Street Science: Part 1

It was a dark and stormy night, but that was nothing unusual. Most nights in the city of Novus Umbra were. Pouring rain was normal here, slicking the streets and monorail lines and making miniature rainbows with the light of neon signs if you looked from exactly the right angle. Nobody knew where the rain went once it fell down through the city to the ground. Most people here didn’t even know the ground still existed.

 Novus Umbra and Novus Luma, the two largest cities on the planet, were originally built on that ground. But over hundreds of years, they grew not outward but massively upward. Catwalks and sky-bridges replaced ground-bound sidewalks. Parapets with railings connected them to the half-hollow towers that were originally city blocks. The highest parts of the city were the richest and newest, but it went down unimaginably far.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. 

One person knew how far down it went. Right now she was standing on a power line, using it like a tightrope to cross between two buildings. Her name was Ariag. 

She did a careless twirl in the middle of the power line, humming under her breath. She had no fear of falling, not with her uncanny speed and sense of balance. Combined with the thumblike opposable toes on her bare feet and her prehensile tail, it made her well able to handle whatever the city could throw at her.

It had plenty to throw: the Twin Cities had the highest crime rates of anywhere in the known Universe. They were a haven for scoundrels, troublemakers, and public enemies of every kind from across the next several galaxies. Unlike most species, humans didn’t take fair law enforcement or kindness too seriously. Humans were the primary inhabitants of the Twin Cities, along with the rest of the tiny, inhospitable planet of Terratos. 

They’d all been brought here in one gigantic spaceship five hundred years ago, using a magical portal to escape their own universe as it started to collapse. The person who’d brought them to Terratos and then promptly disappeared, the man known only as the Sorcerer, was an enigma. Some people doubted whether he’d ever been real. Some people said he was a god who still watched over humanity. Even the humans like Ariag, who had mutated in strange ways due to the portal’s magic. 

In Ariag’s opinion this was a load of hooey. She shook those thoughts out of her head and finished crossing the power line. She jumped the two-foot gap between the power pole and the next roof and landed in a crouch. This building was abandoned, no security systems to worry about. It was also very special. Nobody else knew what was here, and she wanted to keep it that way. 

She headed across the roof, stepping delicately over shattered skylights and rusty air outlets, until she reached a door rising up out of the roof in a little box-like entryway. 

Unlocking the worn old padlock with the equally worn key on a string around her neck, Ariag stepped into the pitch-blackness. Even her eyes wouldn’t work in darkness this complete. After some fumbling she found the light switch. Ariag closed the door behind her before flipping it. 

The yellowed overhead lights gave a sputtering flicker, then turned on, revealing the tiny box of a room she now stood in. The walls were smooth, dingy metal, reflecting Ariag’s own distorted features back at her. She made a few faces at herself and snorted with laughter before getting back to business. 

The mildewed carpet felt unpleasant under her bare feet, but she couldn’t change it out. If somebody found this place, they had to think it was too crummy to use. That was the only way to protect it. 

Ariag pushed a switch, closing the inner doors, then hit the wide button emblazoned with the words Ground Floor. With a shuddering jolt and a creaking of cables, the thing headed downwards. It was fast for an old elevator, but this trip, from near the top of the city right down to the roots of it near the ground, would still take a few hours.

 Ariag sat down cross-legged on the least moldy patch of floor and took off the loaded backpack she’d been wearing. 

Inside was a new jumbo-sized container of the powdered nutrients, fiber, and vitamins that most poor people lived off of. Underneath that was a plastic-wrapped bundle, bulging with the stolen treats she’d burgled from a rich person’s pantry this evening. They’d clearly been preparing for some kind of dinner party based on the large amount of intricate finger food she’d found. 

She didn’t even know what most of it was. A lot of colorful 3D printed fruit, a lot of nice cheese and some salty, gooey pill things that had been labeled as caviar. And candy, of course. Ariag was a bit of a snob when it came to her sweet tooth, mostly because she couldn’t afford to be picky with the rest of her diet. She’d snagged as much chocolate, caramel, and chewy fudge as she could carry, some jam that looked like it was made of real fruit, and a few little cookies and pastries covered in powdered sugar. 

After gobbling anything that looked perishable and calling it dinner, Ariag put away the rest of her food and took out her knives. She had two large one, strapped to each thigh over her leggings and under her short skirt. Keeping weapons within easy reach was a practical decision in a place like Novus Umbra. The knives had seen plenty of use today and needed a good sharpening. As she worked, Ariag sang under her breath. It wasn’t a song she especially liked, just a catchy dance-pop earworm that had gotten stuck in her head earlier. 

Suddenly, the elevator jerked to a stop. The doors opened, revealing the inside of another door. Ariag strapped her knives back on and got to her feet, frowning. She hadn’t been in here nearly long enough to get to the lower levels. What was going on? 

Slinging her backpack over one shoulder, she opened the door slowly and stepped out onto a fire escape overlooking a sidewalk. She clambered down to street level, getting a few odd looks from passerby. She was in one of the lowest levels inhabited by people that weren’t her, the trash dump of a neighborhood known as the Heap. Under the fire escape was a particularly large pile of trash. Ariag squatted down on her haunches and started digging through it. Every other time the elevator had stopped prematurely, she'd gotten out and found something interesting. This time was no exception. After a few minutes of tossing away crushed plastic takeout containers and other bits and bobs, she saw what appeared to be a jointed metal hand poking out of the pile. 

Her tail lashed with excitement. 

“Well look here.” Ariag muttered in delight. “I found a Clinker.” 

Clinker was a derogatory term for a rich person’s android servant. This one didn’t appear too badly broken, Ariag noted as she pushed off a few layers of stinking food scraps to look at the body. She had a fair bit of skill with repairing machines, so she might be able to fix this thing up, or at least dismantle it to sell as parts. The money from a windfall like this meant she wouldn’t have to pick pockets for a couple weeks at least, which meant much less chance of getting arrested. 

With a cheery grin, Ariag waited until nobody was looking too hard, then hauled the robot up into the elevator. Once the doors had shut and they were heading downward again, she took a few minutes to examine her find more closely. The seamless outer plating was covered in geometric decorative grooves. It was made from pale coppery metal of a variety she didn’t recognize, with more give to it than you’d expect from anything that wasn’t alive. It felt almost more like impossibly smooth leather, but the thick coating of gray-green tarnish meant it had to be metal. The face shape and the flat chest told her it was intended to look male. That was odd. Most servant droids were made to look female.

Ariag shrugged. She’d find out more about this thing once she got it home. 

“I’m gonna dig out all your secrets, Mr. Clinker.” She said, wagging a finger at it jokingly. 

Then she laughed at herself. As far as being a street kid could get you, life was pretty good tonight. 

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