The Destroying, Part 3

* The City, Above and Beneath

A young boy with dull brown hair smiled back at her through a small ornate black gat in the wall.

“Hey, having fun?”

Timothy was the apprentice timekeeper for the train station and with his grandfather, the master timekeeper, his job was to see through most the working machinery in the train-station, in particular the clocks. Back when Inna was still new to being a stray he had seen her scavenging in the hall an pointed her out to his grandfather. Unfortunately his grandfather had then had gone straight to the security guards to report her and Inna had struggled to  keep out of the clutched for the rest of the day. Later when Timothy had found her again he had explained and apologised for his grandfather and they had been friends ever since.

“Naturally,” she replied, answering his question.

“Well thank god for that, I was getting bored in here on my own, you want to come in?” he invited.

Inna hesitated, Timothy lived in the train station’s tunnels and access passages to tend to the clocks but she rarely got to see them. His Grandfather was too unpredictable and they had no way of knowing if he would catch them.

Timothy sensed her hesitation and smiled, “Grandpa’s not here,” he informed her, “he's gone. I figured you’d like to take a look around while we have the chance.”

Inna smiled and her eyes sparkled, “Sounds like fun.”

Inside they roamed in the darkness, Timothy looked back over his shoulder, “Grandpa had to leave for family business,” he explained, “so I’m in charge of the clocks while he’s away.”

“Nice, a challenge for you then?” she called ahead.

“I love it, but it’s my first day on my own, hence you can help me out," he teased, he knew Inna didn't know a thing about clockwork, but she was happy to learn. “I saw your spat with the guard earlier,” he noted, climbing up a set of stairs.

“Oh?” she asked, following after him “I was only trying to be friendly, I don’t know why he got so upset.”

“Yeah, it's not like the punch to the ribs could have offended him at all.”

She smiled at his sarcasm, “Can’t see why it would have.”

It was a little dark inside the passageways. Dark but cool and enclosed. Timothy took her first through to the medium clock that overlooked a restaurant and café hall. He clutched her hand and guided her up to see. Through the number holes in the clock face she could see out over most the hall. It was fantastic, she could see everyone but not one person saw her, despite looking her way often to check the time.

She looked over and took in a bit of the picture. An elderly couple, a woman in medium blue and a man in a suit, were being guided to a table by a young waitress about twenty-three years old and caramel hair. She then noticed Yumie in the crowd, Well aren’t we all for bumping into each other? she thought,  Although it does tend to start with a one way meeting.

She turned to Timothy. “So,” she smiled, “How do you wind this thing?”

He smiled back and started to demonstrate the procedure. Winding the clock with the massive handle and checking it according to his own pocket watch, he then had to check each part to see everything was working and no bits needed replacing or mending. Then that clock done, they moved on to the next one.

At the next clock she was able to help. It was huge and heavy, so she took on some of the weight and helped him wind. They moved from clock to clock, Inna mentally outlaying the routes and layouts of the passageways. After three more clocks Timothy took her hand and led her up another set of unfamiliar stairs.

They were already pretty high up in the station, they had taken two flights to get to the latest clock. As they climbed Inna saw light coming through the gloom. The passageway was drawing to an end and as it did so she couldn’t help but feel excited and curious thinking of where Timothy might have bought her. Then they started to emerge. Light temporarily blinded Inna as they came out onto flat flooring, it took her eyes a minute to adjust, and only then could she take in where she was … and what she could see.

It was a clock, a huge clock, but it was also glass and transparent, and through it she could see the whole city. The view was fantastic. She could see all of it, and even though the state the city was in was less then fantastic, from where she was it was awe inspiring.

Timothy held out a hand to the view, “Check out our city.”

Inna walked forward to soak up the magnanimity of the view. True, it was foggy, a cloudy day in the city, but she felt illuminated in light, and wanted nothing more than to soak up every drop of it.

A few minutes later she and Timothy had sat together in the clock/window area to gaze out at their leisure. Timothy, having come prepared bought out two cookies and handed one to Inna, turning the scene almost into a modest picnic. She bit into her share of it gratefully then looked up to see Timothy gazing at her.

