Children of the Pipes Chapter 1: The Boy

A boy wandered through the wastes. His flashlight only powerful enough to vaguely illuminate the few feet in front of him through a thick veil of brown dust. He was careful to avoid the occasional outcropping or drop off in his unnatural environment.

This boy didn't have a name. Wherever he went “Hey, boy” or “You, kid” was enough to address him by, and so that was how he usually thought of himself. To no one in the world was he “the Boy,” only “a boy” or “that boy.” Only to an omniscient onlooker or possibly himself would he be “the Boy.”

On the horizon, he could see his destination. A collection of a few, dim lights made up one of the many small villages that littered the underground. An excellent place to conduct business.

It would take roughly an hour for the Boy to reach his destination from where he was, but it had appeared to him many hours ago. The pitch-darkness of the vast underground labyrinth, combined with it’s often nearly geometrically flat geography, made the visible horizon far more distant than it would be on the surface. There was no gentle curvature of this subsurface; it was flat for hundreds of miles, until a sudden drop off led again to another face.

He scratched at his ear. He estimated himself somewhere between 16 and 18, and if he wasn’t careful he’d soon develop the horrible acne that plagued many in the underground. Sometimes it looked as if someone had spread jam across their cheeks.

The scrawny teenager shivered in the cold air. Hours ago, the town was only a pinprick of light to the Boy, like a distant star in the night sky. As he had gotten closer, the Boy grew to discern the multiple lights that had amalgamated to make the star. Each light took on a vaguely orange or yellow tint, and the Boy thought that they might be gas fires. Such speculation was often how the Boy occupied himself as he wandered. Travelling through the underground places was terribly unstimulating, aside from the constant fear of bandits and the violently insane. the Boy began attempts to count the distant lights in an effort to pass the time.

---

The underground was countless, barren miles of blackness. If it had walls, no one had ever seen them. The floor made of intertwining pipes and the ceiling of hanging and knotted wires hundreds of feet above were the earth and the sky. Every few minutes, in some unnamed, unexplored location, one of the long-dead electronics buzzed uselessly. This feeble death throe would echo on for miles, but even so it was likely that it would never meet anyone to perceive it.

Down here, there was no scouring sunlight or searing air as there was above. There was only a powerful taste of metal in the damp, stagnant air. The low, static hum of utter silence that seemed to reverberate in the fabric of the space itself could drive anyone lost in the darkness to madness, and it often did. Noise was amplified tens of times over in the vast room. Every groan of tested metal, and every clink of fallen debris could be heard clearly for miles. The utter silence despite this was a testament to how truly without life the place was.

The few lights that existed to shine on the expanse revealed a bleak, metallic, and utterly dead landscape. There were no trees, no grasses, and no dirt. Nature here was the gradual supremacy of rust, the inevitable victory of gravity over ancient structures, and the eventual extinction of all but a few, microscopic organisms. A tiny strip of warm land that a few people made a meager living on was only a fraction of the frozen-solid and utterly uninhabitable wasteland.

The living in such a desolate place were hardly distinguishable from the dead, and the dead were hardly distinguishable from those who had never existed at all. Life for all but a few was short, meaningless, and cruel.

Somewhere, lost among the unimaginably vast stretches of timeless tundra, in a tiny town, constituting a miniscule point of light, a meaningless story begins.

---

About an hour or so later, the youth arrived at his destination: a dumpy little settlement precisely in the center of nowhere. He had never been fond of the quaint towns that dotted the unoccupied spaces of the underground; the people were simple, and they lacked even what little skills the vastly uneducated masses of the cities possessed. These gray, hunched little people were suspicious of outsiders and sometimes quite rude, but luckily for the Boy’s purposes, also quite easily fooled.

The dirty young man entered the town during a period of inactivity. The handful of streets were lit precariously by jets of fire that shot out of pipes carrying supplies of natural gas. Since it was “nighttime,” (in a sense) some of these pipes were haphazardly extinguished and plugged with rags or other materials. There was a reason this method of lighting was reserved only for the most backwater of towns, and it had something to do with the many smoking craters that dotted the land.

the Boy hadn’t bothered to ask for directions to the local inn, as he was confident that it wouldn’t be easy to miss. He found himself correct in this assumption when he spied the only two-story lodging among the rabble of ill-aligned shacks. It was constructed out of pipes, (as all others were, it being the only available building material) which caused the tall jet of flame that illuminated its entrance to cast twisted and distorted shadows off it’s lumpy outer surfaces.

