Authors: Matt Stephens
"I learned how in MIT." Checkov shrugged. "The mania was starting then, needed something to keep me from going nuts. There was a professor there, he was Grandmaster level, got me onto it to give me something to do. Funny thing though, he never once played online. His office was full of games in progress."
Vincent nodded and moved, tapping the clock again. Checkov moved faster than Vincent could believe. "CHECKMATE!" He bellowed, ferocious enough to make heads turn. It was a triumphant war cry.
Vincent grinned and put the money on the table. Checkov collected it slickly, not making a big deal out of it; like he'd no doubt done a million times before; and he grinned. "Double or nothing?"
Vincent noticed Gill waving at him from across the park. "My Warden over there says I have to go back to work now." He demurred. "Maybe later?"
"Won't be here later. Park's open. Gets a lot of cold." Checkov said. "Cold wind comes in; wind chill point drops like a rock."
Vincent sobered. "The weather guy said that it's going to be well below freezing later tonight. You got a place to go?"
"Ain't the first cold snap I've lived through." Checkov got up, one hand still in the pocket where he was keeping his winnings. "Be seeing you."
Vincent turned to go with Gill, then stopped and handed Checkov a bit of scrap paper with his address scribbled on it. "Listen, there's an apartment building with a laundry room in the basement. It gets locked at nine, but tonight it'll be left unlocked. I've put a few space heaters down there. If you don't have a place to go tonight..."
Checkov looked floored by the gesture. "Thank you." He took the card carefully. "I promise, I won' tell any'ne."
Vincent made his goodbyes and headed back to the office with Gill.
"What are you doing?" Gill asked him blankly as they walked away.
"What do you mean?"
"You can't give people like that your address."
Vincent sighed. "Gill, it's freezing tonight. I'm not giving them my home address, just the building, and…"
"
Them
? Exactly how many hard-luck cases are you pulling off the street tonight?"
"…
and
the stairwell doors get locked after nine. They want to sleep in the laundry, it's not like they can go anywhere else in the building."
"Better pray you're right, or the neighbors will lynch you."
"Last year the Homeless could sleep on top of the heating vents behind hotels and office buildings to stay warm. But now a lot of the building owners have put up angled covers on the vents so anybody trying to stay warm will slide off. They got nowhere else to-"
"How do you know
that
?"
"Dickie Bricks told me."
"Who, or what, in the name of whoever, is Dickie Bricks?" Gill was rubbing his eyes.
"You've met him." Vincent argued. "I bought him lunch a few weeks ago."
"Oh lord,
that
guy?" Gill groaned. "Why the hell do you keep... Vincent, it's great that you care so much about the homeless, but you keep going out of your way to look after every stray cat, you're going to get clawed sooner or later."
Vincent grit his teeth. "It's not like I can pick and choose which people to help..."
"I know that, but... Look, somebody asks for change, you give him some; he sees your wallet and decides he doesn't need to rely on charity and you get stabbed. Vincent, you hear about it happening all the time."
Vincent didn't have an answer to that. He knew it was true; he'd read the news stories himself. "Gill, it's illegal to loiter around parks banks, supermarkets, businesses, hotels... anywhere with people who might be concerned about seeing things they don't like to think about. You can be arrested for sleeping on the streets because you have nowhere else to go. This is the richest city in the richest country in the world, and it's illegal to be living on the street?"
"I agree, but you're not going to end poverty in this country. You're not going to end homelessness. In fact, you're not going to put the slightest dent in it. And I am trying very hard to remember when it became your job to try."
Vincent bit his tongue. His experience with the Lostkind had turned him around overnight, and Gill wasn't the first person in his life to comment on it. And he couldn't tell them, obviously.
"Gill, you're right." Vincent said finally. "I'm not going to save them all. In fact, I'm not going to save any of them. It's not like these guys are a few dollars away from becoming regular citizens again. And if they want to spend it on booze instead of food, I don't blame them. But I can't pick and choose which ones I'm going to give a damn about."
Gill sighed. "Pizza huh?"
Vincent nodded. "Three Pizza Deal."
Gill pulled his wallet. "Get two deals. Five pizzas go further."
"Five?" Vincent took the money with a smile.
"Hey, I gotta eat too, right?" Gill shrugged.
~oo00oo~
The Triumvirate met every week in the Underground. At the highest point of the dome on Level Twelve, at the apex of all the living spaces, was the Throne Room.
The chamber was circular, with three entrances, one to the intersecting Tunnels, one to the Labyrinth, one to the Twelfth Level below it. The Throne Room was large by the standard of rooms carved out of the earth. In the centre of the room was a glass circle twenty feet across, set into the floor, giving everyone who looked into it a clear view of the city Below. It was symbolic of their world being Beneath everything. In the Above, you looked up to see the sprawling city, here you looked down.
The window in the floor was circled by a wooden table, surrounding the whole view like a guard rail. There were over a dozen seats at the table, most of them facing the Big Three.
The meeting began with the Lostkind shuffling around talking to each other, until keeper, Archivist, and Yasi all came in, and took their seats at the forward part of the table. Without a word, the rest of those assembled took positions at the opposite end.
"So." Archivist spoke; his deep bass voice rumbling across the room. "What kind of day has it been?"
"We've been having problems with the Riverfolk." Smithy reported.
"So what else is new?"
"No, I mean they've been sneaking around Twelfth Level."
Yasi sat up straighter in her seat. "The Riverfolk haven't caused trouble at the Twelfth Level in almost seven years." She snarled, more fierce than she should have been.
