Into the tunnels!
I don't wanna be around you
Just wanna be like you
-- Glass Animals, Hot Sugar
The entrance they walked to was only a couple of blocks away, the closest one to Scott and Dylan’s place—Vernon. That begged the question whether Dylan lived in the area because it was Poison Dart turf, or if he’d become a Poison Dart because he happened to live on their turf. Theodore wouldn’t actually ask though; he’d come too far to blow his own cover. They already thought he was one of them, so he’d act like it, dumb questions excluded.
Differently from Cantaloupe, Vernon was desolate, shrouded in the dark portion of the block where streetlights couldn’t reach it, virtually impossible to find. It was obvious that only the people who already knew about it were able to successfully come here. The only sign indicating it was a faded piece of metal on the wall.
Theodore followed the others to the stairs, and with his heart beating loudly, watched them pause to glance back at him. His breathing ceased.
“Do you care to be seen with us?” V asked, her voice a small disturbance in the night.
He knew that, if Vernon had been as populated as Cantaloupe, he would’ve had a much harder time getting this close to the entrance.
“Why would I care?”
“You’re not a Poison Dart,” Marquis pointed out. The look on his face was very deliberate, eyebrows drawn into a slight scowl. “… Are you?”
In response to that, Theodore glanced up at the buildings that formed the dark skyline. This close to his apartment, it wasn’t very difficult to find it, a familiar shape amid similar ones. He pointed at it. “You see that building with a garden on top? That’s where I live.”
“Oh.”
Marquis glanced at V. An understanding was shared between them, out in the open, yet not one that Theodore could fully grasp the meaning of. The two of them agreed on something hidden in plain sight and turned toward the stairs, V’s manicured hand touching the railing.
“Let’s go, then.” With that, she started down the poorly lit tunnel, followed by the others.
So Theodore’s suspicions were correct, that living in a certain area was enough to tie someone’s allegiance to the faction that owned it. He wasn’t sure if that was all it took to make someone a Poison Dart, a Gorgon or an Alvorada, but at the very least, their addresses seemed to be involved. Did that make him a Poison Dart, then? Was he a Poison Dart? Laith had never said anything about it. Then again, Laith didn’t consider him one of them.
With his heart in his mouth, Theodore followed the group down. Perhaps the agreement between Marquis and V was that he was, in fact, a Poison Dart, which would make his presence among others of his kind perfectly fine. That was the only explanation he could come up with.
Hwan was the last one in line, directly in front of him, with shoulders so wide that it was impossible to see ahead. So far, he could tell that the walls on both sides were of white tile, gray in the dark, but that was all.
“Hwan?” His voice was made much louder by the narrow hallway that bounced it from one wall to the other. “Who owns the Jasmine Gardens?”
Hwan passed him a brief glance over the shoulder. “You mean that suburb fifteen minutes from here?”
“Yeah. Which faction owns it?”
A hum echoed up the empty shaft. As the group descended, a green hue began to take over, much brighter than the sporadic light bulbs that hung overhead. Right—this area was green. Laith had told him about it, the five-story buildings, the grass and the trees. At least, that was what Parkside looked like; he didn’t know if it applied to Vernon too.
“I’m not sure how big Jasmine Gardens is, but that’s green turf up until North Woods. After that, it’s orange.”
He remembered that entrance, North Woods; it was the first one he’d ever seen. His old neighborhood was far enough from downtown that the abandoned subway system couldn’t reach it, and North Woods, the closest entrance, was all the way down the street, eight blocks away. If the Poison Darts only had Jasmine Gardens up until that entrance, then his old house belonged to the Alvorada. Was that why Ryan had joined them? It seemed that addresses had a lot more influence over such a decision.
“One thing you have to realize,” Hwan continued, now at the bottom of the stairs where long, neon green bulbs lined the ceiling; a long hallway before them, “is that we don’t use the city above to situate ourselves. Turfs are marked by entrances, not neighborhoods. Down here, Jasmine Gardens is known as the North Woods Borders.”
“With the Alvorada.”
“Right.”
The very end of the hallway curved left, and as they rounded the corner, a large area came into view, bright green as far as the eye could see. As soon as Theodore caught sight of the ticket booths, which had been turned into businesses, and the ticket gates, which had been incapacitated to let the public in, he remembered what Laith had told him about Sunset. The similarities were such that he could say with certainty that there was a method to the madness. Every structure looked planned out and every move had clearly been premeditated.
