06-30-2014, 01:38 AM
<small>[[continued from Here's to forgetting]]</small>
Ivan was pretty excited about his new assignment. The opportunity to both do his work as a cop and also to use his abilities in an official capacity was, to say the least, unprecedented. At least he'd never heard of it. Though of course that didn't mean anything, he supposed. But he was happy.
And he had to say that it was nice working with a superior officer who wasn't a pencil pushing, rule following moron. He'd seen a lot of those in the few years he'd been on the force. Guys with guts that said that they hadn't run down a perp in 10 years and if they had to right that second, well they'd take 10 steps and then he'd be stuck having to decided whether to call for an ambulance for the heart attack going on or to continue the chase and then have to fill out a bunch of paperwork explaining why he had left a fellow officer when he was hurt. Which was to say, he disliked working with superior officers who seemed to forget how to actually police.
But Drayson was another story. Pretty much top cop in the city, and yet somehow made sure that he spent plenty of time on the streets doing actual police work. They were the same height and the same build, which he appreciated. Good to know that if it went down, there'd be two guys like them to make sure things didn't get out of hand. More than that, though, was that the man cut through a lot of the procedural and bureaucratic crap and got down to business. Not that Ivan hated paperwork. He saw the point and did his job. But the day that my job is just filling out papers is the day that I shoot myself int he head. That was not why he became a cop.
Apparently, Drayson meant to test him because that day's job was to head down into the undercity. What they were looking for, exactly, he wasn't sure. He'd never been down there himself, though of course he'd heard of it. As a cop, how could you not? The idea saddened him. He was not naive. You didn't grow up the son and grandson of a cop with a disneyfied view of the world. You knew what it was like. There were no thieves with a heart of gold down here who'd rescue a princess and live happily ever after, no sassy squirrels to help a plucky young girl out of trouble.
Life down here was ugly and hard and that was the cold reality. But that didn't mean it didn't make his heart hurt or make him wish that Ascendancy could somehow make the problems go away. But he, more than most, understood the limitations of that power. No matter how much you had, you were just one man. You needed other men and women to help you, to stand beside you, to shoulder the responsibility. Thing weren't gonna get better until people started working together.
The living conditions of these people were horrific compared to topside. He knew the duffels they carried with supplies for information trade were critical. But he didn't kid himself. More would have to be done to solve the problems down here than just provide material supplies . The fact was, what was down here was not any kind of social order like up top. There were no elections or officials or anything like that. It was much more primitive and prone to abuse by those with might. That wasn't going to change with a few batteries and blankets, not really.
As they went from small group to small group, flashlights illuminating paths to glowing lights of fires in distant tunnels and alcoves and overhangs, they heard tales that were far too common. Smugglers, children being snatched from their families, gangs fighting each other. It was depressing, made all the more so by the fact that they were deep underground.
But amid those terrible, but unfortunately all too common mundane problems, were stories of a darker nature. Tales of monsters and other things in the dark. Places that they dared not go. He wasn't sure how seriously he took them. People always told stories. Ivan was reminded of Zoya. Strangely, despite their surroundings, he smiled and looked at his shoes. It had only been a bit of puke, but still. But he'd stepped in worse, he supposed. Then again, those had been shoes for going out, not standard work issue.
He wondered if she was ok. Probably getting in trouble again. He thought about giving her a call. He had her number and it was worth the shot. She had called him, after all. Maybe that was just because she thought he could help her. But who cares. You gotta take chances. Maybe they'd have a fun normal date. Strangely, that thought wasn't as appealing to him, the normal. He rather liked her impetuous side.
But anyway, monsters. As they made their way through tunnel after tunnel, Ivan watched carefully. He didn't actually believe in them. Well sure, there were things out there that he was sure he didn't know about. But monsters? He'd not really been afraid of them as a kid. When your dad was packin' heat and jokingly ordered the 'monsters' you thought were in the closet to “come out with their hands up” before he pulled the door open and 'cleared' it...well, you kind of lost your fear of that stuff. Pops was like that. Reality was real. So Ivan was tense. But not about monsters themselves.
