Chapter 1: Run

A white flash.

It was a sight, if nothing else. The bricks composing the walls of the alleyway cascading downward into the darkness. A warm bed of garbage, soft, organic, yet no less accentuating to the embarrassment of the fall. New smells were kicked into the air, throwing a head back in disgust, thus waving two arms, shaking a pair of hips and extending a pair of legs. A body rolled from the trash and down the alley. Deep black hair, save for pieces of an indeterminable fruit stuck to it, soon brushed off in frustration. A yawn, and there's something else different. Stubble: uncharacteristically present, yet characteristically even on all sides, small parts of it dangling in the wind. This wind, crashing into a leather jacket and loose blue jeans, proved frightening. The arms embrace the self, for what little warmth they provide. A step. An echo. A step. An Echo.

"What's that?"

An indistinguishable pile of poverty lay at the end of the strip of concrete. His beard, white and gray, darting out in all directions like a supine dog. The man brushed the metaphor on his chin glaring at the silhouette before him. The graham cracker-textured sheets covering him shifted tide, with bare feet kicking up over the waves.

"Get the fuck out of my alley, cocksucker!"

The homeless man stood now, leaning on the wall, the indentations in the bricks interrupting his slow slide towards the silhouette. His lips, fibrillating, drooling a little bit, cast words on his feet. Some understandable, some not. A flask is thrown, meaninglessly bouncing off the opposite wall and behind the shadowy guest, and clanking in the distance.

"What do you want?"

The dark hair stepped out into the streetlight, then the stubble, the jacket, the loose jeans, boots, dirt, and white skin. He took one step towards the man, clearly to pass him.

A dull scream, low and unafraid. Large, shiny, perfectly reflective eyes. An oval mouth, with a few large, incredibly sharp, menacing teeth. Silver skin. The scream heightened, pouring into the vagabond's heart. He ran, desperately, losing his footing every seven or eight steps. The new man glanced around the corner and down the street, and lost interest quickly. He picks up a walk back into the alley.

"Darren, can you hear me?"

Darren turned, then turned again. Nobody.

"Darren, read me, this is Planck"

"Where are you?"

"Darren, don't be silly. I thought we went over this. The earpiece."

Darren's hand slid up the side of his face, upstream against the flow of follicle, brushing aside some sideburns. He grabbed the earpiece, and it howled, a shriek that was decidedly mechanical in nature. His eyes blew open, the conjuncta forming a frame around the iris. The head tilted to the side in false hope that he heard better than he did.

"Where the.....Who......oh my god."

"Calm down, Darren. Everything is fine. You just have to do a few things."

"Who are you?"

"It is I, Planck."

"I don't know anyone named..."

"That's not the point. I'll explain everything later. The truth is you're not supposed to be here, and the longer we sit and chat, the less time we have for what we need to accomplish."

"Fuck that, I'm going to get a fucking hamburger or some shit."

"Do not go out there, Darren"

"Why? Who the fuck really cares about me? I mean, what the fuck do I do that's so important. All I know is that I've been dumped in a fucking alleyway and I scared the shit out of a bum, and now I got fucking voices in my head."

"It's communicated through an ea..."

"I got fucking voices in my head!"

"Darren, please listen. This is important."

The stumbling down the alley turned into a steady walk. Darren could spot an open diner across the street. Just what he wanted. He reached in his pocket. He stopped. Nothing there.

"Where's my cash?"

"You needn't money now. Darren, listen! You must go in the sewers."

Darren's jaw dropped and his frame sunk. The echoes of rhythmic laughter bounce off the bricks.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me."

"Darren, I'm quite serious. If the authorities find you, they'll shoot you on sight. That is their directive."

"Directive? Fuck directive. I don't even see any sir..."

Darren took a step out onto Johnson Avenue. The air was scaled gray, a flat black layer of pavement below him and a snowy-white sky above. There was a silence: that which one feels the wind blow directly through the skull, coating the brain with every intention of warning. An eerie calm. The storm began.

"Th.....That's him!!!"

Shots danced a straight line pairing off with pieces of the wall behind him. Darren ducked back into the alleyway and looked high. Fire escapes on either side, rusted and creaking in the wind. The neon sign in the diner's parking lot flickered in agony, alerting him to its presence once again. Back to the fire escape, to the floor, the bricks in front of him. His eyes bulging and squinting at each stimulus, and his breathing heavier with the increasing clutter of footsteps around the corner.

"Darren, the sewer."

Darren fell to his knees, crawling rather rapidly across the concrete. His fingers sliding clumsily in the stoma of the manhole. Locking his arms in place, gritting his teeth, wrenching his eyelids to a close, and straining his torso from the lack of support, he slid the cover aside, collapsing with his hands on the side of the open hole. His goatee received the soft grasp of the warm gutter air, infecting his cheeks and nostrils. The swing of his hips brought his boots to the rungs of the opening. A careful slide down the manhole, keeping one hand on the rung and using his descending weight to pull the cover over him. Pure darkness.