He entered the place, and was greeted with the thick smell of unwashed human and the rusty glow of a few small gas fires. The inn was the gathering place of the people of the village, and it was this, rather than the rare visitor, that kept it afloat. the Boy slipped between chairs, squeezed past people, and managed to make his way to a reception counter that doubled as a bar.

“You ain’t from around here,” the man behind the counter observed.

“Yes,” the Boy said as he rummaged through his pockets for money, “How much for a week’s stay?”

“30 cents.” The bartender/innkeeper eyed the Boy suspiciously, “Why you staying for a week?” The only reason a man would stay in this crummy little town without a name would be because he needed directions or because he had run out of supplies. This place was the rest stop of the underground, and to linger was irregular.

“I’m a travelling salesman, I’m here to sell my wares,” the Boy offered.

“What’re you selling?” the innkeeper asked as he checked to see which rooms were available (never before had two visitors arrived at once, so this was only a habit).

“Knives,” the Boy replied shortly in an effort to end the conversation.

“Good, good, can never have too many knives, things always need cuttin’” the man behind the counter replied, clearly not willing to end the interaction. “You’ve got the first room on the right,” he said, “we ain’t got no locks on them, but there’s a chain on the inside you can tie to a post on the wall.” the Boy simply turned and walked away towards a nearby staircase that he assumed led to his room. He heard from behind him a “Harumph,” and something along the lines of “City-folk don’t have a single manner between them.” In a small village, full of small people, the Boy thought, small talk is the prevalent variety.

When he had reached his room, the Boy dropped his backpack on the ground and threw himself onto the small cot he had been allotted. the Boy regretted this instantly, as the cot was only a metal frame draped with a thin cloth. He picked himself up and rubbed his newly sore back as he examined his lodgings.

The walls, ceiling, and floor (as well as all furnishings) were constructed out of welded, bolted, and fastened pipes. Each individual piece of metal was in various stages of rusting away, reflective of their disparate intended uses. His room was lit by a single, dim lightbulb that hung from the ceiling. A trickle of red dust wafted around and was illuminated by the bulb. There was no window.

The only other furnishings aside from the bed were an end table and a mirror. This surprised the Boy, since it was usually uncommon to come across proper mirrors in the homes of common-folk. He approached the mirror as he toyed with the question of when he had last seen himself.

He was considerably surprised by the Boy who returned his gaze. the Boy often travelled alone, and rarely kept company consistently enough for them to be able to inform him on his changing appearance. His unobserved changes were so severe that he wasn’t even sure if the word “boy” fit him anymore, and if it did it was a tight fit at best. He had grown considerably taller and lankier since he’d seen himself last, and was quickly becoming a man. Shaggy, unkempt black hair hung over his thin face, and he would soon have to worry about the difficult business of shaving with sharp bits of metal. He wore a pair of frayed jeans and a dirty black jacket of similar condition. It had slipped his mind how long he had been wearing these clothes, and he didn’t care to remember.

He examined himself for a few more minutes, more because of the novelty of it than any actual interest in his appearance, and then returned to his cot (considerably more carefully this time). He had considered beginning his business the very night of his arrival, but he had decided it would be better to give himself a night of well-deserved rest. He would need to be charismatic for his endeavors, and his current exhaustive state wasn’t conducive to that. He stripped down till he only had his unwashed skin, dashed across to bolt the door (he had forgotten), and again laid down. He fell asleep contemplating the order and manner of the activities that he would need to perform in the morning. If he was sufficiently careful, he shouldn’t run into much difficulty.

---

the Boy quickly dodged behind a shack and pressed himself against the cool metal of it’s outer wall. He shut his eyelids tightly together and mouthed out a quiet, cynical prayer. He had little regret for his crimes against the townspeople, only for his failure to execute them properly.

the Boy peeked around the corner of the shack, and quickly whipped his head back around when a pipe-wielding villager came into view. He quieted his breath as much as he could and listened intently for footsteps advancing in his direction. He waited in tense silence for several moments, until the clang of scampering feet on metal told him he was gone.

the Boy furtively dodged from cover to cover, until he made it to the outskirts. He knew that there was nothing but open ground for miles around the town, and that he’d be exposed for the entirety of his final dash. the Boy drew in breath several times and exhaled it completely. Then, without any further hesitation, the Boy leapt from his standing position and bolted towards the darkness.

