The Discovery in the Depths
Part 1: The Routine Call
The call seemed completely routine when it came through dispatch at 2:47 p.m. on a humid Tuesday afternoon. Another blockage in the city’s sewer system—nothing unusual, nothing alarming.
Such reports came in regularly to the Department of Public Works, and most of the time the cause was utterly trivial: accumulated trash, fallen branches washed in by rain, construction debris carelessly discarded, sometimes even children’s toys that had found their way into storm drains. Marcus Webb had been working for the city’s sewer maintenance division for almost fifteen years. At forty-two years old, he’d seen just about everything the underground could throw at him.
He’d pulled out bicycles, shopping carts, entire mattresses somehow wedged into pipes that seemed too small to accommodate them. Once, memorably, he’d found a wedding dress, pristine white fabric wrapped around a junction like some subterranean ghost. The job was unpleasant, certainly—nobody dreams as a child of working in sewers—but it was honest work, and Marcus took pride in doing it well.
He grabbed his equipment from the maintenance yard: heavy-duty flashlight, telescoping hook, rubber waders that went up to his chest, a respirator mask for particularly bad sections, and his tool belt with various wrenches and implements he’d learned to rely on over the years. His partner for the day, a younger guy named Tommy Chen who’d only been on the job for about eight months, helped load the rest of the gear into their department truck. “What sector today?” Tommy asked, consulting the work order on his tablet.
“7-D,” Marcus replied, checking his own paperwork. “Near the old warehouse district. They’re reporting slow drainage and unusual backup in the main line.”
Tommy made a face.
“That’s the old part of the system, isn’t it? Those tunnels must be what, sixty years old?”
“Closer to seventy in some sections,” Marcus confirmed. “Built in the fifties when they first developed that industrial area.
The infrastructure’s aging, but it’s still solid. Concrete and iron—they built things to last back then.”
They drove through the city, past the gleaming downtown towers, through residential neighborhoods with neat lawns and minivans in driveways, and finally into the warehouse district where manufacturing had once thrived. Most of the buildings stood empty now, their windows broken, their loading docks silent.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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