Chapter 20: The Underground Current

Viktor found himself walking through downtown Providence at 3 AM, following power lines that hummed with frequencies no grid was designed to carry. The streetlights flickered in patterns—not random failures, but something almost like morse code, if morse code could carry emotional information.

Three days since the library basement gathering. Three days since Carmen had described patients healing impossibly fast, since Elena had shown them the historical patterns, since Maya had looked at him with those eyes that saw straight through his carefully constructed walls.

Since Priya had smiled at him like she knew exactly what he was thinking.

He pulled his jacket tighter against the October cold and kept walking. The humming led him down Federal Hill, past the closed restaurants and empty lots, toward something he couldn’t name but couldn’t ignore.

Behind him, footsteps. Light, purposeful, keeping pace.

“You feel it too.”

He turned. A woman stood twenty feet away, maybe thirty-five, wearing jeans and a leather jacket that had seen actual use. Her face was sharp, intelligent, completely unfamiliar, but something about her presence made his chest tighten with recognition.

“Feel what?” But even as he asked, Viktor knew what she meant. The current running under the city, through the power lines and water mains and subway tunnels. The awakening infrastructure.

“The grid isn’t failing,” she said, walking closer. “It’s evolving. You know this. You’ve been watching the patterns.”

Viktor’s analytical mind kicked into overdrive. Mugger? Crazy person? Government surveillance? But none of those explanations fit the way she moved, like gravity affected her differently, or the way the streetlights responded to her presence.

“Who are you?”

“Kira.” She extended her hand, and when he shook it, the humming intensified until his bones vibrated. “I’ve been waiting for you to follow the current far enough.”

“Waiting where?”

She smiled, and it was the most unsettling thing he’d ever seen—not because it was frightening, but because it reminded him of something he’d forgotten he’d lost.

“Below.”

Before he could ask what that meant, she turned and walked toward a manhole cover in the middle of Federal Hill. The street was completely empty, no traffic, no witnesses. She produced a tool from her jacket—not a crowbar, something else, something that fit the city infrastructure like it had been designed for this specific purpose.

The manhole cover lifted easily, soundlessly.

“Coming?” She was already descending into darkness.

Every rational part of Viktor’s mind screamed warnings. Strange woman, middle of the night, descending into Providence’s tunnel system. This was how people disappeared, how bodies were found weeks later in storm drains.

But the humming was strongest at the manhole opening, calling to something deeper than rational thought.

He followed her down.

The tunnels weren’t what he expected. Clean, for one thing. And warm. The walls were lined with cables and conduits he didn’t recognize, carrying energy that made his engineer’s brain itch with questions. Bioluminescent moss grew in careful patterns, providing soft light without any visible power source.

“The original infrastructure was built in the 1870s,” Kira said as they walked deeper. “We’ve been maintaining it ever since.”

“We?”

“The ones who never forgot what humans could be.”

The tunnel opened into a vast space that shouldn’t have existed under downtown Providence. Viktor’s mental map of the city couldn’t accommodate this geometry—too large, too deep, too impossibly beautiful.

It was a city. Not built so much as grown, organic architecture that flowed like water but stood solid as stone. Gentle light emanated from the walls themselves, and the air hummed with life in ways that made the surface world feel dead by comparison.

People moved through the space with the fluid grace he’d glimpsed in Kira. Not floating, not supernatural, just moving like they remembered how bodies were supposed to work. Their faces held the same quality Priya’s had been developing—like they’d stopped pretending to be smaller than they were.

“This is impossible,” Viktor said.

“Only from surface perspective.” Kira led him deeper into the impossible city. “Your power grid, your communication networks, your transportation systems—they’re all shadows of this. Copies built by people who had forgotten the original.”

They passed workshops where people worked with technology Viktor couldn’t categorize. Not quite mechanical, not quite biological, something that responded to human intention as much as physical manipulation. Gardens that grew food in soil that glowed with health. Libraries where information seemed to flow through the air rather than being stored in books.

“How long has this been here?”

“Always. We didn’t build it—we remembered it. The way humans lived before we forgot we were more than our thoughts.”

Viktor stopped walking. “Are you saying this is what humans are supposed to be?”

“I’m saying this is what you’re becoming.” Kira turned to face him. “You, Maya, Priya, Carmen, Elena. All the ones who are letting the conditioning field dissolve instead of fighting to maintain it.”

“Conditioning field?”

“The electromagnetic interference that keeps surface humans locked in mental authority. Technology designed to amplify anxiety, competition, separation. Your power grid, your communication systems, your media—all of it calibrated to keep you thinking you’re isolated individuals competing for limited resources.”

Viktor’s mind raced. “The grid failures—”

“Aren’t failures. They’re adjustments. The field is being tuned down, gradually, so surface humans can remember what you really are without the shock killing you.”

Around them, the underground city pulsed with life. Children played games that involved manipulating light with their hands. Adults worked in small groups on projects that seemed to accomplish themselves. No one looked stressed, rushed, competitive.

“What happens to the surface world?”

“It becomes this. Or it doesn’t.” Kira’s voice held no judgment. “That’s the choice everyone’s making, consciously or not. Stay attached to the old conditioning, or let it dissolve and remember.”

“And if they choose the conditioning?”

“Then they experience the breakdown of their systems as disaster. Infrastructure collapse, social chaos, the death of everything they think they need to survive.”

Viktor thought of Devon, of his own instinct to solve problems by building better barriers. “Some people won’t choose this. They’ll fight it.”

“Yes. And fighting it will make their experience much more difficult.” Kira looked sad. “We don’t want anyone to suffer. But we can’t force awakening on someone who chooses fear.”

They walked in silence through streets that felt like dreams, past architecture that defied physics and people who moved like they’d never forgotten they were whole.

“Why are you showing me this?”

“Because you’re ready. And because the others will need someone who understands both worlds to help them navigate the transition.”

Viktor thought of Priya’s paintings, Maya’s natural leadership, Carmen’s growing trust in her body’s wisdom. “They’re already changing.”

“The first wave always moves fastest. You’ll help anchor the process for the ones who need more time.”

They reached what might have been a central plaza, where streams of the impossible light converged and people gathered in loose, organic groups. The humming here was almost unbearable—not painful, but so rich with information that Viktor’s surface-conditioned brain couldn’t process it all.

“I have to go back,” he said suddenly.

“Of course. This isn’t about leaving the surface world behind. It’s about bringing what you remember up with you.”

Kira led him back through the tunnels, back to the manhole opening that now seemed impossibly small and dark. As they climbed toward street level, the weight of the conditioning field pressed down on Viktor’s consciousness like thick water.

“Will I remember this?”

“You’ll remember enough. And when you’re ready for more, the current will lead you back.”

She was gone before he reached the surface, leaving him standing alone on Federal Hill at 4:17 AM, the streetlights now seeming dim and artificial after the living light below.

His phone had seven missed calls from Maya, three from Elena, two from Carmen. The missed call notifications looked frantic, urgent, like emergencies.

But Viktor felt completely calm for the first time in years. He understood now why his systems analysis had been showing impossible results. The infrastructure wasn’t breaking down—it was coming alive.

He started walking home, following power lines that hummed with new frequencies, carrying the memory of what humans could be back to the surface world that was learning to remember.