Mind the Gap

"Hattie. If she's still where we left her. And Harry. They did a job on him. We should check on him."

They knew me, she wanted to say. They recognized me, and one of them I've seen before. They were here for me. What they did to Cadge... it's my fault.

But she couldn't say any of that, no matter how true it felt. She'd sometimes gotten the feeling that he didn't trust her, didn't want her there. If she told him the truth, he'd never let her stay with them.

"Let's have a look," Stevie said. "But quietly. No telling if they're really gone or if there might be others. Nowhere's safe down here now, until we've had a proper look around to make sure it's clear."

Jazz had been avoiding looking at Cadge too closely, but when Stevie turned to jump down from the platform, she did not follow. Almost robotic, she forced herself to look.

This time her anguish did not rip into her as it had before. Her eyes did not burn with tears. Instead, a cold fury spread through her. Slowly, she went and knelt by the ruined boy. He looked so small, and his wrecked face was gruesome to behold. But she did not allow herself to look away. Cadge deserved that much, at least.

"Let's go," Stevie said, though there was kindness in his urging.

She kissed the first two fingertips of her right hand, then pressed the kiss to Cadge's bloodstained cheek. Something had shifted in her, just in those few moments. Jazz had had enough of grief and enough of fear. Enough of running.

"Enough of hiding," she whispered to the dead boy.

She stood and turned to Stevie, holding out her hand. "Give me your jacket."

He frowned but slipped it off and handed it to her with-out question. Jazz placed Cadge's arms over his chest, then covered his corpse with the jacket. The others might need her, and Cadge was beyond anyone's help now. Beyond fear. Beyond the painful memories of his father's disdain.

Of them all, he was the only one who was safe.

"What are we going to do with him?" she asked, looking down from the platform at Stevie. "I won't just leave him here."

The older boy —almost a man, really, though his dark, narrow features still had a child's aspect—cocked his head, studying her. "You've been down here for a few months, but you haven't learned much. We take care of our own, Jazz. You should know that."

For a moment they indulged their anger by glaring at each other. Then Jazz dropped down to the remnants of the train tracks. So close to Stevie, she had to look up at him and felt his nearness keenly. An awkward tension rippled be-tween them. She thought he might take her into his arms to comfort her, and as much as her mother had taught her never to rely on anyone —especially a bloke—the thought gave her a feeling of warmth inside.

But Stevie did not embrace her.

Wrapping her arms around herself, shivering now with the cold and damp of the tunnel, Jazz turned and started re-tracing her steps. When she reached the metal door to the stairs that she and Cadge had descended earlier, it hung partway open.

"Hattie was supposed to wait in there," she said.

Stevie pulled the door wide, revealing nothing but dark-ness within. He swore, but Jazz didn't waste time staring at the emptiness of the stairwell. She picked up her pace, jog-ging around the bend toward the entrance to Deep Level Shelter 7-K. The chemical smell of the gas the bastards used still lingered in the air. From behind her, she heard the sound of the metal door closing tight —they'd been taught to leave as little trace of their presence as possible—and then Stevie's footfalls as he pursued her.

When she came in sight of the door to the United Kingdom's lair, she staggered to a halt. Hattie knelt on the ground where the thugs had beaten Harry. For the first time since Jazz had met her, the girl was without a hat. The cute little cap she'd been wearing fashionably askew had been left behind, and Hattie hadn't noticed.

Harry lay beside her on the ground. Jazz couldn't see his face —Hattie blocked her view—but the man wasn't moving. Not at all.

Stevie caught up to Jazz but didn't slow. "Harry, no!" he shouted as he rushed toward the old thief.

Hattie spun around, eyes wide with fear. When she saw them, the girl shook with relief.

Then Harry moved. He reached up one hand to pat Hattie's arm, a gesture of fatherly comfort. His legs shifted and he tried to sit up but couldn't. Stevie reached them and dropped down next to Hattie. Jazz had been frozen with in-decision, not knowing where her life would go from here. But for the moment, at least, such thoughts would have to wait. Harry had been kind to her. Cadge might be dead, but Harry was alive.

Jazz ran to them. She stood behind Stevie, looking down at the bruised, bloody face of Harry Fowler.

