Arden rolled her eyes and pushed him inside. “As if.” But his words made her relive the brief kiss on the dance floor.
She followed, shutting and locking them into the darkness. From her pocket, she extracted a glo-wand, extending the tube and flicking it on to emit a low yellow light. Then she knelt down on the floor and unhooked a hidden latch that revealed a keypad. After she typed in the code to release the hatch, the floor slid open to reveal a set of stairs descending into the darkness.
“Tell anyone about this bolt-hole and I’ll kill you,” she said, gesturing for him to go first.
CHAPTER NINE
“Why do you keep threatening to kill me?” Dade asked, his amusement clear.
“You seem to inspire that in me,” she said, forcing back an answering smile. Normally she wasn’t too entertained by people, but he was so honest and charming in his reactions, it was difficult not to get sucked in.
Arden shone her glo-wand on another keypad inside the tunnel lip. When she keyed that one, the lights inside the tunnel flickered on. She pulled the hatch the rest of the way open and then gestured again. “You first.”
He didn’t protest, moving past her while giving her a smirk. The kind promising a secret that said he would share it with her if she would only ask. It made her toes curl and her heartbeat stumble.
She shouldn’t have been surprised at his cockiness. He’d come to the club knowing about the sweep, after all. That he was flirting even when they were in danger of being caught and she was literally leading him into a dark tunnel underground should be expected.
She followed, making sure to shut and lock the hatch behind her. The light on the panel turned from green to red. The tube felt claustrophobic, with a stench of unfiltered air. The temperature lowered as they descended. Arden hated traveling to and from Undercity. The press of the walls always reminded her of how trapped they really were.
They climbed down for a while, Arden’s muscles beginning to burn with exertion before they reached the bottom of the tunnel. Dade looked around the small antechamber. He studied the blue-tinged brick walls as if committing them to memory. The Levels and the Sky Towers were constructed from metal and moonglass. Only here in Undercity were the walls made from the planet’s soil.
Reaching out, he ran his fingers along the rough texture. “I never thought I’d see brick in person. It’s fascinating.”
Arden found his reaction humorous, but she managed to keep it in check. “Then you’re going to love the rest of it. Come on.”
She slipped her mask off, tucking it into a pocket. Then pulled up the hood of her cloak. “Keep your head covered until we reach the fields. There aren’t many working cameras in this neighborhood, but there are enough.”
“Right.” Dade mimicked her movements.
There was another door on this side. The tunnel locked at both ends. She opened it, leading them into the basement of a food-package shop. The storage area was crammed with boxes and barrels. Arden didn’t bother with the overhead light, relying on her glo-wand as they entered the back of the shop and worked their way through the store. The dim electric lights from the street outside cast a gloomy shine through the clouded, aged windows. Arden shut off her glo-wand, collapsing and pocketing it.
The store didn’t have much in the way of decoration, like most shops in Undercity. Cell-powered lamps hung from the rafters as a precaution against frequent power outages. The floor had been cobbled together from natural stone collected from the Wilds and smoothed to make a flat surface. Cracks in the grout had been dug out and refilled several times in a variety of colors. But the surfaces were clean, and the place was dry. There wasn’t the prevalent Undercity mold smell.
Food commodities were carefully monitored for distribution. There wasn’t a lot for sale on the shelves. The items had been prepackaged individually in govie wrappers, and each sat with space surrounding it from the next item. They were high-calorie offerings made from meta-grains, their goal to sustain the body on less food. Prices glowed in suspended numbers in front of each shelf. Govie Buy Certificates were needed along with credits for purchase. This system limited the number and type of supplies, making sure there was a fair exchange of goods.
“We need to move quickly,” she said when they reached the door to the street. “Stay in the shadows. If we’re seen, run. I’ll find you.”
The streets were empty since they were currently in the middle of lockdown hours. Anyone on the streets now either had legitimate business with a govie pass or shouldn’t be there at all. The likelihood of being caught was slim because there weren’t frequent patrols in this neighborhood, but caution was still necessary.
“I’m not worried,” he said.
“You should be.” A little fear would be good for him, but as he’d proven over and over, getting him to understand that would be impossible. “If we’re separated, you won’t get out of Undercity without me showing you the way.”
The food-package shop was located in a quiet section to the south of the town square. Arden led them past the row of storefronts and out toward the wheel of the city center where they could take the path that led to the farm district. From there, she would take him to a bolt-hole close to the Sky Towers. Then she would be done with him. Arden considered whether she’d use the next hour to figure out what made him so intriguing, then ruthlessly cut that thought from her mind.
Dade looked up to the ceiling that domed the walkways, enclosing all of Undercity. “There’s brick everywhere.”
“It’s how they keep us from crawling from the depths into Above.” She felt uncomfortable with his curiosity, like she feared being judged, and that in turn made her angry and embarrassed. No siskin was going to make her feel less than, even if he seemed enthralled by her world and hadn’t uttered a single disparaging remark.
This was her normal, her home. For the most part, she barely noticed it. Of course, she saw the difference between the world she belonged to and Above, whenever she snuck up to run a job or manage a deal. It didn’t mean that she wanted him to understand the difference.
“It’s a long walk, so keep up. The subtrains stopped running a few hours ago. I need to be back by the early bell.” She walked quicker, putting some strides between them and hoping that if they moved faster, he’d show less fascination with Undercity and then she could breathe a little easier.
“I don’t understand. Wouldn’t it be easier to wait a few hours and then return through the club?”
“It’s too risky. The govies will be watching the streets. Standard procedure is to establish a perimeter before the raid that then stays in place for at least twelve hours after. You probably just made it inside.” Then she added seriously, “I can’t get caught.”
“Have you been caught in raids before?”