A man walks through the backdoor of a business into the alley, behind. He is tall, athletic and bald. Well-dressed. He chuckles to himself as he hits his vape. Anyone watching would think him cocky. Arrogant, even. He opens the door of his nearby sports car with the key fob and slips in behind the wheel, shutting the door as an afterthought. He doesn’t notice the shadow that passes between the nearest streetlight and his car. He hits his vape again.

  The car trembles, and the man looks up. Was that an earthquake? Or did he imagine it? His car shudders. The man sits up straighter and looks left and right. The rear end of his car begins to rise, even as something obscures the back window. The man panics. He tries to open his door, but somehow the growing angle of his vehicle has jammed it in place. The rear continues to rise. The man reaches for his phone, intending to call 911. His palms have become sweaty, though, and he fumbles the thing away into the darkness of the passenger side.

  The car is vertical, now.

  “What the fuck!” the man shouts.

  For a moment, everything is still, and then the car begins to tumble forward. The man screams. It’s a surprisingly high-pitched sound from the formerly smug man. With a crash, the car lands on its roof. The airbags deploy. The man, still buckled in, takes a second to breathe. He is still alive, still uninjured. Something huge and heavy lands on the vehicle’s underside, immediately compressing the space inside. The missing cellphone briefly leaps up into view like a dolphin breaching the waves, tantalizingly close and horrifically beyond reach. The man screams again. The weight on the car disappears, only to return seconds later with a vengeance. The car compacts further. The man’s head is now against the roof, and his neck is bent at an unsustainable angle.

  “What the fuuu…” the man cries, before a final jolt crushes him. His phone chirps.

  *****

  Where does one hide a twelve-foot-tall, six-foot-wide blind cyclops with anger management issues? The answer, for now, is Seattle.

  I met Paul a few years ago, four thousand or so, after he’d been blinded by a little Greek bastard named Odysseus. Coincidentally, I’d recently lost my big sister, my hero, when she was murdered by a different Greek bastard name Perseus. So, we’d fallen on hard times, Paul and I. We didn’t like or trust each other much in the beginning, but we had things in common, and so our teaming up was a marriage of convenience, if you will.

  That first day is forever etched in my memory. I was and had been sulking in a cave on a hillside, at the edge of a boulder-strewn desert. My other sister, the bitch, had disappeared shortly after we learned of Medusa’s fate. I thought it wise to make myself scarce as well, in case it was open season on gorgons. You never know.

  One afternoon, I saw a figure in the desert below, stumbling along, tripping over rocks and then hurling them into the distance in rage. At first, I feared he or it might see me, but in time it became obvious this wanderer was blind. I emerged from my cave and crept closer. It’s not every day one sees a cyclops.

  “What?” he spat angrily.

  I said nothing.

  “I can smell you,” he explained.

  “I can smell you, too, but I didn’t think it was appropriate to say so.”

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  He laughed, in spite of himself. “What do you want?”

  “What do you want?” I asked him.

  “Peace and quiet.”

  “Strange, given the amount of noise you’re making.”

  He sat. “I want revenge, then.”

  “Ah,” I said, “revenge! I can understand that.”

  “I doubt it.”

  I told him my story.

  And then he joined me in my cave, while we considered our next moves.

  Over the years, we have lived all over the world – Hong Kong, Istanbul, Paris, London, New York – and sometimes we cycle back to a previous location after a couple hundred years. But it isn’t safe to stay in one place forever. And Paul is easily bored. There isn’t enough Ritalin in the world to deal with his boredom.

  Which puts us in Seattle, running a construction and demolitions business in Pioneer Square, the oldest part of town. Construction and demolitions is really a front, though, for our real business: vengeance. We make the bad guys suffer, and then we put them in the ground. But don’t mistake me. Paul and I are not the good guys in this story. Far from it. We’ve just got some deep-seated issues, and hurting other criminals is really the only socially acceptable way to vent our frustrations. And even then, there are those who object to our methods. You’ll meet some of them later.

  We came here for the coffee. Sadly, Americans can’t seem to make a decent brew, no matter the branding. While lingering over a cup in the aforementioned square one day, I noticed a passing foot tour of Underground Seattle. I was sure it was just another endeavor to dupe the tourists out of their money, but I had time to kill – do I have time to kill! – and I thought I’d give it a try. It’s a nice little tour, but I was only vaguely interested until the guide mentioned that there is no complete map of the underground tunnels, because each property owns the land beneath it, and a full mapping would require all sorts of coordination and collaboration between the various stake-holders, some of whom were said to be wildly resistant to the idea. I thought this might be marketing hyperbole, but it was worth further investigation on the off chance it proved to be true. An endless series of tunnels beneath a major American city seemed like just the place to set up shop…and keep Paul hidden.

  As it turns out, the tour guide’s claim is mostly true. There are vast areas that are mapped by the various utilities companies. But there is no master map of all the fiefdoms, if you will. And what even the most fearless trespassers don’t know is that there are tunnels below the tunnels.

  I’ll explain.

  Seattle isn’t even two hundred years old. In fact, it’s one of the country’s youngest cities. In the late 1800’s, the streets would flood when the tide came in, or after a hard rain, or a season of rain, etc. People literally drowned in potholes and mud puddles. To combat this, the city built elevated sidewalks, a story above the street. Eventually, businesses began building their establishments at this new, higher level, to save customers the trouble of constantly scaling and descending ladders and stairways. And so, a second city was built just above the original. Most Seattleites are only dimly aware of this, if they know about it all.

  But, as I was saying, none know about the earlier tunnels made by the ancient people who preceded the city’s original inhabitants, the Duwamish people. I haven’t entirely worked out the reasons for these deeper tunnels. They might have been meant for trade or warfare or for spiritual reasons. Whatever the case, they are mine now. And Paul’s. This makes our job so much easier.

  Hammer and Nails, our front, does reasonable business in smaller scale demolitions, renovations, and related work. Paul does most of the demolition (as you might imagine), but we do have a small crew of human workers, mostly Latino, who are quite skilled in construction and even design.

  We have a receptionist in the front room, which is also where most the crew hang out when not on the clock. If a customer or customers make it as far as my office, I greet them in an elegant full-body robe and niqab, which is why so many of my clients believe I am Muslim. I am not. But you don’t want to see my face. I do a nice side business selling original statuary, though.

  Over the millennia, I have picked up a little magic here and there. How could I not, being a thing of magic myself? And so, I can alter my appearance such that I don’t need the head covering. I can also make Paul a more manageable size for short periods of time. And these little tricks allow us to travel, when necessary, and otherwise consort with you apes.

  Now, I don’t mean that as an insult. We are what we are, no? And many apes are quite lovely. I’m particularly fond of gorillas and Bonobos.

  The point is, using our tunnels and small magics, we have been able to operate our business, live in comfort, and work on ridding the world of nasty vermin. Or we have been. Mr. Sodium has been making all this a challenge of late.