"Easy Shinobi. Nobody has forgotten your first mission." Archivist chided her gently. "But we all knew they'd reorganize themselves one day. What kind of trouble have they been causing?"
"We're losing convoy's into the Market. So far they've been after food. Nothing we can't replace, but…"
"But it means their numbers have increased." Keeper agreed. "Yasi?"
"I can take a team down to the Lower Levels, clear them out." The younger woman agreed. "My Shinobi haven't had an honest fight for a while. It just seems strange to be coming from Riverfolk. How can they even come up to Twelfth Level?"
"Odds are they can't. They could easily be making themselves sick coming to us." Keeper said. "Which means they're desperate."
"Yasi, don't take that team just yet." Archivist raised a hand. "If there is something happening down there to make them desperate for food or for attention, then we had best find out what it is before we start another battle."
"Do we need to put it to a vote?" Keeper asked.
Yasi shook her head. "No. I'll investigate before we act."
Keeper nodded and moved on. "Surface Reports?"
Silence.
Archivist looked around. "Wotcha? Your report?"
Silence. In the back of the room, a small boy raised his hand. He looked quietly terrified.
Yasi's sharp eyes picked him out in the dark. "Tecca?"
The kid looked terrified of speaking in front of the three Leaders of the New York Underside, but he stepped forward. "She's not… She's not here." He whispered. "There was something… She's not here."
Archivist sent Yasi a look, and the younger woman shrugged. She didn't know what Wotcha was doing either.
"Well." Archivist rumbled. "It'll keep. Security?"
Yasi leaned forward in her seat. "It looks like the Urban Explorers are back in business again. We've had to shoo a few interlopers away from our entrances. The one leading into the Museum of Natural History Subway station may have to be closed for a while."
"Better safe than sorry." Keeper agreed. "Seal it up for now. Gopher, what's the word on Power and Water?"
"New York has raised the cost of electricity, yet again. Our taps on the grid are starting to draw attention. I've had to reroute the secondary electricity feed twice now as a result."
"We've had two brownouts this week. People are starting to worry." Keeper grated. "Wotcha, find out who-no, she's not here. Yasi, next time you see Wotcha, let her know that Papa Edison will be having a ‘clerical error' soon; misplacing a few more cables."
Yasi nodded. "Anyone else have anything to say that involves me?"
Loud silence.
Yasi rose fluidly from her seat and headed for the rope ladders. "I'll be back later."
~oo00oo~
Wotcha was as still as she could get. Pretending to sleep hadn't worked. They'd sought her out deliberately.
"Come out and play old woman." The gang leader cackled. He was the eldest, and had a Mohawk. He was enjoying his moment of power. Wotcha pressed back against the wall and tried to take stock of them from where she was, hidden at the end of a dumpster. Four of them, plus the leader. Mohawk was crowing from behind all four of them. Three were pushing the youngest one forward.
"I… I don't know." The kid was whispering. Wotcha almost felt sorry for him. He was barely sixteen, and in way over his head.
"Kid, who are you gonna go back to? Your idiot stepfather? Who looks after you? Who keeps you fed? Who gives you a place to sleep?"
The kid looked down. "You do Bi-"
"No names." Barked Mohawk. "These are the rules. Nobody's gonna know it's you. Nobody's even gonna notice."
Wotcha slipped one hand under her dirty jacket.
A gang initiation.
She thought.
Kill a homeless person to be part of the gang.
She had heard of such things, but never had it happened to her until now.
"You leave me alone." She croaked at them. Inwardly, she knew they were right. In this neighborhood, nobody would see anything. Nobody would even be surprised.
The five of them closed in on her. She moved swiftly, drawing the small crossbow from under her jacket. A bolt was already notched.
Mohawk's jaw dropped. "Is that a-"
Thwapp!
One of them howled as the crossbow bolt speared into his kneecap. Wotcha came up with a can of mace, no longer as helpless and weak as she'd seemed a moment ago.
The gang fell back in shock as she sprayed, missing her target. She may have been cunning, but she was outnumbered five to one, and they were all younger than her by decades.
She felt a hand grasp her wrist, hard and painful, and she pulled, trying to get leverage, the can went flying. Pain exploded in her fingers as the thug twisted. She swung her other hand around. The crossbow hadn't been reloaded, but the bow was made of metal, and it served to get her some room.
For a moment there was a break in the battle. What was meant as an easy gang initiation had turned into an actual fight. They were angry, they were cautious, and they were embarrassed. They were ready to kill now.
Wotcha's eyes flicked to the can of mace. Too far to get to before they got her. She gripped the crossbow. Too close to get it loaded and aimed. She was in trouble.
And then from above came a dark shape. Quick as a rattlesnake, it dropped from the rooftop above and hit the one closest to Wotcha, landing on him between the shoulder blades. He went down instantly and didn't move as Yasi balanced on him.
The four of them quickly fanned out as best they could in the alley, reacting to this new menace.
"Walk away." Yasi snarled, cold and deadly. "Do it now and you may keep your limbs."
They attacked. She was more than willing to meet them halfway.
They attacked her roughly, trying to simply overpower her. The warrior woman moved like quicksilver, her slender body folding into impossible dodges and evasions. They kept thrashing, trying to make contact with her somehow, but she simply kept moving. In the darkened corners of the alley, nobody could say for sure where she really was, getting tangled in each other.
And then she struck back.
They couldn't believe how much power she packed in her blows, getting in too close for them to muster any kind of serious punches. She struck tactically, using her elbows and knees to deliver one short sharp body blow to each opponent, smacking out at joints and eyes and throats, knowing every weakness, moving too fast for them to evade or block.