Undercity
Marcus clicked his tongue as he stepped out onto the stony path that covered his front garden, the automated pod from before had ceased it's mowing, meaning the only sounds that were left in the quiet morning of his neighbourhood was the tweeting of birds, and the occasional bark of a dog.
His nose took in a portion of the frigid air, he exhaled before trekking slightly downhill to his street's sidewalk.
This is going to be an awkward journey.
He retrieved the small stick that was his holo-tablet from the white bag, clicking it on as the holographic screen buzzed into existence.
A mapped route was soon displayed onto it, superimposed by projected three dimensional buildings showing a miniature version of the city.
The reason why Marcus was irked by the fact that the Spacer offices were separate from the main agency building was because of the location of the building being so odd, it was completely isolated from the rest of Centralis by two colossal shuttle highways either side of it, there weren't any shuttle stops nearby, and you couldn't just walk over a shuttle highway to get there.
However there was an alternative, travelling by undercity, the small estate that the offices were located in surely had a connection through to the undercity, as it wasn't a very wealthy area.
Meaning Marcus could walk through that place, under the shuttle highway, and just come out on top right next to the offices, it was simple.
But the undercity is the undercity at the end of the day, I'll have to walk 40 minutes through it to get there...
The three-dimensional exterior of the large city vanished as the projection moved through the ground, showing illusory images of various large tunnels and openings that snaked out at every direction underneath Centralis.
The undercities were the solution to the poverty and overcrowding faced by most large cities previously, the Congregation decided to dig out large swathes of ground underneath their most populated centers, creating supports with high density steel and concrete to hold the earth up so it didn't then collapse, the government used this new space to relocate many homeless and working class people.
At the beginning the undercity was filled with relatively good social housing and infrastructure, the poor were less cramped, it was more sanitary, you had access to hospitals and stores. There were also plenty of tunnels which were made to connect to the outside, so it had always been a good way of getting around.
But as the years rolled by, more and more occupied the undercity, the government could not keep up with the influx of people, so the social housing system collapsed, people began relying on themselves to provide shelter, they built illegal homes on mass as the undercities quickly transitioned to expansive slums.
Legal jobs were harder to come by down there, so many began resorting to crime just to put food on the table, others for the glory of it, and belief that they could eventually reach the outside world with their amassed wealth.
The divide became clearer between those who lived 'up' and those who lived 'down', people who originated from the undercity were not treated very kindly when they came to the surface to work or travel.
In the same vein, those who lived on the surface when delving down into the undercity to travel through Centralis or any other place easier would often be robbed or murdered out of spite and retribution.
But Marcus had no choice in the matter, he would have to travel through it in order to reach the Spacer office above ground.
Dad never told Mom about the fact I'd have to take this route, otherwise I'm sure she'd be much more apprehensive, is this him being secretly supportive?
Centralis's undercity was also the first of it's kind, it was the biggest and supposedly most dangerous in the systems, of course not counting the ones on planets on the outer edge of the Congregation's territories.
Marcus shook his head as he clicked the holo-tablet off, walking to the end of the street and onto a larger road which went straight to the city centre.
Floating cars sped soundlessly down the street, some even deciding to use the second lane of the road, gliding over over the cars on the first, ground lane.
His family owned a 4-seater float-car, however he opted not to ask to be driven to the nearest shuttle station, as it would probably lead to his mother wanting to do it, resulting in her discovering the route Marcus needed to take by prying about it, which his mother usually did, she was incredibly nosy.
As he continued further down the main street, the suburban neighbourhood slowly made way for a small commercial district that surrounded the shuttle station.
Various blinking and luminescent lights filled the shopfront windows, displaying advertisements of new clothing and tantalising images of food.
Even though he had just had breakfast, Markus's stomach was not yet satisfied, needing a bit more to ensure it had it's fill.
Marcus began to display his thoughts aloud.
"I ought to get like a coffee and pastry or something." He grumbled as he rubbed his eyes, the dream he had last night meant the quality of his sleep wasn't the best, he still felt that he was just waking up.
He sauntered on over to a two-story café, it's warm solar orange lights drawing him in.
Upon strutting in, Marcus noticed the rather superficial atmosphere generated by the decorations laid around the place, cracked brick walls and ancient industrial crossbeams supported the roof above him. There were a few people sitting at the tables inside, chatting away or on their tablets, steaming coffee next to them.
This led him to a conclusion.
