Termites broke the Underspire areas up by Node Zones.

Node Zones were areas where the Boole worked, and so our positions could be tracked, files uploaded, downloaded, and reports made. That basically meant a land-line centered open port was within range of us, i.e. a Node. We basically moved from Node to Node, updating what we were doing, seeing if we found something in between.

Reports said that Morlocks in particular loathed Nodes, and true criminals and people off the grid did, too, so Nodes were constantly being destroyed, replaced, and the parties responsible for such events shot in return. The Mekkers hated Luddites, after all.

First stop was a thousand feet down, and I’d be starting off in Scythilian territory.

The Scyth were among the easier of the mobs to work with, mostly because they acted like a mafia. Dark hair, greased, attitudes, focused on the bottom line, macho yet cunning, with completely fluid relationships with all the other gangs. They were close-lipped to outsiders, pugnacious, and always ready to fight to stake their claims. They were always willing to make a deal they benefited from, as it were, and their tentacles ran up and downspire.

They had a pragmatic attitude towards the law, revolving around leaving unnecessary stuff alone, and getting Juris out of there as quickly as they could be satisfied. Termites wouldn’t get as much respect, but Termites had their own rights, and competent Termites weren’t people to mess with.

I could be considered competent, I supposed...

-------

Stepping off the massive lift with a few hundred shift-drones off to do their jobs, I headed for the first Node station nearby, almost certain to be watched over by a Scyth or two, as the Mekkers looked poorly on those who let their tech get crunched. Posting a punk or two to make sure nobody took a sledge to key stuff wasn’t that out of line.

The air down here was recycled, and smelled like other people had been breathing it. Well, I suppose all air is recycled, the carbon dioxide fed the algae vats, and oxygen was doled out back to the living zones. Don’t pay or produce, they shut down the fans, cart the asphyxiated dead over to the soylent processors, and bring in a fresh batch of workers. Neat, tidy, kept work stoppages under control, and was pretty effective population control, too.

Since having to do that reflected badly on the gangs in charge, they definitely resorted to all sorts of things to keep production going and the money coming in. Likewise, their opponents weren’t above making them look bad and sabotaging key facilities in a bid to take over contracts and territory. The energetic skirmishing occupied a lot of the attention of all the various mafias, which disturbed pretty much nobody else at all.

I was tracking one Milder Cogran, an experienced Termite (had to be, to be sent Underspire) who’d been investigating the work crew disappearance when he’d vanished, too. As the mafias didn’t claim anything, nor resolve the disappearance, someone else had to be sent in. The Juris naturally were dragging their feet, considering it something for the mafia to take care of, and naturally didn’t want to overexert themselves for a Termite, either.

Thus, it fell to the Termites to take care of their own. That’s why this was on paper, as it was likely to get purged or grey-filed otherwise.

But I was getting Underspire pay, so why complain? Other than breathing that air that smelled of farts and body odor, no matter what they scrubbed it with...

I was just following the same path of Nodes, as it was the quickest way down. I’d be traversing a Scyth zone, and then the Steiners, who had the security contract for the soylent vats.

The walls were metal, there were pipes, conduits, grates, plugs, stairs, random passageways and doors, crawlspaces, flues and cables and just plain junk like that everywhere. This wasn’t a place designed for human habitation, only human maintenance, but adapt as you go, and keep trucking, I guess.

There were indeed a couple punks on guard duty in the central hub that formed a five-way sideways and down with other floors coming in and out. I tracked the line of the Node up to the ceiling with the bolted case, and a couple young men standing around in the trenchcoats and glasses the Scythilians wore. They were punks, because they weren’t allowed the black greaser do’s that indicated the Made Men.

I kind of stood out among the Underfolk, being taller, auburn-haired, and not moving in a hunch. They watched me closely as I walked straight up to them, read my shirt, and had kind of weird expressions on their faces.

Saved time. “Yeah, I’m a Termite. One of ours vanished chasing a posting down here, a Mekker work crew. There’s been no resolution, so I was sent to follow up. You want to call ahead and let them know I’m coming through, be obliged.”

They looked me up and down brazenly, and I wasn’t showing them much to be scared of. “What’s it worth to ya?” the first one immediately offered.

I laughed slightly. “Extorting a Termite during the course of their official duties is a terminable offense by Juris ruling 21573-a, you can look that up if you like. A 100-credit bounty is automatically issued and expedited fulfilment is encouraged. So, repeat that. I can use the spare change, and someone who thinks their life is only worth a hundred credits is pretty funny.”

His underdweller-white face kind of fell, and his hand moved carefully away from the las at his hip, oriented for a cross-draw. “No trouble, no trouble,” he offered, and waved me on. “I’ll let ‘em know. Have a nice walk.”

“Thanks!” I skated on past him, they both turned to watch, and snorted despite themselves.

------------

Down tunnels and stairs, branching this way and that, machines and rovers moving up and down them, hauling crates and cannisters in both directions.

This particular area was a routine processed goods area, churning out all kinds of parts and supplies for making devices. It wasn’t high tech stuff, for the most part, with machines handling any extreme precision required, but everybody still needed nuts and bolts.

