Celestial Subterranea: Part 2

A waters bottle, out of scene, supling water to a glass.

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As difficult as it is to believe, in these times a glass of water could bring enmity to the nuclear family of any home. The unreachable, unbreachable hive provided many of the meager means to the poor men and women of the streets through its bank governors who ran things from the looming onyx towers. Yes, the looming towers themselves were controlled by the “Company.” The men in charge of these institutions were bitter exiles who once attended court in the interior of the antiseptic hive. Having fallen from grace, they demonstrated an unusually insecure haughtiness in their dealings with the merchant class, the upper middle class of Neohades. The bankers themselves were the bourgeoisie class, organizing everything in commerce from distribution of goods to collection of payments and tax- es on behalf of the “gods that dwelt in the sky”. It was little different from the ancient systems of priesthoods control- ling the resources and giving tribute to the gods, while collecting taxes for the purpose of doing this. After- rather, under- the merchants were the peddlers who set up shops throughout the city.

On the ground, paramilitary police units paraded through the cobblestone streets with automatic assault rifles in uniforms of dark samurai cyborg gear. These armed forces operated like ghosts in shells. The souls of willing and unwilling men alike were regularly fused into the military hardware that was controlled through wireless networks of a command center deep in the 9th realm of the hive. All of the activities of the people were regulated by this herd of law enforcement that was set up and established by the “Company”. They were beings with a sense of what it is to be human, but with none of the empathy. As they marched through the cobbles and past the wheeled carts and motor cars, they inspired as much fear as the bandits and gangsters. Even though this was the case, they were still machines and thus predictable in their routes, routine and movements. On this particular evening of the year 2131, the usual hubbub of activity was halted by a series of obvious glitches in the city’s labyrinth-like power systems. Lights flickered with interims of darkness and deadness- the whole megapolis was like a malfunctioning Christmas tree. The citizens seemed to stop and go as if the activity of the lights directed their move/halt dynamic. Even the police force, dubbed the Ifrit, followed this anomalous pattern. And then darkness took over the brittle flickering of light and nothing was heard any further as every gear and wheel grinded to a halt. (to be continued)

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