"We can't take the elevators," Mittens explained as they navigated a maze of steam pipes behind the basement walls. "They have scent scanners. If you don't smell like 'Subservient Human #42,' the doors turn into walls."
"So how do we go up?" Noah asked. The air here was hot and smelled of ozone and burning hair.
"We take the Spine," Mittens said, pointing a claw at a massive, rusted ventilation shaft that rose vertically into the darkness.
"The Spine?"
"The Service Spine. It's the guts of the city. It's where the heat, the water, and the... waste... travel. It runs all the way to the top."
Noah approached the shaft. It was vibrating. A low, mechanical thrum echoed from inside, like the purr of a mechanical god.
"It looks dangerous," Noah noted.
"It is," Mittens agreed. "There are fans that can slice you in half. There are heat pockets that can cook you. And there are... things... that live in the walls. Things that the city forgot."
Noah strapped the Ark model to his back using a strip of fabric he tore from his jumpsuit. He put the bow in his safest pocket, right next to the stone.
"Lead the way," Noah said.
Mittens leaped onto a bundle of cables and scrambled up to a grate. He pried it open. "Ladies first."
Noah climbed up. The metal was hot against his hands. As he squeezed into the shaft, he felt the weight of the entire city pressing down on him. This wasn't the colorful, playful Catsopolis of the surface. This was the dirty, industrial reality that kept the illusion alive.
Just like a hospital, Noah thought, a stray memory hitting him. Bright and clean in the rooms, but the basement is full of incinerators and biohazards.
He shook the thought away. "Up," he whispered. "Just go up."