Magnus shrugged and led her down the gently sloping plain. They passed so close to the hulking brown animals that she expected to be overpowered by a beastly stench, but they didn’t smell like anything. The whole place gave off a distant, musty odor like the pile of blankets she’d been sleeping on. It certainly didn’t smell like a room packed with dozens of wild animals.
Near the pond they descended into a grassy trench that quickly became a cement tunnel. She glanced behind her as the magnificent room was eclipsed by brief darkness before they emerged into a much bigger tunnel. It was dim and damp and smelled like feet. Drops of water fell from corroded iron crossbeams above her head and plinked into shallow puddles.
“Step carefully, child,” Magnus said, indicating the grid of steel bars laid out in regular intervals beneath her feet. “How much do you know about the history of your city?”
“I know about the Canopy Division Law and about the riots. I’ve never been down here, though. Before today I’d never even been inside the thirtieth floor. People go in, and they don’t come out.”
Magnus’s eyes twinkled in the gloom. “Is that what they say?”
She nodded. “They say the Scourge gets them.”
Maybe you feed them to the animals, she thought.
“Ah, yes. The Scourge.” Magnus led her around one of the massive plasteel support beams that split the tunnel in half and burrowed into the ground. She followed him to the left, where a soft light cast long shadows on the decaying tile walls. Beneath the brown grime, she could make out a repeating pattern:
LEX 59 LEX 59 LEX
“We’re in the old New York City subway system,” Magnus explained. “The very bottom of ESC, forgotten by most, ignored by the rest. My brother and I have been here for quite some time.”
She had heard of the old train tunnels, but it was common knowledge that the entrances and exits had been filled in long ago.
“The way is shut to everyone except my brother and me and a few others,” he said. She wondered if he could read her thoughts. It wouldn’t have surprised her.
They rounded a bend and the tunnel became fully illuminated. Here the grime had been scrubbed from the walls and the rails lining the floor tapered off into a smooth tile path. In front of her, bathed in the glow of an enormous chandelier, two leather couches flanked an iron door.
Magnus said, “Welcome to our home. In the past, some of our privileged guests have included your guardian, Jiri, and his sister, Dita.”
Mistletoe stopped. His words created an immediate lump in her throat. She swallowed mightily and grabbed his sleeve, twisting the soft fabric in her hand. “You know Aunt Dita? Is she alive? Is she here?”
Magnus shook his head and pushed open the iron door. “We’ve lost contact,” he said darkly. She dropped his sleeve and followed him into a brightly lit room about half the size of the silent zoo, cluttered with unwieldy pre-Unison computers and gleaming modern laboratory equipment that reminded her of her dream. The walls were lined with rows of open scan-tubes with tangles of machine guts spilling out. In front of her, Nelson was propped against a pile of familiar-looking plastic boxes. Microwaves, she thought. Jiri’s shop had dozens. She wondered how long it would take her to sprint to Nelson, kick-start the engine, engage the lifts, and take off down the tunnel. She wished she knew how to use Ambrose’s prediction-flow whatever-thing. Her best guess was that Magnus would grab her before she could reach the iron door, which had shut behind them anyway.