This really was turning into an old flatvid.
I sat on an old crate looking up at a ceiling of stalactites and glowing moss that served to remind me of how far from my everyday reality I’d come by venturing back into Manhattan. The sound of water flowing from the river above and down into this small forgotten space was a metronomic sigh of relief and all that kept me from freaking out about the situation. The deep only had one way in or out and while that path connected to the vast NY subway system it didn’t guarantee safety. Once we were out in the world anyone who was looking for Peter Choi would be able to track him down–if not by the army of facial recognition cameras and drones monitoring the city than by the absence of a digital footprint as he moved without a commlink or any relevant credentials through the Island. Like the sound of water, this momentary safety filled me with a calmness that spoke of future dread.
Choi was being dressed and outfitted by some of the dwellers down here who treated him like an old friend or at least an old soul. He fit in with them, and from what I’d been able to gather what he actually was gave him the kind of cred you couldn’t buy. I’d given up on asking him what he was. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know anymore, though I had my suspicions given my employer. As I watched him put on an old jacket and secure a scarf around his neck I found myself asking a different question. “How’d you find this place anyhow?”
“I came here years ago with family–not long before the SURGE hit. This cave and the two dozen or so like it across the planet are special. Each is filled with castaway people such as these–people who don’t necessarily belong to the surface world anymore, and find a type of happiness in the communities they create in these spaces.
“So, you want to tell me what this place is then?”
He grinned and said, “I think its time we got moving, don’t you?”
Some Thoughts:
- I am not a pantser and this has been a seat of my pants novella thus far. Seriously. I don’t know what is going to happen until I write it and there is not a draft process. Things happen and continue to happen. Such an odd process. In truth, I don’t think about the story unless I’m right here writing it down.
- Also figured out how to fix the font sizes. I will not go back and fix all the past writing. Just no…