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Deep in the bowels of the Mutant Town underground, moss glowed green on cracked concrete walls and pungent sewer smells wafted through the sickly humid, chokingly warm air. The sound of gently floating water echoed through the tunnels, bouncing off the ceilings of each channel. Known as the 'Morlock Tunnels' by most mutants, those who lived here hadn't much say in their living spaces. Even above ground in Mutant Town had no safe haven for them, despite Rictor's insistence that they would live in peace. Huddled around every corner sat a figure, usually shaped close enough to a humanoid, curled up and attempting to sleep when they could. Despite the lack of sunlight most Morlocks knew when night fell and acted appropriately. Some snuck to the surface, others became involved in all sorts of vice, and the rest huddled, some together for safety and warmth, attempting to sleep with one eye half-open. Always aware of their surroundings, Jamie had woken a number of the sleeping figures while making his way through the tunnels. He had seen skin of all sorts of colors, red, green, blue, orange, and appendages of everything from feathers and scales to bone and fur. But he hadn't found the person he sought.
They had told him that she had taken the name of Darkvein, a woman with sickly gray skin and blackened veins covering her skin. Rumor had it she had the most knowledge of the Morlock underground. Some referred to her as the Elder, others as the Wise One. Even though he'd searched miles of tunnels, Jamie still couldn't find the mutant. He had tried to ask one Morlock earlier on and the scaly-skinned man had hissed threateningly back at him, suspicious eyes following him down the rest of the tunnel. Half the time Jamie had questioned the reason he'd gone down there in the first place. A gorgeous blond currently slept in his warm bed in the halfway decent apartment that Rictor had secured for him but precisely that thought kept him tossing and turning.
Three weeks ago, when the peace-keeping force of Mutant town had first learned their leader had gone MIA, Jamie had asked hypothetical questions of everyone he could find. Nothing had panned out. People had mostly told him that they know nothing, and knew no one who would know anything. They thought Rictor had maybe gone off to investigate something and had to remain silent about the trip. Valkyrie had acted like a widow for the entire time, and it had started to get on his nerves. So he kept asking, and finally he received a source. A crippled mutant sitting near the trash bins in the worst part of the city had told him of the mutant named Darkvein. Even while the buxom beauty had curled up on his bare chest that night, warm and rested, he couldn't sleep. He couldn't think about anything but finding their friend and leader as soon as possible. Jamie didn't know what to do without him. So he'd left her asleep on his mattress and left to go to the manhole cover outside the apartment building and their headquarters.
As he walked onward, he'd just about finished searching for the elusive woman. He'd searched for hours now, and he'd still learned nothing of the mysterious Darkvein. Ready to give up, Jamie turned over his shoulder to see if he had left his path clear enough that he wouldn't have to wake the same people again. He took another step forward and walked straight into flesh, a soft female body getting a hard shoulder to her chest. Turning back to look at her, he realized that he'd completed his quest- or at least found the woman's daughter. The long lithe body of the woman in front of him, clothed in whatever scraps he supposed they found down here, surprised him. As he'd searched for the elder, he'd assumed he looked for an old bent-over crone of a woman, dignified and yet worn down in a way. The woman who stood in front of him looked nothing like what he'd pictured in his head. She looked as if she could pass on the surface with a lot of makeup and contact lenses. Pale grey skin lined with black depressions and veins extended over her curvy figure, long black hair cascading down her back, lengthy and knotted yet beautiful at the same time. Jamie soon realized that he had his jaw hanging and quickly shut it as the woman studied him with pinkish eyes, a pensive look on her face.
"You seek me, surface-dweller?" she inquired, her voice low and raspy. "Hardly what you expected, wouldn't you say?" she asked him, waving her hands in the air as if it meant nothing. Despite the lack of white in her eyes, she still seemed to bore into his soul, as if taking him in for just a few seconds revealed absolutely everything in his soul. Nodding, as if she understood what he sought, she turned around and gestured for him to follow. The masses moved for her as well, but reverently, as if she deserved their respect. Suspicious eyes followed them as they moved their way towards a smaller tunnel. Jamie followed her as she turned the corner, revealing a small living space with a bed made of rags and a small chair and table, rotted and stained with patches of black from the water damage. The woman gestured to the chair as she sat down on the bed of rags, bringing her knees to her chest. Even in a traditionally timid, defensive position, Darkvein seemed to hold an air of confidence and a command for respect. Jamie sat rigidly in the chair, feeling like a school kid in the principal's office for something he didn't do.