The main floor was incredibly large, like a reclaimed mall, with out of order escalators going down the middle section and dozens of stores littering the entire place, glued wall-to-wall under a second, sometimes even third floor. Stores were stacked on top of other stores with plants crawling up the beams that held them together and neon signs sticking out to advertise their products, all in a mix of green, white and yellow, but just like Laith had said, none of those other colors outshone green. This was obviously the Poison Dart market, a parallel to Sunset.
Following the others along, Theodore read off some of the signs; coffee, haircuts, piercings, fashion. For as desolate as the sidewalk had been, this place was surprisingly crowded, with rats coming in and out of businesses, speaking to each other and gathering as they walked. The group took the broken escalators further down and more of the same welcomed them along the way, this time a little darker, since the ceiling here wasn’t quite as high.
The layout downstairs was far more intricate; tile walls hollowed into tunnels, snack machines tinged the green with some blue, and store limits became far more difficult to tell, a seemingly unending structure of goods and services. The group crossed the boardwalk that covered the decommissioned train tracks and kept going, walking straight into businesses that Theodore couldn’t tell the beginning of. He only noticed he was smack-dab in the middle of a new one when his surroundings changed, not because there were any walls or doors separating them.
This place was an ever-evolving, ever-growing beast owned by multiple people. Purses and coats hung from the ceiling like curtains, followed by scarves, followed by beads on long strings, until they parted to welcome Theodore into a hair salon, where mirrors lined one of the walls and hairdressers worked on their clients. Traversing this tunnel felt like jumping into a dozen different realities, a dream that took him from location to location without their connecting points. If he could sew ten different businesses together, it would’ve looked just like this.
The hairdresser soon turned into a nail salon, and as the group walked past patrons getting pedicures, a sign overhead caught Theodore’s attention. Some of the arrows pointed toward the upcoming stations left and right, all bright white, except for one, hot pink, which indicated the Dead Ponies, off to the right. If his heart already raced, then it doubled the speed now. The exit itself wasn’t very visible through the crowd and the clutter, chairs and nail polish everywhere, but the group found it easily, already familiar with the area. All he had to do was tow behind and not get lost.
The boardwalk here felt different under his shoes, more malleable, wooden planks bending as they walked. It didn’t look very safe, but considering the incredible number of people that worked and lived here, he found it hard to believe there’d be a cave-in due to his presence alone.
This hallway was darker than the previous one and far narrower too, with only one row of stands and shelves on the left, so the crowd would have space to navigate on the right. It was a tight fit, but they managed. Shirts, pants, socks, magazines and books littered the walls, either glued or nailed to them, but not throughout the whole thing. At one point, the tunnel actually opened up into a huge field, with grass, trees and bushes.
This area was very bright, lit up by actual light bulbs, not neon ones. Since plants managed to grow under these lights, he supposed they mimicked the sun, hence the brightness. Stone paths had been created to help the crowd navigate the field without stepping on the grass too much, and surprisingly, people actually followed them. A big sign overhead pointed to the Dead Ponies off to the left, so the group rounded the next corner and kept going.
The tunnels seemed to vary from wide to narrow, and the ceilings from low to high in the blink of an eye. One turn, and they were in a wide area with many, many stores and structures all piled up together. Another turn, and they found themselves in an endless hallway that ran itself through multiple businesses. Mysterious doors with buzzers next to them popped up more and more as they navigated the maze, taking up entire stretches at one point. They were always the quietest parts of the tunnels too, dark and haunted, with long shadows following along under a hint of neon.
The entrance to the Dead Ponies was impossible to miss; the green had turned to pink, the doors were much bigger than any Theodore had ever seen, and wide, bright lettering let him know he’d arrived, just in case he’d somehow missed the incredible opulence in his immediate surroundings. A stream of people came and went, passing by a couple of security guards that stood on each side, overlooking the crowd.
The guards didn’t seem to stop people very often. In fact, the ones who they did stop made up a very small number if compared to the ones allowed to stride right in, but still Theodore found himself a target. He didn’t look like he belonged within the crowd, not in these clothes, and was certain he’d get barred, regardless of what the criteria for suspicion actually was—he fit it. His feet stopped walking and his body went stiff, heart beating out of his chest. The others continued walking, so he reached forward and snatched Hwan’s arm, staggering him backwards, successful at catching his attention. When Hwan turned around, Theodore saw confusion in his eyes and a scowl on his forehead.
