Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Pretty: Obligatory

People who went into the tubes regularly tended to fall into two categories: those who went once a year or so, and people who went regularly. Those who went infrequently typically went to deal with some government bureaucracy, renewal of some license or another, for example, would just leave their cold-temperature clothes at one of the ubiquitous coat-check kiosks just inside the tube. Most people who regularly visited the tubes, such as the bureaucrats that the first type of people visited, invested in a warming-charm that would protect them from the cold during the usually short walk from their home just outside the tube to the shimmering curtain that held Cold at bay.

Jack had a big duffel bag he carried with him whenever he went out. It was made of a very compressible fabric and would fold down fairly small; he stored it in a big pocket sewn into the back of his jacket. Often, his business called for him to go into the tubes, and having a duffel like that meant he could take off his jacket, overpants and mukluks and carry them with him rather than leaving them with a coat check near the entrance. That way he didn't have to leave the same way he went in, and he saved on coat check fees. The duffel was considerably cheaper than a warmth charm, which wouldn't hold up to the walk from the tube to his building anyway.

Duffel in hand, Jack walked slowly past the assortment of vendors that lined the first few chambers of the tube. The signs, mostly hand-lettered, offered everything from noodle soup to charms to weapons to "active participatory massage". The storefronts themselves were never much wider than a small door, but the tunnels behind the doors might be long or short, and could lead to a single room or a many-roomed complex. Most of the time, the busy bees who used this entrance to get to work breezed right past the mob of shoppers and onlookers who came to the commerce zone just to shop a little where it was warm. Jack sauntered over to a door with the word "Yakitori" emblazoned in asian-esque lettering. Pushed it open, let the duffel lead the way.

Inside, there was a longish walk down a twisty and narrow tunnel, with alcoves every now and again so people could pass each other in either direction. Somewhere around the halfway point, carvings started to appear in the tunnel walls, first rough and then more and more complex and baroque as Jack got close to the end of the tunnel. Jack idly wondered what Mitsunori would do when he had carved straight down to the front door of his little one-man restaurant. That wouldn't happen for a while yet, at the rate the carvings were progressing.
The duffel nosed out into the soft light of the gaslamps that were everywhere in the tubes. Jack followed, walked into the small room and sat on a stool in front of the long recycled-metal bar that separated him from the cook, a gray-haired Japanese man with a tall white paper hat.

"I figured it was you, Jack. Not many people eat what I'm serving this time of day."

"Well, Mitsunori-san, I actually just had a cheeseburger not too long ago, but I could use a beer."

Mitsunori harrumphed. "It may be dark outside, but that doesn't mean that it's okay to drink beer at ten in the morning, you know."

"I stopped looking at clocks years ago, you know that. What's the point? Up is work, tired is sleep, hungry is eat, and thirsty is drink. Clinging to the old ways is just tradition. Besides, it's more efficient this way: I'm out of your hair before any real customers come by."

"I suppose so", said Mitsunori as he worked a tap on a large oaken barrel that was behind the bar, and probably the most valuable thing in the bar, given its antiquity and the scarcity of wood. "Maybe it's just that I don't like seeing you, of all people, drinking at any time of the day."

"Yeah, yeah. I know." Mitsunori was a friend from way back, back before Jack got into the snooping business, actually, back when he didn't need the drink the way he needed it now.

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