"I thought..." she said.

"The worst," Harry said. "I thought the same, love. But I'll be all right. Need some rest. Cracked some bones, I think. But a few weeks and I'll be right as rain."

"Think they'll be back?" Stevie asked.

Harry nodded. "Might be."

"So what do we do?" Hattie asked, her voice a desperate whine.

At that, Harry beamed, though he winced with the pain the smile caused him. "Why, Hattie, dear, what do you sup-pose we do? When the big bad wolf blows down the house, the smart little pig moves somewhere safer."

Hattie and Stevie nodded, but Jazz felt a darkness en-veloping her, a grim hopelessness that she feared she could never escape.

"They caught Cadge," she said.

Harry frowned deeply. "Is he bad off?"

"He's dead."

At those words Harry —who'd made himself both monarch and jester of the Underground—began to cry.

And Jazz thought she loved the old man, just a little.

****

"What is this rendezvous point, anyway?" Jazz asked. "Nobody ever mentioned it to me."

Hattie led the way. Jazz and Stevie helped Harry as best they could, the old thief's arms around them for support. At first he'd had to lean on them quite a bit, but as the minutes passed and some of his stiffness retreated, he seemed to need them more for balance than anything else. Jazz stretched her own neck and arms, glad to have his weight off her.

"Couldn't be sure about you at first, Jazz girl." Harry coughed, spat a wad of bloody spittle, and kept walking. "If you were just passing through, it wouldn't do to give up all our secrets."

"And now? You're sure I'm not just passing through?"

"I'm not sure of anything except that those bastards at-tacked my family in my home, killed one of my children, and are going to pay for it."

Harry stepped on a loose stone that shifted beneath him, and he stumbled a bit. Jazz and Stevie caught him, but she saw the pain in his face and wondered how many bones were cracked or broken and whether he had damage inside him that none of them could see. Losing Cadge had gutted her. She wondered what would happen to the United Kingdom if Harry died as well and decided not to think about it.

"As to the rendezvous, here we are. You'll see for your-self."

Jazz narrowed her eyes. Hattie had gone down into the bomb shelter and fetched one of the heavy-duty torches. Its illumination shone into the tunnel ahead, but the dark-ness seemed to swallow it up.

There were no shafts here to bring light down from the surface. Jazz couldn't have said how long they'd been wandering through the various tun-nels and corridors that made up the labyrinth of London's true Underground, but she thought nearly an hour had passed.

The torchlight glinted on the tracks —there were still rails here—and on the walls and roof of the tunnel. But after a few more steps, the darkness seemed to yawn before them and they stepped into what had to be a vast subterranean cavern.

"What the hell?" Jazz whispered.

"Stevie, get the lights," Harry said.

The old thief released both of them, moving gingerly ahead. Stevie slipped off to the left, and Hattie aimed the torch just ahead of him. Jazz saw a platform. She and Hattie kept up with Harry as they came to a set of steps that led up-ward. At the top of those stairs, they stopped and waited.

"Stevie!" Harry called, one hand pressed against his side. "Let's have those lights."

"Give us a minute," Stevie replied, his voice floating to them from the darkness.

As promised, a moment later there came a loud clank and the hum of electricity, and lights began to flicker on high above their heads. Jazz turned slowly, mouth open in amazement. She had never seen a Tube station so beautiful. The pillars were marble and chandeliers hung from the ceil-ing high above.

Frescoes had been painted on that vaulted surface. It seemed to her more like a cathedral than a train stop on the Underground.

"You've got to he joking," she said. "Who builds some-thing like this and then abandons it?"

Hattie laughed and pirouetted in the middle of the sta-tion. "Isn't it lovely, though? Wish we could live here in-stead of just using it for emergencies."

"Why wouldn't you?" Jazz asked, turning to Harry.

He shook his head. "Too open. Can't heat it with a fire or a space heater. Never any direct light.

Hard enough to keep the electric working. And once every few years they let a bunch of professors come down here and take pictures for their studies on the lost Underground."

Stevie appeared.

