Chapter 9: Red, Part 2

"I am not supposed to try to explain anything to you. I just feed you and warn you to watch for the dogbots." She sighed at his look of puzzlement. "I know, I know, never heard of dogbots. Dogs that have been adapted with new sensors to detect the nanos in the food they feed you. It takes a while for them to disappear. I'm afraid you are in for another hungry time to finish starving the nanos. The people you're looking for gave me something to add to my rations, which doesn't feed them. Don't ask me how it works." She tapped the refrigerator and whisked the plates off to the dishwasher. Sure enough there was another sign on the appliance's white door.

"Thank you." He beamed a smile at her and waved as he left the house.

***

The new sign sent him south, away from town. Now that he'd eaten, he started finding the markers closer to the estimated times in the circle. That day and the next he walked south. Oddly he didn't see any people after leaving the little house. Only once had he seen a vehicle. Feeling silly he'd hidden off the road. The truck had rumbled by, but there was no driver.

The hunger pangs came on then faded, and his pace slowed again.

At the edge of a city Trey followed the signs into a dark deserted neighborhood. A few people strolled in the distance, but paid no attention to him. In the city he got a closer look at a dogbot.

It came around a corner in the alley as he shuffled along. The thing had a metal skullcap and its two lasers glowed red. Instead of sniffing the ground like dogs in books did, it waved its head back and forth. It stared straight at Trey and his hands went clammy. The dog tested the air, the luminous red eyes scanned him, but whatever it was seeking was absent. No longer engaged, it wandered away.

The signs started taking on more complexity, showing miniature maps resembling scratches or writing. Increasingly, the guides were concealed, and Trey spent almost as much time searching for them as he did walking.

Trey might as well have been a ghost, wandering the streets studying boarded up stores and closed factories. Weeds grew through the cracked pavement in places. Dogbots passed in the distance each one seemed to examine and then dismiss him, but they still made him nervous.

He found the last sign under a bridge - a circle with a dot in the middle, nothing else. Trey waited, hunched over, trying to avoid touching the filthy floor. Graffiti covered the concrete making the final sign look like one more tag. From what Trey could surmise, the graffiti artists weren't happy. Even with a bright sunny day a few feet away, the underpass made the air dark and damp. The gloomy setting suited him just fine. His mood was even darker. Trey was hungry, tired, and scared spitless - "What do I do now?"

Just as Trey was deciding he should move on, a grinding sound echoed from the road. An access cover lifted out of the mud and clanged on the ground. The most outrageously dressed person Trey had ever seen lifted herself out of the sewer.

"Been waiting long?" She wore a black form-fitting suit with red pieces to make it very clear she was indeed female. "Hey, cat's got your tongue? You never seen a girl before?"

"Not like you." Trey shook his head and tried to get his brain working. He pushed himself erect to look her in the eye.

"Thanks, that's the nicest thing you've said to me all day." She smiled at him, increasing both his confusion and the strange feelings just a little south of his stomach.

"Who are you?"

"Call me Red," she said. "Good enough for a first date. Are you ready to join us?"

"I'm Trey," he said. "You mean there are more of you?"

"Well not like me. I'm one of a kind." She winked. "That might be a good thing. So, are you coming?"

"Coming where?" Trey asked. "Joining who? You aren't making any sense."

"How long since you ate?" Red asked.

"It must be at least a week." Trey groaned.

"Hmmm, maybe the drugs haven't worn off yet." She smiled at him again. "Listen carefully." She spoke slowly and with exaggerated clarity. "I am asking if you want to join the Underground. If you do, you need to come with me."

"I am not stupid, you know," Trey winced at the whine in his voice. He wanted to shout at her, but it would be a bad idea to annoy the only way out of this place.

"Naw, just still a little drugged." She shrugged - a wholly different action from the boys on the reserve. "You will be fine in a day or so, probably."

Trey shook his head again.

"Drugged?" Even to him, he sounded dumb.

"Sure, the Geris drug all you little darlings. Can't have you risking their spare parts or doing any unplanned procreating."

"Procreating?"

"Not on a first date, Trey." She winked again and wiggled in a way that doubled those strange feelings. "All will be explained."

The crunch of tires on the gravel sounded outside the underpass. The Geris had found him.

"Right on time. The old farts are predictable. Are you coming with me, or going with them?"

"With you," Trey answered, moving away from the wall. The girl grabbed the access cover. He climbed down a ladder into the black hole.

With lithe grace she jumped down into the hole and replaced the cover with just a muffled thump.

"We like to know what dogbot feeds they're following. They won't find us."

"Why down here?" Trey whispered as she took his hand.

"Well duh! We're the Undergound" Red pulled him into the dark future.