Season 1, Episode 5 - The Boxtops XLIV - "Undergound Army, Part 1"

Shokahu and three gray-uniformed New England Naval Intelligence officers peered out of a second-floor window deep in the slums of Fore River. Around here, the narrow streets ran in a maze-like fashion, decaying buildings spilling into each other, many of them vacated. There were only a few roads for horse-drawn carriages out here, let alone cars. This was an area ruled by the local gangsters, mobsters, and whoever had weapons and power. They each had their own set of laws - which, in turn, made this part of Fore River rather lawless.

Per Stockham’s order, Shokahu met up with the officers to investigate a safehouse used by the sailors of a particular PT boat; one of its sailors included the man who shot that bank manager. Whatever they found here, Shokahu and the officers hoped it would help both the Academy and the Navy get to the bottom of things.

They were dealing with a potential Dorrite infection of both the Academy and the Navy, Stockham informed Shokahu via encrypted wireless telegram before sending him out. Shokahu remembered the Dorrites from both the beginning and end of the Quinetucket administration, when the people thrust that government into power and subsequently left them to die. Shokahu redirected his thoughts elsewhere; the Pulaski Coup was a particularly negative experience for him.

He focused on the here and now. One of the officers frowned, his eyes looking into binoculars. “The safehouse is in there,” he said, pointing a gloved finger toward a crumbling building that had certainly seen better days.

Shokahu could see the building just fine. But, having lived in the Pond for the past decade, the sight of impoverished buildings like that all around him slowly got on his nerves. The empty faces of those living in Fore River hurt him most of all, especially the children. No surprise a revolutionary movement could find a breeding ground here.

But some things weren’t adding up. Several men in tan military fatigues stood in front of the building, all of them armed with rifles.

“That’s the Fore River Military Police,” Shokahu realized, frowning alongside the officer. “What are they doing here?”

“First they prevented us from looking into the bank manager’s death, and now they’re here to stop us from searching a safehouse,” the lead officer said. “They must’ve caught wind we were looking into the other safehouses.”

“Do you think the Fore River MPs could be working with the Dorrites?” Shokahu asked.

The lead officer shook his head. “Captain Firmino is a slimy bastard. Their books haven’t been audited in years. I have no doubt he bought his mansion with tainted money.”

“Smuggling?” Shokahu assumed.

“You bet. Guns, hot goods, people...ideas.”

“You think the Dorrites infected the Fore River Military Police, too?”

The lead officer shrugged. “I don’t know about infected. But if there’s money to be made by working with the Dorrites and keeping their activity secret from us, I have no doubt they're involved.”

Shokahu frowned. New England politics could get messy. Since Fore River supplied labor for the Institute, this was Institute territory. Just as Cambridge had the Military Police on Neponset - their labor district - under their tight grip, the Institute should’ve had a tighter grip on the Fore River MPs.

That could signify the Institute’s involvement in all of this, too. That would raise a whole lot of new questions, all of them unpleasant. They say the Institute was founded by a mobster-gone-legitimate; perhaps his criminal past could still be found today. Or maybe the Institute didn’t have as tight of a grip over their people as Shokahu expected it to have. Perhaps the Fore River Military Police decided to work with the Dorrites of their own accord.

Nevertheless, the immediate question was how to get inside the building.

“Our distraction should begin soon,” the lead officer said as he and his men readied their weapons. “Shokahu, you know what to do?”

Shokahu nodded. There were ten MPs in front of the building. Shokahu didn’t want any of them killed. Naval officers killing Military Police - talk about messy. And Shokahu knew none of those MPs deserved to have their life snuffed out in the dreary labyrinth of misery known as Fore River.

The lead officer checked the time on his watch. “Here we go.”

Right on schedule, a time bomb went off a block away. The naval officers planted the bomb in the upper floor of a vacant brick building - Shokahu made them double check to make sure it was really vacant of any squatters. When the building checked out, they set the bomb on a delayed timer, then took up their current positions that overlooked the safehouse.

Even from here, the heat and sound from the bomb detonated ripped through the building. Having been through years of warfare, Shokahu stood unflinchingly. The officers, the cream of the crop in the navy, remained unworried as well.

In contrast, the MPs on the ground scrambled around, several of them stumbling backwards from the unexpected shock and force of the explosion. From the youthful expressions on their face, Shokahu suspected many of them were young men fresh out of the Presidential War College, testing high enough to avoid front-line service but lacking the connections to receive a cushy assignment in a more peaceful district.

