Aurablade

13

After delivering the gold bars to Rivya, much to her surprise at my success, I return to the underworld. Talc is in the same spot as before, leaning against the wall.

"I'm surprised the stone doesn't scorch your back," I say.

He shrugs. "I've gotten used to it." He pushes himself away from the wall. "I found the portal."

"Show me."

Through the passages, we walk in silence. Several minutes tick by until he stops, pointing to a dead end. He lifts his foot, but he can't bring it any further. An invisible field blocks his foot from moving forward.

"Seems about right," I say. The air has cooled by about five degrees, and the faintest indigo flickers around the rocks at the end. My boots echo against the stone, the clicks of the shoes magnified in the quiet. I approach the rounded end of the tunnel, then remove a few stones. Light seeps through the cracks in thin, blinding bursts. I remove a particularly large rock, leading to a gaping hole in the wall. A magnetic energy pulls at me, and I feel my body being caught in a vacuum, sucked through the wall.

For a second, white, fluorescent light blinds my vision, and a crushing weight closes around my body.

The next moment, darkness closes in again. I'm crouched down on the floor, looking up at a single, blaring lightbulb. I stand, surveying the room quickly to evaluate where the underworld has spat me out. It appears that I'm in a storage room.

I tap the watch on my wrist. It runs a quick geo-scan, and my coordinates appear on the screen. I plug those numbers into a map. The ping returns with "location unknown."

My brow furrows. I try again, this time searching for the nearest location to me.

Nearest location: The CryoFuture Inc., Headquarters.

Figures. Talc was right. This trip is a waste, and we're no closer to finding all the people who've gone missing.

We're no closer to finding Stellae.

Frustration itches at my fingertips. I try not to let it control me. It isn't over yet. I can still find her.

But it's been two years, two years of scouring the underworld, two years of killing to reach the underworld. What's the point of any of it if I never find her?

I turn around, ready to go back to the underworld. Except I don't see the portal's entrance. There's only a blank wall with some boxes and crates surrounding it.

I groan. Of course it would be an exit-only portal. That's the trouble with the whole, esoteric system. Some are entrance only, like the one I use to enter the underworld. Others are exit only. Very rarely do portals allow both. I turn back to my watch and plug in my coordinates once more, trying to find the nearest way out.

The map of the CryoFuture Talc sent to me appears on my watch screen. I plug in my coordinates, but an error message appears. My eyebrows draw together. My location is not located within the CryoFuture, even though it is the nearest pinnable area. I reevaluate the coordinates, plugging them in a few more times.

After a moment, realization clicks. My coordinates place me about two-thousand meters beneath the CryoFuture. There's no way to the surface except by finding the way down here.

Why is the most used portal near the CryoFuture two-thousand meters below the city? That makes no sense, unless many people are dying down here. But what even is down here?

I stumble through the storage, dodging boxes and crates until I find a door. In seconds, it cracks open thanks to the voltage stealer. Bright light fills a white-walled hallway, which is all too bright considering the dark room I was just in. I squint against it until my eyes adjust to the light.