UNDERCITY
NOVEL
MONTE SCHULZ
Expect not to pass through life without a mixture of good and evil.
The Book of Fate
The story of this world is war.
War against the helpless. War against the infirm. War against the weak. War against the strong. War against the old. War against the young. War against the poor. War against the rich. War against health. War against science. War against faith. War against men. War against women. War against children. War against law. War against morality. War against love.
Peter Draxler “On the Decline of Man”
Should I describe the undercity? Maybe you don’t understand what it is. Beneath the plains of the metropolis are miles of limestone caverns and catacombs, water holes and sewer tunnels, an impossibly enormous labyrinth of understreets and sinkholes and rat drops, stone niches and overlooks and cul-de-sacs carved from ancient rock, worming along over and under brick passages beneath the trains and basements and cellars and elevator bottoms across each mile of the city above. We live here. More of us than you could ever imagine. Rumors and legends scare children with tales of wraiths and spectres haunting the dark corridors of the underground centuries prior to the Great Separation when our society chose to persecute those fellow citizens deemed unworthy of common life. Yet the undercity gave breath and purpose to those who escaped into the dark from the cruel eugenical crusade that brought true horror into our world and saw millions die for being different. Some were ill or mistreated, others uneducated and foolish, more than that were simply crippled and self-mutilating. But not all those existing in the slum tenements of Catalan, Beuliss, and Calcitonia deserved to be exterminated like human pestilence. The trains that carried away a million of them like tawdry freight baggage into the vast hinterlands of the east where death awaited the unprepared and feebleminded were vehicles of evil and ignorance. Some avoided that fate by fleeing here underground with no idea what awaited. In truth, another unkind fate. The caverns were cold and damp and ugly, the catacombs strange and dangerous. Hundreds got lost in descending passages miles under the earth of our exalted metropolis. How far was down? Rumors of underground rivers drew the thirsty and foolish. Was the ancient Potamus, river of the blind where cool springs and edible fungus abounded, a myth or salvation for the adventurous? Without lanterns or candles, and no one to guide them, too many died alone in a spider hole or the bottom of a cave fall. Some others adapted. Eyes widened. Fluorescent moss and odd insects and peculiar vermin gave off faint light enough to describe a strangely beautiful earth below our common caverns and catacombs and limestone tunnels. Those who ventured so deep did not rise again to the surface but thrived on the damp reedy banks of the mystical Potamus where subterranean creatures swam in the waters that led to the center of the world and gods of old whispered across the dark. So we heard at conclaves by oil lamp and echoes in the cold draft. Up where
iron pipes dripped city water and lamps were hung in the limestone cuts and passages, the underground filled with the terrorized and determined. Thousands and thousands from Viceroy and Nazarene Districts joining the last of the Catalan, Calcitonia, and Beuliss. Sympathetic refugees from that plague of cruelty and hatred. When the hunters and assassins descended at last to flush them out, the war begat a permanent underclass of resistance and desperation. Yes, ten thousand died in the dark tunnels, decimated by weapons of all sorts: blades of carbonized steel, double revolvers, mechanical rifles, Greek fire, prionic acid gas. Hellacious disputes in black crowded passages. Bodies hacked apart, shot to pieces, burned to cinder, engulfed in poison atmospheres so vicious internal organs were melted and expelled from every orifice and left to rot and stink in dusty limestone holes. Barricades arose from that. Hundreds erected out of iron and stone. Here and everywhere defense felt necessary and possible, the heartless assassins met resistance at last and legions of those died, too. Worse yet for them when our valiant survivors of that eugenical crusade looked upward and blasted holes in all the water lines and intruded gas pipes and coal chutes with simple hand torches to blow fire up into the comfortable homes and commerce buildings above. The best and bravest thieves snuck into growing fields and home gardens to salt the very soil of the jealous and apathetic. Livestock was ripped and butchered. Electric grids invaded and melted in each district. Agony met agony. Fear encountered fear. Months in a dry, cold, lightless metropolis, whose dead began to rival the underground, led finally to armistice, uneasy and unverifiable, except that promises were witnessed by the absence of violence and a prolonged quiet under the city streets and sidewalks and train stations. From that armistice, the undercity was born, and a century passed in vague serenity. Up above, at least. Another story was written in the dark.
MARCO’S JOURNAL, ENTRY #1
My name is Marco Grenelle, and I’m probably insane. It troubles me, though I’ve learned to adapt. I’m here to tell you my story. It’s a fine tale, I promise. So, listen closely.
