Sunblind Serpent: The Zodiac Without A House

Marek remained beneath the station sign while he compared it with the map on his phone.

WEST DISTRICT CENTRAL.

The letters were faded but intact. The route map beside them was protected behind cracked plastic, with the old transit lines still showing where the station had once belonged in Linden. Marek had passed through it before Day 367, although not often enough to remember every entrance or which platform connected to which street.

He remembered the distance.

The Exhibition Center had been more than eight kilometers away.

The passage he had just walked was roughly four hundred and forty meters.

Marek checked the downloaded map again. It was useless for finding his way through the city now, but the streets shown on it had existed before Earth’s awakening. Several blocks, two major intersections and part of a commercial district had once separated the Exhibition Center from West District Central. Whatever had happened after Day 367 had removed most of that distance without removing either location.

He turned the flashlight toward the passage behind him.

The concrete belonging to the Exhibition Center continued until the uneven seam he had crossed several minutes earlier. Beyond it, the walls changed immediately into the white ceramic tiles used throughout the station. There was no collapsed section connecting the two structures and nothing suggesting that one had been rebuilt into the other. The conduit simply reached a place it had never been designed to reach.

Marek took several photographs before continuing along the platform.

West District Central had survived better than some parts of Linden he had seen from the convoy, although one section of the ceiling had collapsed over the opposite track. Water had entered through several cracks and dried along the edge of the platform, leaving streaks of dirt behind. The ticket machines were dead, along with most of the lights.

The station was not empty.

Footprints crossed the dust near the stairs. Some had been stepped over repeatedly, while others remained clearer. An empty water bottle rested beneath one of the benches, and someone had tied a strip of white cloth around a railing near the exit. Farther ahead, red paint had been used to mark an arrow on the tiled wall.

WEST DISTRICT SCHOOL.

Marek followed it.

The first stairwell had been blocked by fallen concrete. Another arrow redirected people toward the opposite end of the platform, where several older markings had already been crossed out. Whoever had been maintaining the route was changing it whenever another section became unusable.

One of the newer arrows had not collected much dust.

That was enough for Marek to continue.

The pressure behind his ear remained, although Celeste had stopped speaking sometime before he reached the station. Marek could still feel the connection, so he left it alone. If she had something useful to say, she usually found a way to say part of it.

A half-lowered security shutter blocked the next passage. Marek removed the bag, pushed it through the opening first and followed underneath. Smoke had reached the stairwell beyond it. The smell mixed with damp concrete and old dust, becoming stronger as he climbed toward the surface.

The service door at the top resisted the first time he pushed it.

The second attempt opened it.

Cold air moved through the opening, carrying smoke from somewhere farther inside the district. Marek stepped outside behind a small transit maintenance building and stayed near the wall for several seconds while his eyes adjusted to the darkness. The dark period had settled over West District, although portable lights had been positioned along parts of the road.

Several abandoned vehicles remained beside the curb, including a city bus with one side window broken. A traffic signal farther ahead still changed from red to green despite hanging at an angle over an intersection that no longer followed the old street layout.

Marek recognized the pharmacy across the road first.

Then the elevated pedestrian walkway beside it.

West District.

Other parts were less familiar. A wall of black stone now stood between two buildings where another street should have continued. One side of the pedestrian walkway ended against it. Someone had attached warning tape to the railing to stop people from walking directly into the new obstruction.

Marek checked the time.

Less than half an hour had passed since he entered the conduit.

Under the current evacuation routes, reaching West District from the Exhibition Center would have taken several hours. The roads between them had either changed, become blocked or passed through controlled areas.

The conduit had ignored all of them.

A handwritten sign attached to a nearby street pole pointed north.

WEST DISTRICT SECONDARY STABILIZATION.

Mara’s record used almost the same name.

Marek started walking.

He reached the next block before stopping again.

The road ended in water.

According to the old map, it should have continued through another intersection surrounded by apartment buildings and a small parking structure. Instead, the pavement extended another fifteen meters before disappearing beneath a dark surface that continued beyond the portable lights.

Concrete barriers blocked the approach. Someone had tied a warning sign between them.

DEPTH UNKNOWN.

DO NOT CROSS.

Marek looked at the map, then at the water.

The nearest coastline had once been more than a hundred kilometers away.

He put the phone back into his pocket and followed the detour marked along the barrier.

The alternate route curved around the rear of the transit maintenance building. Marek had nearly passed it when a green light inside an open utility cabinet caught his attention.

Most of the equipment inside had stopped working. Communication hardware occupied the upper section, while environmental sensors and an older backup controller filled the shelves below. A black module had been mounted near the rear.

Marek stopped walking.

He had seen equipment carrying the same name several times since Day 367.

MERIDIAN RECOVERY.

The lettering had faded around the edges.

Marek moved closer.

The module had not been installed recently. Dust had collected around the mounting bracket, while the screws holding it in place had been painted over with the same gray coating as the inside of the cabinet. The cables behind it had also been bundled with the older municipal wiring instead of laid across the equipment afterward.

One cable disappeared through the wall of the transit building.

Marek followed it as far as he could with the flashlight. Its direction roughly matched the platform below.

Beside the module was a small maintenance screen with several physical buttons beneath it. The display remained black when Marek pressed the first one. He tried again and waited.

The screen flickered.

Several lines moved across it before settling.

LOCAL NODE: WEST DISTRICT CENTRAL

STATUS: ACTIVE

CONNECTION: STABLE

Another entry appeared beneath them.

ROUTE LENGTH: 0.48 KM

Marek opened his notebook.

The number matched his estimate closely enough.

He looked back toward the maintenance building. The system was not using the old city distance. It was measuring the route that existed now.

Marek used the buttons to move through the available information. Most of the entries meant little without knowing how the system worked. Power levels appeared beside abbreviated fields. Several environmental readings had stopped updating. One page contained enough errors that Marek stopped trying to interpret it.

The next page was different.

REMOTE NODE: LINDEN METROPOLITAN EXHIBITION CENTER

Marek read it again.

Project Meridian recognized both ends.

He continued through the maintenance information until another set of measurements appeared.

BASELINE ROUTE: 8.21 KMCURRENT ROUTE: 0.48 KM

Marek stayed crouched beside the cabinet. The old map showed almost the same original distance. The pressure behind his ear changed slightly.

Celeste remained silent.

Marek did not ask her about it.

He photographed each screen with his phone before copying the two distances into his notebook. Mara’s registration pages were several sheets behind it. Henry’s photograph sat between them and the old map he had folded earlier.

West District Secondary Stabilization was still north of his position.

He closed the notebook and stood.

Finding Mara came first.

Project Meridian could wait long enough for him to reach the school.

Marek had followed W-14 because he needed a way out of the Exhibition Center. He had expected an underground passage altered by whatever had rearranged Linden after Day 367.

He had not expected to find a system that was already measuring the change.

Marek looked once more at the screen.

Whatever had happened between the two locations, Project Meridian had already measured it.