Firewatch

Chapter 7

The Underdistrict always had a unique scent. It was hard to describe. Many claimed it was similar to must but with a faint memory of something sickly sweet, like a frosted cake that had gone bad.

Ironically, the people knew where it was coming from. Firewatch had lent a hand, tracking the source down many thousands of levels below the surface to an arcane engine of creation, performing a task beyond the understanding of humanity in a chamber that was vast enough to house an entire fleet of auto-battleships. Unfortunately, no access portals went down that deep; at least, none were safe. Nor were there any offshoots of Firewatchs' vast subterranean tunnel network that seemed to terminate there. The Subministry of Station and the Local Group Research Project had plumbed the depths with microdrones time and again but always came back empty-handed.

And so the Scent persisted. People eventually got used to it. If you were new, it stung a bit. Hermetic suits were a common sight the farther down you went, but not many people ventured past the Black Zone these days. Life went on.

The major tunnel network was built hexagonally, with gravity plating on every surface. Cities were constructed inward, often radiating from the center like the spokes of a wheel. Most of the Underdistrict consisted of endless spans of these "spoke cities," and the wealth varied tremendously. Some were lush and green, others concrete jungles suffocated beneath thick blankets of smog. Large stretches of the tunnel network were abandoned, too contaminated for human habitation. 

Every fifteen kilometers, exact down to the nanometer, was a cavernous chamber that served as the junction for the access portals that provided passage topside. From these branched numerous minor tunnels, some no larger than a few feet in diameter. These would eventually fork into even smaller capillary tunnels, which snaked through the superstructure of Firewatch like blood vessels.

The Dekker was one of those portals. A cylindrical shell that stretched downward for nearly a hundred kilometers, with several million inhabitants. 30,303 stories. Three for administration, three hundred for security, and 30,000 for everything else, all rank with acrid smoke and chemical byproducts, providing passage for tens of thousands daily. 

It was early in the morning when Peter returned to work. The entire transit, from his housing unit on Floor 10,295 to the security station on Floor 303, took about twenty minutes; teleportariums were public and present on every hundredth floor. 

The office was already buzzing with activity, and the cases were piled high after the Harvest. Mostly petty crimes: theft, assault, and a few deaths.

A few, however, were more pressing. A young man, racked with gout and a dozen other illnesses, had stumbled through the doors. He was obviously the result of illegal cloning - the sickly-yellow skin was a dead giveaway. They were used as slave labor, pumped out of outmoded, poorly-maintained printers by the hundreds. Most lived in near-constant torment, with few surviving more than a handful of years. It was a miserable, if mercifully short, existence, and the people responsible were the worst kind of scum.

The poor fellow was probably abandoned to die by his owners once they realized he would be incapable of working any longer. He was wasting away, coughing up blood, and didn't even know his own name, but through sheer force of will, he had managed to drag himself to and up the steps of Peter's security station. He asked to be put out of his misery, to which Peter's troopers obliged. A new clone was already being procured, along with the necessary documentation.

Several task forces, including a company of Ministry Rangers, were on rotation in The Dekker for precisely this purpose. Access portals were the only reliable means of getting aboveground and were thus heavily policed. Not to mention that Firewatch itself quite literally had eyes and ears everywhere. Most savvy criminals avoided them like the plague.