Let’s begin with the great metropolis on fire and a boat on the holy river during that night of incineration and torment. At the bow of our skiff off Adorciés Point, the lovely Mirés Grillet showed me the ashes falling onto her coat. “Like snowflakes, Marco. Do you see here?” She offered me her sleeve and that smear of ash on the lovely black Dantec cotton she prized greatly for having freed it from the closet of a landlady who cheated her poorest tenants and fed cooked mice and roaches to starving children on Toussenel Lane. Mirés had an unsympathetic heart for those among us feeling no obligation to kindness or mercy. Aboard our skiff in the cold wind off our starboard bow, she bundled herself close to that sturdy Geismar Brecht who held a very old rifle and had a fear of the sea. They were not yet confidential with each other, though maybe it would happen one night soon. Mirés was attractive, but a pessimistic beauty. Her hair was dark as soot and she wore stingy hats to hide the unfashionable curls of it. I thought her figure was quite alluring, her lips sensual, her eyes alive with light and intuition. How could she not be loved? Geismar loved her. He followed her to this boat for that reason. We had people to save that day and did so more fiercely than we preferred. People died in the hour before the fire, friends of mine among them. I should say, people were shot dead. I myself shot the traitor Cohn in the head by the waterfront in the witness of children. Couldn’t be helped. He’d duped us, mostly Mirés who held him in her heart until I killed him. Then she had regrets for not killing him herself. That’s how we live.
Geismar dipped a hand into the cold water a quarter mile from the shore. “Did I tell you I can’t swim?”
“No.”
“It’s true,” he said. “I never learned. If we capsize, I’m sure I’ll drown.”
“We won’t capsize,” Mirés assured him. “Marco only secures the safest boats.”
“Is that so?” Geismar asked. “I want to trust you.”
“Of course,” I told him. “I can swim pretty well, but not at night in the river this close to the cold sea. Armand chose this skiff because of its reliability. Isn’t that right?” I called to our pilot. “Isn’t this vessel reliable?”
He told us, “Never sprung a leak. Just don’t shoot a hole in us.”
Geismar held up his rifle. “It’s not loaded now. I took out the shells once we left the trawler.”
“That’s good,” Armand said. “I’m not much for treading water with you folks.” He looked at the black Interpreter I held in my hand. “Does that electric box of yours work when it’s wet?”
“Never tried it. Let’s not get us to the need for a test.”
There were five of us in the skiff. Myself, Armand, Mirés, Geismar, and a girl from Philipon who wore a long cotton skirt and a violet gypsy scarf and crimson bandanna to disguise her look. She was actually not that pretty, so she needn’t have worried about unwanted attention. Those needle eyes and dark narrow face. Her name was Pyrénée and she was one of our assassins. A knife or pistol or poison. She refused to make any distinction. Causing a death to occur was all she desired. She’d killed many people. Dozens at least. Maybe hundreds. There are disputes about that. Pyrénée was nineteen years old, so how could she have found time to kill hundreds? Did she count the Ferdinand Club bombing for which she mixed the Opis powder to incite our imperitium? That was only part of the recipe. If credit were given, I can’t say it wasn’t earned, only that bodies must be shared among all of us.
She shivered in the dark wet wind, so I went to sit beside her. We weren’t yet truly affectionate with each other, but one day that might be possible. Neither of us have decided whether it’s needful or desirable. She and I have priorities that really aren’t shared. Like many of us, Pyrénée is doubtful that we deserve to live. She’s done terrible things. I have, too. And Mirés who has killed many
of those who hate more than love, a sin in her eyes. I’m not certain Pyrénée has any opinion in that regard. Her sapphire eyes shone in the underground under lamplight and candle. They’re vacant and distant. She claims to see in the dark, better even than we do by daylight. She has stories of impossible events that are terribly distracting when she tells them without preface or context. We do believe they’re true. Why shouldn’t spiders converse or devise plans? Are blue monkeys inhabiting the Gäeten-Lorette Cavern? No one disputes the possibility, but is it true? I have my doubts. Blue monkeys? Where had they escaped from? How were they not seen? Corporeal anonymity won’t extend to creatures other than us. That is a law. Supposedly. So many inconsistencies plague this world, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to trust anyone or anything as true.
