non-responsive, unconscious, but alive,” he shouted through the hole. Warren decided to join him at the edge of the hole, but Livingstone’s dreads emerged from the blackness. He pulled himself through the opening, propped himself on his elbows, and glanced around the two. When his eyes narrowed and focused back on Fredric, Warren felt an electricity of sorts tingling the atmosphere.
“I hate to ask the obvious,” Livngstone began, “but where exactly is this ‘non-responsive, unconscious, but alive’ Trent?”
Old Fred spun, gestured towards the floor, and then actually looked where he was pointing. His mouth closed and Warren couldn’t help but glance back to Trent. Or where Trent had been. Only a few random butterflies occupied the space where Trent had been lying. “He was just there!” Warren spurted and began searching the room with his eyes, though his legs were rooted to the spot.
“Indeed,” Livingstone mused sarcastically. “Well if people are disappearing, we’d better not stick around until it happens again.”
“If Trent’s gone, so is our hope for finding the next waypoint,” Sofi’s voice echoed from below. This statement seemed to affect Old Fred particularly, though he attempted to disguise his frustration with humor: “You mean we have to choose between butterflies and a sewer system for living out the rest of our lives?”
But Warren noticed Livingstone’s mind churning; he could practically hear the gears grinding in there. “No,” Livingstone said, “Not at all; there seems to be a certain demon interested in our success. Perhaps it will keep intervening; now let’s go before the Mar find us…or Trent,” and slipped down the rope. Warren followed him down, and Old Fred after him.
What surprised Warren was that his feet hit a glass walkway before he was even halfway to the water beneath him. He almost asked a question of such absurdity that Livingstone would have murdered him for it, but he reigned it in before it escaped his tongue. Instead he let his eyes adjust a little more to the darkness of the tunnel. A set of dim florescent lights on each side of the tunnel, about where the glass floor met the concrete walls, blinked away into the darkness on each side.
Sofi grabbed his hand and pulled him to his left, leading him towards what seemed a cavity, or recession, in the wall of the tunnel. Strange, geometrical shadows greeted his adjusting eyes. “What is it?” he whispered to her. Sofi sighed, chuckling, and didn’t answer him. Rather they took a rusted metallic staircase down around several giant cylinders and some scaffolding which seemed to be just barely holding everything in place—and everything groaned with each step they took.
Warren looked back to Old Fred and Livingstone, their silhouettes were unmistakably different as they crossed over to the staircase: Livingstone’s solid, set, and smooth, Fredric’s like he were tip-toeing on thin ice.
“So,” Warren whispered to Sofi again, “why aren’t we staying on the easy glass walk above?” after nearly tripping over a broken-loose pipe. Sofi kindly returned an answer.
“We think it’s a dual-layered sewer system: the lower half for solid and liquid waste, the upper for gaseous waste. As far as that concerns us, it’s far easier to avoid contact with solids and liquids than gasses.”
Warren nodded.
“That and they might use flame jets to clean out the upper layer, while simply flushing out the lower with a burst of water. And while Old Fred might prefer fire to water, I don’t.”
“What’s that?” Old Fred shouted, and clicked the safety off his handgun. “Prepare fire on what?” Livingstone shook his head and lowered Fredric’s gun with the palm of his hand.
“I’m getting you hearing aids, next pharmacy we find.”
“What?” Old Fred complained.
“Exactly.”

*

The trio of soldiers, made quartet with Warren, walked up-“stream” in the relative darkness for hours. I’ll have you know that nothing very exciting happened, other than the occasional badly framed question by Warren which was badly answered by Old Fred, while Livingstone trudged on silently in the back and Sofi strained her eyes in the dark before her. She still grasped Warren’s hand in her own, but Warren felt changes in her grip as they plodded forward. Perhaps she wasn’t only struggling to find direction physically.
