Beneath the streets, darkness

To my father

That evening, we went under ground to pierce the wall. Barbara was carrying the heavy duty equipment, while Andrew and I were following behind with the lights, some bags for the rubble, and the rest of our material. 

Fifty steps down the stairs, the second floor of the basement seemed to be on a much lower level than the rest of the neighbouring ones. Its vaulted ceiling was irregular, and the stone of the walls strangely resembled that of the buildings above. 

‘Remember that everything you see above ground matches a void under ground’, Barbara had told me one day - and that was what had given me a different perspective of this room, whose narrowness and shape was familiar to me from elsewhere. Andrew had come with me the next day and examined it for a long time, touching the marks of the pickaxes that had dug it, letting the white dust that covered the floor like snow flow between his fingers. He had tapped the walls, nodded and confirmed my suspicions. 

‘There’s a passageway in the back’, he had said, ‘they didn’t try too hard to cut it from the rest. We might be able to dig a tunnel, and see what we find.’

On the plans, that area seemed to be part of a smaller network, unconnected to the enormous labyrinth of the South. This has never stopped people like us from taking the initiative of creating connections where there were none, even at the cost of several nights of digging lying flat on our bellies, wriggling through narrow tunnels and pushing the heavy drill at arm’s length. Barbara was one of those who regularly opened new ways, unlocked access points or detoured obstacles. As stubborn as her power drill, but much more silent, she walked the network endlessly, making sure there was always a way to pass, and we were all used to seeing her thin silhouette sliding away into a side tunnel, at the end of our lamps’ lights. Thus, she had obviously been the first person I told about my discovery in that house that was barely standing, and that we could easily bring down once the access would be ready under ground. In the landscape of ruins, no one would notice a few more walls that would suddenly crumble, maybe except for some inhabitants of the neighbouring slums. They were often living into a different reality, anyway, after having drunk, smoked, eaten or taken by any other inventive method the latest substance that could make them fly high. It was very likely that they’d never notice the demolition shock wave, even less the noise we’d make by digging. 

Andrew guided Barbara to the wall in the back, tapping it all along to find the weakest spot. It seemed to be in a corner, at shoulder height; digging the first few meters was not going to be easy, holding the heavy drill in that position. Barbara nodded; she didn’t care about the difficulty, if it meant the tunnel was going to exist. We set up the small power generator by her side and took out the pickaxes to help her get started. As there wasn’t enough place for two, I volunteered to be the first to go, while Andrew would examine the rest of the walls. 

He had been a engineer, Before, until the army had recruited him. He’d met Barbara there and, together, they had made a reputation for themselves: no wall, trench, or building, however solid, could stop them from getting through. Their talents had been lifesaving for the community that had found shelter into the crowded few kilometers of the Lesser Network. Nowadays, we had access to the Daedalus and its extensive surface, which had permitted a better organization and, more importantly, the implementation of defensive means worthy of the name - once more, thanks to our two engineers. Our losses had plummeted to only a handful of persons in a few months, and we had been able to insure the survival of the newcomers. Our ranks now counted enough doctors, teachers, engineers and even a few members of the military and the police forces, who had taken charge of our defense. Some of us were even writers, painters and sculptors; we made ourselves useful as we could, but more importantly, we embellished our lives. A huge mural of Japanese waves had decorated the walls of a room whose floor had been eaten away to sand; Mira, our only astronomer, had helped us paint the constellations above us on the ceilings of the galleries. Others, like me, kept track of this Afterwards, writing every day, safekeeping pieces of our lives, creating a new shared memory. 

I was thinking fondly of our underground while chipping away at the wall, aiming to dig a niche large enough for Barbara to settle in with her drill, and wondering what we would find on the other side, dreaming of an opening that would change the Afterwards. It was a mad, impossible hope, but I couldn’t shove it away. Surely, at best, we would only have enough space for a new dormitory; at worst, for a storeroom or an ambush spot to protect the access to the rest of the network. It also depended on what Andrew would find behind the other walls - if there was nothing, we would have dug for yet another dead end. 

Feeling I was diving into dark thoughts, I forced myself to focus on the rhythm of my blows. One, two, three, four...

One, two, three, four...

One, two, three, four...

One, two, three, four...

I was standing on the sidewalk, holding my father’s hand. The day of the parade. We heard voices bark:

‘One! Two! Three! Four!’

The students, ranked by age from primary to high school, in their blue uniforms, stroke the pavement with their boots, all the heads turned towards us, their faces red under the sun. 

‘One! Two! Three! Four!’

I held the large hand tight, my eyes full of admiration. I was in kindergarten, only a Young Falcon, and did not yet have the right to be in the parade. 

‘One! Two! Three! Four!’

Years later, at the head of my highschool’s platoon, I was proudly leading my comrades under the white heat. My father was on the sidewalk, and his brooding face made my chest tight. He had just come out of his first interrogation for elitism and I, being a proud Eagle of the Homeland, was mad at him for it. He was putting a stain on my moment of glory, and on my reputation. 

‘One! Two! Three! Four!’

