Eli Briggs
Bodies entangled on the bed spoke in hushed voices.
“We could find our own place. Just for us,” he said softly. Caressing his lover's face with a gentle hand.
His partner smiled up at him, softly and serenely and pulled him down for a kiss.
It was a short lived moment of bliss.
The door was thrown open so violently that the top hinge separated from the frame.
He hadn’t heard the footsteps. He hadn’t heard him coming.
They scrambled from the bed to hastily throw on clothing but there was no preserving dignity. Or preventing the reckoning that was coming.
Eli awoke with a gasp as he sat up and fumbled around his nightstand under the dark of night. He wrapped his hand around the pull switch of the lamp and yanked it down so hard he nearly pulled it off the table.
Heart racing, he looked at the door. It was firmly shut, just as he’d left it.
He let himself flop backwards in relief but the pounding in his chest betrayed his sense of safety.
Still, he pulled the blanket up to his head and hoped he would find sleep.
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Later that morning, he was sitting on a bench adjacent to a moderately well travelled tunnel junction in the thirteenth borough. The staircase was marked by a large letter ‘T’ emblazoned atop a sign post, indicating access to the tunnels located underground.
He sipped on his coffee as he watched. The sunglasses were doubly effective in obscuring his tired eyes and the way they darted around from person to person. He watched the way they descended down the steps to access whichever tunnel would bring them to their destinations.
And so he sat through the majority of rush hour and just observed.
A part of him felt antsy that nothing about this morning’s work was appreciably bringing him any closer to the Shadow Fellowship but he tried to exercise patience. It was a slightly mundane task so it gave him time to think. It was certainly helpful to have a measure of normalcy. How busy a given tunnel access point was at a given time was valuable information to the right people.
And if he wanted to find them, he would have to thoroughly check for anything abnormal.
When he had decided that he’d seen enough from the outside he got up and pitched his empty cup into a garbage can at risk of overflowing before walking intently towards the brightly lit sign. As he descended the stairs he looked at the framed advertisements along the walls. They had seen better days; clearly nobody had been keeping them current.
One in particular caught his eye. The original advertised a popular chain store in the lower boroughs that sold work clothing for those who worked in agricultural sectors but plastered over top of it was a new poster that read as a manifesto of why tunnels were the sign of end times. He tore it down and glanced at it for a moment before pocketing it.
The bottom of the stairs led him to a hallway that was lined with several tunnel openings, each bearing its own golden placard that indicated the intersection or landmark, the borough, if in Occaigh, and the spheroid name. Several tunnels at this junction led to other spheroids; this was where most of the workers were heading. Instead, he continued on his path until he reached the tunnel that would lead to the business center of the thirteenth.
One thing was for certain was that this would be a job bigger than one person could manage.
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“Who are you coming here today as, ey? Are you Eli Briggs or the Mayor’s lap dog?”
Eli politely smiled and leaned back. “You know I don’t like labels, Councillor.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say. I take it you don’t have good news for me today?” the larger man said gruffly as he lit a cigar.
Eli sat in the office of the councillor of the thirteenth borough. Eli liked him; though he could be stubborn he was one of the few who didn’t typically use a proxy to meet with Eli. That hadn’t changed since he began working directly for the Mayor’s office. If anything, it made him more open to negotiations
Eli shook his head. “I have some things of note. Unfortunately, not all of them are good, Councillor. But I do have some free advice for you.”
He grumbled and sat back in his chair. “Ha! Your advice is anything but free. But fine, lay it on me. What’s going on in my borough?”
“Oh Councillor, you know I always take care of you,” Eli said charmingly, “You’re my favourite politician in Occaigh.”
“Ha! Don’t try to flatter me. We both know who you really answer to. Just give me what you know.”
Eli gave a good natured shrug. “No idea who you’re talking about. But since you’re being so impatient I would say the most alarming thing to note is that the usual crowds have diminished by over half since my last visit,” he began to explain.
