Chapter Text
“Tango! Tango!”
The whirl and clatter of redstone machinery roared in his pointed ears as the blaze-born shimmied backward out from beneath the sorting machine he was working on, a series of delivery carts running resources down to the depths, bringing hard material back up to be processed. The main branch of the labs had once been white and sterile, but the current director had absolutely hated that. It was fully decorated now, artists funded through lab money to paint the white walls, or use relegated bits of garbage to create gorgeous mosaics. Tango’s domain was the research and development lab, working with the nuts and bolts that let him build the great machines that were overhauling the city that’d once been dark.
Not like it wasn’t still dark.
But a little blaze-born with only three blaze-rods, circling like a crown above his head, was second only to the director himself.
That had to mean something.
“What’s up, X?” Tango popped up from beneath the machine, to a disappointed glow of purple eyes through tinted glass.
Xisuma. An ender-man mutant, also known as a voidwalker. He was another person who wouldn’t be here without the labs overhauled programs. Practically doomed considering his weak glamor, he wasn’t able to process the air the same ways plenty other voidwalkers living in the under-city could, meaning he was constantly breathless. The helmet he was wearing, through which he looked Tango over with the gaze of an exasperated mother, fixed that problem. It ran on redstone. It made it so Xisuma wasn’t constantly gasping for breath, considering his weak glamor was able to focus on just the small pressurized air pocket within the helmet instead of trying to create void density air around him constantly.
“I’ve been yelling for you, what’re you doing under there, you’re the director of research!”
“And that means…?”
“Paperwork, Tango.”
The blaze-born made a revolted expression, shaking his head. “But X, that’s why I’ve got you! To be my smart person!”
“You are a very smart person, Tango.”
“Aw, you’re gonna make this idiot blush.”
“You’re not an idiot, I feel like that’s pretty obvious.” Xisuma sighed.
Tango didn’t bother replying to that and got to his feet, brushing the stray redstone powder off his pants and removing his red-tinted goggles. He set them atop shining blonde hair, the spiky ends of which were flickering gently with flame. He had a thin tail that whipped back and forth, and his skin was a sunny yellow that could darken and glow like lava when his emotions ran high. He strode across to where he’d left his oversized black vest on the back of a nearby chair. Safety protocols being, understandably, enforced in this area meant no loose clothing while working closely with the many devices scattered around. So Tango wore a bright red, tightly clinging red long sleeve beneath his vest, cropped short above his hips. When he took the vest off and pulled on his work gloves, always clipped at his waist, he could be ready to crawl into a redstone machine or start working with pistons immediately.
“Anyway, whatcha need?”
Xisuma still seemed vaguely disappointed in him for dodging his paper-pushing duties, but he relented, offering forward a small metal cylinder.
“Someone turned this in at the over-city relations. Apparently it was found beneath a rift…too small for anyone to fit through, but it is a direct route to the over-city.”
Tango furrowed his brow, reaching out to pick the tub from Xisuma’s gloved hand.
“Ok…and what is it?” He turned it over in his palm, then realized it seemed to have a cap.
“That’s the thing…I figured I’d bring it to you, since Doc is so busy.”
“And I’m not?”
“Did you do your paperwork?”
“Lemme take a look.” Tango pivoted fast as he flicked the cap of the tube off and shook it’s content out into his palm.
A tightly rolled piece of paper fell out, with creases along it showing evident that it had been opened once already.
“Did you read it…?” Tango asked, words trailing as he unrolled the paper. Xisuma nodded, his helmet clicking against the fitting collar around his neck that kept it pressurized.
“I did. It’s…”
“Huh.” Tango had just gotten the paper open.
Hello hello hello!
I’m a researcher from the over-city, names Zedaph! I’ve been having a terrible time of it lately, and figured I’d try my luck with being straightforward! I want to know what’s actually going on with the under-city, and the council isn’t telling. I’ll spare you my sob story, but if you or whatever government or any researchers or people you do have wanna talk, that’d really turn my week around!
I hope to speak to you soon!
And beneath was written out a phone number.
Tango looked up at Xisuma with an expression crossed between shock and amusement. Amusement won, and he tossed his head back, cackling. His three blaze rods whirled and danced, hissing and spitting heat. The fire on his head burned down closer to the roots, and his tail whipped.