“What?” she asked casually.

He shook his head, “Nothing ... you just look really nice.” He shrugged.

Inna cocked her head, confused, and looked down at her outfit. Dark green, almost black pants, and white top with short sleeves, she didn’t have much else. Not practically glamorous clothing.

“It’s the light,” he continued, “I’ve never see you in the light, it’s weird to think but you look different.”

She considered this and looked back up at him. She could see it too; he looked different in the light. His face, it seemed easier to look at, more definite. They’d never seen each other outside the train station, and inside they usually only met in the gloomy shadows.

“Mmm, you’re right. I mean, I’ve only seen you in those tunnels and round the station, but yeah, the light does make a difference.”

He shrugged his shoulders and looked out again at the city. “This place isn’t running to smoothly,” he commented. “The city, I mean.”

She looked up at him curiously.

Timothy shrugged, “It’s true, I see the articles in the paper my grandpa gets, they try to only report the good stuff, to keep people’s hopes up, but they still have to report the facts. There’s been massive rises in crime rates this week, muggings, gangs, vandalism …” He looked at her oddly, she understood, rape was the word he wasn’t saying. She lived alone and travelled alone a lot at night, rape, along with mugging and gangs were a big risk for her.

“Wouldn’t surprise me, people are growing insane, waiting for the next …” Now she couldn’t finish, but she knew he understood what she was saying. She was talking about the next Destroying, the Repetition.

“Who did you lose?” he asked.

“My sister, it was hard on my parents. What about you?” she asked.

“My Mum, after she left us Dad killed himself, and I ended up with Grandpa.”

Inna nodded, suicide was common during the Destroying; she’d seen some people do it, and it still gave her nightmares. “That was the worst part, the extra deaths, the people who died because of a reaction to the Destroying, not the Destroying itself.”

“Could have been a lot worse, at least we weren't in the sects," he pointed out, referring to a political system other countries had used with it's people, "I wonder when the next one will come?” he breathed, his voice soft.

“I don’t know, but something tells me that when it comes, rape will be the least of our worries.”

She looked out the window. Before the Destroying this city was one of the largest in the world. It was good, not a wreck, or a sparkling city of angels, but it was good. Until the Destroying came. Many towns were completely destroyed, burnt to ashes sometimes, or vandalised past any possible human habitation; people flocked to the cities. To find work, or be with loved ones or find treatments to the viruses that began spreading like wildfire after an accident in one of the hospitals. Inna’s mother had contracted one of those and had very nearly joined her daughter in the grave.

The city was thrown into poverty and chaos then the Rioting began. It was the darkest time in human history. Inna had come through it, but now she was a stray and a street rat, like so many countless others. Every day there were more people becoming homeless, joining gangs, sinking to the lowest of the low in society, and once there many people didn’t make it.

Now the hospitals only cared for people with identification, they have to check a person’s record before the even allow any patent to be treated. It was a security protocol that went in place after the toll began to build of people attacking hospitals; the other side was one nobody liked to talk about, the fact that the hospitals didn’t like having to treat so many people. They took the option that bought down the number of patients they’d have to treat. This meant Inna would probably never set foot in a hospital for the rest of her life. She lived on the streets with the gangsters and robbers, it was people like her that’d need the hospitals most of all.

She got sick a while ago and almost died because she couldn’t go to any hospital. She was stuck in a little room, with no bed and unable to get herself food, let alone medical tablets, for days. Thankfully she improved before she starved and recovered on her own in a few days, but it had been a scare, and not one she ever wanted to repeat.

She looked out on the rusty brown city again and wondered how on earth it could ever survive another Destroying.

She and Timothy hung out for a few hours after that. Timothy had money and took her down to one of the cafés for a cheep coffee each. They sat together and drunk, talking a bit about what Timothy would do with his free time now he had his Grandpa off his back for a while. One of these ideas was the passageways, in his new free time Timothy could properly teach Inna all the passages of the station.

