Chapter Four - Below the City


    Chapter Four - Below the City


    Hex-platforming is a technique that became popular in the late 20s. It involves creating a set of six large pillars to hold up the corners of a hex. The hexs size varies, but its usually between 100 and 200 metres from point to point. Buildings are built above these, and the gap between the hex platforms and the ground allow for plenty of space where infrastructure can be laid out. Sewers, electrical grids, any kind of interconnecting system.


    If a city is attacked and a building collapses above, the hexs pillars are designed to blow out, forcing that entire section to collapse beneath the main section of the city.


    It almost guarantees that anyone there will die, but it also means that the destruction is contained.


    This was wonderful on paper. By the mid 30s, everyone realized it was a disaster in actuality. But by then, it was too late. Half of all new cities were hex-platformed, and its not something that one can just stop halfway.


    Now new cities are built to sprawl out more, and have extensive above-ground piping and networking. Its not much better. At least in a hex city, the superpoor are entirely out of sight.


    --The Hex, by Professor of Engineering Duskland, 2041


    ***


    The taxi dove down, and down, and then even lower down, slowing all the while as the driver went from just a little nervous to an outright wreck, hunched over the wheel and with his eyes roving all over to look for danger.


    I didnt blame him.


    The orphanage where Id done a lot of my growing up had been on the ground level, near the outskirts of the city. Ground level was, generally, bad news. Its where all the people who fell from above ended up. A lot of the chemicals in the air were heavy, and they tended to seep down too.


    No one wanted to live so low, so those that did have to live there werent often there by choice. They were the slums, built in and around the pillars holding up the massive towers that hid the sun from view.


    Right now, we were below that.


    The city had been an island, once, but that was decades ago. Someone had terraformed it, built a new ground onto which to build the rest of the city. Everything under that wasnt fit for living in; it was all pipes and earthquake absorption shocks and pillars dug deep into the earth to hold the weight of everything above.


    When we started to dive, wed been in a nicer area. Gomorrah didnt seem like a slum-raised kind of girl. Now, about thirty floors below that, we were in hell.


    Horizontal smokestacks were spewing some vapours onto the road, the clouds of smoke being torn apart as cars which didnt look street legal raced past. Bigger trucks were moving by, some taking the ramps leading up to the ground level. Most of those were being escorted by little drones.


    Its a bit above this, the driver said. He gestured up to a hole in the ceiling above that cut through the ground level, but never reached the sky. The interior of a hollow skyscraper?


    I paused at the voice; not at the pitchit wasnt the best Id heardbut at the age of it.


    Turning a little at the next intersection, I found a little girl on a plastic crate, with what looked like a video game console over her head. Look! A console, Playstation Nine! Still functioning, three generations old! We can even hook you up with some DRM-cracked games!


    She had... trash behind her. That was the word for it. Knick-knacks and broken toys and some exercise equipment. All of it a bit grimy, all of it obviously broken.


    A dumpster diver then.


    Id seen their sort before. Hell, Id jumped into a few myself when I saw someone tossing something good away. They had their own little territories and rules. Where to dive, what to pick up, which places to avoid.


    I moved on. Felt bad for the kid, but there was only so much I could do. It didnt look like she was hawking to the greatest customers either. It struck me just how few people there were around.


    Is there anything about why this place is so empty? I asked Myalis.


    Nothing on any news site. Homeless migration trackers show a three-hundred percent increase in mortality rates over the last week.


    Holy crap, what... oh, the incursion?


    Thats likely. The Antithesis would travel further underground, though they usually prefer more access to sunlight. Most paramilitaries wouldnt stop them.


    Damn, I said. Are there any left?


    Its likely. The Antithesis are difficult to root out. Though any large break-outs within the city would be noticed and purged. There are some Vanguard whose entire duty is to sit above a recent incursion site and wait for more Antithesis to appear.


    Made sense to me. I continued along, up another staircase that I didnt trust, then past a large set of double doors with the words Irregular Welding Co. next to them. The interior was a poorly lit mess of girders and catwalks. There were supposed to be huge machines here, at least I assumed as much from the markings on the ground, but they were all long gone.


    The hum from the neon lights above fought with a clunking air vent to be the more annoying sound filling the room.


    It didnt take much to find Gomorrah. She was walking away from a group that was huddled next to a tarp lean-to, her steps conveying just how frustrated she was.


    Oh great, she looks like shes in a good mood, I muttered as I started after her.


    Time to see what was up with my closest samurai friend.


    ***