Drayson was cool to watch though. The guy just seemed to go from encampment to encampment, no nonsense, listening empathetically but also with a purpose. He was hunting something. It made Ivan alert. He had rounded up a city worker crew to join them, evidently because this guy knew the layout of the tunnels. They made their way into the maze and eventually came to an abandoned section that still had stacks of wooden pallets and lumber. Drayson commented on it and Ivan had to agree. It was odd. That kind of resource should have been used long ago.
At one point, he heard what might have been a scream. He wasn't sure though. A look at Drayson confirmed that he wasn't sure either. Drayson muscled his way through a door and again Ivan smiled. The man was not afraid to use physical force. He was growing to like the guy. Definitely not a desk jockey afraid to get his hands dirty. They entered a large chamber, the size of which was only dimly illuminated by their flashlights and the workers lamps. The weight of the ceiling was palpable, as the contours of the of the cavern was discernible. Hundreds of feet of rock and concrete and road sat over their heads, not to mention whatever cars and buildings were above. It was an incomprehensible amount of weight to be held up. Irrationally, he felt as if the whole thing could fall in on them.
In the distance they saw a flickering orange which might be a fire. Drayson questioned Mr Michailov, but Ivan only half listened. He extended his senses. The weight of world above pressed in on him, spiking the fear...there was something out there. And they could be buried at any moment. In the distance of his mind he perceived a light, the power, and he seized it. Suddenly the room flared brightly in his mind, the darkness becoming full day. The sound of their movement and breath reverberating palpably against the walls, like some bat's sonar, telling exactly how many meters the cavern is, the air pressure indicating the depth.
The claustrophobic feeling was powerful, but Ivan swallowed it down. He drew in enough of the power to feel his skin prickle, but it helped. Part of him wanted to run for the surface, but he refused to let himself flee. He took a deep breath, focused on his breathing, and relaxed. He watched Drayson, ready to follow his lead. He would not let this fear govern him. He had a job to do.
Edited by Ivan Sarkozy, Sep 7 2014, 09:39 AM.
Ivan was pretty excited about his new assignment. The opportunity to both do his work as a cop and also to use his abilities in an official capacity was, to say the least, unprecedented. At least he'd never heard of it. Though of course that didn't mean anything, he supposed. But he was happy.
And he had to say that it was nice working with a superior officer who wasn't a pencil pushing, rule following moron. He'd seen a lot of those in the few years he'd been on the force. Guys with guts that said that they hadn't run down a perp in 10 years and if they had to right that second, well they'd take 10 steps and then he'd be stuck having to decided whether to call for an ambulance for the heart attack going on or to continue the chase and then have to fill out a bunch of paperwork explaining why he had left a fellow officer when he was hurt. Which was to say, he disliked working with superior officers who seemed to forget how to actually police.
But Drayson was another story. Pretty much top cop in the city, and yet somehow made sure that he spent plenty of time on the streets doing actual police work. They were the same height and the same build, which he appreciated. Good to know that if it went down, there'd be two guys like them to make sure things didn't get out of hand. More than that, though, was that the man cut through a lot of the procedural and bureaucratic crap and got down to business. Not that Ivan hated paperwork. He saw the point and did his job. But the day that my job is just filling out papers is the day that I shoot myself int he head. That was not why he became a cop.
Apparently, Drayson meant to test him because that day's job was to head down into the undercity. What they were looking for, exactly, he wasn't sure. He'd never been down there himself, though of course he'd heard of it. As a cop, how could you not? The idea saddened him. He was not naive. You didn't grow up the son and grandson of a cop with a disneyfied view of the world. You knew what it was like. There were no thieves with a heart of gold down here who'd rescue a princess and live happily ever after, no sassy squirrels to help a plucky young girl out of trouble.
Life down here was ugly and hard and that was the cold reality. But that didn't mean it didn't make his heart hurt or make him wish that Ascendancy could somehow make the problems go away. But he, more than most, understood the limitations of that power. No matter how much you had, you were just one man. You needed other men and women to help you, to stand beside you, to shoulder the responsibility. Thing weren't gonna get better until people started working together.
