Categories > Original > Sci-Fi > Ward Below
He saw them every now and again; the train, the Conductor, and the Troupe as he'd come to call them. They were the closest he had in the way of neighbors. It was impossible to guess when or where he would see them and there was no way to measure the length of time between sightings. That's all they were, really, sightings. Sometimes the Conductor might hail him with a greeting or instructions, occasionally members of the Troupe would offer a "good day" and a warning, but Ward never got a chance to say anything in response. Either he was too busy being thunderstruck or was never allowed him to get a word in. It was all right. He really didn't mind. As random as the encounters were, he was glad of them. At least he knew he wasn't the only one down here. He wasn't completely alone. There were times, however, when he wondered if he wasn't imagining his strange visitors. It wasn't until he rode the train through the darkening tunnels or watched as the Troupe shuffled past that he knew he wasn't dreaming the entire thing. However, the knowledge that his subterranean adventure was real began to press on Ward.
How long he had been down here he could not say. Long enough for his hair to grow down past his shoulders in embarrassingly curly waves, long enough for his chin to grow scruffy but not yet enough for him to have sprouted an earnest beard. His sneakers were nearly worn through and so were the knees of his trousers. While Ward was more than familiar with the tunnels by this time, he did not relish the thought of wandering around barefoot. His modest clothing was not the only thing wearing thin. Several of the vending machines were beginning to look sparse. Some of the more perishable items such as the cream-filled cookies had begun not to go bad but to disintegrate. Ward supposed they had dried out as opposed to going stale. He didn't bother to open any more of the shiny little blue packages after that. His provisions were running out. Ward realized that he'd been unconsciously entertaining the hope that he would, eventually, be rescued. After all this time, that was not likely to happen. He wondered dimly what had happened on the surface that no one had come looking for him?
The other grim prospect revealed itself just as Ward was settling down to sleep. For no readily apparent reason the fluorescent lights of the station flickered and died. The bulbs had not simply burned out, the power had been cut. The sudden silence, thick and palpable as a black velvet curtain, was suffocating. Ward found himself chilled more by the lack of sound than he had ever been by the inaudible white noise of the hum of the light fixtures and subtle sigh of the tubes as they breathed the increasingly warm air in and out of their concrete throats. Ward, who knew exactly where he was, decided to stay and get some rest regardless of how eerie the station suddenly seemed. Upon waking he discovered the tube stop was still dark. The tri-colored emergency lights, however, were still glowing and he followed them through the tunnels until he came across a platform that was still alight. Once there, he made himself some tea and sat down to think.
The lights had gone out once before, back when he was being filmed for the television game show. He had thought then that it was part of the prank, meant to make him panic and act a fool in front of a national audience. He wondered now if that power-out had not held some further significance. Perhaps he and his strange companions really were the only ones left alive? Or perhaps the tubes had been shut down for some reason? That second option seemed more likely, though Ward could not invent a plausible reason for this. A pest infestation? No, he'd scarcely seen a cockroach much less a rat in all his adventures. Repairs? Unlikely. The only repairs being conducted were the ones Ward had done himself. He considered the possibility of mold or methane or some other air-borne health hazard but negated the idea since he was feeling just fine. Rather than dwell on what could have happened to necessitate the tubes shutting down (this was the explanation he'd decided on), Ward reluctantly turned his mind to other unpleasant possibilities.
As long as the generators- wherever they were- still ran, there would be power. Ward remembered having to memorize ridiculous statistics and calculations in elementary school about things like how long people could survive in a bomb shelter, how much food and water they would need, and how long a generator would last. Granted the generators that ran the tubes were huge industrial beasts meant to easily provide power for hundreds of miles of tunnel and over sixty trains and carriages for London alone and would last a long time, but they would not last forever. As far as Ward knew, there was only one functioning train and several of the stations and tunnels were permanently dark, mostly the older Victorian runs that were no longer in use and those that had been under repair when he first started on this absurd quest. Ward decided that if he ever got the prize money he was demanding double the amount and using half to purchase an automobile. He was never taking the tubes again. That was, of course, assuming he ever got back above ground. But that did not solve the problem of what he was going to do when the lights went out. And they would, eventually, go out. There were three glow sticks left, but he doubted the chemicals inside were any good after all this time. He knew there was nothing in the dark that had not been there while the lights were on, but he still didn't like the idea of being closed in on all sides by soundless black. Eventually, even the pretty pinpoints of the red, green, and blue emergency lights would fail as well and he would be utterly surrounded by oblivion. Ward didn't like the thought of that at all.