“Sounds great,” she enthused. “How about we finish this then get started?”

Timothy agreed and upon finishing they left the café and spent the next hour getting Inna acquainted with several routes through the train-station for future usage. Inna enjoyed her time in the dark enclosed spaces, they felt strangely safe and cave like. Most of them were completely alien to her after an hour of learning a few had grown familiar. Then reality hit and it was time to get back to scavenging and being a stray.

After she left the train station she first decided to try looking around the nearby casino. She managed to sneak in quickly and started walking around scanning the red carpet floor. Loose change was what she usually found of course, but sometimes other things were dropped, she’d even take a pen or dropped chip if she saw it.

She spent an hour searching the floor and counters, but then saw some security guards heading her way and made a silent dash for the streets.

Back in her natural habitat she took her usual rounds around the allies, checking drains and looking in trash bins for money or discarded food. However nothing came close to last night’s score and eventually she had to give up on this too. Feeling desperate now she headed to the dump.

The dump was one of the riskiest places. Sneaking in was difficult, then there was sneaking out and not being caught in the mean time.

As always she lay in wait for a convenient vehicle heading into the facility and eventually truck came motoring her way, its inside filled with trash ready for the dump. It stopped at the gate to get in and she seized the opportunity.

Moving as a leopard she dashed to the back and jumped on to the bumper, here she leaped up grabbing the edge of the truck’s roof then she swung herself round and lay flat on the top. Here she breathed a second as a young man came around to check the cargo. They drove in without incident.

The truck would also serve as her escape once it left so she didn’t have a lot of time. While it was still moving she leapt off without being seen and made note watch it wherever it went. She could not afford to get stuck in here. She started foraging.

The dump wasn’t a place she visited often. Maybe when she could afford the time for extra luxuries, but that was rare and it wasn’t the case today. Today most of her hot spots had turned up nothing, she was bored and she needed to try something. Her hope was sometimes she could find good stuff here, even things that she could re-sell. It was a small hope but it was something.

She stated with one of the smaller piles, and going through she found a small pocketknife. She smiled, it was a great find to start with, it even looked sharp so she pocketed it thinking her luck might have turned again. She was right. Three dead watches showed up next, but even dead she knew an apprentice timekeeper who might fix one so she pocketed them too.

The truck driver took his time here and allowed her forty-five minutes of searching. By the end of this she’d found one knife, three cheep dead watches, a crow bar, a frayed white top with a small hole in the back and some old pencils. With this she was immensely pleased, if curious why se was always coming across white tops. She it on over her old top, hoping it’d at least improve her warmth, stuffed what she could in her pockets and grabbed the crow bar. Quietly, she then made her way back to the truck where her driver had stopped chatting. She tucked the crowbar uncomfortably into her pants then took a breath, waited for the correct moment, and leapt. She grabbed the edge of the roof. She couldn’t move right with the crowbar so she quickly grabbed it and waited for a noisy moment to shove it ahead of her. Then she took another breath and heaved the rest of herself atop the truck. She looked over, the driver hadn’t seen. A sigh of relief escaped her lips and she pressed herself down flat on the roof to leave. Five minutes later they had got out without incident, maybe a little smellier, but better for the trip.

She left the truck as soon as she could, but only to find herself on the wrong side of town. She gritted her teeth, unfamiliar territory was never good. She kept to the allies; a crowbar wouldn’t be fun explaining to any police or CSS (City Safety Sergeants) she might come across. The city grew dark around her; she’d been out too long. She needed to stay out of sight. She tried the rooftops for a while. It was cool and clear and the night air seemed colder then the night before, she only hooped she’d be able to sleep better tonight. As she came across the cold iron of the rooftops she could afford to feel no peace.

She remained on guard and edgy as she came across the high streets of the city, but still almost came into conflict with the infamous gang of the rooftops, The City Bats who watched from above to ambush those beneath. Spotting them she backtracked, moving silently away before retreating back to the streets.