The food is going to be ridiculously overpriced, isn't it...
He'd approach a man at the counter, beginning his order.
"Could I have a croissant, and just an Americano."
"Milk and sugar?" The man asks.
"Milk and one sugar, please."
"To go?" The barista replies in turn.
"Yes."
Marcus intended to make his exchange quick and blunt, because he had just realised that he only had five minutes until the next shuttle arrived, after that it would be an hour interval until the next.
"One white Americano with sugar, it'll be about 6 minutes to brew, is that okay?"
Marcus paused out of shock as the barista told him this.
He really shouldn't go into the undercity whilst tired, so it was pretty important that he got his coffee.
But six minutes? Damn these artisanal places to hell, are they flying out to the Americas to get the beans themselves in that time. Marcus lampooned as he scratched his head.
"How much?" He asks through gritted teeth.
"One silf, please." The barista tapped some black rectangle that laid on the counter.
That was almost three times his shuttle fare. He sighed as he tapped his holo-tablet against the black object, it beeped positively as he did so, the electronic money transferring from his account.
The shuttle was usually a couple minutes late, it was never in Marcus's style to be early anyways.
He would try to convince himself that this was the right idea.
The benefit of coffee outweighs the loss of possibly having to wait another hour...
And after an anxious six minutes of waiting.
"Your Americano and croissant." The pastry was carefully wrapped in a white bag. Marcus sprang from out of the seat he was waiting in, snatching the bag and cup rather rudely.
"Thanks." He says shortly before sprinting out of the small café, drawing the attention of the people sitting down as their heads turned towards him.
What an odd man, they probably thought.
Marcus caught sight of the shuttle pulling into the station, his eyes widened, as his legs pushed hard against the ground, propelling him forward to run as fast as he could.
He had no time to wait for the escalator to move him, scaling up it like regular stairs.
As he reached the platform, he gazed at the last person stepping on, and charged towards the vehicle at breakneck speeds.
The door began to slide smoothly shut.
An arm reached into the door, blocking it's path to close.
Marcus pried it open with his raw-strength, the few people on the bus stared at him in awe.
He stepped on, the door swiftly closing behind him.
The window that the bus-driver looked through was always blacked out, but he could definitely feel a scowl emanating out from the little pod. He pulled out an illusory digital ticket, tapping it against the pod as it evaporated.
The bus was much less packed than last time, so he was able to take up a row all to himself, he exhaled in exasperation at the fact his dirt flavoured coffee almost made him late, even though he had milk and sugar in it, it was still as bitter as could be.
"Bad place, never going there again." He mouthed quietly to himself.
The shuttle took off, quickly arriving at the first stop within the inner city, which was also where he had to get off at.
Marcus speedily left the shuttle, descending from the platform as he twisted his head up to look at the towering structures that permeated the skyline of Centralis, the spacescrapers.
Then, he turned his gaze downwards, eyeing a small opening in the ground, with stairs that descended downwards.
This was the entrance to the undercity, there were many such openings peppered around, interestingly enough there were only people exiting, not many surface-dwellers dared to enter.
Marcus took one last sip of his coffee, before throwing it in a bin, he had already eaten his croissant and was sufficiently full.
He took a few hesitant steps forwards and to the opening in the ground. The people coming up the stairs in torn and grubby clothes looked at him with interest, not many who lived in the city went down here anymore, so it was quite the sight for them.
As he descended down the uneven steps, he peered at the tunnel of concrete and dim yellow lights that encased the surroundings of the stairs.
After a couple hundred steps, the lights grew less frequent, the concrete surrounding him became more cracked and graffitied and the smell worsened.
He finally arrived at some sort of barrier in the middle of the stairs, within it was contained a door and a cramped booth that someone was sitting inside of, this person glared at him through the semi-translucent glass, and motioned for him to step forward.
As he approached the window, the man held down a little button in front of him, this booth was filled with various calendars on the walls containing women, most of them weren't even on the right month or year.
A crackling voice erupted from a speaker.
"Where's your block-pass?" Illegal residences were still organised into blocks by the government to keep some level of order within the undercity. The block-pass allowed you to prove you lived in a certain house, and also gave you some amount of rights as a citizen of the slums, which was rare.
"Don't have one."
"You need to pay the toll to pass." The man's hoarse sounded in the speaker again.
Surface-dwellers had to pay a toll in order to pass through the undercity, this was mainly to discourage them from going in the first place and to also help fund some government rehabilitation projects within the undercity.
