Authors: Matt Stephens
"No." Vincent said honestly.
"THREE!" Keeper exploded. "There have only ever been three people ever in this room! The Arbiter, the Scribe, and the Shinobi Captain. The three highest ranking people in The Underside
only
. When it wasn't us, it was still the people in those same three jobs. Today there are
four
. You have any idea how many times we've even
used
this room in the last fifty years?"
"No." Vincent said honestly, stepping back unconsciously from her wild rant.
"TWICE!" Keeper exploded again, drifting toward him slowly as he retreated. "Exactly TWICE! You have no idea what a big deal this is! Mr-What's-on-CNN-let's-check-Facebook-and-find-out! We don't do this sort of thing very often y'know! And we've done it twice in three years because of you and your pal down in our basement!"
"Me and my pal? He tried to have me killed." Vincent protested, but by this time she had gotten right up in his face, having backed him against the wall.
Keeper shook her head in disgust. "I was
this
close to letting him. You're... things are changing Vincent; and you're in the middle of it. I don't know what the hell Yasi hopes your presence will contribute, but no King in his Throne Room ever had to worry about the Court Jester getting into the middle of..."
The lights went out suddenly. The room went dark.
Keeper got right in his face, breathing harshly in his ear. "Stay exactly on this spot. Pretend that if you say anything or step forward, a dragon will eat you."
There was a hushed silence to which Vincent wholeheartedly contributed. Keeper left him and settled into the middle chair, holding court at the head of the table.
Vincent looked around in confusion. The light was coming from the slide projectors, both of them shining a plain white light at the opposite end of the table, so that the light intersected.
Yasi flipped a switch on her left, and one of the Underside's omnipresent clockwork machines puttered to life, churning out soft puffs of white smoke from the floor at the opposite end of the table.
It's a smoke machine.
Vincent realized.
Like on a movie set.
A moment later the two devices that looked like slide projectors flared to life, drawing an intersection of light at the other end of the Round Table. The two beams both projected an image in the smoke, and having two of them gave it three dimensions. The shape was that of a man.
It's a hologram!
Vincent realized and struggled not to shout with glee at the crazy wonderful thing. Two images projected into smoke and mirrors at angles that met in the middle of the smoke. It was a trick that any stage magician could do a hundred years ago to make ghostly apparitions appear; but here in The Underside it was used to hold holographic international teleconferences.
Any child-like wonder he felt at the sight of the machine vanished once the image cleared and the conversation started.
"Principal VonGunn, I bring greetings on behalf of the New York Underside." Keeper said with formality.
"Arbiter Keeper, I bring you greetings from Berlin Beneath." VonGunn responded with equal formality. A moment later the veneer of polite conversation dropped instantly from his face. "I have been trying to get you people to answer me for over six hours!"
"We've been busy." Yasi cut him off. "And I'm betting you know more about the reasons why than we do."
VonGunn wasn't smiling. "I understand you have successfully located Owen Niklos. Have you been questioning him?"
"Asking questions. It's actually been a very interesting time for us here." Keeper returned. "Now that we've got him, perhaps you'd be more willing to talk about why you've wanted him for two years?"
"That is a matter of some delicacy." VonGunn said. "Suffice to say, it's a problem limited to our own territory. Regardless of what he may, or may not, have told you... it's a situation that is exclusive to our Jurisdiction. We have all the relevant information, the necessary background..."
"Too bad you don't have Owen Niklos too, because he's in our Oubliette, so it's our problem now." Yasi put in.
"A problem we'd be happy to take off your hands."
"Finders Keepers." Yasi shot back.
Silence.
"Well, as it happens..." VonGunn said finally. "You've done us a good turn, and we certainly wouldn't let that go unmentioned. In fact, I'd say we owe you a favor in return... If there's anything you would like..."
Yasi shrugged. "Nothing I can think of. Keeper, can you think of anything?"
"Hard to say." Keeper agreed gamely. "Without knowing what Niklos is worth to them... We could ask for anything, couldn't we?"
They smiled like sharks at VonGunn, who said nothing. Vincent could see the question in his eyes:
What do they know? What has Owen told them?
Owen had given them nothing, but Keeper and Yasi were playing it out to try and coax details from VonGunn, and doubt was beginning to grow in the other Lostkind's mind.
"Principal." Yasi said silkily. "While Niklos was here, he was working in the City Planner's Office… That wouldn't be of any significance, would it?"
VonGunn blinked. He seemed to think for a long moment, before speaking. "Perhaps."
"Something else Principal." Keeper added smoothly, keeping her voice low and calm. "We have pretty strong evidence that Niklos wasn't working alone, or even that he's the one giving orders. The only one who seems to have an interest in him is you. Are you involved in the attempted murder of our people? The hunt for entrances to our world? Would you declare war on us?"
VonGunn froze. "No, of course not."
"Then who would?" Keeper pounced. "If you're not backing him, who is?"
Long silence. VonGunn was looking for another card to play, and found none, before coming clean.
"Very well..." He said, much softer now. "The truth."
Long silence. Very long silence.
"You don't seem to be saying anything." Archivist said after a moment.
"Noticed that, did you?" VonGunn admitted ruefully. "All right. There are only four people who have the whole story. I won't be telling you all of it, but... For the past eight years, there has been a growing division in Berlin Beneath. I won't betray the full reason why, except to say that it started when we failed to live up to a long awaited promise, and... someone else was able to deliver in our place. This someone managed to do so, entirely without our knowledge, and since then, there has been a growing faction, gaining more and more... practical authority."