“What!? Is this guy drunk or something!?”
“Seems a bit to well written for that, don’t you think?”
Tango was still laughing as Xisuma replied, lowering his hands to plant on his hips with a sigh that echoed in the speakers that helped project his voice through his helmet.
“Yeah, you got a point…guess the council really drove him nuts, huh?”
Tango smoothed the creases in the note, eyes scanning over the words again. Xisuma watched him. “So…what are you gonna do?”
The blaze-born made a noise of consideration, hummed in the back of his throat. Then he folded the note again and stuffed it into the pocket of his oversized vest. “I’ll consider it. Might be worth a try.”
Xisuma sighed again. “I had a feeling you’d say that.”
“Isn’t that why you brought it to me and not Doc? Because you know Doc would burn it on sight?”
Xisuma’s glowing purple eyes rolled behind the tinted glass of his helmet. “Don’t be grumpy, he’s just being careful.”
“He’s overprotective, is what he is. Not like I don’t get it, of course.” Tango waved off the defense of his boss.
His boss, whom he saw as more of a father than anything else. Considering how much the creeper mutant had taken Tango in, protected him when even his own pyre had tossed him out as a young child after he’d failed to show much promise with physical strength or glamor-based prowess, he’d met Doc by way of his friendship with Jimmy. And who knew that one wayward encounter was land him here, as one of the most powerful figures in the under-city, working on tech that kept the whole place running? Building sorters and transporters that would become the cities very veins.
Life really did have an odd way of turning out, sometimes.
“Don’t play up the dutiful role, X, you’re just as curious as me. Maybe I’ll shoot him a text. What’s the harm, right?”
“Somehow it doesn’t give me much hope when you say that.” Xisuma admitted, shoulders slouching, and Tango snickered again, his three blaze-rods continuing to dance a cheerful pattern above his head.
After that, X dragged him back to his desk to finish his paperwork, and then he was on his way home. He spent so much time at work he sometimes went days without seeing the place, but whenever Doc got wind of that he’d get himself slammed with mandatory days off. He was a workaholic, he didn’t like sitting still, and even back home he had little pet projects laying around.
Home.
Tango hugged the inside edge of the street built along the top of the near-surface, only a few dozen feet below bedrock. He had his hands stuffed in his vest pockets, and his shoulders slightly wound. That’s just how it was when you were out and about down here. The under-city had improved, it wasn’t nearly as dangerous as it used to be, but that didn’t mean it was a haven. Even the near-surface, by far the safest and most comfortable place to live, had it’s difficulties.
Tango being a petite blaze-born with only a trio of blaze-rods to his name was a prime target. Not like he was going to get snatched up off the street like he’d had to fear as a kid, considering the near-surface had grown so much safer, and him so much more recognizable.
No one was about to lay a finger on him, on account of the unfathomable rage that’d unleash from the director of the labs. Doc was a mild-mannered, married father of three, but while his three officially adopted kids were one thing, Tango may as well have been the unofficial fourth sibling. When he’d been younger, he’d spent more nights a week on the pallet rolled out beneath Jimmy’s hammock, or squished up on the hammock alongside his best friend, than in his own home. Even when he’d gotten old enough to insist he didn’t need to lean on them for support, Tango had still found himself receiving dinners, packed lunches, Etho suddenly appearing out of the blue whenever he was in a tight spot.
The two of them had grown rather fond of him.
And when the mad genius labs director and the most powerful mobster of the under-city were fond of you, that served as some pretty powerful protection.
So Tango could walk with his head higher than in the days scuttling between shadows from before, weaving his way toward a tunnel that snaked off into the stone. He passed by a witches hobbit hole, covered with moss and mushrooms, and briefly considered stopping in.
Nah, Shelby is probably out on delivery…
He figured when he checked the time, and so he kept walking. Moving ahead till he stopped at a small split in the rock. A crevice. He planted his boot against a foothold and climbed up the tunnel wall, squeezing through the crack. He shimmied along, the space was incredibly narrow for a few yards, and then he arrived in an open space. He front-flipped over, landing on his feet and throwing his arms up to celebrate sticking the landing. Then, humming off-key, he continued along this narrower tunnel. Another fifteen minutes of walking, occasionally stooping, or turning sideways to edge along, till he finally arrived home.