He must, he decided, try to discover where the Conductor and the Troupe went once they were out of sight. He had to talk to them or follow them. Granted he'd been trying for ages to speak with or trail the Troupe but with no success. No matter how long he managed to keep up with them eventually he lost them as they went up or down a flight of stairs, around a corner, or through a tunnel. Still, they were his best hope. The Troupe usually consisted of anywhere from five to seven men, not all of them the same ones that had appeared the last time. Ward counted at least eleven different faces all told and at least twice as many outfits between them. The Troupe, apparently, had access to a change of clothes though the garments seemed to be in no better shape than Ward's. What puzzled him most was their apparent stash of props. Usually they wandered by empty-handed but he had never gotten over the time they had tromped past each playing a band instrument. Ward had only been able to stare goggle-eyed as a Sousaphone, a glockenspiel, a trumpet, a trombone, a saxophone, a clarinet, and a piccolo had wandered by blaring some sort of tuneless melody that made the light fixtures shake. Ward would have liked to go with them but apparently they had no room for another trombone player. It'd been ages since Ward had gotten the thing out of its case, but if it meant company, he would have gladly tried his hand. It didn't seem as if the Troupe was terribly interested in harmonizing anyway. He would have to find them again. There was no other way he knew of to learn their trick of survival.
Ward spent several "days" searching for the Troupe but only stumbled across scattered members. This in itself was strange because until this point they had always appeared in a group of at least three. He could only imagine why individual members popped up alone and unaccompanied. What further struck him was that these solitary members didn't seem surprised by him at all. Rather, they almost seemed as if they had been looking for /him/. At least, they always passed on some useful if cryptic bit of information. One instance that stuck in Ward's head was when, about to go up a particularly dark flight of steps, one of the Troupe members came tripping down out of the shadows, briefly laid hold of his arm and said "Don't go up there, it's bloody dark!" before releasing him and boarding the train that had suddenly appeared. Ward had tried to follow but the doors had already closed and the train pulled away. He glanced back at the dark passage, eyeing it nervously. The shadows seemed more menacing somehow. Perhaps it would be wiser to heed the advice of the singular Troupe member. Whatever was up there, Ward decided he didn't really want to find out. Instead he took one of the "Caution: Wet Floor" signs from the broom closet and stuck it below the archway of the passage. That would remind him not to go up there. He hurried on after the train, unwilling to stay near that doorway any longer than strictly necessary.
The curious thing was that wet floor signs began to appear in other places blocking different entryways. Ward could only conclude that the Troupe had picked up on his marker system and was purposely placing the things before passages that were not safe to use. Some were set down in the midst of the tunnels but most of them, oddly, were set before the stairs leading up into the tube stations. Apparently it wasn't safe to venture even that far above ground. Ward, however, had stopped going up some time ago. He liked the vast and empty expanse of the now dust-covered railway stations with their closed marquis and stacks of unread newspapers even less than the horizontal nights and days of the tunnels. The railway stations were supposed to be alive and noisy with activity, but they weren't. Ward half expected to see dust bunnies blow across the unswept marble floors like tumble weeds in a Western film. The tunnels, however, were supposed to be vacant of humanity and so it bothered him less to be the only one down there. He didn't try going topside again.
Six more segments of the tunnels had suffered blackouts. Ward kept a mental tally of which stops and passageways had plunged into darkness. Evidently there was a grid and each section of the tubes had its own generator to provide power. It didn't exactly come as a surprise when an entire corner became lost to the blackness. He'd rather expected to lose chunks at a time like that. However, there was no way to predict which corner would go next. Ward had anticipated that the remaining Victorian tunnels- seldom used and probably powered by a much older model than the more recent stretches of vaulted concrete- might be the first to go. Oddly, one of the more modern corners was lost first, the lights in the old Victorian station still burning brightly in cheerful defiance of their age. Ward smiled at them.