“I can’t go in,” he quickly explained, brain whirring. “I need to go somewhere first.”
“Where?”
He glanced Hwan down. Dressed in all black, his fashion sense was a textbook example of rat culture; ripped up skinny jeans, combat boots, a metal band t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off, silver necklaces, studded bracelets and metal rings. That was what he needed to look like.
Incidentally, Hwan looked really fucking hot, but that was neither here nor there.
“Take me to your favorite store,” he blurted out. “I need some new clothes.”
As the two of them talked, stationary within the crowd, people circled them to keep on moving. It felt as if they stood in the middle of a stream that flowed toward the Dead Ponies, fish avoiding their legs. This inconvenience was treated with such grace that Theodore found it strange how no one bumped into them or even tried to shove them out of the way. Rats could be surprisingly polite.
In response to his remark, Hwan glanced his outfit down.
“Well, I usually shop at Blackhorse, but that’s pretty far from here, and either way, it doesn’t matter; everyone sells the same stuff.” Hwan stepped close to him for the next part, lowering his voice. “They’re not going to profile you just because you’re wearing Ralph Lauren.”
“Just take me to one of those hallways full of shit on the walls,” he practically pleaded, a lot more emotionally charged than he’d meant to sound. It helped falter Hwan’s resolution, lips pursing with his change of heart. One tug on the arm finalized it, despite how clear it was that Hwan didn’t want to be doing this, eyes rolling as he started against the stream.
Everything was surprisingly organized down here, and as an upstanding member of the tunnels, Hwan quickly switched sides within the crowd, so they’d be swallowed by the stream that left the Dead Ponies rather than bother everybody trying to get in.
This particular entrance had a sort of funnel going into it, walled off on both sides, but as soon as they left it, a wide area opened up with multiple exits and breathing room. None of the vendors in here seemed to be selling clothes, though. Hwan walked off ahead and took the second exit on the left, which Theodore followed very closely, terrified of getting lost. If he did, he’d never get out.
In one of the very long hallways with the seamless stores and businesses, it only took them a dozen feet until bandanas and necklaces started popping up. They hung from the ceiling like curtains, and the further the two went, the more clothing items began to take over the area, stacked up on shelves, displayed on stands and nailed to the walls. It really didn’t matter what Theodore wore as long as it fit in with the crowd, so he snatched the first black shirt he could find, a pair of pants and a leather bracelet that happened to brush his arm, hanging from a thread.
“Where’s the owner?” he asked Hwan, voice louder now, above the noise.
“Oh, you’re fast.” The remark came accompanied with a glance at the random selection in his hands. “They’re usually behind the curtain.”
“What curtain?”
A nod of the head indicated something he couldn’t see, hidden among all the items that cluttered the place. His obliviousness almost warranted another eye roll, but instead, Hwan led him down a row of stands to a very well-concealed curtain behind them, the kind that’d make him think twice before walking through, because it didn’t look like the general public was allowed in.
Hwan motioned to it with a hand. “Go on; they’re inside.”
Were they? That didn’t seem right. It didn’t feel right, either. Was he actually allowed in there? Theodore hesitated. “Come with me?”
Delicate black eyebrows furrowed at him. “Have you never made a purchase at The Guts?”
The Guts… so that was what this place was called, the endless stream of goods and services, a massive digestive tract. It was an appropriate name.
“I think you know I don’t shop around here,” he deadpanned.
Hwan bounced his eyebrows in reply, unimpressed. He obviously didn’t want to do any of this, or even be here right now, but still showed Theodore the way, slipping through a small gap between two of the stands. Theodore followed close behind, watching as he pulled the curtain open and walked in, letting it fall back as soon as they were through, thick fabric heavy.
Instead of a private backroom, or maybe even a janitor’s closet, this place was a smaller, more organized version of the store out front, with a couple of couches by the curtain, a few shelves along one wall, dressers and mirrors along the opposite wall, and a rug between them. The cement on the ground had been covered with wooden flooring, while the walls were black with a few patterns in white; painted signs and mirror frames. Some customers went through the pants on the shelves, others flipped through the t-shirts on floor racks, and at the very back, where a register sat on top of a long counter, the owner fiddled with their phone, seemingly disinterested in the people that roamed the store.
