India and the Conundrum

Zhenya held onto Cedric’s hand as they stepped off the last car of the train and onto the narrow platform at the edge of the tunnel. In the dim light, he could barely see the yellow railing which kept them from falling down to the tracks. The passengers of the train lined up obediently and pulled one another back from the edge. It was surprisingly silent. He could hear the sound of people catching their breath, as they waited for a sound, a voice, a word of direction.

The train lurched forward with a screech, and Zhenya backed into the wall, hitting his head against a low-hanging wire. “Ow,” he exclaimed. As people turned to look at him, he shook his head in apology and shrunk back close to the tunnel wall.

They followed the people ahead of them automatically, without knowing where they were going.  Zhenya stared at the back of the man ahead, who was wearing a coat patterned with zigzagging stripes. It seemed green under the dim blue light from the caged bulbs hanging above their heads.
 
Fausto poked him in the shoulder and whispered, “Where are we going?”
 
Zhenya shook his head.  “I have no idea.”
 
He heard a faint rumbling sound–a train?–which grew louder and louder as they walked.  Finally, they found themselves climbing rickety metal stairs to a door in the tunnel wall.  Cedric was slow at navigating the tall steps, and the line behind them pushed and surged past them, while Zhenya patiently helped Cedric up the stairs.
 
When they stepped through the door, Zhenya was surprised to find a rubber lifeboat floating in a fast-flowing current of rank-smelling water.  “Get in, get in,” shouted a transit worker, waving a neon-orange flare, “we have no time to lose!”
 
They settled gingerly into the cold, slippery boat.  “Where are we going?” Fausto asked again.
 
“What?”
 
“Where are we going?”  He had to shout very loudly to make himself heard over the water.
 
The rope holding them to the dock snapped, and the boat set off with the rushing current.  The transit worker, a small woman engulfed in a bright yellow poncho, extinguished her flare and beamed at them with a manic-looking smile.  She handed them each a rubber paddle, which Zhenya took with a sinking feeling in his stomach.
 
“Now isn’t this exciting?” she yelled at the top of her lungs.
 
“No!” Fausto yelled back.  “For the third and last time, where are we going?”
 
“I have no idea!”
 
“I feel sick,” Cedric said abruptly and threw up.
 
“Oh no.”  Zhenya sighed and took out a handkerchief to try to mop up the mess.  “Don’t cry, Cedric.  Look, why don’t you sit here instead?”
 
“I’m not crying,” Cedric grumbled but obediently moved.
 
The boat continued moving through the dark tunnel, with the woman gleefully waving about her paddle.  “I always wanted to go whitewater rafting,” she told them, nearly smacking Fausto in the face.
 
“More like blackwater rafting,” Fausto muttered, looking at the muddy water splashing over the sides of the boat with distaste.  He tried his best to protect his books from the water, but his notebook was already hopeless.  He showed Zhenya the soggy pages running with ink, the words bleeding into illegibility, with a mournful expression.
 
The current calmed down to a milder pace, but they still had no idea where they were or where they were going.  Zhenya sniffed the air and said, with some surprise, “It’s salty!  Are we near the sea?”
 
“Look, fish!” Cedric exclaimed, bending over the edge of the boat.  Indeed, when they peered down at the murky depths, some luminescent shapes could be seen moving down below.
 
“They glow too.  I wonder if they’re mutants.”  Fausto tried to poke them with his paddle but they deftly swam around it.
 
“Well, it looks like we’re here!”  The woman stood up–she was really quite short, Zhenya noticed–and pulled out an anchor from beneath her enormous poncho.  She heaved it over the side of the boat, which slowly pulled to a halt.  “Off you go.”  There was a small dock jutting out from the tunnel’s side wall.
 
“As if we know where ‘here’ is supposed to be.”  Fausto was the first to leap out of the boat, carefully shielding his bag of books from any more splashes.
 
Zhenya lifted Cedric up to the dock and then jumped up himself, nearly upsetting the boat in the process.
 
“Well, I’ll be going now.  Nice journeying with you!”  The woman saluted them, hauled up the anchor and abruptly began paddling furiously away.
 
At the end of the narrow dock was another door, painted in deep cobalt blue.  As they approached it, they could see a small sign on the doorknob reading, “In case of emergencies.” 
 
“Well, if this isn’t an emergency, I don’t know what is,” Zhenya said and reached to open the door.
 
“Do you think we’re anywhere near Mercerport? Are we even still in the city?”
 
“All I know is we’re still underground.”  He turned the doorknob.

To be continued