He never returned / No, he never returned / And his tale is still unlearned…

The Underground used to be happy. It would howl along through its labyrinths, shouting for joy as it rode like an electric rocket. It would see all sorts of people bustle through its catacombs. It would wind with expert grace through its sunless home, first in London, then New York, then all over the world. It loved being the subway. All the subways. The Platonic ideal of rapid transit that wove all those tunnels together.

Things are different, now. You see, the Underground didn’t used to quite grasp the role of transportation. People would move in and out of it, crowd through its corridors, sit in its chairs, grasp its bars, and then they’d go away. They were a part of it. They were its friends. It didn’t occur to the Underground that they were going anywhere, much less that they existed once they left. But then it started listening to their conversations. They talked about lots of interesting things. People they knew. Things they did. And sometimes, places they went. Different places. Sidewalks. Grass. Buildings. Worse yet, they talked about cars and bicycles, who got to go with them to these places. There were even planes, who could soar above the land instead of being buried beneath it. The Underground got jealous.

It didn’t understand why its passengers had to go places. It had lights, pretty maps, ever-changing commercials, voices and signs that told everyone what train to get on. What could this upper world have that it lacked? Where did its companions want to go that was better than it? It felt betrayed. It wanted its passengers to understand the joy of going, without having to go somewhere. What’s more, it wanted to punish those who only used it to reach some destination, who rode it and then forgot it (it still couldn’t conceive of the possibility that this comprised the vast majority of its riders).

The Underground wanted vengeance, so it set to work. Once, those who came to the Underground from its shadows in conventional reality would get off at a strange platform or sit on an unfamiliar train, shrug, find their way back to their usual subways, and think nothing of the experience. Now, it wouldn’t let them forget so easily. First, the underground twisted its corridors into angry knots. If it wants them to, its visitors can wander for miles without ever seeing a train. Ticket dispensers and vending machines either do nothing, eject bills no matter how smooth they are or click, whirr, ka-chunk and then do nothing. If you’re lucky, an escalator will lead to a new and more confounding maze. If you’re not, it will loop back to where you got on, go nowhere just for show or drop you off in the middle of a track. Once in a while, you’ll find subterranean markets filled with snack bars and news stands, their clerks obscured by scratched, dirty, bullet-proof glass and barely audible through their microphones. Nothing ever goes where you remember it being, much less where you need it to be.

Although the Underground keeps to itself for the most part, individuals catch its eye from time to time. One by one, the Underground’s playthings walk onto a familiar train or platform and find themselves in a wholly different subway, with billboards advertising alien products in foreign languages and steely-grey trains that scream through the tunnels like tortured animals. The Underground deals with these victims in a variety of ways, depending on their situations and its moods.

First, there are those passengers who hop on a train without any concern for where it goes. Sometimes they’re bored. Sometimes they’re running from something. Whatever the case, they’re happy to be on the train. In the Underground’s mind, these folks are what passengers should be, so it rewards them. Most of them step onto on an unfamiliar train or platform, find something they need or talk to someone who gives them useful advice, and go back to their usual plane of existence without a hitch.

Sometimes, however, the Underground picks up someone who it really likes. Most of these are people who ride aimlessly for hours or even days, but some catch the Underground’s eye with their personality or looks. These ones are keepers. The Underground tends them for days, months, even years, feeding them with its vending machines and providing them with large, soft, benches to sleep on. The love affair seldom lasts long, though. Soon, the Underground’s pets dream of their homes, friends and family. The Underground regards this as utmost betrayal, and it punishes these victims the worst. They rot in cement caverns for years, subsisting on the most meager, hard-gotten vending machine scraps. Unaware of what earned them such a sentence, they curse the Underground with every thought, never knowing that it once loved them.

Thirdly, there are those who get lost on the subway. These are often first-timers, just learning their way around a new public transit system. Confounded by the subway, these ones become more frustrated by it than interested in its utility. The Underground becomes curious. Flattered by the attention, it revels in confounding them until it occupies their every waking thought. Since it spans all subways, it sometimes drops them off in different subways from the ones they got on. A misdirected passenger on the Paris metro might find himself riding the San Francisco BART after a few misadventures in the nightmarish omni-subway. If the Underground is especially bored, it may amuse itself by letting them ride forever ‘neath the streets of the Statosphere.

