Two Halves: chapter 9

Two halves chapter nine.

  The blue streams of smoke flew back in moments later. They swerved and danced around Nicolas. Zeckle looked at them and hissed a few commands. They stopped in front of Nicolas and lowered in intensity turning from electric blue to soft turquoise.

 

“Enough, I simply need to know what is outside,” spoke Nicolas to the clouds. The clouds darkened for a moment from being scolded. He was still teetering on whether or not to buy reagents here in order to make a personality lock. The little things would have to behave themselves. He stretched out his hand and created several small sparks of magical fire, which the smoke ate happily. They reentered the flute with a whoosh.

 

“They say no one is outside. The dockworkers left to go have lunch. Their sense of time must be screwy here without a proper sun. It was night when we left,” mumbled Zeckle. He shifted on Nicolas’s shoulder trying to find a more secure footing with his claws. His small tale flicked as he thought.

 

“Well, no one will stop us leaving then.” Nicolas said as opened the container a fraction of an inch. He scanned the room outside and was satisfied with the sensory imps analysis. They were truly in midworld , he hadn’t been sure they would have made it this far. They walked between huge shipping containers. The warehouse they were in seemed to be new, and expensive. The TeraFlex was made of the enzyme bonded concrete. Which was extremely expensive, but much more durable than the ordinary stuff. The cavernous area was dark, but illuminated by small illuminatiator strips that lined the ceiling every few feet.

 

The front door was locked, probably by the workers when they had left for their lunch. Bestalel began to fiddle with the lock with his picks. He eventually broke the lock and they exited the building. Nicolas looked up at the sky, or at least where they sky should be. They were in the city between worlds. The sky was a simple blackness. The only illumination came from the lights of the city itself, and they glowed from the city center a ways off. The only way they were able to keep the lights on was from constant chemical electric favorites deep within the bowels of the city. This was a lawless city, ruled by the gangs and the corporations. The government tried to control it for a while, but gave up after they lost to many good men for the cause, so they gave up.

 

The city was a fluke though, a joke of existence. There shouldn’t be anything rightfully here. How could anything be supported in this land between worlds? There rightfully should be no up, no down. Those were all human things. Constant magic engines kept gravity at a constant earth certified level.

 

The reason this city could be here was because a piece of land. That had no business being here. It was a fixed point in a sea of nothingness. The only piece of substantial existence in a sea non-reality. Exploratory teams found it early on after they broke through the dimensional wall. It was a small piece of dirt about four feet across. It was what was used to anchor the entire city. First it had started as a simple platform on the island, and extended from there.

 

That small piece of land was about three miles below them at the moment. The bowels of the cities metal works extended out in all directions. Long forgotten warehouses and forbidden shops occupied the land below. While above the great corporations of Earth-1 thrived. Their small spindly spires protruded from the landscape.

 

They were going to have to stay here for a short while to gain some old connections and forgotten favors before heading for Earth-2. Apparently Ernie’s web of contacts permeated all levels of the underground.

 

“Sir, we will be heading to the,” He looked down at a card he had retrieved from his folder. “The Cat’s Hotel. We will need to head three stories downwards near the edge of the corporate section. We will be met there by one of Mr. Ernie’s old acquaintances.” He strode quickly with long strides through the warehouses. They were far away from anything and would have to find a subway to the main part of the city.

 

After walking through the sea of warehouses the came upon a stair case leading downwards. A sign above it was marked “SUBWAY”. They wad been few people inside of the warehouse district. Only one of two solitary workers returning from a fast lunch, but this part of the city was thronged with people. All of them seemed to be at least middle class. No grit, no fringe, and no real life of the city. They climbed down the staircase into the underground world, the real world.

 

The subway was clean, at least by subway standards. Which weren’t very high. People jostled one another to get to the front of lines. The entire building was made up of cold metal pieces. The floor and even the ceiling was constructed out of aluminum. Nicolas and Bestalel entered the line to purchase their tickets. Their folders had included money for expenses and Bestalel drew several crisp notes.

 

They walked to a bored looking teenager behind a counter. Nicolas was receiving more then a few strange glances about the imp that was ridding his shoulder. Zeckle even decided to wave his fist at a woman who looked upon him with particular digust.

 

“Two tickets.” Said Bestalel passing over the money to the teenager. He punched a few codes into his machine and printed out the tickets. He handed the tickets to Bestalel, and him and Nicolas began to make their way through the station. It was packed with trains. Each level of the city had a nearly separate train system all their own. They climbed lower until they reached level three. It was much calmer here, and darker. Instead of the shinning franchised shops stood more cozy teashops and newsstands. He could even smell a small amount of incense; there must be a magic shop somewhere unseen.

 

They walked onto the platform of their train, and only a few people stood there with them. Down here you didn’t come unless you had business. Gone were the fancy dress shirts of the city above. Now people were individuals and not faces in the crowd. Nicolas sat on a bench and breathed in the smell of the city.

 

It was time to get this started.

Author's Note

I loved writing this chapter. The ideas for what the city was just came to me as I wrote.

Reviews

[James Watts]

midworld ,(careful with this one. Midworld is a place used in Stephen King's Dark Tower series.

Only thing I really noticed that was pointed out was the tense, I mentioned on a previous review. The beginning chapters are in a different tense then the last two I read. If you have already fixed that just ignore what I just typed. But if not you may want to consider deciding on which tense you want and revise.
Other than that this is not a bad chapter and I like how the story is progressing.

[Dutch Jr.]

Good writing. Easy to read, easy to get a mental picture. Your description was better in this chapter. Nice work.

[ClosingAccount]

Nice

[Deaths Cold Kiss]

i loved reading this chapter:)

[Frantzuu]

awesome chapter, I gotta say, it was fun to read which is the most important thing in writing. :D

[Miss Coral]

Great job again. :)

There were a couple of things that I thought could be changed, but they're only suggestions of course. :)

This way that you wrote this creates fragmented sentences, and while I am an avid user of fragments myself, these ones don't really work.

"'Enough, I simply need to know what is outside.' Spoke Nicolas to the clouds."
"Mumbled Zeckle."
I would suggest putting a comma instead, and don't capitalize it.


Also, this sentence took me a couple of times reading it to get what you meant. "They darkened for a moment from the scolding."


Okay, I know there's the typo in this sentence, but you also began to switch from third person to first person, so you might want to switch "we" to "they".

"He handed them to us and we bagn to make our way through the station."

Overall, once again, great piece. :)