"How much?" Marcus was growing increasingly annoyed at how much money he had to spend today.
"Three silf."
Extortionate, absolutely extortionate.
"Okay..." Marcus hesitantly spoke as he tapped his holo-tablet to life, pressing it against a contactless scanner on the booth, it withdrew the exact amount.
"I'm curious, not many city-goers come down here, what's your reason?" His gravelly voice queries from out of the booth.
The gate to the other side opens as Marcus is about to step out.
"To see your mother."
Marcus walks out without any further words, the man in the booth is left speechless.
He continued down a short flight of stairs, until they finally receded onto flat ground.
What met his gaze was an expansive, circular dug out cave, buildings patched together by sheet metal and wooden planks composed the walls of the space, and at the very centre of the area was a towering steel beam that criss-crossed upwards, a guardian against any collapses the cave could suffer.
People had tied large ropes from the support beam to their various slum houses, using them as ginormous clothes lines with numerous fabrics of various colours and textures hung out to dry on them.
The lines were quite high off the ground, so Marcus began to ponder something in his head.
How the hell do these people reach their own clothes once they're dry?
Apart from that, he eyed various market stalls that wafted out smells of all kinds, almost drowning out the unpleasant scent that this place was smothered in.
Marcus began to walk into the space, however that proved difficult as wherever he walked there would always be a large crowd, he accidentally bumped into people on several occasions whilst he attempted to navigate through the sea of people.
He didn't lose out on being privy though, and had his right hand wrapped tightly around his white bag as it was slung on his shoulder, so that any pick pocketers and would be thieves couldn't get their hands on it.
The stuffy air inside of the underground space made his hair feel weirdly greasy, he looked around at the few large silvery openings which were embedded near the ceiling of the cave, they were the vents that allowed for airflow, however there was not nearly enough.
He discovered two tunnels on the far side of the cave that lead to places elsewhere, although a problem soon arose in Marcus's head.
He would have to get his holo-tablet out in order to check the route, he couldn't just flip a coin to decide which tunnel to go through after all.
But with that brought the inherent risk of getting robbed, such a device was rather expensive and therefore was incredibly valuable down here.
Marcus closed his eyes for a second in reverie.
He had received two years of formal combat training, some slum-goer was unlikely to best him, unless they pulled out something ridiculous like a plazpistol.
The crowd appeared to disperse and become less numerous as he reached the end of the cave where the two tunnels were located.
Unfortunately for Marcus, before when he was under the veil of that sea of people, the denizens of this place didn't pay him any attention, but now he had gone somewhere a bit more spacious, various heads turned to gaze at the pristine young man who held in his hand an expensive looking white bag.
The first rule in the undercity was to take opportunities as they came, and that was exactly what one person did.
A little girl, who wore what looked like a potato sack knitted into a dress approached Marcus.
"Could you spare any lex, sir..." She says meekly.
"Of course." Marcus's morals couldn't let him ignore this request.
He brought out his holo-tablet, ready to transfer some of his lex to a real world digitised currency until he looked up to stare at the expression of the girl.
She smiled, but it didn't look to be out of gratitude, rather it was one of smugness.
Marcus suddenly heard the quick pattering of footsteps from behind him.
His mind screamed at him to do something, so he acted.
The young man's brown curly hair whipped forwards as he pushed with his feet out in front of him with as much force as he could muster so he would be able to backpedal, narrowly avoiding a figure who had just charged past him.
Marcus was able to get a good look at the man as he turned towards him, in his hand was something that shone whenever it caught the light, a knife.
"Do you wanna die? Hand me that bag." A teenager no older than 16 who had a disposition similar to that of a toad croaked out, his words gleaming with threat.
The people surrounding the incident didn't intervene, nor did they panic, they only altered their paths a little bit to not get in the middle of whatever was about to occur, things like this happen every day, they're used to it.
Am I cocky enough to handle someone with a knife whilst unarmed?
No, the answer's no.
Marcus suddenly tapped his holo-tablet to life, it projected an illusory map of the tunnels, with a glowing red line that ran through it depicting where he needed to go.
"See you around." Marcus mused with a grin as he began to sprint off towards the tunnels.
He heard a string of shouting behind him as he did so, Marcus snaked into the left tunnel, as that was the correct one, almost grimacing as the air and smell inside here was many times worse then in the spacious cave, there was less room for the stink to travel.