“So what? That ties in with all the complaints from businesses that positions are going unfilled. It’s not news that people aren’t showing up to work,” he said bluntly while sitting back in his chair.
Eli shook his head. “It’s not just workers who aren’t using it. This location should be bustling with not only blue collar workers but also parents ushering young children along for childcare drop offs. Or students heading to school. I didn’t see a single child today, nor anyone who appeared to be running domestic errands. What I did see was the odd worker passing through as hurriedly as possible. Do you see the problem here?”
“Yeah, the problem is that people need to toughen up. Everyone has become soft after these collapses. I have half a mind to start ruling people back to work.”
“You could, if you want your constituents calling for your early retirement,” Eli shrugged.
“You’re from the sixteenth. You know how people tick. We’re not like the pansies in the upper boroughs.”
“Yes,” Eli conceded with a roll of his eyes, “But the cascade effect down through the boroughs means that the sixteenth feels the pressures more acutely. I can confidently say that your borough is the cause of the cascade. The twelfth isn’t experiencing the same decrease in productivity that you are, so let me be direct in saying that you need to clean up your act.”
He leaned forward in his chair and rested a meaty arm on the desk. “Eli, I know you didn’t intend to threaten me,” he said warningly.
Eli held his gaze. “If I wanted to threaten you I wouldn’t have bothered doing your work for you,” he said coldly, “Perhaps you’ve forgotten how many times I’ve scratched your back for you. Don’t insult me by mistaking my generosity as pure good will.”
They sat in silence for a moment but the councillor was the first to break eye contact. “Ugh, fine, I’ve never been able to rattle you, Eli. It’s why I like you. Alright, you’ve told me about my problems, let’s hear some solutions.”
“Well, people are afraid. They need to feel safe as an incentive. If you can attract families back to using the tunnels I think you’ll be in a better position. So here’s my first question, how do you feel about adding a Controller checkpoint into junctions like this one?”
“Absolutely not!” he balked.
“I know, I know. But do you know what I’ve noticed? The lower boroughs don’t have nearly as many Controller checkpoints as the upper boroughs. Tunnel travel is down in the upper boroughs too but not by nearly as much and they’re the ones who have actually had a collapse,” Eli explained.
“We don’t want those types down here. No offence meant to your boy but they just bring trouble. Besides, there’s no operationally feasible way to have them man every tunnel.”
“The Guilds are facing their own threats, I agree, but right now we’re vulnerable to it by not having any oversight. They don’t need to man every tunnel, just the main arteries like they do in the upper boroughs. Someone, somewhere, has deemed the lower income areas as lower priority. Doesn’t that bother you?” Eli pressed.
“This is something that I’ve always complained to Tarry about. Not about tunnel security, though,” he said with a sigh, “Nobody cares about us down here. But without us they stand to lose everything. They need us more than we need them. That said, I am firmly against bringing in the Guilds to our tunnel junctions.”
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Avoiding a brewing class war wasn’t exactly something Eli had capacity for but he might as well throw it on the pile.
“I could put a bug in his ear about priorities but this may be something you will need to yield on eventually. But, since I knew this would be unpopular for you, I also think there’s a lot of our own security we could be doing as a start,” he said as he pulled out the poster from earlier and slid it across the desk, “I found this today.”
The councillor scanned it and frowned in concern. “Do you think this is keeping people away?”
“Not on its own but we’re letting things fester so that it can take root. The junction looks like shit. Why would anybody want their working partners to take it? People need income but they won’t risk losing their breadwinners. Furthermore, why would anybody want to use it to travel with their children? I’d suggest putting a bit of money into cleaning things up.”
The councillor considered this. “Do people really care about that sort of thing? It’s not like I need people hanging out in tunnel junctions as a solution to my problems.”
Eli pulled out his notebook, “By my observations the middle boroughs have cleaner areas and nicer facilities. Where people feel comfortable taking their families is where they want to live and work. Do you want to be remembered as the councillor who oversaw a decline to dilapidation or the one who rose above and made the thirteenth a viable place to live on a single or limited income?”