Vincent was being very small back behind the table. It was not unlike listening in to the conversation at the grown-ups table, but it sounded as though VonGunn was describing a coup in the making.
"Three years ago, we were able to identify the leader of our opposing faction... It took us that long, because most of the people willing to tell us anything were found dead before we could question them. You know what its like, rumors and secrets spread and multiply like nothing else alive."
Especially in a place like this.
Vincent thought quietly to himself.
"After chasing shadows for months, we were able to get hold of some fairly usable intel, which led us to an Upsider, who had moved into Berlin recently. That man was Owen Niklos."
"And so you want him back." Yasi finished. "To question him about who's plotting to overthrow Berlin Beneath."
"No, we already know that." VonGunn shook his head. "We lost track of Niklos after someone tipped him off. We found that leak, and leaned on him. He gave us the only answer we needed."
"So why do you want him back so badly?" Archivist put in. "If you have the information you need..."
"We... have
some
of the information we need." VonGunn corrected. "There is obviously a plan underway, but the more we learn about it, the less it seems directed at us. And then when Niklos moved to New York unexpectedly, we started to worry. The whispers all lead to one of our own being in charge. But by the time we found someone who was willing and alive to give us a name, it was too late. Niklos had left, so had the other suspected conspirators, and so did the Ringleader, our... former head of security."
"
Former
head of security?" Yasi repeated.
"When the trail led to him, we took him prisoner, and he escaped. We can't find him, or his contacts. So when we found out his whole operation, Owen included, had gone to New York..."
"And in the two years it took us to do something about it, he kept working..." Yasi sighed. "Does this Ringleader have a name?"
VonGunn hesitated before saying it, with a hushed voice and low tone, as though afraid of saying the name too loudly. "...Vandark."
~oo00oo~
Connie found the kids were thrilled to have her as a substitute teacher. They were like Neverland's Lost Boys and Girls, and she fell in love with them instantly.
One of them, a boy named Patch, took the watch off her wrist like a pro pickpocket, and she hadn't even noticed. Lessons with the Lostkind children seemed to be about storytelling. She had spent half their lesson talking about life above the surface, and by the end of the hour, they were asking her questions.
She was doing her best to describe them. The Rules of the Lostkind said that they had to be a certain age before they went to the surface, and ones this young had never seen a tree, or the sky, or a car. Aside from the classroom; it was surprisingly similar to most class settings she'd seen in her life. There were a dozen kids, each with a pad and a wooden board to lean on. There were no desks; but the kids seemed perfectly comfortable wherever they were; perched on top of the shelves, and cross-legged on the stone floor. In front of the pipes it was actually fairly warm; and Connie was surprised to find she was enjoying herself.
Connie felt her stomach rumble, and was suddenly aware of how much time had passed. Patch sent a glance over at Kamy, who vanished into the shelves, and came back a moment later with a bowl. Connie smelled food and smiled. "What's this?"
"Dinner."
"Dinner?" Connie was surprised. "How long have we been here?" She checked her empty wrist. "My watch..."
Patch held it out to her and the kids giggled. Somewhere between the start and finish of the little class, he'd managed to polish it up like new.
There was a sound like a giant clearing his throat, and Connie turned, the watch in one hand, the bowl in the other, and found Archivist had come in, Vincent, Yasi and Keeper right behind him. Connie was surprised to realize that she felt relief at seeing him again. For a full two hours, she had managed to forget her paranoia about the place.
Vincent's face suggested that he had some stories to tell, but his stomach growled loud enough to put them all off when he caught the scent. "Ah! Food!" He came forward.
Connie grinned, and pulled the bowl back. "Uh-uh. You had your chance to eat."
Vincent barely blinked before looking back at Yasi. "So tell me Yasi, what's in that bowl she's holding?"
"Six meat stew. Underside delicacy."
"Six kinds of meat?" Vincent looked back to his girlfriend. "Let's see how many you can name."
Connie considered her options and handed him the bowl without contest. "Goodbye appetite."
There was a giggling sound at her reaction. Connie turned to smile at her 'class' and found they had vanished; every last one of them. There was the briefest sense of tiny figures darting into hiding places; but they were gone before she could track where they went. "Class dismissed." She murmured under her breath.
Vincent speed-ate half the bowl, and the four of them quickly summed up the point of the conversation with Berlin, and what they had learned.
"So... if Owen was part of a conspiracy in Europe, what's he been doing here for the last two years?" Connie asked when they were finished.
"That's the big question." Vincent agreed, finishing up. He set the bowl down on the smooth stone floor and pushed the bowl. It skittered across the room, toward the darker corners. A tiny hand flashed out of somewhere and snatched it up instantly. Connie jumped with a short, surprised yelp; not noticing her boyfriend trading a sly glance with Yasi.
"Okay. So we've got his history, and the name of his Master... Vandark." Yasi summed up. "Now we've got something to work with; it's time we spoke to Owen."
~oo00oo~
"Hey, you sure you want to do this?" Connie asked as they walked.
"I wasn't sure this morning. Now I am. I need to see him." Vincent said darkly. "I need to see Owen."
"Why?" Connie demanded. "What's going to be made better? What are you going to say to him?"
"I don't know, I just know that I have to." Vincent said. "He was there for two years, Connie. Two years, sitting right behind me." His gaze was clear and decided. "I have to see him."
Yasi sighed. "Well… just remember, you're the only thing we can think of that might get a rise out of him. He hasn't been speaking. Don't expect a lot of answers."