Although he'd had a few scattered sightings of individual Troupe members, it had been some time since he'd seen the train. It was therefore something of a surprise when, while waiting for his clothes to dry, the Conductor wandered up sans train and bid him hello.
"Oy there! Just the man I was looking for," the Conductor hailed him cheerfully. Despite the fact that he knew perfectly well that no one else was there, Ward caught himself looking around for another person. The Conductor couldn't possibly be talking to him.
"I say old man, would you mind giving me a hand? Got some electrical work that needs tending to or else it'll be dark as the underside of a rock at the bottom of the sea, if you take my meaning. It's a two man job so come along and we'll get to it, what?"
Ward would have liked to ask "what" indeed but found himself being ushered along towards a door marked "authorized personnel only". It had been locked but the Conductor opened it without even producing a key. Ward blinked but entered at the Conductor's bidding.
"Now, watch your step lad, this is all war vintage, the first war that is. The rigging's a bit rickety but still quite solid, just mind your footing and you'll be fine." The Conductor called back over his shoulder.
Ward couldn't help being slightly overwhelmed by the sudden flood of information. Also, he hadn't imagined there was this much superstructure to the tubes. He and the Conductor were now wandering through a narrow service space between the outer brick and concrete vaults of the tube tunnels. Thick bunches of wires and rusted pipes ran up and down the steeply curved sides of the passage, apparently part of the electrical and heating and cooling systems. The air in this between space was stiflingly hot, however, making him feel more than a little claustrophobic at being inside the tubes in this overly literal sense.
"Now," the Conductor stopped for a moment and handed him an electric torch, "what we want is to reconnect some of the plugs running up towards the ceiling. I'll be doing the actual hooking in, but I need you to feed the cables up to me. We'll both have a fair bit of climbing but you look like an able lad so you shouldn't have the least bit of worry."
Ward contemplated the sudden chasm of empty space they'd come to as the tubes on either side diverged at opposing angles, leaving a pentagonal hollow of complete and utter darkness yawning before them. Bare light bulbs housed in little metal cages hung here and there, providing the only light besides their torches. The ambiance was little indeed and reflected terracotta red from the brick of the tube walls hedged thickly in black shadows. That combined with the dank air, almost too warm and thick to breathe, made Ward feel uncomfortably as if he were looking down into the mouth of Hell. Rusty old ladders slick with moisture from the humidity in the air ran up and away into the darkness of the vaulted ceiling above. Wires and pipes and hanging gangways of planks and ladder rungs hung suspended in space, crisscrossing the chasm. Who in their right mind would have designed something like this on purpose? Ward swallowed on the knot in this throat, a sick feeling beginning as it hit his stomach with the disquieting feeling that he and the Conductor would be going up there. Several thick, rubber-coated cables led up and around from that yawning void towards the ceiling. It was those that the Conductor ushered him up one of the slippery, rusty ladders, torch in hand, to reclaim. Ward had never had occasion to be afraid of heights but scrambling along on those rickety, rusty gangways, trying to hold a torch in one hand, cables in the other, and still maintain his balance as well as his modesty in his improvised loincloth was just too much. The hot, damp air beading moisture on his bare skin now combined with his own perspiration made things that much more difficult. The Conductor, however, seemed to be having no problem at all and flitted from one dizzying, swinging perch to another with the lightness and ease of a circus acrobat. Ward was hideously glad when at last he was allowed to climb down. That generator would run for a good long while yet. Ward hoped he would not have to help repair any others.
The question never did come up, for which Ward was profoundly grateful. He assumed correctly that the generator he'd been drafted to help fix was indeed the one that kept the Victorian tunnels alight. The other tunnels began to go dark one by one as the generators powering their grids began to die. There was little food left in the vending machines and even less of that was fit to be eaten. Pretzels and potato crisps were about the only items fit for consumption, everything else having dried into salty or sugary bits of colored dust. Ward began to wonder if this was what the underground palaces in the Valley of the Kings had felt like to the servants, buried alive with their dead masters. Ward didn't feel as if he'd been buried but was starting to feel as if he were wandering a tomb, the wall hieroglyphs and sarcophagi the only details lacking. He briefly thought about embellishing some of the tunnel walls with chalk and marker but decided against it. Soon enough he wouldn't be able to appreciate it anyway.