He didn’t listen for signs that the townspeople had spotted him, it was better to just assume that they were in pursuit. the Boy ran until the town was just a bright speck on the horizon, just as it had been before his arrival, before he came to a stop. He halted partly because he was frightened that the loud clanging of his footsteps and the flutter of his jacket would give him away, and partly because he faced a new obstacle.

He had reached a forest of sorts, where the pipes beneath him rose to flirtation with the ceiling, so high as to be out of sight. Many of the pillars possessed branch-like protrusions, reaching out to touch and graze each other. Standing tall and varying in diameter, the pipes averaged only about 3 or so feet between. They made the navigation of one’s limbs a puzzle should they try to progress.

the Boy inspected the thick face of this artificial forest. In all directions but behind him the rusty forest extended further than his cautiously faint light could illuminate. He had not passed this on his way into town, so there must be a way around this obstacle. the Boy disliked the idea of going directly through, but searching for a route circumventing the forest would maximize his chances of encountering the townsfolk.

the Boy threw a glance over his shoulder back towards the town. He had abandoned most of the stolen money back at the inn, so the Boy was not sure how far the townspeople would follow him. It would never hurt to be careful. With a defeated sigh, the Boy began the arduous process of working his way through the thicket.

---

the Boy’s skin scraped painfully against the sharp edges of the partially eroded and broken pipes as he fought for progress. He had no in-depth knowledge of this area, so for all he knew he would have to slowly and painstakingly struggle through countless miles of miserable obstacles for the entirety of his journey.

The pipes began to thin out a little after a few minutes. Though he sometimes encountered situations in which he had to squeeze through a tight passage, the Boy could now walk comfortably. Most would still feel a smothering claustrophobia in such a place, and the Boy did too, but he had trained himself to remove his focus from it. Panic at such a time was a unilaterally poor decision.

the Boy ruminated on his lack of supplies as he forced himself between a pair of particularly intimate pipes. Much of what he had been forced to abandon in the town wasn’t stolen goods. Some of it had been his own food and water. Thoughts about the water he needed contributed to the drying of his throat, and images of dried mushroom pained his stomach. the Boy considered grumbling of it quietly, but decided that a petty indulgence was not worth the noise. Perhaps indulging too much in the paranoia that the townspeople were stalking him, the Boy slid the switch on his flashlight to the off position. He rationalized that he could simply feel his way along. He went like this for a while, moving his hands from one pillar to the next, sensing the attention of imagined predators.

It wasn’t long before the Boy reached out and felt nothing in front of him. After several groping steps without any contact, he decided he was in a clearing and that it was as good a time as any to rest. the Boy plopped himself down onto the ground, breathing several sighs of relief. As he pulled his flashlight from his waist and his compass from his left pocket, he casually plucked at a wire spooling around a pipe on the ground.

Flicking the switch, he pointed his flashlight at his compass in order to discern the readings. the Boy held the compass up to the light, struggling to read the tiny letters on the face of the device. Something that he couldn’t place suddenly perturbed him, breaking his focus entirely. He let his hand holding the compass fall into his lap as he tried to figure out what had so shocked him.

It was as his eyes focussed on the disheveled and brown-splotched man watching him that he discovered what had alarmed him. The man opened his mouth as if to speak, but no words came out, only a halting hum of sorts, as if he had forgotten how to properly shape the tones from his vocal cords into words with his tongue. the Boy jumped up to his feet and backwards, his flashlight still trained on the man. Only one of the man’s bloodshot eyes was visible peering through his matted black hair.

The man stumbled up to his feet and towards the Boy, a hand outstretched, clumsily attempting to grab him. the Boy, realizing that the surrounding aluminum trees would not allow for escape, dodged forward, past the man’s reaching hand, and brought his flashlight directly down onto his head. The man stooped down in pain, and the Boy followed up his previous blow by driving his flashlight into the man’s temple with all the force he could muster. The man collapsed sideways onto the ground, and immediately the Boy knew he was dead. He breathed a sigh of relief as he stood over the body.

