Whoever had the bright idea to call this place New Hope, Kaito thought, should be shot.
It wasn't the flickering lights that served more to heighten shadows than to illuminate, the mold and damp, or the horrible caustic dust from the constant collapse that required round-the-clock hazard suits. It was the fact that Rin's cough could be heard from inside her muffling suit and that Kaito had once caught Len catching and eating moths, even though they tasted of the bitter tang of defeat.
Time blended into an amorphous mass, flickering night and flickering day, monotony only broken by the passage of a bizarre creature of wires and metal every so often. No one knew where they'd come from, and if they were lucky, they'd only be ignored. Defying physics, the shadowed outlines of fish floated past in a somnolent migration, and the pipes teemed with tiny birds, tainting the water with rust. Some spoke of hunting the creatures for much-needed metal, but like everything else, they were crushed with weight of despair. It was hard enough to stay alive by scraping the moss and mold crust. No one needed excitement.
Three walked through a forest of rusting pipes. Kaito was escorting his adopted twins to today's Task. Garbage picking, hooray. Not even rats scurried underfoot, for who would permit such a delicacy to escape? They walked in their own silence, the noise of their footsteps eaten by the darkness. Another sound was approaching, a whooshing, creaking rattle, what would have been a clear warning if the suits permitted any holes. They only had enough notice for Rin and Len to turn around to see huge rusted claws swoop them into the air.
Damn, they've never attacked so close to the town before, swore Kaito, but it was too late. He only let himself run after the dimming yellow (a cheerful color for the kids!) for a second before stopping, not even reaching after them in a futile gesture. Those mechanical birds built nests up high in the pipes and took things, children, machines, whatever was most precious, for some unknown purpose. They reigned inscrutable. Nothing that had been snatched had ever been recovered.
A moth flew by, attracted by the luminescent chemical glowstick, and Kaito crushed it out of spite.
Screw this.
Kaito turned around and strode purposefully to the core of the city. Around him, citizens of the city underground gave way to the one in Engineer's blue, thinking him to have some important purpose to be in such a hurry. Perhaps he would reconnect one of the Sky Pipes and bring in fresh, sweet water. No, that's a drunkard's pipe dream, he's obviously going to take a look at these damned lights that are giving me a headache. Wait, he's probably gonna fix the ...
Kaito ignored the gossip following him and furtively went to the largest structure in the center of the city. To the uninitiated, it would probably look like an especially large warehouse, yet no mere wall would open as Kaito laid his hand upon it. Inside, the floor opened into a staircase that spiraled down, down, into the bowels of the earth. There, like a ruby encased in coal, lay Her.
She was the hub of the city. Through some process in the past, long forgotten, She had become the controlling brain, directing the labyrinthine processes required even for a crumbling city to survive. She brought the water and stirred the air. She chose which among them would live or die. Those who knew of Her worshiped Her. For Her own safety, She was buried deep where none of the plebeians could despoil Her beauty, surrounded by metal struts, warm gem set in cold steel.
At Her divine beauty, Kaito marveled. In a world where everyone concealed themselves in bulky, protective shields, She was the only one exposed, the Protector unprotected. Every so often, when the monotony of dim days and duller nights ate away at his sanity, he would seek solace in Her company. He imagined that She could hear his ramblings, and perhaps worked harder to answer the prayers of Her supplicant. Fool's talk, but it kept him going. If he didn't know better, he'd swear he'd fallen in love with Her. Kaito removed his hood, pollution be damned, so that he might see Her directly. He brushed the dust from Her divine face.
Suddenly, She was bathed in a crimson glow as alarms rang. Idiot! He'd forgotten to deactivate the alarms! The thin lasers pierced the eternal night, unfurling into the darkness. Kaito started backwards, then lost his footing on the thin metal ledge.
A last, desperate reach upwards.
As he tumbled into the inky depths, his final thought was that his angel had the wings of a moth.