David Dun - Unacceptable Risk

They looked across a chamber, perhaps a quarter of the size of a football field. The old tunnel disappeared into the black, and what once had been an opulent waiting area of gleaming tile and polished wood had become like a gilded carriage left to rot in the carriage house. The base of the walls seemed to be favored for campsites. Maybe that was because if a man had his back to a wall, he didn't have to see behind him. The next most popular residential areas seemed to be around the base of the pillars.

Smoke filled the place, and to see far, you ducked down to get beneath the acrid haze. What Sam could see of the ceiling was pitch black from soot. Flame from the barrels angled toward the tunnels indicating that most of the draft came from that direction.

"What do you call yourself?" "Lugger. Or Dog Man."

"Dog Man is pretty apparent. How do you come by Lugger?"

"When I was a kid, I played football. I was a lineman, and when I would forget myself, I used to pick up the opposing guards and carry them. Hence, Lugger."

"How do you like it down here?"

"Beats up there. You look like a Greek or an Indian or something."

"I use liquid tan. No harmful radiation."

"Is that true?"

"No. How do we exit this place quietly and far from Christopher Street?"

"You go down the tunnel if you wanna come out a long way from here. Last day or two, the tunnel's been a bad place, though."

They were near one end of the old loading platform and so, to their left, the tunnel was maybe fifty feet. To the right it was much farther because it would be necessary to traverse the entire main hall of the station to start down the far segment.

"Right or left to get out of here?"

"You're kind of out of luck. Left tunnel has the best exit and it's a long ways to daylight. But, like I said, the meanest, craziest sons of a bitches is down there."

"What are you talking about?"

"Mostly people down here live and let live. Most are too crazy or hopeless to hurt anybody. Couple days ago, some gang guys came down. No fun. Raped a girl. I think they still got her back there."

"Let's go get the girl and get out of here at the same time."

"That tunnel is one place that Lugger and Big Dog don't go right now."

"Not even for two hundred bucks?"

"Damn, you trouble my soul with that kind of money. I came down here to get away from greed and corruption and such, and now you lay it in front of me."

"Let's go. We'll discuss greed on the way," Sam said. "Grady, you should have an extra gun." Sam handed her a 10mm semiautomatic. "Get each hand on a butt."

"I don't have a gun," Lugger said.

"I'll shoot twice as fast and that way you won't need one," Sam said.

Sam picked up Lugger's light, snapped it off, and handed it to him. "When I tell you to turn this on, give me light."

Sam used his own small light to guide the way. They walked across the old concrete floor and Sam could imagine better days sixty years ago when New York's finest made their way through a highly crafted underground structure exhibiting the proclivities of an era when craftsmen labored for hours over a few square feet of handwork. Lights in classic brass fixtures had radiated colorful tile mosaics that overlay the walls, ceiling, and floors. Signs had been created from the tile and embedded in the walls. In those days it didn't usually occur to people to mar and deface public property.

Now the place had become a haven for those left in the wake of a society committed to mass production.

There were only two or three darkened campsites in a di rect line to the tunnel. Sam was concerned that soon their hunters would find a more palatable way down into the under ground.

"What are the other ways in here? Tunnels?"

"Secret."

"Yeah, but what are they? It's part of the two hundred dollars."

"I'll give you a free history lesson. In the real world I operated one of the trains."

"Okay."

They came to a big drop down into the concrete well that held the track. For a moment the talking stopped as they lowered themselves off the edge of the concrete down to the crushed rock. When everyone was down, they started walk ing. Sam took Lugger's big light and handed Grady the smaller. The tunnel was thirty feet wide. At the sides it was packed earth.

"You have heard of the City Hall subway station. Closed down in 1945 because the curve was too tight. The cars got too long and they put the doors in the middle of the car and it didn't work on that tight curve. This station was the same thing. Happened in 1945, just like City Hall. If you look back, you'll see the curve in the track in front of the platform. The big cars wouldn't fit around the curve for offloading. With the doors moved to the middle and the longer car length, they no longer had the right fit to get people on and off. They kept the old City Hall pretty nice. It didn't get torn up and they still sometimes run a subway on the track past the platform. But they more or less forgot about this one until it was too late, and now they don't really want to get into the fact that the homeless people ripped the thing apart. All the brass fixtures are gone. All the tile is messed up, smoked up, or fallen down. At City Hall station they plugged all the stairways but didn't plug the track. Here they did both-"

"It's fascinating," Sam interrupted, "but how do people get down here?"

"I'm getting to that. Relax."

"If we want to live, I need to understand how people can get down here, either in front of us or behind us." "City officials, my ass. Who exactly is chasing you?" "No one who gives a damn about Luggers or their dogs." Despite that, Lugger walked faster, and they kept pace. "You were telling me the ways into this station." "Okay. Understand this principle. Manhattan is solid rock. So people like us don't dig in it. The stairs into the sta tion are all cemented in. That part is like what they originally did at City Hall station. In this tunnel where we're walking, the overhead grates and emergency stair exits are sealed. Back at the station there is one more air vent that does go to a grate that is half covered by a building. In the past people have been able to get through the grate, but just recently they have a steel sheet under it. I wondered how you came down because nobody has had that grate open for the past few weeks. There's a tunnel from the building, but they boarded that up."

"We came through the wall of the building. I'm told that they drilled the hole in the concrete when they were looking for something. Maybe a steam pipe or something to do with the subway," Sam theorized.

"Nowadays people get here mostly by running down the live track. At either end of this side track, there's a cement wall. But it doesn't go all the way to the top of the tunnel in this direction. I think it's a dam for water when the side tunnel starts filling from heavy rain. Down the other direction the hole to get out of the abandoned track is really small. I don't fit."

"Is the other surface hole into the station as hard to travel as what we came down?"

"Harder to find because it isn't exposed to the outside. Easier to come down."

"How about ahead of us?"

"All operating subway tunnels have a grate every six hundred feet. The grates open with a bolt lock. You just slide the bolt out of the hole, but you can only do it from underneath. But like I said, this track was abandoned for good. Over time they just paved over the grates above the track or welded them up and put in a steel plate. So there's no getting out ex cept over the top of the wall at the end of this tunnel, and then we'll be on the live track of the 1 and 9."

"Is there a hot rail in here?"

"No way."

"I thought this might be part of the PATH line."

"No, that's through the rock over there a piece and down. PATH runs under the 1 and 9."