“And I suppose you have a few people in mind for some government contracts?”
“What can I say, the sixteenth has some people in need of work. You help me put them to work and you will start seeing your own unemployment rate falling and your popularity in the polls will appreciably increase in time for the next election cycle.”
“And what do you get in return?”
“Well I’ll take my usual modest cut off the top of awarded contracts but what I really need is better eyes on the ground. I’m on the lookout for any new or emerging threats. I can’t be everywhere at once so I need the boroughs to start watching their tunnel systems better. I’ve given you years of information and it’s time for me to ask the same in return.”
The councillor frowned. “So you’ll need me to get some resources lined up?
Eli nodded. “I’ll get your tunnel junctions cleaned up and then, yes, I will need you to find people who can report to me.”
He looked at Eli with measured scrutiny before sighing. “Fine, but I’ll want credit for this clean-up project though, not Tarry. He’s always stealing my thunder for everything good that happens down here.”
Eli let a small smile flicker to his face. “Just continue to publicly endorse him and we’ll make sure it’s all eyes on you.”
“Alright, Eli, you’ve got yourself a deal.”
They shook on it.
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He spent his time musing while travelling to the twelfth. Things did look much cleaner here but he still needed people on both sides at the ready. He strode through the front door of Jayson’s jazz room but was intercepted before he even made it three steps into the premises.
“It’s not a good time, Eli,” Jayson said brusquely.
Eli raised one eyebrow and scanned his surroundings as quickly and discreetly as he could. Nobody seemed to be suspicious of them or carefully monitoring them. A few patrons closer to them looked on with curiosity but not scrutiny.
“Is there a problem, Jayson?” he inquired politely but firmly.
“No, no problems,” Jayson responded hurriedly.
Eli studied his face. His brows were furrowed deeply and his eyes were darting outside. Eli looked around and found nothing of note outside. No one was hanging around or peering inside.
And yet, this was beyond his usual nervous energy; the fear was evident on his face.
Eli dropped his voice in a comforting way. “Is there anything I can help with?”
Jayson seemed to teeter the edge of panic and relief. Finally something cracked and he let out a breath he didn’t seem aware that he was holding in.
“Fine. My office, if you please,” he stammered quietly.
Eli allowed him to lead him to the back. He stood in the doorway to his office and ushered Eli in past him, looking around conspicuously before shutting it behind him.
Eli sat down but followed him with his eyes as he paced behind his desk, wringing his hands as he walked.
“Jayson, my friend, what is upsetting you?” Eli asked pleasantly.
“Eli, it’s not good,” he began.
Eli frowned. “What’s not good?”
“It started slow, you see, I noticed that they were new but I didn’t pay them any mind. We’re always getting new people checking the place out, seeing what we’re about. But they’re different. I started trying to chat with them, see if they liked the music, what they wanted. But I got nothing; they were like brick walls. I thought it was, you know, strange but figured they’d eventually lose interest and stop showing up. Instead they started coming once a week. Then a few times a week. And now almost every day.”
Eli leaned back and nodded slowly. “So what do ‘they’ do?”
“Not much, really. They make people uncomfortable though. They just seem to watch. Always watching. They’ll buy drinks but scarcely touch them,” he was starting to sound frantic.
Eli cocked his head to the side. It might be nothing. Jayson wasn’t known for his shrewdness. But then again, it might be something. “I’d like to see them,” he said definitively.
“No, Eli-” Jayson began.
“Jayson,” Eli sharply cut him off with a pointed stare.
Jayson flinched but said nothing further in protest.
“If you have a problem here, I will fix it. But I will not have valuable information such as this kept from me. I will be the judge of what is a concern and what’s not,” Eli levelled a stern glare at Jayson.
“Ye-es,” Jayson said hesitantly, “There is something you should know though.”