Warren wanted more than anything a few hours to be alone with her. Whatever excuse he could find would work, but he knew that Livingstone would see his intention clearly, no matter how he disguised it. So he trusted fate, hoping it might throw them another curve ball, distancing him and her from the other guys, if only for a bit. Of course, that only led him to consider that the opposite effect might happen, that he might find himself isolated from Sofi just as easily. So he clung to her grasp and counted his luck for the day.
Ali seemed to sense his longing and squeaked in his ear to remind him that she to wanted his love. Warren stuck a finger of his free hand to his shoulder and she nibbled on it contentedly.
"Does she ever get tired of your shoulder?" Sofi asked.
Warren chuckled. "No, it doesn't seem so."
"Do you mind if I hold her for a bit?"
He was surprised--this was a first for Sofi. Excepting the night Ali talked, Sofi had hardly recognized Ali's existence. "Not at all," he answered, squeezing her hand ever so slightly. "Here," he said as he picked Ali from her perch. "She'll probably go for the side without your hair."
Sofi's shoulders seemed to tense when he set the rat on her, but she relaxed soon enough and Ali found a comfortable spot. "Hi," Sofi whispered softly to her and smiled. "She really is a cute one."
"I'm glad you gave her to me...even if technically you didn't," Warren laughed. She just squeezed his hand and they walked on in the darkness.
The first sign of change they found was slight and completely imperceptible to Warren at first. But the more Sofi pointed and explained, the more he thought he saw what she was talking about: a slightly iridescent moss growing in the corner of the walkway through the tunnel. Apparently this meant profoundly to Livingstone and Sofi—and I think Old Fred pretended it mattered as well. But Warren couldn’t see what was so special about a patch of moss, and decided that asking about it wasn’t going to get him an answer. So he let them to their thoughts and kept walking next to Sofi.
The second sign of change they found was clearly audible to Warren. But when he mentioned this sound he heard, no one else, as much as they strained, couldn’t hear it. But Warren was listening to the distinct sound of oars slapping the water.
Old Fred said something about buying everyone hearing aids at the next pharmacy, but Warren quieted him as the sound seemed to be approaching them, traveling upstream, as they had been. When Warren thought he could distinguish a figure on the water, he called out.
“Hey there!” After a moment’s pause in what had been a consistent rhythm of paddling, Warren thought he saw the figure move. Then the slap of the water continued.
“I hope you’re still hearing things, because it looks like you’re seeing things now, too,” Old Fred quipped. Livingstone silenced him with a motion of his hand.
Warren stepped as close as he could to the edge, peering through the shroud of darkness in the tunnel. When what appeared to be a small barge clanked up against the concrete, Warren stepped back. Two large glowing eyes turned his way and blinked. They bounced from the barge, landing on the walkway with a wet slap. Warren turned to his companions to point out that he wasn’t going crazy, but they had quit moving. In fact, they weren’t breathing, blinking, or even thinking, apparently. Sofi’s hand in his own was limp and non-responsive when he squeezed it.
Warren turned back to the eyes which sidled up to him with what sounded like a man in sopping flippers walking around a swimming pool.
“It’s been such an eternity since I’ve seen a son of Zoe or heard the language of the ancients,” it said, stopping just a few feet from Warren.
“What did you do to my friends?” Warren asked with a hint of caution tingeing his voice.
“You are not alone, you say. Are you sure? I see what I deem to be a single son of Zoe walking the Sepial Way, and no others.”
Warren clutched Sofi’s hand to be sure he wasn’t dreaming.
“Perhaps it’s too dark in here for you to see them,” Warren suggested. The eyes beamed back at him.
“You do seem to be struggling with your perceptions in here. But I assure you there is no shred of darkness here to trained eyes. Not like some of the other Ways.”
Warren thought the creature had laughed as it turned and leapt onto its boat. “Where are you going?” he called after it. He received no response, but a muddled cacophony of scrapings, rustlings, and clangings. Then he heard the sound of those flippers landing on the concrete and saw those luminous eyes fixed on him again.