We disembarked at La Cretelle Street by the only wharf that hadn’t yet burned. Armand tied off the skiff and stayed with it in case the fire from Belvedere approached with the wind that was blowing like a tornado within the upper city. The heat was terrific.
The street had gone dark because electricity had failed when the inferno bloomed. All the stations had melted and the collapsed metropolitan grid left survivors to candles and oil lamps. Some were used to it, so no great hardship. The undercity was, of course, perpetually dark wherever Prometheus ignored the lazy and inattentive. Castor and Pollux told me that. It was no contradiction. Autos on La Cretelle were unattended and parked at odd angles to the curb. Melted bicycles and wheeled chairs. Smoking cardboard boxes and old newspapers blew about in the street, singed with hot ash. I saw a sooty dog run whimpering out of an alleyway, tail tucked tight.
Mirés told us, “My mother’s dead.”
“No, she isn’t,” Geismar said. “It’s contrary to her nature.”
She took his hand. “My mother’s nature is worry. She can’t foresee happiness in turmoil. Her tarot predicted the end of all goodness. It’s gypsy blood clotting the veins of her heart. Those tales are no mysterium. I see her by the radio set with her sewing basket and a stray cat on her lap. Both burned up. We share our blood, so I know I’m right.”
I watched Pyrénée skip across the street to peek in the show window of a jeweler named Ocosingo. Emeralds and orchids featured in the display. She touched
that empty spot on her neck where a pretty pendant might hang. What was her dearest longing? Ornament or redemption? The city of our eternal torment was fully aflame and cruelties of all manner abounded. What hadn’t yet perished was put to hide and cower. Death was rampant. Life became precarious. Who could predict what came next?
Geismar thought we should look for the train stop at Perrégaux Boulevard whose stairs led underground. That was a mile away where the fires spread on the hot wind. Phantoms drifted about in the shadows and some of them had voices, others were mute and remote. I had presumed to see hundreds of refugees amid this sudden discord and found myself hoping we’d be welcomed into that company. Instead, Mirés asked, “Do you smell them?”
“Smell what?”
“Flesh. It’s all about. Like human cookstoves.”
“Of course it is,” Geismar said. “Why not? There are no graves here, no lime pits.”
“I meant that we’re not safe if we go farther from here. We’ll burn up with everyone else. My mother is on fire. Why should I burn, too?”
Wandering back over, Pyrénée offered her own observation. “We should’ve begun killing them last year when they weren’t expecting us. Then the gas wouldn’t have fallen and caught fire. That was an accident. I’m sure of it. Armand says so.”
I told her, “That was no accident. Believe me. I know the truth.” My companions had witnessed the airships but with no understanding of what they were or where they’d come from.
“And what’s the truth, Marco?” Geismar asked me. “Let us in on the secret to all this. You’re the sage of Calcitonia, aren’t you? A favorite of those old teachers. Keeper of dungeon wisdoms.”
Geismar was from Pausanius Province where superstition kept hay wagons ahead of motor cars for transportation, more so after the war swept most of its rural population into bitter graves.
I told him, “The gods came to finish those who had traveled east to kill all of their children.”
“Revenge?”
“Retribution,” I said, “and resolution. There had to be an end to all this. That was theirs. Burn this monstrosity down to the ground.”
Mirés wrapped her arms around Pyrénée and held her close. The younger girl was weeping. Mirés, too.
Geismar said, “We could use the downspout at Dowre Street. That’s only a couple of blocks from here and nothing’s burning there yet. It’s a good idea.”
“Unless it’s flooding. The Frochot Reservoir will have been given to fire hoses uptown. I bet they’ve melted and nobody’s there alive to shut the wheel off.”
“There are opinions to everything, Marco. One is that we’ll burn up soon.”
I saw the same inferno Geismar did just then, rising over Xhertién and Senefelder, a great hideous windblown demon, orange and wicked, unsympathetic to us.
“My skin is melting,” Mirés announced, unnecessarily.
We all felt our skin flaring up.
Clouds of black smoke cascaded toward us over the brickwork and towers at Scholem Street only a block away. That burning stink was nauseating. I thought I’d suffocate. Pyrénée sat on the sidewalk, head in hands, weeping like the child she was.
Then we were yelled at, ugly voices rising from the smoke, arriving in our direction. More wickedness. Geismar identified them. “Security Directorate. Rats.”
He backed up to the wall beside the apartment building flanking our sidewalk, one hand deep into his coat pocket. Having no bullets for the old rifle, he’d left that in Armand’s skiff, but he had a pistol and so did I.