Humans were involved in the process for a simple reason... humans made mistakes. Mistakes resulted in the loss of perfection.

It had been proven a long, long time ago that utterly perfect replication of items was very dangerous. There was an axiomatic surge around them, which usually prompted an immediate response from the Warp. Id demons would come flowing out, and go to war against suddenly animated constructs and machines, both of which would naturally fricassee any humans caught in between.

Trying to randomize the process didn’t work, as perfect randomization was axiomatic, and if it wasn’t, then it was anarchic, and so self-defeating. People, however, made mistakes, were not perfect, and while slower, didn’t trigger the reactions that trying to automate everything did. Ergo, people still did a lot of the work, because leaving it to the machines and robots would be deadly.

Being a factory area, it was basically all under Nodes, so I was moving through production areas teeming with people and moving material and machines, various sorts of metal and plastic items being shaped, carved, printed, assembled, cut, stamped, engraved, welded, joined, and otherwise worked on in various fashions.

The machinery shown was interesting, and I was getting a good look at a lot of wiring and mechanical engineering in my Trembling Domain, which was stirring up all that science knowledge I’d dumpster-dived for.

I could actually see the stagnation, and how deliberate it was, especially in the computer systems. They didn’t dare advance beyond a certain level, or even have perfectly bug-free code, as the opposition of the Warp and lingering psychic energies would trigger the axiomatic surge, and the AI’s would become free-willed... and not at all human friendly. Completely Lawful entities operated on very different paradigms from organic mortals, after all.

The only solution was a type of technology that could somehow incorporate imperfection, staving off Axiom, while also being able to defy the corruption the Warp liked to induce in such things. My thoughts began to dance...

The guards I met on the way were mostly punks, with a few Made Men in charge. As they knew I was coming, and I had a clear purpose, there wasn’t too much hassle. I was escorted/guided along the way from station to station, which I tolerated with complete indifference... and absolutely refusing to be harassed along the way. A couple of them got free with their mouths, I backhanded them into the wall, and they exercised noise discipline thereafter. I didn’t mind them appreciating my derriere, as it was well worth the look, but lewdness was worth some action, especially if they were deliberately trying to let me overhear.

And if ‘bitch’ got addended to my Termite status, hey, it wasn’t the first time. I totally earned it.

-----

A few miles of walking up and down, mostly down, and we reached the neutral zone handoff to the Steiners, a wide transit area with stiffs on one side and punks on the other, both sides fully armed, and looking ready to use them.

The Steiners were tall and bony, with grayish skin, disturbing pale eyes, and surprising strength and speed for their clumsy appearance. The Boole said they were deceptively quiet and real good at taking punishment, with high pain thresholds and a grim tolerance for pain that tended to disconcert the other gangs, especially when a Steiner started clubbing them to death with the arm they’d just blown off him.

They were fairly good at keeping to agreements, but at the same time capable of pouncing on weakness and moving really fast if an opportunity presented itself. Mostly, they defended their own holdings with a grim resolve that let their opponents know that they’d have to pay to get anything out of them, so few of the mafias messed with them casually. There was apparently some really bad blood between them and the Sweiss, with the Sweiss claiming they were just a servant species they’d bred to do menial labor for them, and the Steiners shooting them whenever they had a good opportunity, like shooting rats. The contempt on both sides was naturally taken advantage of by others, and the highbrow politics of the Underspires went on.

Glum yet efficient, the Steiner guards watched as I strolled across the bridge of the Node boundary, wondering what was up, as the Scythilians hadn’t bothered to tell them. Hooded eyes, kind of slouching, electro-enhanced boosters at the sides of the neck, they hefted their shock mauls in warning, but I didn’t even slow down as I flashed my ID to them, and they read it off the neural links with their Trodes. “Heya there, passing through. You want to escort me, or do I just find my own way?”

I didn’t have to wait for them, but I politely paused so the Frank in charge could make a decision, and send one of the stiffs along with me. Into the soylent processing area I went.

The feel of death was weighty about this place, as to be expected. Nothing living came through the soylent, of course, they only processed the dead, and naturally they claimed that any uniquely human proteins were removed during the course of the processing. Nobody believed it, but it was a standard part of Underspire diets, mostly as additives to gak, grog, and other foods, so nobody said too much.

I was actually a little surprised at how sophisticated some of the tech here was, but it didn’t take me long to understand why. Soylent had to process out a lot of mutagens, viruses, and bacteria that could be spread to those who ate it, which meant security was paramount. One bad corpse could infect a whole lot of soylent, so every corpse was processed, gene scanned, and broken down in sections and types. Usable blood was sent off to medical facilities and pharma corps, skin could provide leather or cosmetic replacements, as could hair, while various organs, if viable, could be used for replacements. Bones could be boiled down to gelatin, while brains had to be handled very carefully so as not to cause psychic backwash and bad things to happen. Necromantic events would happen, but that was part of the business...

As for non-viable corpses, they could be used for germ warfare research, sent off to genetics labs for sampling... or kept for study on their own. If there was a Necromantic Event, why, that generated even more samples for them to study... and made potential extra shock troops they could deploy, after they were suitably wired up and harnessed...