Yeah, this was home.
He pulled his key from his pocket and jammed it into the redstone lock, turning it. A series of clattering pistons rang out, and the tunnel, which had narrowed to a dead-end, opened up. Tango strolled through, shrugging his backpack off his shoulders.
The cave where he’d made his home had been found entirely on accident, when he’d been cast out from his pyre at ten years old. There was a large, cheerily crackling fire set into the wall, and across the way was a bed, which he’d broken down, carried through, and then reassembled in here. A table and chairs, a kitchen with running water, a bathroom, his crafts table, all of it redone by his own hands piece by piece, considering now that he worked at the labs he had the money and resources to do so.
If he was going to bother with this, then why not just move into a proper apartment? He could’ve afforded rent in one of the foundational towers with ease. Well, it was simple enough.
This place is safe.
Tango might not have properly unpacked his issues with what had happened to him as a kid. He knew it was no different for Jimmy, his best friend, who’d been living under a safe roof, in a happy home with loving parents since he was nine. Even still he struggled with the things that’d happened in the depths before then. Tango was the same. He’d mostly gotten over it, but little things were necessary to keep his mind running smooth.
One of those was this place. His home.
Plus, it wasn’t so hard getting some stuff up here…benefits of having a bunch of friends with wings.
Tango considered as he turned his gaze from the crackling fire, his bed, table, and little handmade kitchen, to the other wall. Completely empty save for his craft table pushed to one side, neat blocks of stone. He reached for a lever installed at one side and pulled it down. In a series of clicks and whooshes, the pistons fired and the stone was pulled away. A massive opening was made, from his waist height to the ceiling, and across the entire wall. Through it was the best view of the under-city.
Y’know, unless I’m flying around with Jimmy…
He considered, leaning on the stone that blocked him from the fall.
The foundational towers soared up to press against the bedrock roof. Speckled black and mineral grain. Winged under-city folk were soaring all about on the commute home, and the redstone circuitry glittered and gleamed like a pounding heartbeat. The bridges were rebar, concrete and stone. Precarious as they looked, they’d held strong for decades, and the labs kept careful watch of them all, ensuring anything that seemed unstable was swiftly repaired. The streets built into the cavern walls were spirals, criss-crossing each other occasionally, enormous ramps with the varied flash of an archway lit with electric signage, announcing a rail-cart station. The light haze obscured his ability to see the bottom, the depths were far away, down there somewhere.
Tango let his ruby eyes trail over the view for a few minutes before he turned on his heel back toward his door, kicking off his shoes and leaving them. He’d built level flooring into his home, his apartment you could say, recently. It was still stone brick, but he’d laid them himself, another one of his many odd jobs. Because he couldn’t bear to keep still. If he were home, he could rest, sure, but typically insomnia kicked in pretty hard. Tango just…didn’t sleep. Wasn’t necessarily nightmares or even being upset that caused it, it was just that his brain oftentimes refused to shut off unless he was completely and utterly exhausted. So alongside the redstone doohickeys scattered around, he also did more traditional crafts. Bead and jewelry making was a typical blaze-born hobby. Doc had gotten him the materials to start with it as a kid, when he’d realized Tango, much like the avian trio, had been completely severed from any hope of learning about the customs of his own sub-species on account of his pyres cruel rules. Using sand and colored minerals that could be collected pretty easily in the many tunnels and caves of the under-city, blaze-borns were known for creating all sorts of gorgeous beads and glass art. Considering they could heat their hands up hot enough to work the sand and color into glass in their palms, and breathe with a temperature high enough to mold and expand the material, it made sense. There were all sorts of symbols and colors and meanings in the beads, which Doc had compiled via his archive. Tango still had the notebook the man had put together for him, compiling all that information for his use. It was rather comical to flip through, considering the two drastically different hands of the pen on the pages. One half-cursive chicken scratch, the other script so perfect it looked like it had been typed. Side by side, with tiny sketches and points toward which symbols and colors meant what, and how to create them. It was a code understood at least vaguely by most folks of the under-city, though really only those who had a good personal reason to know it intimately would be able to fully grasp the meaning behind the strings of beads. Those two hands filled the entire book, which by now had a scratched and slightly scorched cover from how much time it had spent living on his craft table.
