Dirty Work: Volume 1

The First Run - 5

We ducked into a kar park not far from the Magna-Train station, only a manhole cover or two away from where everything had begun for me not two hours before, if that. We headed down a ramp into the furthest levels of the building, sticking to the speed limit for the first time since we had jumped onto the Zoomus, literally in my case. We slung a left, and in front of me I saw a large set of double doors with a Halo-Core beside it, embedded into the wall.

Markro pulled up to it and jumped off the Zoomus.

'Only ever used the tunnels once before,' he said, activating the Halo-Core and beginning to input a code. 'so there could be anything down there.' The code activated and lit up. Clambering back onto the Zoomus, the doors opened and the Halo-Core's display began to flash. He handed me the gun he had pointed at my head earlier. 'Shoot anything that looks vaguely dangerous.'

'And if I shoot you?' I asked sarcastically.

'The boss has your name. He'll find you, and he won't just kill you.'

Good answer, I thought.

We moved off through the doorway. Behind it was a long, tube-like chute with small strips of light about two thirds of the way up. Strangely for Region 57, this tunnel was completely circular. Most of the architecture of the region was incredibly square, and without any of the beautiful rounded-off corners that you get more often when you get to around Region 50 and upwards. As we began to pick up speed, I saw pipes and cables dangling down from hatches in the ceiling. They looked like entrails, which is exactly what they were. Celestria's entrails.

'How long has this been here?' I asked. I had never been into this particular kar park, but had been past it several times, and had I known that something like this was here, would probably have tried to brake in and have a look around with my mates in my younger, more adventurous and care-free days.

'These are maintenance tunnels. Most of them they don't use anymore, but when they were building Celestria up they added these in so that they could get to any issues or bugs easily.' We took a right through a tunnel on the side, the lights changing from blue to green. 'Somehow, the planet runs pretty smoothly at the moment, so they don't come down here a lot. It's mostly used for easy transport for people that need to move undetected.'

'Drug pushers, thieves, murderers,' I began, 'traffickers, guns for hire...'

'Us,' Markro said, swerving around a large uprising in the floor.

'How long do you reckon it will take?' I asked. Markro sat back a little in his seat.

'Well, we've got to get from 57 to 26. Getting on towards halfway round the planet here. I could take one or two shortcuts that I know, but I've heard there might have been a disturbance down one of them so I'm not sure if I should risk it. So...' He began to crunch the numbers in his head, running digits past him, routes and directions, maps and signs and signals. 'About seven hours or so.'

'Great,' I sighed, leaning right back in my seat. I placed the XF-46 Alpha on my lap and looked around me. The tunnels were smooth and clear of any kind of wear or tear, to my surprise, and I guessed that although they might not come down often, someone must go through the tunnels at some kind of interval and do a sweep for any damage that would need repairs. Even the aids for repairs need some love and attention sometimes.

The journey soon fell into a monotonous sailing by of lights, occasionally broken up by a turn into a connecting junction. Once, in a small cutaway, I saw two men huddled up by a small fire, with a blanket wrapped around the both of them. The Zoomus gave both Markro and me some kind of heat, so even with the wind whipping past us we were kept reasonably warm. And yet the sight of those two men shivering in the dark, forgotten and unknown brought the stark reminder back to me that this was where I might have ended up in a short amount of time, had things not happened the way that they did. And still might not.

I had only Markro's word for it, and the girl on the Halo-Core, that his boss would accept me, and although we had had confirmation through the girl that his boss had said he would look me over and put me through my paces, should we take the letter to him, I was still nervous, and rightly so. Working as a hired hand in jobs that were most likely dangerous and very often illegal, didn't exactly fill me with pleasure. I had wanted to settle down and raise a family a few years ago, with a decently paying job that let us live somewhere respectable. I didn't want to aim for the stars, as too many residents of the city made the mistake of doing, but somewhere where the food was good and branded, and with enough money so that if my child's Halo-Core happened to break, I could go and pick them up a new one with only a small hole to my bank account. I wasn't a man that aspired to the greatest ever of heights, but one that wanted better for himself than the situation he had been birthed into.

Isn't that what we all want?