The fresh blood that escaped from the man’s veins and arteries would soon be brown and crusty; just like the blood that soaked his garments. Likewise, the man would soon be brown and crusty himself. Bodies tended go that way after years of neglect in the vast wastes of the underworld. the Boy wiped the blood off of his flashlight, hoping that the liquid would not short-circuit the device that his life depended on.

the Boy spied a nylon bag on the ground where the man had been sitting that seemed slightly cleaner than the man himself, and weighed whether or not he should search it. the Boy wouldn’t make it to his destination, Scott, without at least a small amount of water, but catching horrid and pustulous diseases from filth-covered Wanderers was commonplace, and and the wise kept interaction with them to a minimum. Entrusting himself once again to chance, the Boy resolved to inspect the bag.

the Boy carefully edged around the body and towards the bag, as if approaching it was dangerous in it’s own right. Once he arrived, he carefully untied the string that held the mouth of the bag closed. the Boy grabbed the butt of of the bag and drew the mouth along the ground, spilling its contents onto the pipes beneath his feet in a neat line.

the Boy inspected each item that the bag had produced, slowly directing the glow from his flashlight down the line he had spilled them in. The bag was mostly empty, but contained some essentials. There was a flask filled with clean water (the Boy poured some into his hand to test this), a clear plastic bag filled with dried mushrooms, a small container with a bit of some kind of vegetable in it, and a suspicious bag of meat.

the Boy grabbed the mushrooms, water, and vegetable, but left the meat. Wanderers were known to be less than discerning when it came to what kind of meat they ate. As the Boy rose to his feet, his head collided with an overhanging pipe and he stumbled backwards, tripping and falling.

The small of his back took the brunt of the fall, and the Boy was lucky he didn’t damage his spine. Being trapped, alone, and unable to move or right himself like an upturned turtle would have been a harrowing end. the Boy didn’t bother to think about how lucky he was, since he had grown used to his survival in the barren underground being a series of happy coincidences. the Boy groaned as he lay there. He wondered if he had broken something, because the way his flesh pushed against the floor was awkward. His brain, recovering from the sudden change in altitude, could not figure out why or how.

the Boy went to pull himself to his feet, only to realize the mass of flesh underneath him that he had assumed was his own, in fact belonged to the man. the Boy scuttled frantically to his feet, his hand brushing against the man’s breast pocket and knocking something loose and onto the ground.

the Boy, now standing, quickly checked himself for any injuries he had gained from his fall. A curious bluish glow had begun to illuminate the bottoms of the branch-like pipes, throwing them into sharp contrast with the darkness above. the Boy looked downwards towards the man and discovered the source of the light, a small metallic cylinder with steadily glowing bands spiraling up it’s length. He stooped down and grabbed the device, finding it surprisingly dense considering it’s thumb-to-pinky height.

the Boy knew precisely what he had uncovered, and a wide grin cracked across his face. the Boy was beginning to suspect that he was lucky. What he held in his hands now would make his entire trip, despite its hang-ups, by far a net positive.

What he possessed was immediately recognizable as a pre-apocalypse artifact, which often sold for handsome prices; even if the buyer had little knowledge of the device’s function. the Boy pocketed his newly acquired treasure, and by hiding it’s glow plunged the grotto into blackness. His grin grew wider and wider by the minute. the Boy could hardly resist the urge to express his good fortune (perhaps with a jubilant cry or a primal yell of victory) but fought the urge. He had had enough Wanderers for one day.

the Boy retrieved his compass and map and flicked on his flashlight. He was eager to head to Scott, and eager to redeem the artifact for cash. the Boy had no need for his magnetic map, as when one was this near Scott, the needle of the compass now pointed squarely towards it. the Boy followed the compass without delay, exiting the clearing and re-entering his struggle through the mechanical brambles.

Soon, the Boy’s light was distant, and the small clearing was growing dark once more. The man’s corpse lay on the ground, slowly discharging its fluid. It was beginning the long process of being devoured by its many bacteria. the Boy, never having heard of or seen a real lab, wouldn’t recognize the man’s coat as a lab coat, nor would he ever have ever recognized the bespectacled body as one that belonged to a scientist. The scientist lay limply and uncomfortably, contorted on the ground. He was still coated with dried cryo-fluid that would serve as a partial embalmer for his evacuated flesh. Unceremoniously draped across the floor, the scientist began to become an object. No longer the physical embodiment of a human being, he was as much a fixture of the place as were the pipes. The man’s killer and his only living rembrandt was remorseless, and had already diverted his limited attention to a new object, leaving the identity of the scientist to fade along with the descending darkness into obscurity.