One of the MPs barked orders out. Seven of the MPs rushed off toward the sight of the explosion, leaving three to guard the building. Once the seven disappeared around the corner, the lead Naval officer pointed a zip-line gun at the safehouse; with a clank, the zip-line zoomed out of the gun until its end point flew into an open window on the second floor of the safehouse. Its metallic end presumably stuck firm into the back of the windowsill; the lead officer gave it a firm tug to confirm.

Shokahu didn’t need the zip-line. He brought his hands together as he crouched into the window of their own building.

“Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit!”

Red Rddhi surged into his legs and feet as he leapt out of the building, the Rddhi carrying farther than any normal jump ever could. By now, the remaining MPs noticed that a zip-line had been fired over their heads; before they could send a messenger to the MPs they sent off, Shokahu came to a crash landing right on top of one of three still guarding the building.

The force of the fall knocked the officer out stone cold; Shokahu himself, with the power of the Rabbit, took no damage from the jump out of a second-story window across an entire street. The two other MPs scrambled backwards in a panic.

“Rat, Ox!”

With the red Rddhi circle that now appeared in front of him, Shokahu smashed into one of the MPs, sending him flying into the base of the building. The other MP tried to stab him with a knife; the blade bounced harmlessly off the Ox. Shokahu swung the Ox shield at that officer; this blow was nowhere near as harmless. That officer crumpled, too.

As Shokahu moved the fallen bodies into the shadows, the naval officers zip-lined over to the safehouse, aiming their weapons downward in case Shokahu needed any back-up. None was necessary, so when the officers arrived, they let go at the last second, using some bushes and their own training to break their falls harmlessly.

The officers dusted themselves off. “You’re as good as Admiral Zivkovic says,” the lead officer told Shokahu with a grin.

Shokahu never met the head of Naval Intelligence, but he knew the admiral was Stockham’s connection to the Navy. Not one to brag, Shokahu merely grunted at the comment.

The officers raised their pistols; the lead officer led the way up some crumbling stone stairs into the building lobby. Shokahu followed along, and found himself in a dark room, the only light coming from a few barrel fires scattered around. A few sorry-looking people crowded around these barrels, empty bottles nearby.

The lead officer frowned when he saw an unconscious man sitting upright against a tattered wall, an empty vial near his hands, its contents having spilled out onto the floor.

“Worm syrup,” he realized after examining the dark liquid pooling on the ground.

“What’s that?” Another officer asked.

“A new drug - well, an old drug from before the Unleashing, recently remade in New York,” the lead officer explained. “Used to flush parasitic worms out of the body. But the brand coming out of New York…it’s hard stuff, used recreationally across Narragansett.”

The lead officer looked back at Shokahu, the barrel light flickering across his face. “I think we found a lead, Shokahu. Goods coming from New York…the Mob Consortium would only sell guns and goods. Not drugs. That was their policy. That’s how the Second Restorationists got their start - peddling things like Dopamine Rushers all over the city. Stuff the mob wouldn’t touch.”

He gave the vial a light nudge with his boot. “The Fore River Military Police worked with the mob to sell and distribute their products. The mob wouldn’t let them sell drugs like this. Fore River used to be drug-free, believe it or not. But now…if you got things like this here, times are changing.”

“So,” the youngest officer of the group surmised, “Either the Restorationists or the Dorrites are working with the Fore River MPs to distribute drugs all over the district. But due to the ideology, we think it’s the Dorrites?”

“Precisely.”

Shokahu spoke up. “Why wouldn’t the mob sell drugs?”

The lead officer gave him a cheeky grin. “Honor, believe it or not.”

With that, the group headed further into the building. They stepped over more unconscious bodies, similar empty vials surrounding them. The occasional barrel fire plunged them into alternating periods of darkness and light. Those who were conscious, dressed in ragged clothes, looked at them blankly.

“I heard the Naval Yard gets its labor from Fore River, too,” Shokahu said as they stepped over broken bits of glass.

“We try to keep them in better areas,” the lead officer answered. “You won’t hear this on the news, but we’ve been getting less people coming into work recently.”

“Are they becoming physically and mentally incapable of it?” Shokahu supposed dryly, looking at scattered vials.

“Sometimes. But a lot of our best workers are leaving, too.”

“Where are they going? No offense, but I doubt any of them have saved up enough for an early retirement."