Marcus narrowed his eyes as the tunnel could only fit about five people if they were walking side by side, meaning it was both cramped and crowded, a sudden surge of people were using it to walk through, meaning he was stuck at a walking pace behind them.
His ears picked up shouting appearing much closer to him, there were multiple sources of the sound this time, meaning more than just the teenager were chasing him now, there was a chance that one even had a gun, so he had to get out of there.
What can I do? These slum slowpokes aren't doing me any favours.
As he peered up to the low roof of the tunnel, he had an idea.
There were pipes every 30 feet or so that ran across the roof of the cave.
Marcus suddenly grasped at an epiphany.
He distanced himself from the line of people that blocked the entirety of the tunnel, even if it would put him closer to his attackers.
"There he is!" The croaking teenager shouted from just a few feet behind him.
Marcus set off, beginning to sprint swiftly down the hall towards the crowd as they passed under one of the pipes.
He had reached near enough to the people in a matter of moments, using the gathered momentum to leap up. His two hands gripped the hot metal of the pipe, nearly losing his grasp on it as the temperature scalded his hands.
It was a heating pipe.
Though that didn't perturb him, he held on, swinging forwards and lifting his legs up so that they wouldn't collide with someone's head.
And as though he were a gymnast, he let go at the final point of being able to hold on, being launched forwards and over the small crowd of people, who let out collective gasps as someone flew over their head.
He landed hard on the dirty ground in front of them, using his flaking hands to support himself up, he proceeded to dart towards the end of the tunnel unobstructed.
A few moments later, he heard the crowd scream, his pursuers must have caught up with the line of people and used their weapons to intimidate them into moving out of the way.
Yet those few seconds allowed Marcus to open up the distance, and he had already long disappeared down his route.
He slinked swiftly in and out of winding tunnels and spaces that opened into piles of shanty houses. He went up stairs and down stairs, even moving through a tiny portion of the route that had forced him to sidestep to continue, because it was too narrow to walk through normally.
The red path displayed on his holo-tablet gradually decreased, and Marcus hadn't heard shouting since the first tunnel he traversed through, meaning the coast was clear.
He wiped dripping sweat from his forehead, and swabbed his elbow clean of blood on some person's hung up towel just laying on the open shutters of a window.
Marcus had gotten it snagged on a piece of rock which jutted out when he was passing through the incredibly narrow tunnel.
As he began strutting along again, he passed by many miserable faces on the sides of the dirty street, either trying to drift to sleep in ragged blankets to ignore their abysmal situation, or ones sitting cross legged, with grime on them from head to toe, their hands together in a praying stance.
An untouchable class below even the residents of the undercity, they were those who roamed homeless without any hope. Their greyed out eyes often barely able to reflect the misery that fills their hearts.
Marcus shook his head solemnly as he continued his trek, a middle class citizen such as himself who keeps above ground would have rarely gotten to see such a sight, he was thankful as it opened up his awareness of the world just a little bit more.
And to think that the cost of a single artisanal Americano would probably allow them to live for several months on a rationed diet.
The red route was in it's final stages on his holo-tablet, as he caught sight of an opening with a stairway that went straight up.
It was the exit.
As he approached the stairs, he took one final look behind him, to soak in the picture of poverty that the undercity was, reflecting on his fortunate situation and the fact that he had left there relatively unharmed in the end.
Marcus journeyed up the long flight of stairs, where another barrier containing a booth was located.
"Pass through."
The woman in the booth muttered softly through the microphone, her eyes narrowed as she observed the clearly surface dwelling man walk through and to the other side.
The musty yellow lighting of the undercity was cascaded away as bright white sunshine replaced it, taking Marcus a couple of seconds to adjust as he continued walking up the stairs.
And instead of the buzzing of lights, another prominent sound seemed to prick his ears up, the distance clamour of float cars whizzing past, and the fact there were so many of them, caused a cacophony of noise that was even audible underground.
Marcus reached the end of the stairs, and when he went above ground, the sounds suddenly increased by tenfold, the two colossal highways stood either side of the small estate.
What an odd place to put buildings, would the noise not make people sick of living here? He inwardly criticised the architects that would think something like this up.
His eyes scanned the surroundings, until remaining static on an unassuming four story building, what caught his attention were the bold words printed on a sign above it's two doors.
"SPACER OFFICES: REGISTRY AND ALLOCATION"