The large tiered city sat at the edge of a dusty plain, sitting on the shore of a massive ocean, where it had always been for the last four hundred years. Not much had changed in four hundred years as technological advances slowed to a crawl in what was once the most prosperous and advanced city on the planet. A large steel ring surrounded the edge of the city, laced with small domes of iron placed evenly around it.
The city streets were awake with noise and people, men and women rushed from one place to another carrying boxes, briefcases, books, and leather school bags. Small boys sold newspapers on street corners and a few stray dogs hid in the alleys. Hissing automobiles rolled by on tracks set into the cobble streets.
A level up into the next section of the city merchants sold their wares, selling leathers and furs, metals and gears, cloth and silk, precious stones and ores, almost anything could be found in the market. Above the stalls and buildings hung airships, crowding the sky in a ring around the tier, balloons of various colors marking where they had originated, red, blue, green, grey, white.
Up to the final level of the city lawmakers hid inside and bickered. Some hired assassins to get rid of their competitors, some bribed the masses for votes, others outright lied that change would come for the city but that wasn’t any change from the last twenty years. The governors home and office sat in the center of the city like a massive silver tumor, a dome of silver emblazoned with the seal of Redborough, a laurel and gear, crossed by a sword and wrench. Over the last three years of the governors reign he had single handedly removed what he believed to be every “anarchy inspiring text” from the city.
He had good reason for this of course, the city had seen its fair share of anarchy, the citizens were constantly restless with their outlook on the world dimming each day. During the last century the massive cities of the world had obliterated most of the planet into a barren waste and things were only getting worse. Wars broke out between cities, they sent armies to invade their enemies, battles broke out in the barrens, the armies dug in and made vast networks of trenches. Those trenches would only serve as graves for the armies as the battles continued for years. Eventually the trenches would be abandoned, slowly decaying into spiderwebs of wood and steel buried in dust.
Redborough had been invaded twice within the last century and the governor planned to prevent that from ever happening again. Below the city in a place the citizens called the Guts gears ground and steam hissed as engineers swung from pipe to pipe by grapple. The Guts descended below the city as far as they could go without ruining the pipes. The Guts had been there since the city made its first leap forward in technology, providing heat, electric light, plumbing, and waste disposal for the city above.
Many could say the Guts were as much alive as the city was above, populated by men and women who spent most of their days maintaining the massive conglomerate of pipes and pumps. Below the city was just as loud, if not louder, than the streets above. Constantly awake with the hissing of steam and squealing of metal, the clicking of ratchets and the songs of the engineers deep below.
Each engineer had a specific job, whether it was fixing one specific pipeline or working with others to install a new one. Lately though many of them had been assigned one task by the Foreign Defense Department, the construction of a massive wall and the automation of turrets. The task had taken many years to complete and the engineers always hit snags, leaking pipes, someone falling to their death, gears stripping.
Above ground a loudspeaker crackled to life, “Attention citizens, this is a simple test of the Wall, there is no need to panic.”
A low rumble filled the streets and the ring around the city rose up with a hiss. Out in the harbor turrets emerged from the water, training on incoming ships. More turrets rose up on the wall, aimed outside the city. People watched in awe as the wall closed off the city from everything except air travel. Engineers climbed up from hatches in the streets and smiled at their work. A cheer went up, hats were thrown into the air, people hugged and kissed their loved ones. As the city seemed to be given a new life.
The cheering slowly quieted, people laughed and returned to their business. Life went back to normal for the citizens. Redborough was once again a city to be reckoned with.