“What the fuck!? ” The man in black almost screamed, but he still had the caution of keeping his voice down. Still, he whispered: “What, the, fuck?”
“This is the tunnel buried during the inter-district conflict.” Mick’s father’s voice was cold and stern: “I’m sure - I’m pretty sure this is one of them.”
“What? What are you talking about?” Gloria asked. It was a genuine question - she had never heard of this. Not from Luoshan Zi, not from those who helped raise her, who were South-Eastern District natives, and certainly not from anyone from the 17th Precinct.
Mick’s father answered: “The inter-district conflict, it was an armed conflict decades ago, between the South-Eastern District and the other two - ”
“No - I know what the conflict is.” Gloria shook her head: “I’m asking - what do you mean these tunnels were buried during that period? I’m from the South-Eastern District and this is - I’ve never heard of anything like this. The story I heard is that people were fighting in the streets and - ”
“Like the tunnels themselves, the knowledge and documents were buried.” Mick’s father sighed and walked into the centerline of the tunnel, so that he could stay away from both walls: “I - I am - I was a high ranking officer of the PCPD, and I kinda inherited the knowledge and access to certain - documents regarding that period. I started digging into it when Mick began NOT telling me about his work, and generally acting weird - asking some old contacts me mine for information, digging into old files - ”
“And what did that entail?” Tae Kuo asked.
A few more yelps, 8 more skeletons were discovered by the group. Three were laid on the ground, four sat by the feet of the walls, one was buried in the left wall.
“Basically, close to the end of the conflict, certain highly wanted individuals knew that they would face grave retribution from the city, so they escaped into these tunnels.” Mick’s father explained: “These tunnels were under a few temples, I’m not sure what they were used for before that, but I’d imagine transport of goods or something - but they made for good shelter for those who want to hide from the city. So when the city knew, they put immense pressure on the community collective. The collective caved, and the city was able to block off all the exits to the tunnels.”
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Keryn frowned: “So these are - ”
“Yeah, I suppose so.” Mick’s father shook his head.
“Fuck. I don’t think it’s safe for us to be here.” Keryn whispered to Kevin.
Kevin looked around, his voice was trembling: “Yeah, bad idea to be down here, especially when everything’s - ”
“They’re gone under there!” Their pursuer’s voice propagated to their position, through the chilly, dark tunnels. “Come on!”
After a short delay, the sound of metal grids, pipes and chains crashing and bodies falling right down on solid ground came through. Gloria was slightly relieved, as her sabotaging the scaffolding appeared to be a wise move.
The smell of mold permeated the air. The temperature dropped slightly, not to a dangerous degree but enough to raise the alarms of those who came back from the datacenter. The walls were cleaner and less weathered, with the flashlights of the men in black they could actually read what was written and drawn on the walls - stories of past sages, monks and some of the gods the locals believed in. There were junctions and forks on their way, but Mick seemed to always know where they should go.
One wall painting caught Gloria’s eyes - it was the painting of the tale of the Burnt Queen and the One Armed Knight, and like a comic book, it was several scenes painted in a sequence on the same section of the wall. She tried to take a closer look, but the lights had already moved forward.
“Where are we going? Where are we going, Mick?” Mick’s mother caught up to the young detective-to-be: “Mick! Wait up!”
“Just follow me. Down there.” Mick responded with a smile, with no answers or explanations given.
“What happened after the city blocked this place off?” Keryn asked Mick’s father.
“They stationed people to watch over all possible exits and escape routes for a few weeks. And they caught some that were trying to escape.” Mick’s father sighed: “But there’s no mention of what happened to the rest, or what the city did afterwards. They just said that they reinforced the blockade with concrete and leveled the temples above.”
“So basically these people starved to death here.” Keryn frowned: “This is - this is horrible.”
“We’re almost there! ” Mick raised his voice slightly.
They hurried and walked through a small section of straight tunnel.
In front of them was a gate with two doors. The upper parts of the doors formed a rough arch shape, and on each of them a demon-looking, dark-skinned, humanoid god was drawn - Yakshas. The Yaksha on the left had one single horn on its forehead and held a double edged sword in its right hand and a red orb on its left; the Yaksha on the right had three horns on its forehead and temples, and held an oval-shaped mirror with both its hands, and from this mirror a beam of light shot out.
Seeing that Mick had his hands on the doors, Tae Kuo tried to stop him: “Wait - Mick, you shouldn’t - ”
The doors creaked open, a gust of wind blew out, raising dust on the ground and made the flashlights flicker.
It was an underground sanctum, a clay buddha statue sat before them, facing the door. Its two arms had fallen off and turned to pieces on the ground. On both sides of the buddha statue stood two clay Yaksha statues, looking just like the drawings on the doors, only with many parts broken and fallen off.
