Chapter 234: No Way Out
Akira looked at Bull one more time before she left.
His expression hadn’t changed. He had the same flat, direct look, and the same tired eyes that had clearly spent a long time arriving at the conclusions he’d just shared.
He’d already looked back down at his papers before the tent flap closed behind her.
Holly was waiting outside.
"Don’t take his manner of speaking personally," she said, falling into step beside Akira. "Bull is straightforward with everyone. He doesn’t have anything against you, it’s just how he operates."
She moved through the rows of tents with the easy familiarity of someone at home. "He was like that before we ended up here, from what I understand. Probably more useful down here than someone who softens everything."
They stepped back out into the main hall and Holly began leading her towards the far end of the building.
"We’ve managed to make it livable," Holly said. "The dampness down here is actually useful. Combined with the right conditions, things grow."
She gestured as they passed a section of the hall where the floor had been given over entirely to growing plants, arranged in careful rows that showed someone had spent serious effort cultivating them.
"Grapes, obviously. You found those yourself. But there are others. A few people here had agricultural skills or nature based classes, and with their help, we have a steady supply."
"So food isn’t the problem," Akira said.
"Food hasn’t been the problem for a long time," Holly confirmed. "We sorted that out relatively quickly once the right people put their heads together."
She paused. "The problem is the boredom."
"Seven months with the same people in the same space," Akira said.
"Seven months with nothing new happening," Holly corrected. "People handle it differently. Some sleep too much, while some train obsessively."
She tilted her head. "Some develop hobbies that I genuinely could not have predicted."
"Like what?" Akira asked.
Holly considered how to answer that.
"You’ll see," she said.
Holly led her deeper into the section, and away from the building and the farms, the streets narrowing as they went.
Akira noticed the ground first. The dampness that had been a thin film near the building was more pronounced here, with the stone getting darker, and the water sitting in the cracks and low points of the paving rather than simply moistening the surface.
Her boots came away slightly wet with each step.
Then the pools of water appeared.
They were small at first, sitting in the deeper depressions of the cracked stone and reflecting the light of the flickering lamps. Then larger, spreading across wider sections of the street.
"Where is all the water coming from?" Akira asked.
Holly glanced back at her with a grin. "You’ll see."
Before Akira could ask another thing, Holly’s hand shot out and grabbed her arm, pulling her sideways through a doorway.
They pressed themselves against the interior wall, Holly’s grip firm, and her other hand raised in a gesture that meant Akira should stay still.
Akira went quiet.
Three Automatons came into view on the street outside.
These were different from the ones above. Their movements were erratic, one dragging a leg that no longer functioned correctly, and another with its torso caved partially inwards, the clockwork inside it grinding audibly with each step.
All three moved in the same loose, wandering pattern, following no obvious patrol route.
"Broken beasts end up down here too," Holly murmured, her voice barely above a breath. "Like everything else the Undercity discards."
She kept her eyes on them. "There’s no point fighting them. As long as we don’t interfere with them and we don’t try to leave, they leave us alone completely. It’s an unspoken arrangement."
The three Automatons reached the far end of the street and continued around the corner without pausing.
Holly straightened.
"Right," she said. "Let’s keep moving."
They continued on their way, soon entering waterlogged streets. The water was ankle deep before Holly said anything.
"We’re close," she said, not slowing.
Akira lifted her feet higher with each step, the water cold and dark, and the current pulling gently in no consistent direction.
The buildings on either side were more deteriorated here than anywhere else she’d seen, with the lower sections of their walls eaten away by long term water exposure.
Then the buildings ended and the street opened into a vast courtyard. The ceiling plunged higher overhead into darkness, and in the center of the courtyard was the lake.
It spread across most of the open space, its surface dark and still. The water was deep enough that she couldn’t see the bottom.
Rising from its center were gears, enormous ones, with their upper sections piercing the ceiling of the cavern and disappearing into the stone above, their teeth wide enough to swallow a person whole.
Several of them stood interlocked, their surfaces slick with water, draped in the kind of growth that accumulates over decades of constant moisture.
Streams fed into the lake from multiple directions, running in from gaps in the courtyard walls. Others ran out of the courtyard, carrying water away into passages she couldn’t follow with her eyes.
Akira stared at it in mild surprise.
"This is the center of the Underneath," Holly said, stopping beside her. "That mechanism in the lake, those gears, they’re what turns the streets above us. Every shift and rearrangement of the Undercity starts here."
She looked up at the gears disappearing into the ceiling. "We think this place sits directly below the inner room of the main clock, but we’re not a hundred percent sure."
"And the way out is through there," Akira said. It wasn’t a question.
"Yes, it is." Holly confirmed. "Straight up through the mechanism, through the ceiling, and into the inner room above."
She paused. "Theoretically."
"Why theoretically?"
"See for yourself," Holly said.
The rumbling began.
It came from beneath the water first, the surface of the lake trembling before the sound fully arrived, the ripples spreading out from the center in rapid concentric rings.
Then the deep sound of something enormous engaging reached them.
The water churned, and it began moving in a circular pattern, slowly at first, then faster, the momentum building as the massive gears began to turn.
The teeth of the gears broke through the surface of the lake as the mechanisms engaged, spinning through the water and cutting into the air above with a speed that was difficult to follow with the eyes.
The sound filled the entire courtyard, the grinding and churning layering over each other into a wall of noise.
Then the center opened.
A circular hole appeared in the middle of the mechanism, the water rushing inwards and downwards in a gushing torrent, the force of it creating a roar that pressed against the ears.
The current pulled everything towards the center, with the streams feeding the lake reversing their direction briefly under the force of it.
It continued for over a minute, then it stopped.
The water finally settled as the gears slowed to a stop, and Holly stepped forward.
"The moment anyone enters that lake, the Automatons appear," she said. "Not one or two, but enough to fill this courtyard."
She looked at the gears. "And while you’re fighting them, those gear teeths are moving through the water. You don’t see them coming until they’ve already found you."
"And if someone somehow survived all of that and reached the mechanism itself, they’d have to swim up against that falling torrent of water." She looked at Akira. "Nobody can swim against that. Nobody we’ve had down here, at any rate."
Akira stared at the lake, saying nothing.
"So there’s no way out," Holly said quietly. "That’s what Bull was telling you."
