Rats in the Pipes

Two: Strange Encounters

Dom lived in a block of three room apartments in the best quadrant of level 32. The apartments on the top few levels of LoCit are as good as or better than a lot of the apartments on the lowest levels of MidCit. Certainly better than the block I lived in. The difference is simply status. Say you're a MidCitter to a prospective employer and seven times out of ten you'll get the job over a LoCitter. Dom didn't let me past the entrance lobby but it was clear from what I could see from the doorway that he surrounded himself with luxury. There was a holopic vid player and a massage therapy lounger in my line of sight. The floor was covered in thick carpet and the place had mood lighting, I didn't even try to work out how many years I'd need to work to get any one of those. Dom came back with a bag, a knife and a dirty, ragged coat. He gestured for me to lift my T.

"What?" I wanted to know why.

"For this, don't want this pinched." Dom grunted. He attached a cash cred card to me with medical sticky tape and I dropped my T back over it. "When you get to 46 put the coat on, you'll be too noticeable otherwise." He opened the bag and showed the contents. "Just so you know I'm not tricking you into dropping illegals." 

I noticed the groceries contained two pieces of fresh fruit. The cost of one piece of fruit was more than the amount I had to spend on food for three days. Dom rolled up the coat and pushed it into the top of the bag then handed it to me. When he proffered the knife I shook my head.

"I think I'd prefer running away if I have that sort of trouble. I doubt I'd do well in a knife fight down there."

Dom grinned "You're probably right. Now you put the bag and the card in locker 13/7. Bring back the empty bag you'll find there. The locker bank is about fifty metres along the north east spoke. No need for you to venture into the squats themselves so it shouldn't be too dangerous. Just dump the stuff and get out of there."

"Slots" Dom handed me a key on a chain and I dropped it over my head and tucked it out of sight. I slung the bag of groceries over my shoulder. That alone could attract unwelcome attention down there, 48 was a bad level. No it was the worst level. It was inhabited by the desperate, the criminal and those who'd incurred the wrath of officialdom and didn't want to be sent to labour in the broiling heat of the reclamation mines, the salt pans, the algae farms or the open fields. No-one survived very long in any of them and the City authorities were always looking for replacement labour. The squats were a better option. You could work at sorting garbage in return for food and the City authorities didn't patrol down there.

When I got off the scaler on 46 I left the concourse and went round to the service ramp stopping to pull the coat on. Dom is a bit taller and an awful lot broader than I am so the coat could have gone round me twice. It hung in folds and the sleeves covered my hands. It would seriously impede me if I had to make a run for it. I wrapped it round myself and fastened it with my belt then I rolled the sleeves up. I had no trouble finding the service ramp since all the levels of Mid and LoCit are laid out in an identical pattern. When I got to the blind spot where the ramp turned and I was out of sight of the fixed citicams I stopped. No chance down here of a mobile cam spotting me. They didn't send them down to the lowest levels because they got trashed. I unclipped my ID bracelet and Pcom. It is a criminal offence not to wear your bracelet but down in the squats there are people who would kill for an ID. I lifted my hat up and pushed them into my hair then pulled my hat back on making sure it was very secure. I'd intended to go down by the service ramps as the safer option but the lack of any lights on the one down to 48 dissuaded me so I returned to the concourse. Fighting off the impulse to turn round and go back up I stepped on to the scaler down to the lowest residential level.

The concourse on 48 was another stretch of rubbish strewn, cracked and buckled plastempal paving. Apart from the steel and carbon fibre, and the solar glass in the upper levels most of the city's internal structures were made of plastempal, the hemp based plastic product that was strong and immensely durable. Mostly it was in better condition but down here on the bottom two residential levels where the service crews from the Admin, Resource and Maintenance Department need an armed guard nothing other than the most basic repairs to the city's fabric was ever made. The dim and flickering lights and the rattle and wheeze of the aircon made the place feel closed in and threatening. The air was thick and stale and smelt of urine and excrement. MidCit might not be great but it was the Spires compared to this. I could feel a trickle of sweat between my shoulder blades. Alert was good, eyes in the back of my head would be even better. I crossed to the North East Spoke. Two women lounging against a pillar sized me up and dismissed me as a prospective customer. I kept up the best speed I could given the litter and general muck. The lockers were where Dom had said they'd be but there were no lights and the recesses were slabs of deep shadow. I heaved the coat up and felt in the pocket of my shorts for the ledlight I always carry.