"They'd just finished building it when the war started," he said, strolling over to stand by Jazz. He gazed up at the ceiling. "The track was meant to connect two other lines, with this as the axis. Crown jewel, all of that. Then the bombing started. Used to be a ministry building up above. The whole thing came down, collapsed onto the station, and the walls on the stairs caved in. The Germans buried the place and nobody ever bothered to excavate."

"Why not?" Jazz asked.

Harry laughed. "Did a bit of research on it myself, once upon a time. See, on paper they said it was too dangerous. The ground above's unstable, they said. Have a look at the crack up there."

He pointed to the ceiling, and for the first time Jazz no-ticed the jagged line that cut across the ceiling on the far side, beyond the last chandelier.

"But it's stable enough they built a hotel on it," Harry continued. "Ask me, I'd say they just wanted to forget the place existed. After the First World War, the ministry never spent a penny rebuilding the military.

When Hitler came to power, they hadn't the money or the army to fight him prop-erly, had to beg and borrow to make a go of it. The last thing they wanted the people to see was how much money they spent on vanity and opulence. Bombs burying this place was their good luck. They weren't in any rush to dig it up again."

As Jazz listened to the tale and gazed around, studying the station, others moved out of the darkness down on the tracks and emerged from behind marble pillars and coun-ters. The grand staircase had collapsed long ago, and the steps were strewn with rubble. From the shadows there, Gob and Leela appeared.

"Mr. F., you all right?" Marco asked, as he and Faith ap-proached.

Bill and Switch stood by Stevie, all of them studying Harry.

"Gather round, pets. We've a lot of work to do and ought to do it quick."

Jazz noticed Stevie staring at her, but when she caught him, he looked away.

"Now, then," Harry went on. "Things have taken a turn, haven't they? Enemies have found us out, and they may be back. We're going to have to move, of course. Don't like it one bit, and I'm sure you don't either. But so it goes. I'm a bit bunged up, but I'll be all right. Stevie and I picked out a new place more than a year ago, just in case. We'll show you the way, and then you'll have to go back to the shelter and start moving our goods. Watch for trouble. Careful not to be seen. Anyone comes, anything starts, you run, and what-ever you do, don't lead them back to our new home, right?"

They all nodded and grunted their agreement.

"First, we've got another task," Harry said. "A terrible task, indeed."

"Hang on," Leela said. "Who were the bastards? Got to tell us that much. They weren't police and they weren't building no new tracks or anything. So why'd they bother with us?"

Harry had wiped most of the blood from his face, but now his expression darkened. He lowered his head, face in shadow.

"The mayor's men, pet. Bone-breakers and life-takers," he said. "Running for reelection, isn't he? The nasty bas-tards didn't say as much, but I'm no fool. I've been reading the papers, seeing the signs. Mayor Bromwell said as he was gonna clean up the city, stop the thieving, protect British subjects and tourists alike. I knew we'd have to be careful, but I never thought they'd come down the hole after us."

As much as Harry seemed to believe it, Jazz could not. They had come down here searching for her.

Someone must have seen her on the upside and followed her down, told the Uncles where she was. Jazz still did not know why her mother had been murdered, but obviously they still wanted her dead as well.

She would have to tell Harry, but now wasn't the time. Not with all of the others there.

"Bromwell's corrupt as they come," Harry added, but he didn't say it the way a man in a pub might complain about city government. It seemed more personal than that. "He sent these men down to clean us up. But we'll get him, pets. I promise you that. We'll get him."

Harry shook with fury and a grief that Jazz knew the others didn't yet understand.

"Hey," Gob piped up. "Where's Cadge?"

Jazz turned away from them. She hugged herself. Hattie came over and slid her arms around Jazz.

"Harry?" one of the boys prodded.

"They caught him. The Hour of Screams caught up to them. They might've done it anyway, madness or not, but they beat him. I'm sorry, pets. I loved him so. Sweet boy, swift of mind and hand. But he's dead.

That was the other task I mentioned —saying good-bye to Cadge."

****

Jazz heard the water before she saw it. The soft hiss and gentle burble echoed off the stone walls of the old tunnel. Where they walked now, no train had ever run. This corri-dor seemed part of an ancient structure, the cellar of an old London building that had been destroyed. No doubt some other edifice had been erected in its place, but its roots re-mained.