Brooklyn had always been an ultra-cosmopolitan neighborhood, but after the Great Wave, this particular attribute had skyrocketed.
Brooklyn was now a veritable sampler of the old world. Arica's renown as a lting pot was concentrated a hundred tis in New York, and that concentration was at its absolute strongest in Brooklyn.
There was, unsurprisingly, a very dark streak to that reputation. Brooklyn had beco the black market hub for the entire East Coast, a place where you could find absolutely anything you wanted, provided you had the funds to back it up—drugs, counterfeit currency, forgery services, human organs... and even humans themselves, for whatever purpose you might require.
The very worst corruption and perversion of human nature were on full display in Brooklyn, made worse by what had beco a blurry line between legality and illicit horror by the year 2036.
When Alexandre's cab drew close to his destination, Alexandre didn't see so grim concrete jungle, but what appeared to be a pristine, upper-class neighborhood almost indistinguishable from Soho or the Upper East Side. The streets were clean, filled with well-dressed people and teeming with businesses of every kind. On the surface, this neighborhood seed like a remnant of the old world, a place where people could pretend nothing at all was wrong.
But as in nature, a beautiful surface often hid a sinister interior. Alexandre wasn't interested in these pretty buildings and people of the surface. No, he was concerned with what lay beneath the skin of the city, in a very literal way. "Take to the Clark Street station," he said, "and wait for to return."
The cabbie wasn't terribly happy to hear that. "This isn't what I signed up for," he grumbled. "Every second I sit outside one of those portals to hell is another chance for one of those demons to rip off!"
Alexandre rolled his eyes and deposited an even fatter tip than before in the car's fare account, which was emblazoned in several places inside the cab in the form of a QR code. "Just do it," he said.
Indeed, what interested Alexandre was not on the surface but underground. Shortly later, Alexandre's taxi pulled up in front of Clark Street station and let him out.
Alexandre descended the 24 ters to the platform, but rather than wait for the train, he turned and walked down an dark, unassuming tunnel that was simply labeled "Underground." The tunnel soon terminated in a wooden double door engraved with two skulls and a crown. It was strangely out of place, more what soone might expect from a pirate movie than real life.
Alexandre wasn't the first one there, either. A small line had ford in front of the door, and every minute on the dot, the person at the front of the line was permitted to enter. The people waiting were surprisingly varied—a man wearing a suit and a Rolex stood impatiently behind a young woman who looked like a college student, and in front of her was a bum covered in ragged clothing.
The Underground attracted all sorts of people, from the richest to the poorest. The only thing that was certain was that the custors were absolutely not in charge. No matter how rich, famous, or connected you were, nobody got away with disrespecting those who ran the Underground from the shadows.
Alexandre didn't know exactly which cartel was in charge, but he knew better than to cause trouble. On a previous visit, he'd seen a drunk man aggressively attempting to pick up a young woman, and the consequences had been swift. Two n who'd been pretending to be custors moved like ghosts and grabbed him by each arm, dragging him kicking and screaming into a nearby room.
A few hours later, the man's body had appeared in a nearby Dumpster.
The man had, before his death, been a millionaire.
Eventually, Alexandre reached the front of the line. A minute later, a whistling noise sounded, indicating that he could enter. Alexandre opened the two double doors, which moved surprisingly smoothly on well-oiled hinges.
On the other side of the doorway was a man standing at sothing very much like a hotel reception desk. A maroon carpet led past the desk and to an elevator with golden doors that were, currently, firmly closed.
"Floor and section?" the receptionist asked in a rich, deep voice.
"Basent floor three," said Alexandre, "and Zone 38."
The receptionist nodded and slid forward a card reader. "$4,500, if you please."
Alexandre inserted his thumb. The machine scanned it, then displayed a ssage reading "paynt accepted." At that exact mont, the elevator doors opened with a quiet hiss.
The receptionist gave a polite smile. "Lift access to Zone 38 is, unfortunately, currently undergoing maintenance. You'll need to walk through B3 to get there."
Alexandre nodded and stepped into the elevator. The mont the golden doors were closed, the sound of a whistle ca from the other side. Whoever controlled the Underground, they certainly didn't keep their custors waiting.
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