"Who's that?"

Darren was too scared to answer. He couldn't tell how far away the voice was. He heard sniffing.

"Oh, it's you. Don't move."

"What?"

The jingle of cheap metal. A sharp anticipation. Darren knew something was being thrown at him. He couldn't tell what, or how fast, or where it would hit him, but he couldn't move regardless. The mass collided with his bicep, high up like where he used to get punched in high school. He tried to cradle it, but it was way too heavy for his left. It landed in his forearm, way off-center, tilting over his wrist and landing near his foot.

"How the hell did you throw that?"

"Just turn it on. I need to see you."

A trembling in Darren's ear.

"Be careful. I think it's the rebel."

"The rebel?"

"Isaac, The zookeeper."

The graceful, yet forceful wading of the invisible stranger alarmed him. He crouched and felt around the object thrown at him. The gentle sting of a corner graced his palm and his grip loosened, feeling along the back, over the top, across the front. A lens? Perhaps not, but it was definitely glass, and round. He felt the rubber around the glass and found an inconsistency. It was smooth, also round. His fingers glanced over it, and the slight pressure told him. He pressed it and a blast of light assaulted the walls of the sewer.

More bricks. Larger ones this time, grey with algae in between the cracks. Darren coughed in the heavier air of the sewer. He grabbed the light by its handle on top and swung it around, hurling its focus down the walls. They were round, but not perfect. The apex was a single line of the grey blocks running down the cell and around the bend. Seemingly frantic, they existed outside of the pattern of the walls, slightly thinner and cleaner, but with more cracks. Darren coughed, and louder this time. A bead of water dropped from the ceiling, catching his eye. It fell slower than he had expected, as if it were lifeless, losing itself in the lane of water at his feet without much more than a ripple or two. The black liquid triumphed in green as it danced in the light. Little packs of water jumped onto the walkway where he stood.

"I've never been in a sewer before"

"Something's wrong."

The earpiece moved his head to one side, but it was only a psychological effect.

"I can't get used to you bouncing around in my head."

"You will, believe me."

"So, what's wrong?"

"Place your hand in the water."

Darren obeyed. His hand plunged in. Thick, disgusting, but more importantly, mobile.

"This is sick, man."

"Sewer water isn't supposed to be moving like that."

"You can see?"

"Yes, but more importantly, I can feel it through your nerves."

"Guess no more floggin' it for me."

"Indeed, not that you will have the opportunity anytime soon....."

"Maybe there's just some intake or something, or somebody flushed."

"No. It's moving side to side. Stick your hand in again."

"It is in."

"Then, just turn it. I want to make sure I'm not misreading this.......nope, it's still side to side. That can only mean one thing."

"What?"

Rumbling started. At first it was just a vibration. Darren remained knelt, confident it would pass. He started leaning to the left, resting more on his light, then he picked up the light and aimed it down the corridor from whence it was thrown. A rhythm section accompanied the drone of the shaking sewers; It was a thumping, craving to be heard, and was satiated. A rush of water hugged the bend behind him and soaked him up to his thighs. He turned quickly, now knowing direction and force. Taking a few steps back, he placed the core of the light on the wall opposite him, close to where the water turned.

A brick falls, about halfway up the wall. Weak and defeated, it rolled softly down the curve and onto the opposite walkway. He stepped back further, holding the light angled high. A roar could be heard, easily muffled by the sewer walls.

"Start running."

"What the hell is it?"

"The rebel sent it, whatever it is. He calls himself the Zookeeper."

"Isaac?"

"Yes."

"Where is he, then?"

"Close by. He's larger than you, so use your swiftness."

The walls behind him were beaten as he ran down the sewers like a hallway. He peeked behind himself futilely into the vast, loud darkness chasing him. A huge roar. A slapping of the water just behind him. Something like a tentacle grazing his peripheral vision. The walls crumbled as if assassinated in the dark.

"Turn off the light."

"Are you fucking kidding me? I'll never make it out alive if I do that."

"Whatever that thing is, it's attracted to the light."

"You sure he's not gonna...."

Darren had his mind taken away from the conversation, allowing a crack in the concrete to trip him up. The flashlight hit the ground hard and bounced several yards in front of him.

"Stay still."

"Stay still.....", he whispered to himself.

The disgusting heap of tentacles and slime revealed the window to its ravenous soul. One large humanoid eye, seemingly three feet in diameter, randomly darting across the field. Darren covered his mouth to conceal his hastened breathing. The eye locked onto the fallen light, and slowly crept up to it, acknowledging its hopelessness. A tentacle whisked in from the black to scoop the light up.

