Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Earth
Alfred Ely Beach, one of the founders of Scientific American magazine and very possibly the inspiration for Jules Verne’s Captain Nemo, was one of the reasons the late 1800s was known as the age of invention. That he was forgotten, while other inventors like Bell and Edison were immortalized, is yet another indication of history’s selective memory.
Had history not been so selective, it might more easily recall that Alfred Ely Beach, inventor of the first practical typewriter, the cable car, and the hydraulic tunneling bore, also built the world’s first subway beneath the streets of New York City. Beach’s Broadway tunnel is as mysterious and bizarre a story as you’ll ever hear, not just because it was powered by wind, but because the entire subway was built in total secrecy.
As the story goes, to avoid the corrupt hands of the villainous Mayor “Boss” Tweed, the determined Beach took a cluster of down-and-out workers and transformed them into a corps of night-laborers, stealing secretly into basements in the dead of night for three years to build one of the great wonders of the century.
The fact that no one noticed a tunnel being bored directly beneath their busy feet is not as strange as it may seem. In a city full of eye-popping sights and ear-wrenching sounds, one learns to tune things out, and so the only tunnel the citizens of New York saw during those three years was the comfort of their own tunnel vision.
Early in 1870—the same year that the infamous captain of the Nautilus was first seen in print—Alfred Beach opened his subway’s first two stations to the world, revealing a feast for the senses and sciences that would have made Nemo proud. The main station was a dazzling, fantastical show-place filled with glittering chandeliers, a grand piano, and a fountain swimming with goldfish. The leather-upholstered pneumatic train shuttled from one end of the hundred-yard tunnel and back, powered by a massive fan that pushed the single cylindrical car on a pulse of air.
The train was an overnight success, and heralded as one of the most important inventions of the age...until the corrupt Powers That Be at city hall stepped in and squashed Alfred Beach’s efforts, to punish him for his audacious ingenuity. He was forced to stop digging his tunnels, and the pneumatic train was shut down for good. It didn’t take long for the tunnel to disappear beneath Broadway, and for everyone to forget.
Lindsay pored over the faded microfilm articles, more stunned with each one she read. It was no wonder the city had forgotten the man—the Metropolitan Transit Authority would much rather have pushed a visionary like Alfred Beach under the rug—especially when the 1904 subway, the city’s “modern” subway system, was nowhere near as brilliant or as elegant as Beach’s pneumatic train.
But as Lindsay read and reread each article on the frustrated engineer’s life, she began to get a troubling sense that part of the story was missing....Beach wasn’t a man who would simply give up a dream he had dedicated his life to. He was like her father—driven to succeed at all costs.
It also struck her that Beach didn’t just hire the normal “sandhogs” to dig his tunnel. He had taken in the destitute to do the work. Was that by necessity, or by design?
And then there was the reported date of his death: New Year’s Day, 1894. Convenient to die on a day of resolutions and new beginnings.
It came to her then in a blast of revelation so powerful, it frightened her.
What if Beach never stopped building his secret subway?
It took an hour for Lindsay to make her way to The Champ’s pool shell, her revelation keeping her warm against the cold. Quite simply, she had hit the jackpot.
When she arrived, she was shocked to find that the pool was, indeed, a pool once more. Water gushed from a ruptured pipe into the old shell at a thousand gallons an hour, debris had quickly plugged the drain, and by the time Lindsay arrived, the home that The Champ had labored so many years to build was swimming in six feet of water. Wooden chairs, sofa cushions, and board games floated in the rapidly filling pool, and since The Champ could do nothing about it, he had packed his salvageable belongings into a shopping cart, which he called his “urban mobile home,” preparing for an unexpected move.
“Nothing here for me anymore,” he said, tying down the overloaded cart with the rope that had once held up his chandelier. “Not unless I grow a pair of gills. I suppose the good Lord’s tellin’ me it’s time to move on. Reckon He don’t believe in subtle hints.”
Lindsay helped cover the heaping cart with a blanket, and tied down the other end. It bulged so much, the thing looked like a covered wagon. “Where will you go?” Lindsay asked. “Maybe I could help you find a place...”
“Never had trouble finding a place before,” The Champ told her. “And each one’s been better than the last.” But his voice faltered just enough to betray his uncertainty.
“Well,” he said, “as you don’t have a bathing suit, I suppose you’re not here for a swim.”
“We need to talk about the Downside,” she said.
“Much as I’d love to, I’ve got more pressing matters,” The Champ said, turning to glance back at his flooded “apartment.”
“What if I told you I know how the Downside got there?”
The Champ hesitated, but didn’t look her in the face. “Really,” he said, doing a bad job of pretending he didn’t care. “And what did you find out?”
“It was Alfred Ely Beach who built the Downside!” Lindsay announced.
The Champ leaned against his shopping cart and crossed his arms. “Figured that out, did you?”
Lindsay paced the edge of the filling pool. “I think he took all the people that no one wanted and put them to work, building a great subway tunnel, deeper, and longer— much longer than the first! Talon called that tunnel ‘the Bot,’ but it didn’t seem much different from Beach’s other tunnel.”
