L. Hayward, Caste and Society Beneath Manhattan
(forthcoming)
= 46 =
HAYWARD PEERED DOWN the abandoned subway tunnel, toward the flashlights that played like emergency beacons across the low ceilings and wet stone walls. The Plexiglas riot shield felt bulky and heavy against her shoulder. To her right, she could sense Officer Carlin’s alert, calm presence next to her in the dark. He seemed to know his stuff. He’d know that the worst thing you could be below ground was cocky. The moles wanted to be left alone. And the only thing that inflamed them more than the sight of one policeman was the sight of many policemen, bent on rousting and eviction.
At the front, where Miller was, there was lots of laughter and tough talk. Squad Five had already rousted two groups of upper-level homeless, fringe dwellers who had fled upstairs in terror before the thirty-strong phalanx of cops. Now they were all feeling like hot shit. Hayward shook her head. They had yet to encounter any hard-core mole people. And that was strange. There should have been a lot more homeless in the subway tunnels beneath Columbus Circle. Hayward had noticed several smoldering fires, recently abandoned. That meant the moles had gone to ground. Not surprising, with all the racket everyone was making.
The squad continued down the tunnel, pausing occasionally while Miller ordered small teams off to explore alcoves and side passages. Hayward watched as the groups came swaggering back out of the dark, empty-handed, kicking aside garbage, holding their riot shields at their sides. The air was foul with ammoniac vapors. Even though they were already deeper than ordinary rousting parties ever went, the atmosphere of a field trip had not yet dissipated, and nobody was complaining. Wait until they begin to breathe hard, she thought.
The spur tunnel came to an abrupt end and the squad proceeded, single file, down a metal staircase to the next level. Nobody seemed to know just where this Mephisto hung out, or the extent of the Route 666 community, the primary target of their roust. But nobody seemed to be worried about it. “Oh, he’ll come out of his hole,” Miller had said. “If we don’t find him, the gas will.”
As she followed the rattling, jostling group, Hayward had the unpleasant sensation she was sinking into hot, fetid water. The staircase came out in a half-finished tunnel. Ancient water pipes, weeping with humidity, lined the rough-hewn rock walls. Ahead of her, the laughter tapered off into whispers and grunts.
“Watch your step,” Hayward said, pointing her flashlight downwards. The floor of the tunnel was peppered with narrow boreholes.
“Hate to trip over one of those,” Carlin said, his large head made even larger by the heavy helmet he wore. He kicked a pebble into the closest borehole, then listened until a faint rattle came reverberating up. “Must have fallen a hundred feet,” he said. “Hollow down there, too, by the sound of it.”
“Look at this,” Hayward said under her breath, shining her light on the rotting wooden pipes.
“A hundred years old if they’re a day,” Carlin replied. “I think—”
Hayward put a restraining hand on his arm. A soft tapping was sounding in the heavy darkness of the tunnel.
A flurry of whispers filtered back from the head of the squad. As Hayward listened, the tapping sped up, then slowed down, following its own secret cadence.
“Who’s there?” Miller cried out.
The faint sound was joined by another, deeper tapping, and then another, until the entire tunnel seemed filled with an infernal symphony of noise. “What the hell is it?” Miller asked. He drew his weapon and pointed it down the beam of his flashlight. “Police officers. Come out, now!”
The tapping echoed on as if in mocking response, but nobody stepped into the flashlight beams.
“Jones and McMahon, take your group ahead a hundred yards,” Miller barked. “Stanislaw, Fredericks, check the rear.”
Hayward waited as the short details disappeared into the darkness, returning empty-handed a few minutes later.
“Don’t tell me there’s nothing!” Miller shouted in response to the shrugged shoulders. “Somebody’s making that sound.”
The tapping tapered off to a single, faint ditty.
Hayward took a step forward. “It’s the moles, banging on the pipes—”
Miller frowned. “Hayward, stow it.”
Hayward could see that she had the attention of the others.
“That’s how they communicate with each other, sir,” Carlin said mildly.
Miller turned, his face dark and unreadable in the blackness of the tunnel.
“They know we’re here,” Hayward said. “I think they’re warning the nearby communities. Sending out word they’re under attack.”
“Sure,” said Miller. “You telepathic, Sergeant?”
“Read Morse, Lieutenant?” Hayward challenged.
Miller paused, uncertain. Then he guffawed loudly. “Hayward here thinks the natives are restless.” There was some brief, half-hearted laughter. The single tapping continued.
“So what’s it saying now?” Miller asked, sarcastically.
Hayward listened. “They’ve mobilized.”
There was a long silence, and then Miller said loudly, “What a load of horseshit.” He turned to the group. “Forward on the double! We’ve wasted enough time as it is.”
As Hayward opened her mouth to protest, there was a soft thudding sound nearby. One of the men in the front ranks staggered back, groaning loudly and dropping his shield. A large rock bounced toward Hayward’s feet.
“Formation!” Miller barked. “Bring your shields up!”
A dozen flashlight beams swept the blackness around them, probing alcoves and ancient ceilings. Carlin approached the injured policeman. “You okay?” he asked.
The cop, McMahon, nodded, breathing heavily. “Bastard got me in the stomach. My vest took the worst of it.”
“Show yourselves!” Miller shouted.
Two more rocks came winging out of the darkness, flitting through the flashlight beams like cave bats. One rocketed into the dust of the tunnel floor, and the other struck a glancing blow off Miller’s riot shield. There was a roar as the Lieutenant discharged his shotgun, the rubber pellets slapping off the rough ceiling.
Hayward listened as the sound reverberated down the tunnels, finally dying into silence. The men were looking around restlessly, stepping from one foot to the other, already jumpy. This was no way to work a roust of this size.
“Where the hell are they?” Miller said to no one in particular.
Taking a deep breath, Hayward stepped forward. “Lieutenant, we’d better move right now—”
Suddenly the air was full of missiles: bottles, rocks, and dirt came pelting out of the darkness ahead of them, a rain of garbage. The officers ducked, pulling their shields up to protect their faces.
“Shit!” came a frantic cry. “Those bastards are throwing shit!”
“Get organized, men!” Miller cried. “Give me a line!”
As Hayward turned, looking for Carlin, she heard a nearby voice say, “Oh, my sweet Lord,” in a disbelieving whisper. She spun around to a sight that weakened her knees: a ragged, filthy army of homeless was boiling out of the dark tunnel from behind them in a well-planned ambush. In the lambent glow of the flashlights it was impossible to get a good count, but to Hayward it seemed there must be hundreds: screaming with rage, brandishing angle irons and pieces of rebar.