CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - SHIT BUREAUCRACY

“New Montréal is an interesting city for many reasons, one of which is its government. Originally a city in Quebec, after the Great Split, Montréal declared itself a city-state and was rechristened New Montréal.

Its fledgling government discovered an immediate issue when its mixed-language groups both started to wrestle for power within the city. The end result is a municipal government that’s nearly entirely French, serving a population that’s nearly entirely English, while in actuality being run by an upper-crust that is entirely non-Canadian.”

--Excerpt from the Guide Touristique du Nouveau Montréal, édition, 2049

***

“I figure we walk on in and just go straight to them,” I said with a gesture to the Oasis’ entrance. We’d wasted enough time asking questions and trying to get to the bottom of things, but the Sewer Dragons seemed about as organized as my kittens halfway into a pillow fight. There was some semblance of a hierarchy, maybe, but there wasn’t a boss, and no one quite knew what the others were thinking except that they were all thinking along the same chaotic lines.

Gomorrah nodded. “Might as well. Either we’ll find someone to help us or we’ll find the people we’re looking for. Do you think we need anything special to head in?”

“I guess we’ll need masks and things able to keep us alive in there. Does your armour cover you entirely?

“Did you think I was nude under my robes?” Gomorrah asked.

I raised my arms in surrender. “I wasn’t even thinking it. I thought you had some sort of underarmour on. But... now that I’m imagining it, it’s not a bad mental image.”

Gomorrah’s hand snapped back and she smacked my arm with the back of her hand. “Pervert,” she said.

“Are you always this horny?” Franny asked.

I grinned. “Your Delilah’s the one that started it... this time. But, before we start talking too much, we really do need a gear check. Myalis, we going to be okay in there?”

If by we you mean you and I, then yes. Your underarmour is intact, reading at 99% integrity. It should prevent most chemical or radiological contaminants from touching your skin. Your Lion’s Mane’s structural integrity is still replicator-perfect. Your helmet’s filtration system should allow you to breathe in nearly any environment, and with the stored air, you could survive in a vacuum for up to a quarter of an hour.

“So, no dying from fart air. Nice,” I said.

“A disgusting way to put it,” Gomorrah said. “But not entirely wrong. I’m ready as well, although... I think I might need to disrobe.”

I blinked. “Huh?”

Gomorrah tugged at the front of her black robes. “These won’t be great in what might be a wet environment.”

Made sense. Gomorrah and I looked for a place for her to change, and we ended up sneaking into an alley between two small maintenance buildings off to the side of the Oasis. I stood by the entrance, making sure no one was around, then I looked back in.

Gomorrah shifted her shoulders, then carefully reached up and tugged at the edge of her collar. It loosened and she tugged down the outer hood of her habit. She had a tighter, white hood beneath, one stuck to the sides of a helmet that looked about as high-tech as my own. Well, it has little glowy bits and was made of metal, so I was guessing.

She placed a leg forwards, then bent down and swept the robes off in a single, languid motion, the cloth riding up along her legs and back and revealing the Gomorrah underneath until she straightened, a bundle of cloth in her hands. She started to casually fold the robes while I stared.

I thought my armour was a bit... feminine, but Gomorrah’s was on another level. Tight, fitting to her calves and thighs and butt, with armoured plates and some sort of blacker-than-black weave over the parts that needed any flexibility. Her back-mounted flamethrowers rested below her shoulders like a pair of folded wings, and there was a cross-shaped cut out under her bust.

“Fuck me.”

I blinked. The whispered words weren’t my own. They were Franny’s. I doubt anyone else picked them up though.

“Right, so that’s— yeah. Ready to go?” I asked.

“I’m ready,” Gomorrah said. She placed her folded robes next to a box on the ground, then picked up her flamethrower. She slid a strap over her shoulder.

She looked a lot smaller without the volume of her robes making her bigger.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “We heading out?”

The Oasis loomed large above us as we moved towards it. Gomorrah didn’t have the advantage of being invisible, and I couldn’t help but notice a few of the people near the sewer entrance looking her way.

