Chapter Text
Noag, 2037
The true extent of the megacity was unknowable. The ends of the neon-lit metalwork giants vanished into the fog. Acidic rain poured down from thick, churning, nocturnal clouds that were lit by lurid coruscations. Highways snaked through the city, ushering cars onto countless cracked roads that barely lived between the enumerable concrete edifices. What also was unknowable was its depth. What lay below the common, top most layer, was a shuffled labyrinth of slums, living spaces, shops, and markets. The Warren, this is where the people lived. A common person would only exist on the top layer when they worked or when they were going to or leaving work. Below this layer the slums grew more condensed; the Crypta. The Warren was more like a condensed city, maze-like yes, but it shared recognizable qualities with a common city. The Crypta was barely a city. It was more like a giant ant farm, a system of hallways, tunnels, and passages. Living spaces and shops existed here as if they were hollowed out from the mess of concrete and metal junkwork. And below the Crypta was the Veins. The layer where the utility systems lived, never touched, ever working.
The acidic water percolated down from the metal and concrete sky as Matthias walked to his destination in the Warren. A man of thirty, he was dressed in a white, tarnished nylon overcoat, gray pants of an aramid fiber, a gray long sleeve shirt of synthetic hemp, and work boots. The main modes of transport in the Warren were cars, walking, rusted bikes, and the nigh-infinite tangled mess of the subway system. He walked past other denizens of the Warren on the side walk, all going about their time awake. He stepped past many puddles of silt-ridden, halogen illumed water. Neon light from a shop window garishly cast part of the street in blue light. He took a glance at the shop. A half sleeping store clerk, a section for bottled and canned drinks, as well as a section for canned food. There was also shelf for Noos-Linkers, colloquially called Obliviators. He shuddered, his memory calling forth all the times he had seen rotting bodies in the slums with the device strapped to their heads, the wires going into the persons veins in a crude attempt at keeping the forlorn host alive. Under the halogen half-light he thought to himself as he walked. He saw no future in a place like the Warren or the Crypta, each riddled by mobs and gangs, and enclosed in systems whose gears were always crumbling and straining against each other. He knew he couldn’t go topside. The world was barren and half dead, and there was no place for him in the Zenith. Only names of notoriety lived in neon skyscrapers. The Obliviators provided no real recourse, only demiurgic salvation. No, he sought to retain his lucidity. He took a turn into a nearby alley and traveled down a flight of stairs, he continued traveling, periodically moving down. It was a short half hour before reached his destination; a small apartment block on the Threshold, the place where the passages of the Crypta lead out into the Warren. He entered in the building and took the stairs to the second floor. He knocked on room 203. The door opened, a man of an age around sixty stood on the other side. He was bald with a thick white beard. His skin was a pale beige, his eyes were brown, and his skin was wrinkled. He was dressed in dark red and brown colored laborer clothes. Over them he wore a white, dirty hard-shell protective vest.
“All your things in order?” Asked the older man, his voice carrying a thick accent.
“Yeah.”
“Payment?” Matthias reached into his coat pocket and pulled out nine-hundred dollars. The man took it from him and counted it. He nodded and disappeared into his incandescent lit room. He came back and tossed a large aramid fiber backpack at Matthias . He put it on, securing the waist and chest straps. The man walked out of the room wearing his own back pack. Closing the door behind him he spoke. “I can get you into the Veins, but after that your on your own.” Matthias nodded.
“Understood. Thank you for doing this, Maro.”
“It’s just the job.” Said Maro neutrally. They traveled to the entrance of one of the passages within the Threshold. “Stay close to me.”