He could have gone wandering in the darkened tunnels. The truth was, he had no reason to. There was nothing to be afraid of; there was nothing there, and that was why he didn't set out down the remaining corridors lit by dots of blue, red, and green. He'd watched the train zoom past just once more, but that had been ages ago, shortly after fixing the generator. That was the last time he'd seen either the Conductor or his train. Ward honestly didn't expect to see them again. With little food left and permanent "night" approaching, he had few options. Panic didn't seem like a productive course to take and so Ward thought quietly, the teabag in his improvised cup of hot water brewing thoughtfully in his hand. Ward appreciated the efforts but didn't put much faith in the mental prowess of a teabag. Still, it was better than nothing.
A shuffling noise began at the far end of the tunnel. Ward sat up a little straighter and squinted, straining his eyes to pick out shapes in the darkness. The uneven mass of shadows finally emerged into the flickering lights of the old tube stop. Eleven young men trudged forward, their chests bare, hair long and wild, blue jeans and sneakers every bit as ratty as his own. Forgetting his tea, Ward scrambled to his feet and hopped down onto the tracks, blocking their way.
"Oy, mate!" one of them hailed him, stepping ahead of the group slightly and raising a hand in greeting. The man was about as tall as Ward, though thicker and more solidly built, his dark hair hanging stringy and untamed in his blue eyes. Ward could never be sure what, but something marked this man as the leader. Unafraid yet suddenly tongue-tied, Ward returned the gesture, unsure what to say. He needn't have worried. The leader spoke up for him.
"You with us then?"
Ward nodded. "Yes."
"Come on then."
The leader strode ahead a few paces, the rest of the Troupe following until they surrounded Ward on every side. His shirt already tucked into the back of his trousers due to the heat that was collecting in the tunnels from a lack of ventilation, Ward felt a sort of strange kinship with the other men if only for the fact that they were all shirtless. He worried briefly about losing track of them but shouldn't have. The men on either side of him each put a hand on his shoulder and the fellows behind him did the same. Thus hedged in and guided, Ward stepped forward with them into the darkness of the tunnels. He noted abstractly that a "wet floor" sign stood collapsed and kicked to one side right below where his cup of tea sat forgotten on the platform. He paid them no mind. He was one of the Troupe now. Even as the blackness swallowed them up, the warm pressure of hands on his shoulders and the dim shuffle of sneakered steps on every side remained. Regardless of what they might find in the darkness, he would not face it alone.
Behind them, the lights went out.
How long he had been down here he could not say. Long enough for his hair to grow down past his shoulders in embarrassingly curly waves, long enough for his chin to grow scruffy but not yet enough for him to have sprouted an earnest beard. His sneakers were nearly worn through and so were the knees of his trousers. While Ward was more than familiar with the tunnels by this time, he did not relish the thought of wandering around barefoot. His modest clothing was not the only thing wearing thin. Several of the vending machines were beginning to look sparse. Some of the more perishable items such as the cream-filled cookies had begun not to go bad but to disintegrate. Ward supposed they had dried out as opposed to going stale. He didn't bother to open any more of the shiny little blue packages after that. His provisions were running out. Ward realized that he'd been unconsciously entertaining the hope that he would, eventually, be rescued. After all this time, that was not likely to happen. He wondered dimly what had happened on the surface that no one had come looking for him?
The other grim prospect revealed itself just as Ward was settling down to sleep. For no readily apparent reason the fluorescent lights of the station flickered and died. The bulbs had not simply burned out, the power had been cut. The sudden silence, thick and palpable as a black velvet curtain, was suffocating. Ward found himself chilled more by the lack of sound than he had ever been by the inaudible white noise of the hum of the light fixtures and subtle sigh of the tubes as they breathed the increasingly warm air in and out of their concrete throats. Ward, who knew exactly where he was, decided to stay and get some rest regardless of how eerie the station suddenly seemed. Upon waking he discovered the tube stop was still dark. The tri-colored emergency lights, however, were still glowing and he followed them through the tunnels until he came across a platform that was still alight. Once there, he made himself some tea and sat down to think.