Stolen novel; please report.

Something told me they weren’t staring to check her out, exactly.

“Myalis, can we have a map of the sewers?” I asked. “And highlight any places big enough to house a bunch of civilians.”

Myalis was quick to create a small hovering map on the edge of my vision, and when I tried to peek at it, it grew larger before me. The three-dimensional wireframe was a confusing mess of tunnels, side passages, more tunnels, and a few boxy buildings. Some of those were flashing slowly.

The map expanded, and then expanded further. I frowned as it continued to grow, mostly getting wider and longer, but occasionally there were sections that rose or fell below. Fortunately, the map became smaller, zooming out as it covered more territory.

“What the hell,” I said once it finally stopped.

“That’s the entire sewer system,” Franny said. It sounded like she was guessing, though it was an educated guess. “The system for the entire city.”

Which meant its footprint covered the whole city too. A city with nigh on a hundred million living in it.

“Fuck,” I said. “Covering this on foot is just not going to happen.”

Gomorah paused. “You’re right. I didn’t expect it to be quite this large. Atyacus, can you overlay the location of the kidnappingIs over the map?”

Dots appeared, a couple hundred of them sprinkled atop the sewer lines. “Oh, that’s better,” I said. For the most part, the abductions were happening in an area that was more or less oval shaped. There were lots of tunnels beneath that, but they mostly joined up to one or two larger passages.

“Do the Sewer Dragons have vehicles?” I asked.

“Likely,” Gomorrah said. “I imagine there’s something that can travel through the large sewers, at least.”

I nodded. That made it more complicated. Still... “Let’s start with the places nearest the kidnappings.” There were two larger locations being highlighted there. “If I was a creepy sewer-living person who wanted to... I dunno, eat surface dwelling hobos, I wouldn’t want to travel far for my lunch.”

“Disturbing, but probably not wrong.”

“I don’t think the whole ‘don’t shit where you eat’ thing applies down here,” I said as I minimized the map back to a square in the corner of my vision.

Raccoon giggled, and I heard her feet patting against... what was likely the front seat in the Fury. Gomorrah groaned. “And now you went from disturbing to disgusting.”

“I do that,” I said.

No one stopped us--or at least Gomorrah, who was the only one visible--from entering the facility. I was expecting a sewer. Like, a large tunnel half-filled with shit water. Instead, it was all cinderblock walls and a cement floor, lights hung from the ceiling, most of them functional enough to brighten the place up.

Crates were pressed against one wall, some shipping containers against another, and on either end was a long tunnel that curved around.

A few metal doors at the far end seemed to open up into some offices, of all things.

“Not what I expected,” I said.

“This is an access area,” Gomorrah said. “The map... isn’t terribly clear.”

“Hey, miss, whatcha doing here?” someone asked.

It was a rotund man, with a ketchup-stained button-up and slacks. He had a helmet on, like a large glass bubble with the bottom half over his mouth covered in filters, but otherwise he could have been any mid-level factory foreman. At least, I figured he was a foreman; that’s what the tag on his shirt said.

“Hello,” Gomorrah said. “I’m... who are you?”

“I’m Bob,” he said. “Who’re you?”

“I’m Gomorrah. I’m looking for access to... this area.”

Bob frowned the frown of someone who had both been interrupted--there was some sauce on his patchy moustache--and of someone who’d been sent a pile of data that they didn’t want. “That’s a ways from here. Do you have permission to be down here, miss?”

Gomorrah gestured to some of the others in the large room. Sewer Dragons, with their long coats and metallic limbs. Some were looking our way, others were fiddling with tablets or pushing crates along or just minding their own business. “Do they?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “They do. They’re all commission-based, temp-contract workers for the city of STE New Montreal.”

“STE?” I muttered.

The department in charge of the city’s sewerage: Société de transport des égouts du Nouveau Montréal.

“Oh, fuck me,” I said.

Bureaucrats.

I’d rather have my legs eaten by an alien than deal with that kind of shit.

***