The Nobleman's Masterpiece ✔

8 REIN

Lydia kept her eyes fixed on that diskette. She needed to look somewhere other than the bustling underground city before her. All sections of the Colony were comprised of organized intersecting tunnels. But this was a city. Rather than smooth cement, the ground was cobblestones. Rather than the sure heat of the tunnels, this place was frigid. And rather than the safety of the all-knowing System, she was in the Lower-Levels, a place with laws of its own.

The wall which regurgitated her was one of the longest transport walls she'd ever seen. She half expected it to extend along the entire tunnel.

There was a problem with it however, to the right was pitch black darkness—the Deadzone—aptly named for the fact that the System didn't answer in the center of the Colony. It was also known as Impland, for the very fact that it inhabited mutants; man-made attempts at making Elementals that didn't pan out. As there were no animals below ground other than humans, imps culled their food from whatever hapless jackass might venture in. They didn't like lights, that's what the emergency drills at training said, but Lydia always wondered why they had drills in bright scenarios as well.

The Deadzone. She was actually by the Deadzone, an area which, rather than cushioned by several tunnels such as the end near her own section, was wide open with no warning signs or fencing.

That was what Lydia saw to her left. To her right was even more unsettling. The Lower-Levels looked as if a city had fallen right into the earth and nestled itself in the Colony. Structure after structure reached from the ground to the very top of the expansive ceiling high above.

This was the poorest area of the Colony, other than the Clusters. But the Clusters lay safely south of Lydia's area. It was by the border to Topside, but that was far better than this, far better than the Lower-Levels.

Lydia looked at the diskette again, telling herself that she had to do this; she had to come down here. She had to find Joshua and poor Osbourne, and she had to go home with not only that E, but with nothing less than the satisfaction of bringing her boot across that bastard Joshua's head.

But she didn't know how. She'd gotten this far on her own, only because everyone knew that it was illegal for E's to fight, and if it was illegal, it probably happened in the Lower-Levels.

Laughter filled the air and Lydia looked up in time to see a green-haired E fall from the ceiling. The female Elemental landed with a thud and a grin.

Ruckus.

Lydia wondered if that was a good sign.

She wondered something else, too; was this another one of Joshua's imp-shit pranks?

This is madness. Lydia considered walking away, turning around and heading back home to Dizzy. This could be one of Joshua's lame jokes.

Despite having caused a commotion upon arrival, Ruckus put her hands in her pockets and walked toward the crowd. The sea of people parted for her. She didn't go far at least, and of course, she went into the dingiest-looking place.

Lydia had no idea what the hell she herself was doing down here. She was a rich-acting pauper, months away from twenty, wandering around the gaw-ro Lower-Levels, looking for an immature nobleman and a broken E she was suddenly responsible for.

"I'm sorry, Osbourne," Lydia muttered. "I can only hope your brother can find you."

With a heavy sigh, she waited for the next wave of people to arrive before she turned to transport out. Unlike everywhere else in the Colony where portals were made directly into businesses, tunnels and homes, the Lower-Levels seemed more controlled. Even the E's who could make portals at will, used this designated area to arrive. Lydia wasn't sure about their leaving though. She judged from the small trams which scooted along the ground that the mode of travel here was a lot different.