I snap a few shots with my 50 while the driver, a dark-skinned man who’s almost as tall as Taranis, moves ahead of our cluster to the wide service doors. He has a key.
“Come on,Press.” A fist shoves me from the back, and I stumble toward the dark opening beyond the doors. I don’t let him get a rise out of me. Taranis, even though he sees, sneers at the guy—or maybe at the both of us—but says nothing.
Taranis steps through the doorway first. I follow, the dickwad right behind me. The driver with the key is last to enter the service corridor before shutting and locking the door behind us.
Lights flicker on, illuminating the darkness. Recessed high in the walls, only half seem to have bulbs, but even the broken bulbs are still glowing—purple. Taranis glows the same color too. I take a few pictures, watching the tall, athletically built superperson walk down the wide, dry corridor like he’s bored, even though, in the distance, you can hear all kinds of sounds that would make a grown man piss if he were caught here alone. Wailing, the sound of a faraway engine running, a cough, a scream, a thud.
The wide corridor has no places to branch off and makes no turns. Eventually, we’re spit out through a set of service doors that match the first we passed through, and I’m shocked to see the world open up before us and so glad that I came on this assignment, even if it’s just routine electrical work.
The Old Sundale train station is beautiful.
The space is half the length of a football field, and the glass ceiling vaults high above our heads. Most of the ceiling is still intact, but there are a few panels missing, letting in the cool night air. Moonlight streams in. It looks to be full from where it hangs directly above us, partially obscured by clouds.
I snap a few photos, spellbound by the space, until I remember who I’mactuallyhere to photograph: Taranis. The Champion in front of me with the attitude so sour he’s either having a really, really bad day, or he’s the world’s most clever con artist.
Turning my gaze to ground level, I watch as Taranis struts out across the tiled floor. It’s covered in debris, a few dried leaves, plastic bags, scattered trash, a few broken bricks that look like they might have fallen from the ceiling. It doesn’t matter what’s covering the floor, though. He could be wading through knee-high shit and still look like the King of Olympus. That was Zeus, wasn’t it? Wielder of lightning? Seems fitting.
I glance at a couple photos I’ve taken and silently toot my own horn. The exposure on these, with moonlight cascading over his glittery uniform, is exquisite. The impulse to send them right away to Vanessa and her team is strong, but I have to keep reminding myself that this isn’t the Wyvern, that Taranis has his own PR team, and that sending anything to anyone right away isn’t part of the agreement.
I linger near the door, waiting and watching. One of the guys—the dickwad from the back seat—shouts, “Mind giving us some light?”
Taranis makes a disapproving click that would have given my Koreanhalmeonia run for her money. At the same time, lights around the perimeter of the room start to buzz and emit a bright-purple glow.Taranis’s skin illuminates in tandem, and small sparks of electricity flare over his skin, across his back, over his shoulders, and down his arms to his exposed hands, which flex and clench automatically. I capture it all, watching in fascination as he makes his way right, toward the dark opening where trains once came and went.
Shaped like a backward D, the curved edge of the room to my left is where the entrances to the train station once were, a few staircases leading up to broad landings where coffee shops and restaurants once sat. It’s immediately clear why we came in through the strange entrance in the lowest, scariest level of the Gallery. The entrances to the Old Station aren’t just boarded up; they’re boarded up and reinforced from the inside with huge concrete barriers. Between the boarded-up doors and the barriers are piles of barbed wire. It looks like some folks tried to make it through at some point and stopped. There are a few sections where the boarded doors are broken inward, but nowhere where the barbed wire or concrete barrier has been breached.
“According to the map, the main breakers are in a room a tenth of a mile down that tunnel,” the driver says. He points down the left-branching train tunnel. It’s pitch black until Taranis illuminates the light bulbs recessed into those walls. Still, there aren’t many of them. I can’t see more than twenty, thirty feet, maybe, down the tunnel before it curves away.
“Let’s get this done quick,” the dickwad says.
“I’m not a fucking electrician,” Taranis spits. “I can restore power to the grid surrounding the station, but as soon as it trips again, it’ll just go back out. And I’m not gonna fucking come down here every goddamn day to reset it.”
“Nobody gives a shit,” dickwad continues, approaching the edge of the platform. “This is for a PR stuntyourequested:Taranis gives light to the people living in darkness.Your girl is gonna snap a few pictures, and then we can go. Nobody cares if the Gallery doesn’t have power tomorrow.”
My sneakers plod quietly over dusty tiles as I follow the trio. I capture Taranis’s angry look as he glares at the SDD men, and capture as the two men jump off the platform down onto the concrete between the tracks. As I take their picture, I frown, noticing something odd. I double-check the viewfinder. Huh. In the photo, I can see footprints in the dust on the ground between the tracks. Fresh footprints. Fresh onesnotleft by either SDD goon or Taranis.
I open my mouth, then snap it shut, debating whether to speak up or not. I’m not an operative on this mission. I’m only a photographer. It’s a difficult position to remember to be in. Press is there to see and record, not change. Watching people brutalized by police during riots. Watching gangs burn down schools. Watching the Wyvern carry bodies through those icy tunnels ... struggling. It’s hard not to help. But that’s not my role.
“Got something to say, pip-squeak?” the dickwad says, looking up at me over his shoulder.
I didn’t realize I’d made a sound. I hesitate, then eventually ask, “Are there people living down here?” My voice echoes.
“Nobody down here but us.”
“What about those footprints?” Standing at the edge of the platform now, I gesture ahead of the men. They go quiet as they examine the disrupted dust between the tracks.
Taranis hasn’t said anything at all for the past several moments, but he abruptly cuts in now. “Where are the rats?”
The question confuses me, though I don’t voice that confusion. Instead, the driver asks, “What?”
“Is this a trap? Did the SDD put you up to this?”
“What are you talking about?” the driver says with a sharp shake of his head. “Do you see something?” He draws his gun. I take a picture as he points it down the tunnel.
Taranis stands a few feet down the platform from where I do, and ignores the SDD guys in favor of shouting down the tunnel, “Do you want a show? Is that what this is about?” His face roars with brilliantcolor, the lights in his eyes and under his skin beaming like lavender sapphires. The lights lining the tunnel crackle. So does the electric third rail. Orange sparks fly off it, causing both men to jump.
The driver hisses between bared pearly white teeth, “Stand down, Taranis!”
But Taranis isn’t listening. Instead, he’s rising into the air, floating like he’s suspended by strings. “You want a show, I’ll give you a fucking show! Come into the light, you duplicitous freak!”