I was holding my daughter’s hand. With brooding faces and clenched jaws, we were watching the parade from the ruins of the slum. Our safety helmets and head lamps were at our feet. The rhythmic beat of their steps had resonated in our tunnel, and Claire had wanted to know what it was. In the muffled silence of the Daedalus, she only knew the sound of the pickaxes and the steps of the patrols.

‘This is what we’ve run from’, I’d told my daughter, lifting her in my arms. ‘It started with the uniforms, then the ranks and the discipline. The children have been the easiest to shape. To the adults, they promised order, eradication of crime and above all, safe lives for them and safe homes for their families. Everyone slowly got in line. Look, over there’, I had pointed at the blue tide rising in geometrical waves. ‘There are all the men of today.’

Claire had stared intently, narrowing her green eyes, more accustomed to the darkness beneath the streets than to this burning light of the world at the surface.

‘But they look content!’, she had observed as the ranks passed by, tanned faces turned towards us, grinning blissfully. 

‘They only look so. They have been convinced that happiness is doing their duty to the country, have a home and feed their family. They are no longer alive - they have no more imagination, no art, no thought.’

‘Why don’t we bring them with us, then?’

‘They wouldn’t want to come below. There is no order, no stability under ground. We must improvise, think, invent. It’s not comfortable. These people, they’re the children I once was. They don’t know anything else. If we bring them with us, they’d go right up and tell the authorities, and that would be the end of the network.’ 

 Claire had frowned as I was talking. 

‘We need to protect the Daedalus.’

I had held her tight against me.

‘One! Two! Three! Four!’

One! Two! Three! Four!

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four...

One, two...

‘Hey!’

...Three, four...

‘Hey!’

I jumped. Barbara’s hand was on my shoulder. 

‘I think that’s enough’, she whispered. 

The hole was sufficiently deep already. I rubbed my eyes as I moved away. The white light of my memories still burnt my eyelids. Andrew came to me, wiping his hands on his overalls.

‘We might be able to dig another tunnel in this corner. It will be tougher, but we can bring in a team through the first one, if we manage to make it large enough.’ He turned to Barbara, who nodded silently. Andrew sat by my side and put his hand on my arm.

‘We’ll find a way to get your father out. There has to be a way underground. I prom...’

‘One! Two! Three! Four!’

This time, it was a parade of prisoners. No smiles on their faces besides the despising sneer that twisted some mouths here and there.

‘One! Two! Three! Four!’

The blows fell on the backs of those who sniggered. Among them, my father, Elitist 3rd Class. Dangerous. Intellectual insubordination. At work, he had dared submit a dangerous, bold idea for the Dome that was going to protect us from the white danger of the merciless, ozoneless sky. He had openly defended his project, and pointed at the mistakes in the official plans. Rebel against the order, the green lozenge on his chest accused. Amongst them, other shapes and colours marked the inmates: triangles, hexagons, stars, red, orange, purple, everything but the white circle of the sheep of the Dome. Artist. Astronomer. Doctor. Teacher. Rebellious, resistant, incorrigible, insurgent or recalcitrant. 

Free.

In that moment, I had understood. 

In the evenings, I started looking for ways in. I would hide my Eagle scarf in the bag, pull grey overalls over my uniform, and search. Sometimes, other shapes moved in the shadows of the ruins. When I had finally found my first entry, a group had met me a few meters in, appearing from a lateral gallery, questioned me rather harshly, and finally adopted me. Together, we had found ancient maps, identified possible access points, forced manhole covers, doors, and gates open, we had dug and explored. We became hundreds, all of us rebellious, recalcitrant, free. The hunt for dreamers, thinkers, and innovators went on daily: us, to shelter them; the others, to confine them. Underneath, under their feet, we were building a new society, of the Afterwards, of the Idea, the Creation, and of Choice. We were the escaped ones, the Freed. Claire had grown up seeing the painted waves of the Beach, and dreaming under the painted stars of our ceilings. 

‘That’s it!’ Andrew’s triumphant cry bounced off the walls of the narrow basement. I woke up shivering, as if the dark chill of the underground had gotten into my blood. From the hole in the wall, Barbara’s arm was waving at us. We dove in, stepping over the drill, and turned our head lamps on. 

A room of monumental proportions, its ceiling sustained by towering pillars, stretched away into the darkness. We piled in, awed and silenced by the size of it, unlike any other place in the network. I whistled quietly, and immediately felt like an intruder. 

‘Let’s try and get the measure of this place’, Andrew whispered, taking out his underground map. We heaved the backpacks on our shoulders and started walking, Andrew chewing the end of his pencil like he always did when preoccupied. From time to time, we would stop and Listen, the way we learnt to do it underground. Silence wrapped itself amicably around our breaths until we moved on. Walk. Stop. Listen. Walk. Stop...

‘Listen!’

I lifted a hand and strained my hearing. Somewhere above, muffled by several meters of earth, I could hear a rhythm. We turned off our lights, and darkness closed in on us, muting down the distractions. We sat down, palms on the ground, held our breaths and Listened. No sound. No light. Be one with the stone. Listen to the network. 

One! Two! Three! Four!

We all heard it. I couldn’t breathe.

‘We’re under the prison’, Andrew whispered very quietly, groping for my hand through the darkness. I held it tight.

‘We found it. We can bring your father down here.’

‘And we can launch the Resistance.’