“It has been far too long since I aided a son of Zoe; in fact, I’m not quite sure I’ve forgiven the last one I helped.”
“Why do you call me that? A ‘son of Zoe’?” Warren asked him.
“Because, that’s what you are. Are you not?” it replied as it approached him. “Close your eyes.”
“What? Why?”
“This will help you see,” it stated simply. Warren took a heavy breath, clutched Sofi’s hand for strength, and closed his eyes.
What he felt was something akin to an aloe gel one might apply to a burn. Except that it was warm and applied by snakeskin. But then the heat increased, and began to burn. He reached to wipe it off with a hand, but the creature quickly restrained him. “Let it work its course. It’s not going to kill you, but keep your eyes closed for a bit.”
Warren used every bit of his willpower to trust the creature and tolerate the burn. It felt as if Tabasco sauce had been squirted up his sinuses and he started snorting in an effort to relieve it. But the words of the reflective eyes had been true, and once it began abating, total relief came quickly.
“Now what do you see?” it asked him. Warren opened his eyes and was stunned. The tunnel sparkled exquisitely, the lights lit everything radiantly—shadows were even difficult to find. The water glistened like the finest Carribean lagoon under a brilliant summer sun. The moss Sofi had been pointing out glowed with the purest, easiest light to look at he had ever seen. Livingstone stood stock still, squinting at the barge. Old Fred was crouched inspecting the moss closely—so close Warren almost cringed at the brightness he would have endured at such a distance. But Sofi took his breath away. She positively glowed under the light—every part of her beauty enhanced as she bathed in the light. “Better?” the voice wondered.
Warren turned to his helper and had to stifle a gasp. He turned what he saw over in his mind several times—trying to figure if it was more duck, or turtle, or walrus, or frog. It sat, hunched somewhat, like a frog perched on a log. It wore a heavy pack (or shell…he couldn’t decide which) with all sorts of flashing trinkets attached to it. But its eyes were still its most distinctive feature, though no longer glowing as they had been. Rather, they shone with interest, reflected intelligence as well as the light. The rest of its head reminded Warren of a sea-turtle, with a fairly beaklike mouth, but a thick leathery skin under its eyes and on its cheeks. Its hands and feet were more flipper than anything; but it didn’t seem to lack any grasping power from a human hand. It had a stout, stocky build to it and wore what seemed to be a ragged leather outfit.
When Warren remembered he had been asked a question, he cleared his throat and tried to answer. “Ye..yeah. Uh. Thanks.”
“Well let’s go then,” it stated and began to climb back into its barge. Warren’s eyebrows scrunched together.
“Go? Where?”
“Somewhere safe,” it replied without turning.
“But what about my friends?” Warren asked.
“What friends?” it asked, looking back at Warren.
Warren demonstratively pointed out Livingstone, Old Fred, and Sofi…squeezing her hand once for good measure. The creature laughed. Or at least, Warren figured that was what it did. “These. Don’t you see them?”
The creature hopped back off the barge, shuffled over to Warren and stuck his flipper right through Sofi—waved it around a bit and stepped back with what Warren took to be an indolent smile. “If you think that everything exists in the same place for everyone in that place at the same time, my good son of Zoe, you have much to learn.” It sighed, walked back to the edge of the crystal water, and hopped on the barge. “Are you coming or not?”
“But,” Warren protested.
“They won’t budge, I promise you.”
“So you know they’re there!”
“So surely as you believe they exist, I believe they won’t move until you can help them make the transition. Now are will you come with me to help them or not?”
Warren sighed and looked in Sofi’s vacant eyes. “I’ll be back for you; I promise,” he whispered and kissed her on the cheek. Then an idea lit his mind. He grabbed a pen from Sophi’s pack and wrote a note on the hand he had been holding. “Will be right back.”
“Okay, I’m ready. Let’s go,” he called to the bargeman and jumped on board.