And then, there are the true unfortunates. These ones got on the subway needing to be somewhere. They had interviews for the jobs of their dreams across town in ten minutes. Their wives were in labor and found their cars stripped just when the cell phone rang. Their fathers were dying and if they didn’t get to the airport on time, they might never get to say goodbye. The Underground loathes these passengers. To it, they epitomize everything wrong with its patrons. It revels in their dismay as they dash off their trains onto a cracked, concrete floor, with black tiled walls and leaden vessels that howl like tone-deaf cougars singing Mechanical Animals, pulling hurricane winds their wakes.

So what happens to these poor souls? Most of the time, the Underground messes with them for a while, then lets them off at a location of varying degrees of inconvenience. A few of them, though, the Underground keeps. The bastards live there for months or years, sometimes finding each other and forming small communities. They sleep on hard benches and cement floors, using newspapers and torn-down ads for newspapers, subsisting on snack food. The more they grow accustomed to their lives there, the better things get; vending machines have better food, benches are softer, trains are quieter. But as long as they want to escape, see their kids and spouses again, take a bath, change their clothes, have steak for dinner instead of Pringles and Red Vines, the situation only worsens.

New Ritual/Artifact: Poor Charley’s Ticket
It’s possible to convince the Underground that you’re its friend. If it likes you enough, it will give you a golden ticket and let you ride it anytime you want. It can take you to any subway in the world—the only problem is finding your destination. This isn’t easy; all the maps, schedules and bulletins on the Underground are gibberish. Worse, if the Underground hears you talk about anything outside of it, it angers and makes you an inmate for who knows how long. However, the Underground can’t read minds consciously, but the thoughts of its riders affect it. If you concentrate on a specific location, you can force the Underground to take you there. This is harder than it sounds, especially since it delivers much harsher punishment when its friends betray it than when it plays with normal passengers. Remember: any mention of something outside of the Underground could trap you there for months. If it catches you chanting your destination under your breath, it might hold you for a year. Not mentioning outside locations is usually enough, but the Underground is capricious, so go the extra mile. Smile. Look comfortable. Tell the Underground how pretty its ads are, how much you enjoy its rumbling. Read a coffee table book about the history of subways. In any case, it’ll shorten your journey.

Dave Hansen, a boozehound from New York, popularized this ritual. He fell asleep on the subway and wound up in Moscow. After a few mishaps, the Underground took him to London, where they at least spoke English. As a dipsomancer, Dave was both inquisitive enough and foolhardy enough to keep experimenting, as well as carefree enough to avoid becoming a prisoner. A few weeks, two demonic consultations and several unintended vacations later, he won his golden ticket. Dave was an amicable type, so he spread it around. Now, dangerous globetrots on the Underground are a bit of a fad among Dukes. Sure, some people who go down there disappear, but it’s too useful not to try. Plus, if you’ve pissed off the Sleepers, dropping off the face of the Earth for a year sounds like a good deal.

Ritual Action: acquiring Poor Charley’s Ticket is a courtship, not specific ritual. Any series of flattering gestures could work, depending on the Underground’s mood. If too many dukes use the same ritual, the Underground might realize that it’s just a song and dance and get angry.

When Dave got his ticket, he started by going to three different subway systems (the Washington Metro, the Hong Kong MTR and the San Francisco Muni), getting off at every stop on each of them and saving his tickets. The Underground next dropped him off in New York, where he got off, went to Toys ‘R’ Us and bought a toy airplane, a Lego schooner and a model taxi. He then returned to the subway and, at the stroke of midnight, tossed the three toys in front of an oncoming train. He rode the train to its next stop, disembarked, and fed the ticket machine his tickets from Washington, Hong Kong and San Francisco. It gave him a glittering, golden train ticket with unlimited funds and the words “FROM: THE UNDERGROUND / TO: THE UNDERGROUND” engraved on it.