An almost deadly scent, a mixture of musty water, feces, and mold, wafted in the stale air of the sewer. Alizra had been walking in that exact mixture for the last three days and was beginning to wonder whether the smell was coming from just her surroundings, or from a combination of herself and the dark tunnels.

Three days was a long time for even the most well disciplined Runner to remain in the sewer, and Alizra was far from disciplined. She stopped her trudge through the stagnant water, the sloshing sound of her movements stopping for a brief reprieve.

If she remembered right, she was roughly three city blocks from the park that was her destination. It wouldn’t be a long walk through the sewage in terms of steps, but operating under her conditions, a few blocks might as well be miles or hundreds of miles. If she surfaced here, she would risk a three block trek through a city that wasn’t exactly the friendliest to her kind.

For the past few weeks, she’d been away from the only place she could call home, protecting a small settlement of her people. Now, she was cold, hungry, and running off of reserves of energy that even she didn’t know existed. Her muscles ached, her clothing was tattered and bloody, she was bleeding from at least three spots, and she didn’t even want to think of the rats that she had caught trying to take chunks out of her skin as she slept.

No, Alizra wasn’t about to walk another three blocks and spend possibly another night, seeing as though it was impossible to tell day from night in the dark of the tunnels, in the rat infested sewer that the Uppers sent their crap down.

The water again began its ballad of sloshing and slurping as she forced herself to move again, through the freezing water. Feeling along the wall for the rough rust covered steps that lead to the surface. It didn’t take long for her shaking hand to collide with the first of several steps that would save her from the cold water and stench of the sewer.

As she pulled herself up the first few stairs, water poured from her clothing, adding weight to pull against her already tired body. After the first few steps, she was completely out of the water and was already feeling more refreshed even though her dark jeans clung to her frame and she was now sure that the smell was also coming from her. Her shoes made suction noises every time her foot shifted to take another step.

Fifteen steps later, Alizra was pushing against the heavy manhole cover that kept her trapped into the tunnels that ran underneath the city. Her normally strong arms wavered and ached as she pushed against the heavy metal, but slowly the strength in her arms pried the lid back and she slid it across the pavement of a road.

Alizra climbed up another step and poked her head up into the exhaust filled air that couldn’t have smelled any sweeter to Alizra had it been perfume. The sun almost immediately warmed her chilled skin and she ignored the world around her as she let her senses take over. She was halfway out of the man hole before her common sense kicked back in.

The first think Alizra saw as she glanced in front of her was two twin lights, barreling toward her. The lights seemed to glow brighter than the sun that was shining above her head.

For a moment, she was frozen, completely unable to move or function, and then, her body did something she would thank it fro later, it collapsed. Her boot slipped against the rung that supported it and she fell back down into the sewer, catching herself five rungs down, safely below the ground where the truck passed over. The driver just kept on moving, he didn’t even hit his brakes when he saw the girl climbing from the manhole.

The world around Alizra sharpened. Her scared mind tried to process anything and everything that her eyes were supplying her with. For a few minutes she just let her body hang on the rungs by her elbow and left foot. As she rested her head against the arm that was supporting her, a shaky sigh escaped her lips.

Green eyes stared blankly at the hand that dangled in front of her face, shaking. Forcing her mind into a safer place, she clenched her fist and pushed off against the rung and was once again in the sunlight. This time, she was careful of the world around her and didn’t let the bright sunlight or fresh air distract her.

It only took a few seconds for her to crawl up from the tunnel and a few more to slide the heavy lid back into place. She could still smell the sewage on her clothing, but being up in the sunlight, with no rats attempting to make lunch of her skin; she found she didn’t really care.

She had gone almost a half a block, leaning up against red brick buildings of the city, before she came upon the form of an elderly woman, leaning up against a fire hydrant.

The bright red paint on the hydrant stood out in sharp contrast to the woman’s grey hair and pale, withered skin. Perched upon her bent knee, the woman held a cigarette, the end slowly burning away. Alizra continued to use the buildings as a crutch, but the woman’s head snapped around and her cold gaze fixed Alizra to her place along the rough wall.

The woman’s pale blue eyes studied Alizra for only a second before she saw the dark black tattoo residing under her eye, marking her as an outcast of society, marking her as a Current.

The burning cigarette made its journey up to the woman’s lips, where its tip burned down farther, glowing with heat. The woman took the cigarette from her overly thin lips and held the smoke in, letting it step for a moment before blowing it toward Alizra.

“You’re a little far from home.” The woman’s voice was hoarse from the cigarette in her hand and the countless others that had been in the same position as the current one.

“Not as far as you’d think.” Alizra eyed the two and a half blocks ahead of her before she reached the park and the entrance to her settlement. The woman’s gaze followed Alizra’s and she smiled.

“I wasn’t speaking in distance but time.” The woman’s tired features turned almost feral as she glanced in the direction Alizra had come in. The woman rose from her seat on the curb and let the cigarette fall fro her fingers to the cement, her foot snaking out to step on the butt.

Alizra followed the woman’s stare and watched as a group of teenagers mad etheir way toward where the two women stood. A lump grew in Alizra’s throat as she scanned the group of teenager’s faces.

There were no tattoos on their young faces like there was on hers, and that simple fact was enough to cause her chest to tighten and her feet to move along the pavement at a faster pace than her aching muscles would have liked.

