Page 5 of Outfoxed

Shaking my head, I restored everything in the shelter and headed for the door, pointing at the light. “Turn that off and set it near the hatch before you leave. Turn the wheel one full revolution to close it; you’ll feel it click.”

“Understood. I’ll see you very soon.”

According to his amused tone, he expected to catch me right away.

He had a lot to learn about me, and I’d enjoy taunting him the next time we crossed paths. I scrambled out of the shelter and up the concrete steps, grimacing when I reached the top and discovered the second level had completely flooded. If I wanted to use the cellar again, I’d have to salvage a pump and drain the entire damned thing.

Life needed to give me a break—and not the type that resulted in a cast and a long recovery time.

The water level made climbing out of the cellar entrance interesting, but I managed after digging a few hand and foot holds for myself. It cost me valuable time, but I didn’t need a lot of time once I got on the move. I sprinted a block away, climbed onto some of the new rubble, most of it from the shacks the twisters had tossed around during their temper tantrum. The rain fell in sheets, which would do a good job of hiding my tracks.

As always, shifting hurt, especially when I didn’t have time to ease into my new form.

My fur grew in first, stabbing through my skin. I bled, another unfortunate reality of being a full shifter; someone who changed forms too often could bleed out. I guessed I could shift six times in a day before I faced certain death, but I tried to avoid shifting more than three times.

I liked living too much to risk it.

My clothes and everything I carried shifted with me, a phenomena I didn’t understand but refused to question. Most left their clothes torn and bloodied on the ground around them. Once I made distance, I’d stop, shift again, and focus on compressing my body; when in a hurry, the laws of equivalent exchange applied, and a fox weighing in at well over a hundred pounds drew attention.

If anyone spotted me, they’d remember me, a mastiff-sized fox.

With luck, no one would notice me, and I’d find a safe place to finish shifting properly. Unwilling to find out if Sandro counted all of his Mississippis, I kept one eye on the sky and headed towards Inner Tulsa, one of the few places in the area the storms usually bypassed. The rise in elevation likely had something to do with that. When Benedict Mansfield had begun construction of Asylum, he’d picked the highest ground as the heart of his underground city. Each year, the storms drew closer, but I figured Inner Tulsa had a few years of life left in it before Mother Nature wiped it off the map, too.

In addition to more wreckage strewn over the streets, I found four fresh bodies in the time it took me to reach the trashed neighborhood skirting Inner Tulsa, where debris often rained down but tornadoes rarely ventured.

Chunks of wood littered the streets along with hail, so thick it resembled snow.

For a rare change, no one had been lobbed into Inner Tulsa as a gruesome reminder Mother Nature didn’t give a shit about humanity. The lack of curious spectators eyeballing the passing storm worried me—and warned me the storm was likely revving up for another show.

Someone needed to set Mother Nature straight and tell her to give the Alley a break already.

Deep in the heart of Inner Tulsa, a tornado siren wailed, and I halted long enough to listen while regarding the dark sky warily. I supposed the swarm had moved north to visit another neighborhood—one closer to the city’s heart, which people still cared about.

While the clouds remained an ominous green and the wind howled, I couldn’t spot a single funnel reaching for the ground.

Shaking my head, I went in search of one of the elusive sewer covers that hid something other than the city’s sanitation system: an illegal entrance into Asylum, one of the few safe places left in the Alley.

Two

Some said a city was defined by its sewers.

Friday, May 1, 2043.

Asylum, Oklahoma.

The Alley.

Some said a city was defined by its sewers, and I was one of them.

In New York, function beat form, although the ancient sewers there were in dire need of repair and upgrade. Above its streets, New York sought to rule the world, but if the city and its people didn’t figure out how to curb the decay eating away at it from beneath, the ground the city stood upon would likely tire of its shit and dump it into the sea.

But much like its decaying sewers, New York endured.

If I had a choice in the matter, I’d never go anywhere near New York or its sewers again.

In London, a place I only dreamed of going, the sewers melded form and function, transforming a base necessity into works of art. The city itself drew people from around the world to marvel at its wonders, and it carried itself with pride, even below its historic streets.

Rome’s aqueducts ranked among legend and myth, something I would need to see to truly believe in.