“I’ll wait here,” Hwan informed him, phone waving in a hand. The screen was on, but it moved too fast for Theodore to successfully read it. If he had to guess, it was probably Marquis wanting to know where his boyfriend was.
Briefly, he wondered if Laith was the type to text his friends for meetups or if he was like Emily and called instead. With the distinct thought that he’d probably never know, he crossed the room for the checkout counter.
As soon as he arrived, the owner put their phone down to ring him up. Their eyes were light blue and their hair was jet black, buzzed all the way around, a stark contrast with the lightness of their skin. They were short, shorter than him, and the fact that he couldn’t tell their gender made him wonder how to address them properly. If not sir or ma’am, then what? His heart raced, hands sweating. There wasn’t a single word in his mouth.
The store owner gave him a smile. “Do you wanna try these on?” they asked, jerking a thumb at a nearby archway.
Theodore could see through it from where he stood, where a few changing rooms lined the wall with similar curtains to the one out front.
“Uh, yeah. Thanks.”
Tucked safely within one of the dressing rooms, he finally took a moment to analyze the items he’d snatched so carelessly. The t-shirt was two sizes too big for him and had a very edgy-looking design on the front with words he didn’t recognize, but if he had to guess, were probably a band he didn’t listen to. The pants, on the other hand, seemed too small at first, but as soon as he put them on, he realized they were just the skinny type he’d never worn before, tight literally everywhere, except where they shouldn’t be. They weren’t ripped in any way, but still reminded him of Laith, how they fit him.
The bracelet was the only item that wasn’t black, but brown, made of leather straps laced together like one of Nadia’s braids, two ends meeting in a small metal latch. He wrapped it on his left wrist, just above his watch. Ignoring how big the shirt was and that his deck shoes had nothing to do with this outfit at all, he didn’t look half-bad. At least the shoes were a very dark brown color, which didn’t make them too big of a problem. With his designer clothes in hand, he left the changing room.
“Hi, um. I’ll take it,” he informed the store owner, back at the checkout counter. “All of it.”
Light blue eyes glanced at his chest. “I’m pretty sure I have that in your size.”
“No, it’s fine; I like it this way. Can you ring me up, please?”
Black eyebrows bounced once. “Sure.” The store owner turned to the cash register. “Would you like a bag?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
The grand total of his purchase wasn’t even sixty dollars, which was a big surprise, given that the cheapest item in his wardrobe was still more expensive than that. What was this shirt made of? It didn’t feel like burlap. In fact, it felt just as soft as his other ones, if not softer. It must be polyester, then. Maybe the word burlap was what his mother used to mean polyester. He paid for all of it in cash, so his father wouldn’t be able to trace his location.
Not to his surprise, the moment he turned back around, he saw Marquis speaking to his boyfriend by the entrance curtain, near the couches. They obviously didn’t notice him watching from all the way across the store, and in their perceived privacy, stood in each other’s personal space, holding hands. He stared at that for a good, long minute, at how casually they held onto one another, palms touching, fingers pressed to the back of each other’s hands. Something in the depths of his chest rose up to wrap around his heart and muffle its beatings, like a velvet purse, warm and soft. That was adorable, the way they held hands while waiting for him, arms brushing—he couldn’t stop staring. His feet moved slowly, crossing the store in a sort of daze, half-unconscious as the customers around him moved and talked, their words lost in the void.
He thought his arrival would add some space between the two and cut their little reunion short, but it actually didn’t. Both men turned to look at him while still very comfortably close, with Marquis almost even leaning on Hwan’s chest, eyebrows up on his face. They glanced him down with muted surprise.
“That shirt is way too big for you,” Marquis talked around a smile, without a single trace of malice in his tone. It’d almost made his comment sound like a compliment. “The pants look great, though.”
“What kind of shoes are those?” Hwan asked.
His sincere curiosity was the only thing that kept Theodore from freaking out, since the shoes were the most telling part of his entire fit.
“Timberlands. They’re not boat shoes, by the way; they’re deck shoes. There’s a difference.”
“Oh, I know,” Hwan reassured him. A half-shrug accompanied his pragmatism. “Boat shoes are terrible, but these look nice.”
If only Emily were here to hear it.
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