“Go on,” said The Champ.
“It seems to me that a man like Beach wouldn’t be satisfied handing his creation over to the city, would he? No—the city had already tried to destroy him...and so he kept it for himself, and for the people who built it!” It made perfect sense to her now, the eccentric inventor choosing to invent a society all his own—a secret place where those who had fallen through the bottom of civilization could find the dignity that the Surface World had stripped from them. Lindsay could almost see the first Downsiders—hundreds of impoverished souls choosing to redeem themselves in a hidden utopia rather than live in Topside despair. She could see them raising their children to fear and despise the Topside—to keep themselves apart. Four short generations was all it took for their true history to be completely replaced by the far prouder Downside myth, that they had always been there, and always would.
“The Downsiders,” proclaimed Lindsay, “are just ‘fallers’ themselves, who fell from the real world and made up a false one.”
The Champ took a deep breath, releasing it slowly. “My grandfather used to tell me stories about people who went down there and never came back up. I never believed a word of it until Talon came shimmying out of the drainpipe.”
“If you knew, then why haven’t you told Talon?”
“Not my place,” answered The Champ.
“Of course it’s our place,” insisted Lindsay. “In fact, it’s our responsibility!”
The Champ regarded her, his expression unchanging. “And what would you tell him?”
What would she tell him? Wasn’t that obvious? “I’ll tell him the truth,” she said. “That the Downside is nothing more than a hundred-year-old lie, and they deserve everything the Topside has to offer.”
The Champ chuckled ruefully at that. “Make waves, and someone drowns,” he said. “I’ve always believed that. Sure, I’ve made plenty of waves in my day, but only when some-one needed a good drowning.” He took a long look at Lindsay. “They’ve got enough trouble down there now, without you helpin’ things along.”
“They have a right to know....”
The Champ looked up to the pipe gushing in
an endless deluge, then down into the pool where it took away all but the old man’s life. Then he coughed and spat onto the cracked tile floor. “Worlds come and go, I suppose,” he said with sad resignation. “You want to destroy his, I can’t stop you.” And with that, the old man kicked open the door and rattled his cart out into the bitter wind.
Who Died and Left You Most-Beloved?
The Downside mood had condensed into a heavy sweat beading on the brow of every citizen. True, the threat of a Topside invasion had always been there, but the Downsiders had always trusted in “the Order of Things,” and that, like the two sides of a coin, one would never intrude upon the other. So it was more than just the Brass Junction that had been wounded by this breach...for if “the Order of Things” did not protect the Downside from this, then what other nightmares might be possible?
No one was sweating more than Railborn Skinner, who knew, when the Wise Advisors called a meeting in the Hall of Action, that his entire future lay in the balance.
Since everyone knew that the Wise Advisors were impressed with his brilliant ideas, he figured it was time he actually told them his ideas before the meeting. But they had no interest in hearing them and suggested that now was no time for him to begin critical thinking.
“Yes, but everyone’s expecting me to say something really smart.”
To which one of the Advisors responded: “Wisdom is knowing when to keep your mouth shut.”
This left Railborn with a huge dilemma, because his father’s expectations were quite the opposite.
“Think sharp,” his father instructed him as they left for the Hall of Action. “Think sharp, and wax impressive—and you’ll be on the path to Most-Beloved!”
That his own father was speaking the words aloud made it seem all the more possible. Most-Beloved. Dare he even think it? No—it was a notion too big to think about now— too powerful to grasp. So instead he chose to think about Gutta, and how, if he did ascend to Most-Beloved, she would see him as more than just a consolation prize.
The old city hall subway station was meant to be the crowning glory of New York City’s subway system. Back in 1904, no expense was spared in its creation. Since it was the very end of the line, the station was a large semicircle around which the trains would turn and head back uptown. Problem was, straight train cars don’t fare well at curved platforms. It might have worked had the train doors been in the center of each car, where the train actually touched the platform, but the doors opened toward the ends, where travelers were faced with a four-foot broad jump. And so the city hall station, although full of pomp and prestige, was, much like city hall itself, virtually useless. It was shut down, boarded up, trains were rerouted, and the whole station naturally became part of the Downside.
The city hall station—or the “Hall of Action,” as it had come to be known—was rarely visited by the Downsiders as it was reserved for only the most auspicious, or dire of occasions. This day certainly fit the bill.
Railborn arrived surrounded by an entourage that practically carried him before them like a banner. The tracks, the platform, and the mezzanine were already jammed with people, and more were arriving from all directions. Five thousand in all. The entire Downside population. Then one by one, the Advisors strode in, fashionably late. They made their way through the crowds, sliding craftily between the cheers of some, and the jeers of others, until they took their place sitting in the high perches of five shoe-shine chairs.
The First Advisor began to speak. She was a well-wrinkled woman, whose powerful voice sliced through the agitated crowd, bringing them down to a murmur. “We have convened,” she began, “to seek counsel from the citizenry in how to end this most pernicious Topside incursion.”
The First Advisor often used large and mysterious words to dazzle “the citizenry.” That, thought Railborn, must have been what his father meant when he said “wax impressive.”