"God, don't point it at me."

The light lost itself amongst a sea of tentacles and a symphony of slurps. It could still be seen floating through the digestive system of the creature, making the area around it slightly more visible.

"What the hell is that thing?"

"It's a Gloptimo, one of our life forms."

"Your life forms?"

"Yes, the rebel placed it down here to kill you."

"Then why'd you send me down here? Do you want to kill me?"

The Gloptimo turned around, giving enough time for Darren to roll into an alcove along the sewer wall. Satisfied, it turned around again and left the scene, leaving a trail of faint light as it turned the corner in hot pursuit.

"We need you, and much more than you need us."

"You got that right."

"We're not going to kill you. But I cannot say the same for many others. You may not remember this all right now since we've just started speaking again, but we're certain it will all come back to you."

"Come back to me? You mean I've been doing this for a while?"

"Not long, Darren. Not long. But in that short time we've certainly caused a lot of trouble. Enough to get you killed."

"You've used me."

"Regretfully, yes. But there's so little time for us to debate. On a moral level, I really wish I could see you, or get to know you. Yours is a truly interesting life. I wish we could be friends, but we cannot. It's simply impossible."

"Who said I wanted to be your friend? And who said I wanted your voice in my head?"

"I beg of you........"

A rise of static overcame Darren's ear, and he clutched it in pain.

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"He's completely different"

"Far from completely. I think he's just isn't knowledgeable of the situation"

"He's a different person."

"I think it's just a different expression of traits. Something must have gotten mixed up."

"During the reinsertion?"

"Of course, but the way he is now may better suit our purposes. He's definitely more aggressive."

"Yes, it was near impossible to get through to him before."

"This may have turned out to be better than we planned."

"Don't be so confident yet. The odds are stacked against us as it stands."

"I better go back in."

"Absolutely."

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Darren continued running down the sewers clumsily as the pitch black void in front of him impeded his progress. The static rose again and he stopped to clutch his ears.

"Aaaaah! Damn it!"

"Continue down this path and turn left when I give you the signal."

"What was your name again?"

"Just call me Planck."

"Planck? The fuck kind of name is that?"

"Haven't you ever heard of Max Planck?"

Before the question, the sewers couldn't seem to be any more silent, but Darren's being confounded struck a new quiet into the air. He got on his hands and knees. He started crawling, touching the walls, the floor, and the sludge.

"What's wrong."

"This is too much. What the hell happened to me?"

"We don't quite know ourselves, but the feeling that you're out of place is definitely appropriate. You're not supposed to be here."

"Where am I supposed to be?"

"The George S. Patton building. 18^th floor."

"The Department of Defense?"

"Yes!.......you remember."

"Remember what?"

"That you worked for the Department of Defense."

"I did?"

"Damn............well, of course you did. How could you possibly know what I was talking about? The association between the George S. Patton building and the Department of Defense is top secret."

"Then how do you know about it?"

"There are no walls in my sight."

"What?"

"I can see a truer nature of things in your world"

"What are you?"

"The same as you, an ordinary being. The difference between us is vantage."

"Where are you perched, then?, that you see all this shit."

"So close and so far away."

"Fuck this semantic bullshit."

"Fine then, ‘fuck it' all you want. We still have work to do."

"You have work to do. I'm going to sit here and figure a way out of the sewers without getting jumped by......"

A rifle fires in the distance. The echoes haunted him like a familiar friend.

"FBI agents."

Darren continued down the path, running desperately. He kept his hands waving in front of him. Lights re-entered the sewers and he instinctively ducked. A ringing started in his head. He was puzzled for a second, then agreed to turn left, and it stopped. Darkness reigned again. Steps followed his heartbeat, then became his heartbeat, driving him to move. Feelings of misdirection came over him in this void, and he stuck his arms out again, reaching for anything. Somehow, his hands perfectly latched on to the sides of a steel ladder. His head graced one of the steps, not knowing how fast he was running.

"Ouch!......Fuck!"

"Look to your right."

A soft glow, almost warm and embracing claimed him from the right. He turned to it and found it approaching. Hardly warm and embracing was the fact that it was the flashlight he lost ingested by the Gloptimo, now staring at him. The eye darted around still, as if unaware it had swallowed a light source. Darren found himself frozen to the ladder, simply staring it down as if he wanted it to do something. The eye locked on him and marched forward on a bed of mucus. He started shaking, his hands grasping the ladder tight. His feet got on the first two steps and froze there. He looked back down and saw his legs, soiled in dirt, water and algae. His face hurt from all he had seen; from his eyes tethered in fear, to his cheeks loosely dangling from their bones, to his dry, anxious mouth. Somehow, though he had not experienced this before, he knew a culmination was at hand.

The dance of the agents continued behind him. Their human noises seemed to overcome the presence of the Gloptimo in his mind.