The big twist being that the chicken scratch was Docs, while the beautiful penmanship belonged to Tango.
Pros and cons of getting roped into all the pesky birds cram school sessions…
He thought ruefully as ruby eyes traced fondly over the desk. It was made of laminate that imitated wood, and had a tall back cabinet with tons of tiny little cabinets. Storage for the different beads or materials. The desktop was made of a thin layer of smoothed quartz, and it hadn’t always been that way. Tango had splurged for the piece after a few years working at the labs, and fitted it in himself. Working with sand and mineral and heat, turning it to glass, shaping the pendants and beads, tying cords and loops, all of it was tactile in a way that worked to ease his often racing mind. It was still work, though, of course. He needed it to be. He was constantly working, perhaps to his own detriment, but it was that sort of attitude that’d led to his success.
Doc hadn’t given him his position out of fondness.
No, Tango was pretty sure he’d had to prove himself twice as capable as the other candidates for the job had been, just to ensure Doc wasn’t accused of nepotism. He’d earned his title as the director of mechanical research and development. Even if he wasn’t entirely sure how, considering all the ways he’d been tossed aside from his shortcoming before. That was an aside.
Point was, in the end, things were getting better.
Little by little.
Tango showered, and as he was rummaging around for something to toss together for dinner, his mind jumped back to the note from the over-city.
He put a pot on to boil water, idly lighting a spark in his gas stove, far more affordable than electric for him, considering he produced the flames himself.
Once that was going, he went back to where his black vest hung by the door. Fetching the note from the vest pocket, he considered it again.
I mean, it could be some sort of trick…but what’s the point in that? There’s not any rule saying someone from the under-city can’t call the over-city, far as I’m aware. Just laws saying we can’t go up there…not like those are worth a thing, either.
Tango pursed his lips as he read the note again.
He was curious. Plain and simple. What this ‘Zedaph’ person had said was interesting, and he wanted to know more.
About what the council had done to him.
About what he researched and why.
And Tango was also a tiny bit interested in hearing this guys apparent ‘sob story’ because that just sounded like good entertainment.
So, even though he probably should’ve brought it up with Doc first, he took one second to imagine the lecture he’d receive if he admitted he’d been considering answering the strange note, and began typing the number into his phone. He created the contact, then started to text.
You: hello? is this Zedaph?
Tango sent the text and then set his phone back on the counter to continue trying to scrape together something to cook for dinner. He found half a box of dried pasta and was already regretting not just picking up take-out from Joel and Lizzie’s bakery cafe on his way home when his phone chirped with an incoming text.
Zedaph: Who is this?
Tango cringed, realizing his text had probably come across as more than a little creepy considering the unknown number.
You: I’m from the under-city. I got your note.
Zedaph: afihwefiowhfoqbjwhfifeornwejd
Tango chuckled, turning his eyes up to his stovetop, he urged the fire beneath his pot to grow hotter, his blaze-rods whirling and glamor sparking orange around his pupils as he did so. His glamor was pathetically weak in comparison to other blaze-borns, who could’ve boiled the pot within seconds by control and high heat of flame, an ability unique to them. Glamor only affected organic matter, but blaze-borns had the peculiar additional ability to manipulate fire to an extent. Those who were especially skilled could even light fires in their palms like no big deal. Tango couldn’t manage much more than the natural flares on in his hair and on the tip of his tail. Urging fires to grow hotter once they were off his person was also within his wheelhouse, but only just barely. It took a few minutes solid for another message to come through. He’d gotten the fire crackling merrily by then, and he turned his eyes down onto his phone.
Zedaph: sorry sorry! I did NOT expect someone to actually answer me!
You: well surprise I guess? I was too curious not too.
Zedaph: so you’re really in the under-city? like right now?
You: yeah? where else would I be?
Zedaph: right right dumb question. can I ask your name?