She tried to ignore the sound of the woman laughing and the teens’ shoes approaching much faster than she would have liked. Quickly the scuffing of shoes became louder. Sighing, Alizra resigned herself to one of the simple facts that she had come to learn as a Runner.

She was going to have to fight, and then she was going to wish she was dead. With barely enough energy to stand on her own two feet, she doubted if she would have the energy to carry her last remaining block after a fight. No, it wasn’t the fight that bothered her, it was the aftermath.

All she had to do to find the energy to fight was allow her body to do what it did naturally when she was in danger: produce adrenaline. To a Current, adrenaline was the single most important thing besides life. Adrenaline was the key that opened the door to the different abilities of an Under Current.

Alizra let her feet carry her as far as possible before the three teens called out to her. “Hey, hey, Current. Come on, baby, what tricks can you do for me?” Alzira stopped and turned toward the boy that was issuing the cat calls.

“Why is there always some noisy brat who mouths off and gets his nose broken?” Alizra’s voice was stronger than it had been before when she spoke with the woman, and her body was slowly responding to the rush that adrenaline produced.

“You little bitch!” The boy yelled and stepped toward Alizra and away from the safety of his friends. Heavy metal chains clinked with each step the boy took. The two other teens stood back, watching smugly as their companion rushed forward.

It only took the boy a second before he was right in front of Alizra, hand drawn back, ready to explode forward, which it did. The boy stumbled forward as Alizra side stepped the attack. It felt good to have her muscles moving, even if it was going to come to a screeching halt the second she was no longer in danger.

The boy barely had time to realize what was happening as Alizra brought her foot up and connected it with the soft flesh between the junction of his neck and shoulder.

It took an unnaturally long time for the boy’s legs to crumple beneath him and he head to crack loudly against the cement. Alzira flinched as she heard the boy’s skull crack. Glancing down at the body on the ground, she watched as a pool of crimson began to inch out from underneath the boy’s head.

Forcing her attention away from the pathetic form on the ground, Alzira squared her shoulders to the two assailants that remained standing. One, a girl, turned and ran, leaving the third, a boy, to stand alone. Alizra roller her eyes, as the boy glanced down at his friend, only to find no help from the unconscious being.

“So, are you going to be like your friend here, or are you going to take a leaf out of your female companion’s book. Personally, I don’t care either way.” Alizra’s voice was strong, echoing with the confidence the adrenaline had provided her with.

The boy glanced again at his friend and then behind him before reaching around to the back of his wast band. Alzira stepped forward, knowing what he was reaching for, but before she could stop the boy, he had brought a hand gun out from his back.

One harsh echoing shot was all that came from the gun, but it was enough as Alzira felt pain lance through her left shoulder She stood there for a moment, watching as the boy’s hand shook, holding the gun only a few feet away from her.

The once white tank top that she had worn was now slowly staining red as her heart pumped blood through the wound. Alizra’s hand moved as if on its own accord, covering the hole, trying to keep the life giving red liquid in.

“Bastard.” Alizra chocked out before her survival instincts began to kick in and her body went numb from the adrenaline coursing through her veins. Spitting blood, Alizra’s eyes closed slowly and her body went limp as the boy stared down at the gun in his hand to the red, leaking from Alizra’s body.

Dropping the gun, the boy turned around and started to run in the direction his female friend had taken off in. Alizra’s eyes snapped open when the gun hit the sidewalk in a clatter. Not even bothering to care where the teenage boy had gone to, she turned, again heading back toward the park not a block away, headed toward a chance of survival.

The bright sunlight shone off the blacktop she walked next to, sending the sharp scent of melting tar into the air. Alizra’s feet fell one in front of the other, slowly moving forward. Her steps became shorter with each stride, more labored. Not twenty feet from the place where the gun rested, Alizra’s vision began to blur and she could no longer see the lines in the sidewalk below her feet. A few more steps and she was swaying like a child’s doll.

Attempting to see how far she was from the green blur of the park, terror gripped her already frightened mind as she saw another group of people heading in her direction. At first they were walking, slowly, one had their arms out stretched, but Alizra couldn’t make out anything to tell if they were Current.

She took one last step before her legs finally gave out from exhaustion and blood loss. Her knees connected roughly with the sidewalk and an ache set up in her legs. Slumping forward against her good shoulder, she waited for who ever she had seen to appear. The life expectancy of Runners was never very long and she had been living on borrowed time for the last few months.

It wasn’t as though there weren’t any Runners that were considered veterans, but they generally only a year. Alizra was currently serving her fourteenth month as a Runner under Kallen’s command, and was close to entering a grey area when it came to the age of Runners. Soon she would either submit to the entitled inevitable and die, or she would slip into the roll of a veteran. In all actuality, Alizra found in appalling that the respected and ‘aged’ members of the Under Current were of the ripe old age of twenty.

The bright sunlight burned at her eyes and she closed them as she heard one of the sweetest noises she’d heard in the past few weeks.

“Alz!” A rough baritone voice called out one of her nicknames. Almost instantly her mind relaxed. The last thing she was aware of before her mind was lost to oblivion was being scooped up against a strong chest and that same baritone voice telling her that she would be alright, and that she needed a bath. That little joke, coming from that particular voice relaxed her and sent her over the sharp edge and into the realm of dreams.