The living conditions of these people were horrific compared to topside. He knew the duffels they carried with supplies for information trade were critical. But he didn't kid himself. More would have to be done to solve the problems down here than just provide material supplies . The fact was, what was down here was not any kind of social order like up top. There were no elections or officials or anything like that. It was much more primitive and prone to abuse by those with might. That wasn't going to change with a few batteries and blankets, not really.
As they went from small group to small group, flashlights illuminating paths to glowing lights of fires in distant tunnels and alcoves and overhangs, they heard tales that were far too common. Smugglers, children being snatched from their families, gangs fighting each other. It was depressing, made all the more so by the fact that they were deep underground.
But amid those terrible, but unfortunately all too common mundane problems, were stories of a darker nature. Tales of monsters and other things in the dark. Places that they dared not go. He wasn't sure how seriously he took them. People always told stories. Ivan was reminded of Zoya. Strangely, despite their surroundings, he smiled and looked at his shoes. It had only been a bit of puke, but still. But he'd stepped in worse, he supposed. Then again, those had been shoes for going out, not standard work issue.
He wondered if she was ok. Probably getting in trouble again. He thought about giving her a call. He had her number and it was worth the shot. She had called him, after all. Maybe that was just because she thought he could help her. But who cares. You gotta take chances. Maybe they'd have a fun normal date. Strangely, that thought wasn't as appealing to him, the normal. He rather liked her impetuous side.
But anyway, monsters. As they made their way through tunnel after tunnel, Ivan watched carefully. He didn't actually believe in them. Well sure, there were things out there that he was sure he didn't know about. But monsters? He'd not really been afraid of them as a kid. When your dad was packin' heat and jokingly ordered the 'monsters' you thought were in the closet to “come out with their hands up” before he pulled the door open and 'cleared' it...well, you kind of lost your fear of that stuff. Pops was like that. Reality was real. So Ivan was tense. But not about monsters themselves.
Drayson was cool to watch though. The guy just seemed to go from encampment to encampment, no nonsense, listening empathetically but also with a purpose. He was hunting something. It made Ivan alert. He had rounded up a city worker crew to join them, evidently because this guy knew the layout of the tunnels. They made their way into the maze and eventually came to an abandoned section that still had stacks of wooden pallets and lumber. Drayson commented on it and Ivan had to agree. It was odd. That kind of resource should have been used long ago.
At one point, he heard what might have been a scream. He wasn't sure though. A look at Drayson confirmed that he wasn't sure either. Drayson muscled his way through a door and again Ivan smiled. The man was not afraid to use physical force. He was growing to like the guy. Definitely not a desk jockey afraid to get his hands dirty. They entered a large chamber, the size of which was only dimly illuminated by their flashlights and the workers lamps. The weight of the ceiling was palpable, as the contours of the of the cavern was discernible. Hundreds of feet of rock and concrete and road sat over their heads, not to mention whatever cars and buildings were above. It was an incomprehensible amount of weight to be held up. Irrationally, he felt as if the whole thing could fall in on them.
In the distance they saw a flickering orange which might be a fire. Drayson questioned Mr Michailov, but Ivan only half listened. He extended his senses. The weight of world above pressed in on him, spiking the fear...there was something out there. And they could be buried at any moment. In the distance of his mind he perceived a light, the power, and he seized it. Suddenly the room flared brightly in his mind, the darkness becoming full day. The sound of their movement and breath reverberating palpably against the walls, like some bat's sonar, telling exactly how many meters the cavern is, the air pressure indicating the depth.
The claustrophobic feeling was powerful, but Ivan swallowed it down. He drew in enough of the power to feel his skin prickle, but it helped. Part of him wanted to run for the surface, but he refused to let himself flee. He took a deep breath, focused on his breathing, and relaxed. He watched Drayson, ready to follow his lead. He would not let this fear govern him. He had a job to do.
Edited by Ivan Sarkozy, Sep 7 2014, 09:39 AM.