Mr Teal and Mollie's city

Chapter 1: And The Match Is Set

After several months of painstaking research Mr Teal was sure of two things. Firstly, the city’s sewage system stretched on for two hundred miles, and secondarily,  there was something down there that shouldn’t be.  Teal’s research had taken him to the furthest extremities of the city’s boundaries, and had involved some pretty unsavoury characters. Accusations about the city’s subterranean inhabitant had been wild and inconclusive, more often than not consisting of drunken glances in the night. But, as Teal had reflected, only that morning, as he sat in congregation, there is no smoke without fire, and no lie without perpetrator.

For Teal was on a corrective mission, of that he was sure. As he descended the Christmas Steps he was filled with a purpose he had never before experienced. A thin film of sweaty expectation clung to his back, cooling him from the midday sun. Teal was aware of his every move; his own aliveness clung to him, shaped him. Yes, Teal felt terribly alive. If all the calculations are correct, he thought, I will create history today. Or rather correct history. Correct, because, if what was down there was what the source said it was, it needed correcting, both for God and for the city.

Teal had found nothing but unreliable witness accounts until the fifth month of his search, when a rather large bank transaction, larger than Teal could really afford, had yielded a promising result. A photograph blurred and stained, and taken from a great height had shown what Teal had expected all along. The impression of a great ape, dog like, crouching low to the ground was unmistakable. Of course, it could just be an escaped primate; there were several zoos in the city. But an unreported escapee living in a sewer? That, Teal had concluded, was unlikely. No Teal had a rather different theory as to the ape’s existence, he believed that the ape had been placed there by God, as a means of testing Teal, and Teal would not leave God wanting. For as the photograph suggested, this was no ordinary ape.  Despite its dog like snout and low sense of gravity the ape was, Teal didn’t like to think about it, horribly human.

Iron railings flashed past, liquid and shimmering and still Mr Teal descends. He knew what he is looking for. The 52^nd manhole cover on Christmas Steps, 49 went by, 50 was completely rusted shut, as was 51 and then. There it was. Inconspicuous in its alcove, but not hidden. Not hidden from the likes of Teal. He looked about him; all was quiet upon the Christmas Steps.

The manhole cover was heavy but manageable. Grunting Teal hoisted it off. It was not a controlled movement, and the clang cut through the afternoon, down the street, and through the rafters of the eyeless houses and shops which leaned over the Christmas Steps. Casting a furtive glance about him, Teal lowered his bulk into the manhole. A ladder. Down down. A rung at a time. He descends, until the heat of the day has been left behind, and all that is left is a cool, sombre darkness.

The feel a city gives changes from street to street. Six miles away from Christmas Steps, at the southernmost extreme of the city, Mollie Corydalis was looking at a reprint of the same photograph that had made Mr Teal so certain. Mollie Corydalis studied biology at the University.  For over three months now she had been gathering data and reading witness accounts about the notion of the missing link. Humans, she believed, were descendants of primates. Yet still the city church insisted on creationism being taught in the three hundred schools it ran. This angered Mollie. Well, she thought, here is an opportunity to prove myself right.

She sipped her coffee, and perused a map of the subterranean city. Mollie had planned an access point. A tunnel, not far from where she now sat, would provide her with her entrance to the sewers. Once in there, she reasoned, the man-ape would be easy to find. Mollie had guessed the creature’s habits, when it fed, when it slept. No doubt the expedition would take one, perhaps two days at the most. She looked from one end of the street to the other. All was quiet. Hoisting her rucksack on to her back she left the café, and walked towards the tunnel. The heat of the midday sun prickled her skin. She hears birds singing, traffic, a lawnmower, as she steps into the gloom and shadow of the tunnel. Sounds that are quickly replaced by that of her own breathing, the splash of her feet in puddles, and the echoes of it all that bounce from the walls. An ape, she thought, proof, proof at last.

A pair of eyes, unbeknown to Mollie, tracks her slow progress through the subterranean tunnels. Six miles away beneath Christmas Steps, another pair of eyes watch Mr Teal as he rummages in his bag for his torch. Both sets of eyes are dark, the pupils dilate to cover the entire iris, leaving a thin, almost invisible, band of grey. Teal has a piece of chalk, scraping his progress as he journeys through the sewers. Mollies has string, which, in two days, a desperate Mr Teal will cut. But not yet. Presently Teal, is governed by certainty. He has a location, not far from here, where he believes the beast feeds. A place where he can spring upon it unawares. Six miles away Mollie has her mind upon a different place, where she is sure the animal sleeps. But the inhabitants of the city sewers, who are neither man nor ape, live in neither place. They feel anxious, cornered by these two wanderers, who journey ever closer to each other, to the deepest part of the sewer and to discoveries which at present, neither of them can quite comprehend.

Sam Reeves