Chapter Four: The Nadir

A gunshot in the alley propelled me out of my self-indulgent sulk. I lurched forward and peered out the kitchen window. A precarious collection of metal, the loosest definition of a car, rumbled streetward, alone. Probably not a gunshot, then.

With a resigned sigh, I got my shit together. Anything that couldn't fit in my sturdy black backpack or on my person was abandoned. My blood soaked clothes I stuffed into four layers of takeout bags to discard along the way.

I closed the front door behind me for the last time, overcome by an odd sense of loss.

The subway crowd drag me into its anonymous mass and I breathed a little bit of the tension out of my shoulders.

In the jostling, transit cards and coins jumped unnoticed into my hands. A grimy silver train clattered up to the platform. The crowd surged forward and I let it carry me.

I stood, arm wrapped around a still warm pole, backpack dangling in front of me. The oily scent of the train mingled with the stale sweat and sour breath wafting off the crowd. A man in a cheap suit elbowed his way through the tumult.

The shrill warning tone pierced the subdued murmur and the doors swung shut. Shaking violently, the train plunged into the tunnel. I clung to the pole as the crowd swayed and stumbled.

As the train lurched out of the fourth station, a hand brushed my leg. I grabbed it and yanked.

A smudged waif strait out of a Dickens novel stumbled into the hulking man beside me. The man shook his head and muttered something presumably offensive. The waif twisted away, leaving me holding a crumpled piece of paper.

I checked my pockets, but found nothing missing. Smudged ink on thin paper, nearly illegible, declared something like, "Troll Bridge. Midnight. A man in a cloak. Say, 'Galileo,' hear, 'Figuero.'" Below the writing the creator of the note had taken a brave stab at a drawing of two simple swords in a V. The creator of the note should never pursue an art career, but the symbol of the Nadir was unmistakeable.

I changed trains twelve times, using a different stolen card each time, backtracking and turning and zigzagging, though I didn't cross the island's midway line. There waited the West Side, an overpoliced and gentrified pile of expensive smiles and impractical clothes presided over by the illustrious Apex. The only thing I missed were the fancy showers.

The note rustled in my pocket with every jolt of the train. Its proposal echoed in my ears, rendered in a throaty growl. It was ridiculous and theatrical, which tracked with what I knew of the Nadir, though that wasn't much.

Every few weeks, the Nadir staged some flashy attack against the Apex. Many involved explosives. One featured a large boogle of weasels. All resulted in chaos. They supplemented this with creative anti-Apex graffiti, which heavily featured slogans like "Poleax the Apex," "A-blechs," and "fuck you apex assholes." Their efforts seldom produced lasting damage, but the Apex couldn't figure out how to get rid of them.

Which didn't explain why they wanted to meet with me. Or how they found me. I was starting to suspect I'd grossly overestimated my disappearing skills.

I wrangled free from the crowd and trudged into the fading light. Standing there, a meaningless obstacle in the flow of people, I realized I was rapidly running out of options.

"Fuck," I spat. An elderly woman in a floral skirt glared at me as she strode past.

"Fuck," I repeated, louder. The woman huffed, but kept walking.

"Fuck," I said again, quietly this time.

I couldn't take on the Apex alone. I barely survive the Apex alone, it seemed. At the very least, maybe the Nadir could help get off this island. This damn island.