It compelled him to step upward. Despite all that approached him, Darren needed to feel truly chased, to make sure it was real. As it stood, nothing seemed certain. He stepped, glanced at the creature, then stepped again, hoping the men weren't too close. A step. A glance. A step. A glance. A step. A glance.

A manhole came to life in the above alleyway, clearly a different street this time. The street was noticeably neater. This was a better part of town. Darren needn't have cared at this moment, his arms dragging the rest of him to the surface. It was no marathon, but fear had lengthened his run. He rolled over on his back and begged the night sky for air. He knew he wasn't going to die there, but something in him suggested that it wouldn't have been so inappropriate. He intentionally gasped with his mouth wide open, knowing he smelled awful.

"They're taken care of, Darren."

"They're not going to get me?"

He had already given up.

"Listen."

The FBI agents could be heard wading recklessly through the sewers looking for him. The careless splashing came to a halt. Darren used one lifeless arm to push the manhole cover back in place. They shrieked. They yelled. They ran. They fired. They threatened. They failed. They all failed.

"Listen to their waves, Darren"

"Sound waves."

"Yes. You are not near them, nor have you seen them. But you know precisely what is occurring at this very moment."

"This is what you're doing to me.", Darren said, clutching his head.

"Figuratively speaking, yes."

"Are you just going to sit in my head and talk to me till I die in a psych ward?"

"Hardly. If all goes according to plan, we'll be gone in few days."

"What do I have to do?"

"You have an impostor, Darren."

He sat up.

"This has to do with the FBI?"

"The FBI, the Department of Defense, the DIA, the CIA. You name it."

"How'd I get into this mess?"

"You invented something, you shouldn't have invented."

"Great. I don't remember a damn thing, if that's what you're asking."

"What you know doesn't mean much to us. It's what you can do that gathers our interests."

"What can I do?"

"Simply put yourself back in your rightful place. We'll handle the rest."

"Fine. As long as it gets you out of my head."

"I guarantee you that it will."

"That's good, but won't all these agencies keep chasing me?"

"They may question you, but they will be forced to exonerate you. None of this deals directly with you."

He got on his knees, and crawled over to the side of a nearby dumpster.

"And what is ‘this'."

"Our last hope."

"I don't get it."

"You're not supposed to."

"I'm just supposed to obey for a few days."

"We....hope so."

"You try to dominate me one moment, then you wear your heart on your sleeve the next. It makes no sense."

"You'll learn as we move on that in some aspects, we are just as confused as you."

Darren reclined against the side of the building. He sighed in resignation. His eyes fell upon the manhole he covered up. The dead bodies he never met spoke volumes through the holes in the cover. He sighed again, seemingly to make sure. He looked both ways out of the alleyway. He realized he was trapped by the open streets around him. He covered his face, trying to rub off dirt. Afterwards, he sank his head in defeat and shook it.

"You really need my help, don't you?"

"Do you honestly think I'd want to be in your head?"

"Fine."

He sprung to his feet, staying close to the dumpster and keeping his hands in the pocket of his soaking jacket, refusing to embrace the warmer temperature surrounding it. He felt sick, but he knew he wasn't.

"You're going to need a weapon, however."

"No places to get a gun around here."

"Go back down the sewer."

"You're kidding."

"Just for a moment."

"Ugh.....fine."

He uncovered the manhole and drew his head back from the stench. Slowly as he ascended, he dipped again into the darkness, now with more resolve. The creature was gone, but there was mucus everywhere. He couldn't discern the smell of dead bodies from that of the leftover plasma.

"Borrow a pistol from one of the dead men."

He paced back down from whence he came, thinking that the agent farthest from where he'd seen the Gloptimo would have the most bullets left. He found a near full clip of ten millimeter rounds to go with a Kimber pistol. He felt silly loading the gun, but proceeded deliberately since there was no one around to tell him different.

"Excellent. Now keep that in a safe....."

A slight splashing of water pulled Darren around. He saw one of the agents getting to his feet, obviously having very little consciousness of what was going on. Darren held the Kimber in both hands, steadily pacing towards the man. The agent still didn't see Darren, nor did he hear him wading in the sewage to reach him. He wished not to be reached, stalking the man through the jungle of concrete, algae and disease. The agent fumbled for something to hold on to, still unaware.

The shots rang without drama, and without pity. They simply were there, penetrating the man's skull, destroying him. His head cracked the side of the concrete ledge above the water before sinking into it. His blood carried his death certificate down the slow-moving river of garbage, coasting around Darren's pantlegs. Darren breathed slow and confident air, seasoned with accomplishment. Planck agreed with a rise of static. Darren didn't let it bother him this time. He wanted this moment alone.

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"He's a killer"

"Yes, Planck."

"Perfect. I absolutely love it."

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