The lights had gone out once before, back when he was being filmed for the television game show. He had thought then that it was part of the prank, meant to make him panic and act a fool in front of a national audience. He wondered now if that power-out had not held some further significance. Perhaps he and his strange companions really were the only ones left alive? Or perhaps the tubes had been shut down for some reason? That second option seemed more likely, though Ward could not invent a plausible reason for this. A pest infestation? No, he'd scarcely seen a cockroach much less a rat in all his adventures. Repairs? Unlikely. The only repairs being conducted were the ones Ward had done himself. He considered the possibility of mold or methane or some other air-borne health hazard but negated the idea since he was feeling just fine. Rather than dwell on what could have happened to necessitate the tubes shutting down (this was the explanation he'd decided on), Ward reluctantly turned his mind to other unpleasant possibilities.
As long as the generators- wherever they were- still ran, there would be power. Ward remembered having to memorize ridiculous statistics and calculations in elementary school about things like how long people could survive in a bomb shelter, how much food and water they would need, and how long a generator would last. Granted the generators that ran the tubes were huge industrial beasts meant to easily provide power for hundreds of miles of tunnel and over sixty trains and carriages for London alone and would last a long time, but they would not last forever. As far as Ward knew, there was only one functioning train and several of the stations and tunnels were permanently dark, mostly the older Victorian runs that were no longer in use and those that had been under repair when he first started on this absurd quest. Ward decided that if he ever got the prize money he was demanding double the amount and using half to purchase an automobile. He was never taking the tubes again. That was, of course, assuming he ever got back above ground. But that did not solve the problem of what he was going to do when the lights went out. And they would, eventually, go out. There were three glow sticks left, but he doubted the chemicals inside were any good after all this time. He knew there was nothing in the dark that had not been there while the lights were on, but he still didn't like the idea of being closed in on all sides by soundless black. Eventually, even the pretty pinpoints of the red, green, and blue emergency lights would fail as well and he would be utterly surrounded by oblivion. Ward didn't like the thought of that at all.
He must, he decided, try to discover where the Conductor and the Troupe went once they were out of sight. He had to talk to them or follow them. Granted he'd been trying for ages to speak with or trail the Troupe but with no success. No matter how long he managed to keep up with them eventually he lost them as they went up or down a flight of stairs, around a corner, or through a tunnel. Still, they were his best hope. The Troupe usually consisted of anywhere from five to seven men, not all of them the same ones that had appeared the last time. Ward counted at least eleven different faces all told and at least twice as many outfits between them. The Troupe, apparently, had access to a change of clothes though the garments seemed to be in no better shape than Ward's. What puzzled him most was their apparent stash of props. Usually they wandered by empty-handed but he had never gotten over the time they had tromped past each playing a band instrument. Ward had only been able to stare goggle-eyed as a Sousaphone, a glockenspiel, a trumpet, a trombone, a saxophone, a clarinet, and a piccolo had wandered by blaring some sort of tuneless melody that made the light fixtures shake. Ward would have liked to go with them but apparently they had no room for another trombone player. It'd been ages since Ward had gotten the thing out of its case, but if it meant company, he would have gladly tried his hand. It didn't seem as if the Troupe was terribly interested in harmonizing anyway. He would have to find them again. There was no other way he knew of to learn their trick of survival.
Ward spent several "days" searching for the Troupe but only stumbled across scattered members. This in itself was strange because until this point they had always appeared in a group of at least three. He could only imagine why individual members popped up alone and unaccompanied. What further struck him was that these solitary members didn't seem surprised by him at all. Rather, they almost seemed as if they had been looking for /him/. At least, they always passed on some useful if cryptic bit of information. One instance that stuck in Ward's head was when, about to go up a particularly dark flight of steps, one of the Troupe members came tripping down out of the shadows, briefly laid hold of his arm and said "Don't go up there, it's bloody dark!" before releasing him and boarding the train that had suddenly appeared. Ward had tried to follow but the doors had already closed and the train pulled away. He glanced back at the dark passage, eyeing it nervously. The shadows seemed more menacing somehow. Perhaps it would be wiser to heed the advice of the singular Troupe member. Whatever was up there, Ward decided he didn't really want to find out. Instead he took one of the "Caution: Wet Floor" signs from the broom closet and stuck it below the archway of the passage. That would remind him not to go up there. He hurried on after the train, unwilling to stay near that doorway any longer than strictly necessary.