Tango found a smile tugging at the corners of his lips as he picked up the half-empty box of pasta. He shook it a few times, then emptied it into the boiling water. Now that this was done, he walked over to the pile of pillows and blankets that served as his lounge space right in front of his fireplace. He’d doused all the items thoroughly in fire resistance potions curtesy of his friend Shelby, the witch, and he sank down onto them. Tango could control if or not his fire burned things for the most part, but if he was running high on emotion or particularly exhausted, that control could slip. Better safe than sorry. Crossing his legs, his tail whipped back and forth as he typed.
You: Tango of the Tek variety. Pleasure to meet you!
Zedaph: Tango? Thank you SO MUCH for texting me! I genuinely was not expecting anyone, seriously.
You: you just chucked that note down here on a whim?
Zedaph: lets just say I was having a bad night
You: Yeah I had guessed
Zedaph: did you find it beneath the rift?
You: nah I’m the head of mechanical development down here. one of my friends who works in over-city relations brought it to me, said it seemed more my speed.
Zedaph: Head of Mechanical Development? Over-City Relations? Are those government positions?
Tango was now reminded of exactly why Zedaph had been reaching out through the rift for someone to talk to in the first place. He mulled over his answer, because that wasn’t exactly an easy question. The under-city labs were the closest thing the under-city had to a government, that much was true. However, each level, area, neighborhood and floor ran itself in it’s own unique ways. Tango’s pyre, for example, didn’t answer to the labs, considering it was way off in a distant cave system further from the main city cavern. When they made decisions or abided by their own rules, the lab didn’t have any power to stop them. The same could be said for the web of gangs and mobsters that ruled in the depths. However, the under-city labs was the only organization that had it’s finger on everyone’s pulse, so the speak. It always knew what was going on, and if push came to shove, it could exert it’s authority in a myriad of ways.
What sorts of pushes deserved a shove back, though, was another question all together. Shove back too hard, and the delicate balance that kept this entire place from collapsing into anarchy would be rocked, perhaps irreversibly.
It was complicated. Very complicated.
Tango wasn’t sure if his thumbs could handle trying to explain that all via text, so he decided to keep it simple for now.
You: kinda yeah! not exactly government but about as close as you’ll get down here.
Zedaph: Lucky days! I can talk to someone in the sorta-government of the under-city, I knew angry-me chucking that note down a gutter was in the right!
Tango found himself giggling at the words, his blaze-rods danced and the flames atop his head burnt a bit further down toward the roots.
You: and what about you? Your note said you’re not a fan of council?
Zedaph: definitely not. and they also are not a fan of me, but that’s an aside. I’m working for a different tech lab right now, one I’m not at liberty to discuss interpersonally which is ANNOYING I tell you! and all I do there is making the same things the same way over and over and over and over and i’m about to go INSANE! so. I got mad. And chucked a note down a gutter. And I guess it ended up with you. So I’m very pleased with that!
Tango was still smiling as he read this abbreviated tangent. The warmth from his fireplace was soaking into him, and the flicker of the large, orange and red flames was casting shadows around the walls against the electric fairy lights hung in spirals around on his ceiling accompanied by glowing moss and glow berries. Shelby had insisted his place was far to mechanical, and he needed some plants. He’d found all those up there the next day, and he hadn’t had the heart to take them down.
You: well I’m glad I made your day! what sort of research do you do, if I can ask?
Zedaph: mechanical as well, along with some experimental biotech…mainly gadgets and gizmos that mesh with existing biotech for my employer.
You: your employer has biotech?
Zedaph: I’ve said to much O-O
Tango snorted a laugh.
You: if it makes you feel better, mine does too. though that’s no secret down here. also because half his face is metal, which makes it kinda hard to miss
Zedaph: exposed biotech? that’s rare up here
You: yeah because you guys are fancy with your hospitals and doctors and health care. we got none of that. zilch. we at the labs do what we can, but it hasn’t always been that way.
Zedaph: Sorry, sorry! i didn’t mean to offend!
You: i’m not offended. maybe that came across wrong over text! i’m happy to talk to someone from the over-city too. there’s so much id like to ask!
Zedaph: really? lovely! I’m more than happy to answer anything I can! if you’d be willing to exchange questions?
You: same here. I’ll say what I can.
Zedaph: deal!
Tango smiled down at his screen, then looked up into the fireplace again.
Seems like I just got myself an interesting pen pal.