“All voices will be heard,” continued the First Advisor. “Reasonable, or other.”
As Down Folk were not a shy lot when asked for an opinion, there was no shortage of ideas. One faction sought a full-scale war. This was the same contingent that always chose bloodshed as the most efficient solution to any Downside dispute. They were often referred to as the Killthemalls. Others pleaded for the Topside to be received with open arms—for surely once they experienced Downside life, they would see the error of their ways and would all become fallers. This group was commonly known as the Welcomongers.
Still others suggested that if they just ignored the whole thing, it might go away.
The debate raged, and as things began to degrade into the name-calling portion of the meeting, Railborn took a deep breath and raised his hand.
The Advisors spotted him and looked at one another, none of them wanting to take responsibility for Railborn opening his mouth—but finally the First Advisor acknowledged him.
“The Advisors recognize Railborn Skinner.”
Whispers all around. Younger children craned their necks to see.
“Uh...I’ve been thinking,” said Railborn. “I’ve been thinking...and it seems to me that this Topside implosion—”
“Incursion,” corrected someone beside him.
“That this Topside incursion shows how ungrateful the Topsiders are for the things we give them. And it’s about time we punished them for it.”
By now, it had become so quiet, you could hear a rat breathe. The First Advisor leaned forward in her chair, her expression somewhere between curiosity and horror. “Continue.”
Railborn swallowed hard and cleared his throat, knowing that this was the moment that divided heroes from fools. “Electricity, gas, and water,” he said. “These things all come to us first! It’s by our generosity that we let them flow onto the Topside.” And then he smiled. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel too generous anymore.”
There was a moment of silence as the suggestion began to sink in. And then, to Railborn’s amazement, it came back to him in a rising crescendo of enthusiasm that not even the Wise Advisors could contain.
“I can blow out the main transformer relays,” shouted the master electrical tapper.
“Give me ten workers, and I can have the gas shut down in a day,” cried the master gas tapper.
“Heck, why not plug up the sewer lines, too!” said one of the Sludgeman brothers.
It was, quite simply, the solution to appease everyone. The Killthemalls were pleased because it was a war of sorts, and the Welcomongers accepted it because it would teach the Topside the error of their ways without bloodshed. Perhaps the Wise Advisors were right: Maybe he did have brilliant ideas after all—and how perceptive of them to know!
Railborn found himself assaulted by handshakes and slaps on the back while the Advisors all looked to one another, each now wanting to claim responsibility for Rail-born opening his mouth.
Railborn was propelled forward amidst hearty cheers toward the Wise Advisors shoe-shine risers.
“Well done, Railborn,” said the Fourth Advisor, embracing him. Then he whispered in Railborn’s ear, “The next time you have an idea, warn us.”
“Do I know that boy?” he heard his mother quip from somewhere in the crowd. “I don’t think so!” And that brought applause and a round of laughter, for everyone knew what that meant. Railborn sought out Gutta in the crowd and winked at her.
It was a moment of legend—the kind of legend that fills whole walls in rune chambers—but moments have a way of fizzling just as quickly as they flare. Especially when a ghost arrives to quench the flame.
“I’ve seen the Topside!” shouted a voice from the back of the station.
People turned to see who spoke, and a woman released a shrill scream that was not at all in the spirit of the moment. But she had a good reason for screaming...for the dissenting voice belonged to Talon Angler, who had just returned from the dead.
It only took a fraction of a second for the attention that had been so freely lavished upon Railborn
to shift away from him completely. All heads turned, and the hall erupted with cries of shock, surprise, and even terror.
“It can’t be!” The First Advisor fell from her perch and had to be helped up.
Talon’s parents nearly trampled everyone in their path to get to him, and most everyone else backed away.
He looked like one would expect after having been dead: His hair was unkempt, his eyes careworn, and he walked as if every step took the full measure of his will. His shirt was torn, and his back was badly bloodied, as if he had been brutally beaten in the land of the dead.
For Railborn it was a dream come true, woven with his darkest nightmare. First came the shock at seeing Talon, followed by a brief moment of joy that was quickly killed by a burst of overwhelming horror...for Railborn knew that spirits did not return from the dead lightly. Talon must have returned from beyond the pipe to accuse him before the whole Downside, and lay bare his betrayal. Weak, with the world spinning around him, Railborn would have fallen to his knees and confessed, had not the Fourth Advisor firmly grasped his shoulder.
“Wisdom in silence,” the old man whispered—but Railborn could hear a quiver of fear in his voice as well. Railborn watched as Talon was embraced by his weeping, disbelieving parents, and then watched as Gutta pushed through the crowd, moving away from Railborn and toward Talon, as she always had—and in that moment, Railborn knew that his own future, bright as it had seemed, was being extinguished before his eyes.
Talon, however, did not know Railborn’s anguish. He only knew his own—the pain in his back from the train, which had savaged him far more than he was willing to tell Lindsay. And then the weight of all of those eyes on him. The entire Downside.
Gutta grabbed his hands, holding them tightly as if to convince herself he was still flesh and blood. “But...they executed you!” she cried.