The curious thing was that wet floor signs began to appear in other places blocking different entryways. Ward could only conclude that the Troupe had picked up on his marker system and was purposely placing the things before passages that were not safe to use. Some were set down in the midst of the tunnels but most of them, oddly, were set before the stairs leading up into the tube stations. Apparently it wasn't safe to venture even that far above ground. Ward, however, had stopped going up some time ago. He liked the vast and empty expanse of the now dust-covered railway stations with their closed marquis and stacks of unread newspapers even less than the horizontal nights and days of the tunnels. The railway stations were supposed to be alive and noisy with activity, but they weren't. Ward half expected to see dust bunnies blow across the unswept marble floors like tumble weeds in a Western film. The tunnels, however, were supposed to be vacant of humanity and so it bothered him less to be the only one down there. He didn't try going topside again.
Six more segments of the tunnels had suffered blackouts. Ward kept a mental tally of which stops and passageways had plunged into darkness. Evidently there was a grid and each section of the tubes had its own generator to provide power. It didn't exactly come as a surprise when an entire corner became lost to the blackness. He'd rather expected to lose chunks at a time like that. However, there was no way to predict which corner would go next. Ward had anticipated that the remaining Victorian tunnels- seldom used and probably powered by a much older model than the more recent stretches of vaulted concrete- might be the first to go. Oddly, one of the more modern corners was lost first, the lights in the old Victorian station still burning brightly in cheerful defiance of their age. Ward smiled at them.
Although he'd had a few scattered sightings of individual Troupe members, it had been some time since he'd seen the train. It was therefore something of a surprise when, while waiting for his clothes to dry, the Conductor wandered up sans train and bid him hello.
"Oy there! Just the man I was looking for," the Conductor hailed him cheerfully. Despite the fact that he knew perfectly well that no one else was there, Ward caught himself looking around for another person. The Conductor couldn't possibly be talking to him.
"I say old man, would you mind giving me a hand? Got some electrical work that needs tending to or else it'll be dark as the underside of a rock at the bottom of the sea, if you take my meaning. It's a two man job so come along and we'll get to it, what?"
Ward would have liked to ask "what" indeed but found himself being ushered along towards a door marked "authorized personnel only". It had been locked but the Conductor opened it without even producing a key. Ward blinked but entered at the Conductor's bidding.
"Now, watch your step lad, this is all war vintage, the first war that is. The rigging's a bit rickety but still quite solid, just mind your footing and you'll be fine." The Conductor called back over his shoulder.
Ward couldn't help being slightly overwhelmed by the sudden flood of information. Also, he hadn't imagined there was this much superstructure to the tubes. He and the Conductor were now wandering through a narrow service space between the outer brick and concrete vaults of the tube tunnels. Thick bunches of wires and rusted pipes ran up and down the steeply curved sides of the passage, apparently part of the electrical and heating and cooling systems. The air in this between space was stiflingly hot, however, making him feel more than a little claustrophobic at being inside the tubes in this overly literal sense.
"Now," the Conductor stopped for a moment and handed him an electric torch, "what we want is to reconnect some of the plugs running up towards the ceiling. I'll be doing the actual hooking in, but I need you to feed the cables up to me. We'll both have a fair bit of climbing but you look like an able lad so you shouldn't have the least bit of worry."