Eli gave him a thoroughly unimpressed look. “Which is?”
“They asked about you,” he said in a way that suggested he thought he was being helpful.
Eli felt his lip twitch before he got up and slammed both palms on the desk in front of him. Jayson jumped.
Eli levelled a finger at him. “That is not helpful!” he barked.
Jayson shirked back with his hands up. “I’m sorry, I thought I was protecting you by keeping you out of here!”
Eli’s eyes flashed in anger. “Do you not think this would’ve been constituted as valuable information to know before I walked in today?”
“In hindsight, definitely,” Jayson nodded furiously.
Eli fell back into the chair with a growl. “Tell me everything you know. What they look like. How many there are. Are they here right now?”
“No, no. I haven’t seen them yet today! But it’s two people, a guy and a girl. He’s kind of pale with dark hair and she’s a blonde.”
“Young? Old? Anything distinguishing? How do they dress?” he fired back.
“Okay, okay. Both are probably younger than you. They dress normally. Nothing out of the ordinary but the guy has what looks like a burn mark across the top of his left hand and wrist.”
Eli mentally filed this away and hung his head for a second to compose himself before taking a deep breath.
“Alright. Thank you,” he said in a much calmer voice, “If anything happens, and I mean anything at all, do not hesitate to call me in the future.”
Jayson at least had the decency to look ashamed. “You got it. I’m sorry, Eli. Do you want me to see if they’re out there now? I can sneak you out the back door.”
Eli rubbed his forehead with one hand in disbelief and was about to wave him along but paused.
“No. I have nothing to fear from two unknowns with sloppy workmanship. I’ll take my chances walking out without looking like a snivelling child,” he said in exasperation.
He looked up to gauge Jayson’s reaction and found only poorly disguised anxiety at the idea.
“Will that be a problem?” he asked pointedly despite already knowing the answer.
“Well… uh… I suppose not,” he said haltingly.
“Jayson,” he said with a sigh, “There are only two things you need to do the next time they come around asking after me. Firstly, you tell them where to find me. Secondly, you call me immediately. I am not asking you to interfere on behalf of me and I will not allow your business to be harassed by people who can’t even make their intentions known.”
This seemed to placate him. “Yes. Yes, of course!” he nodded fervently.
“Good!” he sprung to his feet, “Now if you’ll be so kind as to lead me out, I need to continue my business.”
Jayson only hesitated for a moment. “Hey Eli, I don’t mean to be paranoid, but what if these people are the same as the ones that were on the news a while back? You know, the ones who held up the guilds.”
Eli paused once more. He wasn’t surprised by the potential for connection, he was just surprised it was something Jayson came up with. But then again, accustomed though he was to Jayson’s high-strung nature, he couldn’t deny the general worry that seemed to have settled over Occaigh and he felt sympathy towards his circumstances.
“Well, even if that’s what they end up being, it doesn’t change what I told you. If they do anything out of the ordinary, or you collect any information at all about them, even if you don’t think it’s noteworthy, you know how to reach me.”
He clapped Jayson on the shoulder and allowed himself to be led out into the bar. A discreet scan of premises revealed no one who met the description Jayson provided. A disappointment to be sure; he was hoping for something to work with.
It wasn’t until he was back on the street and about to orient himself to head back to the sixteenth that something caught his interest. A blonde woman stood with a brunette man on the nearest street corner. They seemed to be speaking in a heated manner. He used his peripheral to keep her in his sights but kept his eyes straight forward as he neared their position.
On the other hand, she visibly jolted and she did a double take at him as he approached and impulsively hit the arm of her male partner. He turned just as Eli swept past them and they both openly stared at him.
He didn’t even give them a glance and instead of turning towards the tunnel junction that would, eventually, lead him to the sixteenth, he turned fluidly towards the junction that would lead to the upper boroughs.
“Fucking amateurs,” he thought as a crooked smile formed on his face.
He hoped they’d give chase; it had been a while since he had seen some action.