Introduction
The habit of living life to the extremes had officially gone too far with the creation of the
Those three public stories, crammed full of every outlet store imaginable, sixty-four various types of eateries, and one-hundred-seven bathrooms per sex stocked with nearly a thousand toilets, urinals, and sinks. The entire conglomeration sat on top of a modern labyrinth of basements, hallways, storage areas, cargo docks, and mile upon mile of ductwork. This labyrinth was a stark contrast to the fashionable mall, the abysmal scene was bleak concrete walls and floors, flickering florescent lights, and occasionally it was dotted with the hiss of steam and the chugging hum of various climate control devices.
Somehow I had ended up wandering these halls. Somehow nothing. I was lost. I had a bad habit of late night wanderings and this one had brought me here. A voice, somewhat distant and barely distinguishable amongst all the ambience (not to mention wholly unintelligible) drew me further into the belly of the Townsquare Beast.
I knew I was getting into trouble. Samuel Banks (Old Sammy to most) just happens to be a tremendous movie fan and every step I took increased that deep churning fear that makes people yell “Don’t do that!” while watching a horror flick. But I kept on, and to this day I still recall how odd it felt when curiosity overrode that fear. The voice turned into voices, and it even grew faintly understandable as I honed in on its origin. I shifted from hall to hall, sometimes losing the voices only to find them that much louder as I poked my head down a ladder. I remember the second to final room with a good bit of clarity (probably because I hid in there for a good while). The room was basically an anteroom, an intermediate room, and through one of its doorways was the source of the voices. That driving, movie-like feel told me something was wrong, and it was a feel that at this point in time I didn’t find too much trouble agreeing with. But this feeling was still battling with that intense, driving curiosity, so as quietly as possible I made my way to the edge of the door.
I was bombarded by a dozen or so different types of scented smoke that streamed from the tips of expensive cigarettes, cheap cigars, and everything in between. The room was larger than the one I chose to hide in, but it was still quite full, holding over two dozen…things in it. They weren’t human. There were two groups, and it was quite easy to discern this because they were worlds apart.
The first, and larger group, were physically freakish. X-Files freakish. They were tall, all of them, the shortest of group looked to be about six and a half feet. And they were thin, like they’d been stretched, with long faces and long arms and legs and digits. Their ears were long and jutted out from the sides of their heads, through hair that had long napped into dreadlocks. Perhaps the oddest dimension of all was their eyes, pools of pure white: no pupil, no iris; their teeth were rows of jags like those of a shark. Their clothes too, were dark and drab. They looked worn, dirty. Most were decked out in a heap of a coat and hard boots. They seemed to seethe animosity.
“You’ve done enough, perhaps too much already.” It was one of the hideous ones. He jabbed out his comment with an accusing thrust from a cigarette; he jabbed at his polar opposite.
The second group was as far opposite of the first as possible. They were beauty to the point of overkill. Hard to understand? It’s hard to explain. Take an attractive person with splendid skin and hair, eyes that seem to shine and a stunning body. Take all that they have that separates them from the rest of mankind and take it all ten or fifteen times further. Make their skin so fair that it seems plastic and hard, eyes that are almost glowing, and bodies that are so perfect that they almost seem fake. These people were all too much, too extreme.
It was their conversation, or more aptly their argument, that drug my attention away from their physical oddities, their extremes that seemed that much more extreme in each other’s presence. I crouched low and hugged the door, taking the most possibly attentive mental recording of what was going on.
Anger seemed to fume from both groups and tension seemed to fill the room, choking out more air than all the wispy wafting smoke in the room. “Please, you people who have chosen to live your lives begging on man’s streets and hiding in their sewers, have no ground to pass judgment on us.” The curt reply came from one of the beautiful ones, a man who could have just walked off the pages of GQ and into this Townsquare sub-sub-basement.
“We try our best to not interfere with mankind, doing so will be the end of us all. You know that and we know that. A war would kill off Siren and Golem alike. But you refuse to stop meddling, you insist on walking amongst them and controlling them and risking so much more than you know.” The hideous one finished his short speech and ran his long thin fingers into his network of knots and dreads that served as hair.
“The sewers might be your idea of staying away from mankind, and we’re more than happy to give them to you. But for us, it’s just not going to cut it. It’ll be a cold day in Hell before you see a Siren begging on the streets.” The words came from a dark haired English-sounding woman.
“Then you will leave the Golem Council no choice but to act.” I couldn’t see the speaker, only the waft of smoke from where his voice had originated.
“Careful with your idle threats, your jealousy is showing.” It was yet a third member of the fashion plates. I saw a head turn towards me and I knew I had to run. My cover was blown and I wasn’t going to stick around to find out what would become of the conversation.
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