Ward contemplated the sudden chasm of empty space they'd come to as the tubes on either side diverged at opposing angles, leaving a pentagonal hollow of complete and utter darkness yawning before them. Bare light bulbs housed in little metal cages hung here and there, providing the only light besides their torches. The ambiance was little indeed and reflected terracotta red from the brick of the tube walls hedged thickly in black shadows. That combined with the dank air, almost too warm and thick to breathe, made Ward feel uncomfortably as if he were looking down into the mouth of Hell. Rusty old ladders slick with moisture from the humidity in the air ran up and away into the darkness of the vaulted ceiling above. Wires and pipes and hanging gangways of planks and ladder rungs hung suspended in space, crisscrossing the chasm. Who in their right mind would have designed something like this on purpose? Ward swallowed on the knot in this throat, a sick feeling beginning as it hit his stomach with the disquieting feeling that he and the Conductor would be going up there. Several thick, rubber-coated cables led up and around from that yawning void towards the ceiling. It was those that the Conductor ushered him up one of the slippery, rusty ladders, torch in hand, to reclaim. Ward had never had occasion to be afraid of heights but scrambling along on those rickety, rusty gangways, trying to hold a torch in one hand, cables in the other, and still maintain his balance as well as his modesty in his improvised loincloth was just too much. The hot, damp air beading moisture on his bare skin now combined with his own perspiration made things that much more difficult. The Conductor, however, seemed to be having no problem at all and flitted from one dizzying, swinging perch to another with the lightness and ease of a circus acrobat. Ward was hideously glad when at last he was allowed to climb down. That generator would run for a good long while yet. Ward hoped he would not have to help repair any others.
The question never did come up, for which Ward was profoundly grateful. He assumed correctly that the generator he'd been drafted to help fix was indeed the one that kept the Victorian tunnels alight. The other tunnels began to go dark one by one as the generators powering their grids began to die. There was little food left in the vending machines and even less of that was fit to be eaten. Pretzels and potato crisps were about the only items fit for consumption, everything else having dried into salty or sugary bits of colored dust. Ward began to wonder if this was what the underground palaces in the Valley of the Kings had felt like to the servants, buried alive with their dead masters. Ward didn't feel as if he'd been buried but was starting to feel as if he were wandering a tomb, the wall hieroglyphs and sarcophagi the only details lacking. He briefly thought about embellishing some of the tunnel walls with chalk and marker but decided against it. Soon enough he wouldn't be able to appreciate it anyway.
He could have gone wandering in the darkened tunnels. The truth was, he had no reason to. There was nothing to be afraid of; there was nothing there, and that was why he didn't set out down the remaining corridors lit by dots of blue, red, and green. He'd watched the train zoom past just once more, but that had been ages ago, shortly after fixing the generator. That was the last time he'd seen either the Conductor or his train. Ward honestly didn't expect to see them again. With little food left and permanent "night" approaching, he had few options. Panic didn't seem like a productive course to take and so Ward thought quietly, the teabag in his improvised cup of hot water brewing thoughtfully in his hand. Ward appreciated the efforts but didn't put much faith in the mental prowess of a teabag. Still, it was better than nothing.
A shuffling noise began at the far end of the tunnel. Ward sat up a little straighter and squinted, straining his eyes to pick out shapes in the darkness. The uneven mass of shadows finally emerged into the flickering lights of the old tube stop. Eleven young men trudged forward, their chests bare, hair long and wild, blue jeans and sneakers every bit as ratty as his own. Forgetting his tea, Ward scrambled to his feet and hopped down onto the tracks, blocking their way.
"Oy, mate!" one of them hailed him, stepping ahead of the group slightly and raising a hand in greeting. The man was about as tall as Ward, though thicker and more solidly built, his dark hair hanging stringy and untamed in his blue eyes. Ward could never be sure what, but something marked this man as the leader. Unafraid yet suddenly tongue-tied, Ward returned the gesture, unsure what to say. He needn't have worried. The leader spoke up for him.
"You with us then?"
Ward nodded. "Yes."
"Come on then."
The leader strode ahead a few paces, the rest of the Troupe following until they surrounded Ward on every side. His shirt already tucked into the back of his trousers due to the heat that was collecting in the tunnels from a lack of ventilation, Ward felt a sort of strange kinship with the other men if only for the fact that they were all shirtless. He worried briefly about losing track of them but shouldn't have. The men on either side of him each put a hand on his shoulder and the fellows behind him did the same. Thus hedged in and guided, Ward stepped forward with them into the darkness of the tunnels. He noted abstractly that a "wet floor" sign stood collapsed and kicked to one side right below where his cup of tea sat forgotten on the platform. He paid them no mind. He was one of the Troupe now. Even as the blackness swallowed them up, the warm pressure of hands on his shoulders and the dim shuffle of sneakered steps on every side remained. Regardless of what they might find in the darkness, he would not face it alone.
Behind them, the lights went out.
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