Those two men wore uniforms of the Haussman Center where justice was arbitrary and venal. Blood and ash and water-soaked were these fellows. Not in happy moods. More angry than frightened, proof of stupidity in that moment. One pointed a revolver. The other raised some sort of iron bar. Those smarmy gilt-trimmed hats such agents wore to intimidate and punish were lost and gone. Such spit and polish wasn’t forever, after all.
The one with that menacing bar ordered us to sit, then shrieked, “You’re to blame for this, you fucking monsters! You’ve killed us all!”
Mirés left Pyrénée and rose from the curb. She held her hands open to those men to show no threat. I stood where I was. None of us was weaponless. Why should we be? Our war had been unending, perpetual, peace unimaginable in our time. In the hours of fire and mayhem, who could see a kinder future through the smoke and horror?
Approaching to a dozen yards, that fellow holding the revolver told Mirés, “Sit back down or I’ll shoot you where you stand. Witch!”
She replied, “I’m sure you will.”
Mirés had been shot before. Twice, in fact. At Calippe in the powder room of the Rupprecht Opera House, a soulless Tourenian assassin had put a bullet through her neck while Mirés sat on the commode fixing her blouse during intermission of the Vautrin Ballet. The woman was herself shot in the spine by one of our sisters in the adjoining stall, somehow missed or ignored by the assassin. Mirés survived because the bullet grazed rather than severed her artery. The vile assassin died on the spot. Her second miracle occurred during a gathering of political acolytes in a cold basement a block from the National Cathedral, a ceremony of initiation interrupted by agents of Internal Security who infiltrated the occasion through a makeshift tunnel and attacked with a pair of mechanical rifles that killed twenty-three people in ten seconds before Mirés and three guardians shot them to death and put their bodies in the sewer where rats would feed on them. In that exchange, Mirés suffered a wound that cracked two of her ribs and left her breathless for a month.
Young Pyrénée got up from the curb and strolled away from us again back toward that cloudy show window of jewels and glass. The fellow carrying the iron bar went after her. We watched with amusement at his foolishness. He caught up to Pyrénée and swung the bar at her head. She never bothered to look behind her, catching his reflection instead from the window glass and ducked, then jammed her black dagger under his ribcage and fell away. Geismar shot the other fellow with his pistol. So did I, putting my bullet into the side of his head. Mirés simply walked off into the smoke.
Pyrénée retrieved the black dagger and chased after her.
Geismar Brecht and I found our way through the frantic smoke to the downspout on Scholem and descended into the undercity where the insanity was more understandable.
MARCO’S JOURNAL, ENTRY #2
People tell me I look like a kid, but that night of the fire I was twenty-six years old and I’d lived half my life like a rodent in underground tunnels of filth and flood and fear of sudden death or deliberate torment. I’d learned how to negotiate cave-ins and repair sewer pipes and splice electrical wires. I’d been made aware in my youth of the wickedness of people, and I’d learned the unfortunate necessity of being able to kill without hesitation or remorse if I wanted to live. Stories we recall of survival are deliberately pathetic and cruel. Precious light and water ought not to be a gift we earn through virtue or fortune. The sun is a birthright. Is that not obvious? Memories of life underground and how we’ve struggled to reach the surface, those indignities we’ve suffered, tragedies we’ve endured, are necessarily painful to record and share. Yet without them, our history will go unnoticed, our trials unknown. Each of us in the undercity has a story. We’re far from the end, but there has to be a beginning. So, let me start here.
Mother told me I was born Marcus Delvau Grenelle in Jhering Hospital of Calcitonia District in our tawdry metropolis on a grey autumn morning of constant rain. She said I brought a ray of sunlight into a world that was pleased to greet me. In those days, my father, Dr. Albert Darwin Grenelle, was Prime Minister of Cultural Integration on the Judicial Council and held in the highest esteem. I’m sure my mother once loved him. She had a generous and needful heart and saw a goodness in him when they were young. Does the world diminish that essential spirit of us we’re born with? My teachers, Castor and Pollux, tell me it’s not inevitable, but on that point we disagree. Or perhaps not. I think it’s certainly possible to love someone so thoroughly that in our hearts we make them better than they are. A common experience. We choose to believe something of them even they don’t believe of themselves. Love is part hope and part need, and too often that need becomes so desperate we lose our sense of proportion. On that,