The lead officer found their destination. At the very back of the building, he examined a rotting bookcase. With the help of another officer, they pushed it aside, the old wood creaking. Shokahu felt a new draft of air hit him; behind the bookcase was a large opening, a staircase leading down into the darkness.

“Just like the PT crewmmates said,'' the young officer commented.

The lead officer looked back at Shokahu. “As for your question, they say there’s work down here.”

Shokahu raised an eyebrow, then followed the officers as they descended down the staircase. The young officer produced a flashlight and held it steady as the four walked cautiously down stone steps. The light briefly flashed across a rusty metal sign on the wall, black letters on it proclaiming BOSTON - DORCHESTER SQUARE.

A subway station, Shokahu realized. Sure enough, the stone staircase led them to what was once a train platform. The ceiling leaked above them, with a few tents and shacks assembled across the flat stone. Shokahu tilted his head in deadpan surprise; instead of a railroad, he only saw buildings. Sunken stone buildings, windows tattered, a few people looking at the men in uniform before shutting doors and curtains tight.

“This is a New Boston station, built after the Unleashing but before the Second American Civil War,” the lead officer explained as he led them down a gravel road - the gravel having been poured in by their forefathers to fill in parts of the track. A few blinking lights along with ever-present barrel fires illuminated their path. “Narragansett was built atop New Boston, which itself was built atop Old Boston. These buildings are New Boston, judging from the stonework. They sank over time.”

“Yet people still live in them,” Shokahu muttered, shaking his head when he heard the sound of children laughing, something completely out of place with their dark, dreary surroundings.

“Living down here…it’s not like you have to pay property taxes,” the lead officer joked. The young officer laughed; Shokahu and the other officer kept quiet.

“What kind of work can they find down here?” Shokahu asked. Another out of place feeling hit him - the smell of cooked meat. Apparently, people could even afford some luxuries, even down in a place like this.

“Smuggling work and the like,” the lead officer answered as he led them further down the train tracks. He shifted his boot over the gravel, revealing a rail beneath it. “Not like the trains work down here. The physical act of smuggling requires people to move the goods and people to maintain the tunnel networks.”

Shokahu nodded at that. The Academy itself had enough trouble with filling in its own tunnels; he never actually considered the implications of an entire tunnel grid existing below the entire city.

Tunnel grids, he corrected himself as the men squeezed behind a rusting subway car, NEW BOSTON printed proudly on its side. The lead officer opened a creaking maintenance door and led the way inside.

Shokahu sighed at the sight of another stone staircase. As they descended further, the air grew increasingly stale and foul. He supposed the better-off of the poor lived in the tunnels formed by the ruins of New Boston; the worst of the worst lived down here, in the ruins of Old Boston.

Considering it was the oldest city, all of its ruins sank to the bottom as succeeding generations built new cities over it. A sign on the staircase gave this even older subway station’s identity away as BOSTON - DORCHESTER ARENA. A pipe leaked murky water over it; the men watched their step as the stepped in dirty pools of water.

The staircase leveled out as they arrived in the deepest part of Narragansett. The surprise on Shokahu’s face was no longer dull; all of the men looked in awe.

The first part of the awe came from the staircase leading into the upper decks of a sunken arena. They gingerly stepped forward, rows and rows of decaying seats stretching in either direction, forming a huge podium. Shokahu wiped his face; he’d seen pictures of pre-Unleashing stadiums and knew they could dwarf New England’s current arenas, but to actually see one up close made him feel tiny.

The arena seemed to stretch on forever. Sunken buildings crushed other sections of seating, but wherever they looked, the open areas were filled with seating. Water leaked all over the arena out of busted pipes in the ceiling, itself cracking with occasional bits of rubble falling every so often.

For a brief moment, Shokahu imagined this stadium in all its glory - the seats filled with thousands of people on a weekend outing, enjoying their time of luxury. Down below, basketball players would’ve moved graciously to the roaring applause.

Instead, all they heard now was construction noises.

That was the second aspect of their awe. This stadium should’ve collapsed long ago. Instead, they saw actual cranes towering over crumbling buildings - and new buildings, constructed out of a patchwork of masonry. Old ruins should’ve been filled with the sound of empty silence, an eerie quiet over signs of civilizations not touched in centuries.

Instead, the men heard the sounds of hammers and machinery thundering around the room.

“What the hell is this?” the youngest officer asked.

“Smuggling central,” the lead officer spoke quietly.

Recognizing the danger, the men immediately went to regroup within a decaying stone structure from Old Boston to debate their next move.