"I uhm, I heard if the Mo- your people knew anything about, y'know, Rictor's, uhm... sudden vacation, you'd know best..." Uncomfortable, Jamie shoved his hands into his pockets, leaning back in the chair. The joints of the old wood screamed in protest and Jamie jumped right back up to attention, sitting up straight in the chair once more. He'd just barely realized how much danger he'd put himself in to come down here, to search for a guy he didn't even particularly like all the time. But he could feel the law and order that supposedly existed in Mutant Town slowly slipping away and he knew he had to do something before the rope slipped from their hands like someone had tied it to a weight in quicksand. Looking at the huddled woman on the rags, he almost begged her with pleading eyes to tell him where Rictor had gotten to.
"I cannot say. The rumor mills have stirred up nothing relevant to your friend's disappearance. If I knew anything I would tell you. But I am afraid I do not." The woman paused, as if she'd forgotten something she just remembered, and then looked sympathetically at Jamie. With one hand she brushed her rat's nest of black hair behind her ear and then reached down to grasp her right hand around her left forearm, pulling her arms tightly to her chest. Even without the whites of her eyes, her deeply black orbs still seemed to lock onto his face, as if not sensing his true motive for coming down there. He had to admit that he didn't exactly always feel like he belonged to the surface world above, but he didn't feel like he belonged down in the sewers either. Resisting the urge to shake the thoughts out of his head, Jamie nodded to her and stood from his chair.
"If anything comes up...?" he started hesitantly when the woman in front of her held up her hand, palm facing him. She nodded to him, conveying her understanding of his question. If anything came up, he knew she'd contact him. Then she turned her head away from him and picked up a set of knitting needles, humming a tune to herself as she began on the next row of the scarf she seemed to be making. The wool looked decently clean if old but something about the tune she hummed made him stop before leaving the room. A bad '80s power ballad? He turned and opened his mouth as if to ask her when she looked up at him and smiled, her teeth straight despite their yellowish color.
"It's from Drive Me Crazy. The last movie I saw before my powers manifested. I was thirteen," she replied, as if she already knew what his question would be. Jamie shut his jaw and nodded to the woman, understanding the answer. The movie debuted in 1999, so Darkvein couldn't be much older than 26, not much older than himself. Yet somehow she had wisdom beyond his own to rule a people so diverse and command their respect despite their anger with the world. He began to leave, finally, taking a few steps towards the entrance to the small tunnel and turned back towards the small woman, looking at her thoughtfully.
"The Astor Tunnels. Do they actually exist?" he asked, and a smile formed on the woman's face. The Astor Tunnels, rumors long ago created by the New York City elite, claimed the existence of tunnels filled with riches deep below New York, created by the elite families of the 1920s so they could travel through and out of the city without associating themselves with the common folk. He wondered if she would pick up on the fact that he had glimpsed her beaten up copy of Reliquary on the dirt-caked floor near the stash of rags, one of the few personal effects the woman kept. Though not a general fan of books, Jamie had read the series with Rahne, his "sister", at a younger age. He took away from the series a love for the Museum of Natural History, and an innate curiosity as to the existence of these Astor Tunnels.
"Even I dare not venture that deeply beneath the city, though I too would like to know the answer to that question. Perhaps they should call you Pendergast rather than Multiple Man," she replied to Jamie, a sparkle in her eye. How she knew his codename she would never reveal. Jamie grinned back and walked out of the entrance to the tunnel, a strange feeling of butterflies in his stomach as he left. He repeated the way her voice sounded in his head, the low raspy crawl that somehow still had an air of femininity. His thoughts stayed on the young leader of the Morlocks as he made his way back to home base and up the stairs to his quarters.
With a gentle hand on the door knob, he opened it silently to find his things all cleaned up, folded and neatly placed in piles on the far side of the room. In the center lay a new mattress, unexpectedly empty of the beautiful blond woman he expected to see there, a note tucked in her place. He sniffed the air, detecting a hint of bleach wafting through the room's various old and musty smells, the newness of the scent cutting through the vast environmental fragrances. He couldn't see any of her clothing anywhere, no sign of a female presence at all. With shaky legs he walked over to the mattress, sinking down with a feeling of ominosity as he lifted the paper from her side of the bed. Gingerly he peeled the two edges apart, reading the words scrawled across the page.
"Blondie here decided to pack up and leave for the rest of the city. Said she couldn't hack it anymore in these conditions and wanted to take her chances elsewhere. Couldn't bring herself to tell you so she told me to tell you. Valkyrie." Jamie let the note flutter to the ground and Jamie laid back on the mattress. Something still just didn't feel right about that; he thought, though he didn't quite know why. Still he couldn't say he particularly felt awful about the disappearance of the blonde; he enjoyed her company though he didn't feel any overly emotional attachment to her. If she wanted to go find a different life, good for her. But something... something still felt off. With a yawn, he decided that he would talk to Valkyrie about it when he woke. Until then, well, sleep began to take him off to dream land, his lips absently speaking "I just wanna keep on lovin' you," as he drifted into nothingness.