'TUNNEL-VISION V'

  It took a couple of hours but we finally got fully downhill the pipeline. This led us to an open area which had an uncomfortable amount of valves and pipes interconnectin' to three pumps of the left and right wall.

  All of which abruptly ended before a large entrance gate. Which had a make covered by a reinforcement of pipes covering the entire surface. Two the left there were clear viewports which could be opened and on the right was a converted door rust-bucket camera.

  The air was particularly hot this far down, but considering I've been told that most dens are passably conditioned and insulated, this is most definitely just another defence mechanism on top of everythin' else down this shit hole.

  The wagon was only slightly banged up after all of this crap, and after some quick inspection; nothing valuable was lost. Well, materially at least, mentally a lot was lost. Wait, did I ever get that charge gun back? No, I didn't. Shit.

  Regardless, we were all quite fuckin' tired of this whole ordeal, nearly 13 hours of no sleep will do that to you. The scrapper was not in that condition and so strolled leisurely to the door.

  The scrapper stretched his neck from left to right, clearly preparing for some sort of confrontational welcoming. He proceeded to knock several times extremely loudly.

  "Hey, hey, hey! Open up I got some folks to let in!" He gruffly shouted

  The door was thick enough that nothing could be heard from the other side, just leaving an eerie silence after his voice bounced off every surface possible.

  In response to the silence he began impatiently tapping his foot against the metal flooring, which cause some nearby pipes to tilt slightly in rhythm to his boot.

  "Does it usually take this long?" Oscar abruptly asked,

  "Nah, they expect me to be dead often enough. Sometimes they just don't answer so ye' gotta' camp outside till someone leaves." He joyfully explained.

  Not something that I'd be even remotely happy about, but to each their own.

  Luckily for us, only a few seconds after his comment the converted rust-bucket camera sprung to life, swivelling off it's base to stare at us for the foreseeable future.

  "State your- Oh, you're still alive, unfortunately typical." The camera disdainfully said,

  "Told ye'." The scrapper commented, looking back at us before turning his attention back to the camera,

  The camera looked about, before finally focusing in on us, and I waited in sheer anticipation to hear what this person had to say.

  "Who the fuck is this ugly lot?" The camera asked,

  "Alright, fuck you too." I instinctively reply,

  "Just some folks planinn' to do some business Jazz, nothin' not too atypical." The scrapper briefly explained overtop of me,

  There was a clear building of frustration, even though nothing was spoken, and there was none to really witness. It felt like the whole area began to get hotter, or I'm getting heatstroke, either or.

  "What sort of ploy are you pulling now, scrapper?" The camera interrogatively questioned,

  "None, as far as I know." The scrapper boldly replied,

  "Really? How about you lot beat it and go die elsewhe-" The camera began, but was cut off by a sudden influx of static conversation.

  "You complain 'bout manpower, and now you're screeching at folks to piss off? Some leader you'd be Jazz!" An irritatingly deep voice interrupted through the camera,

  What followed was incoherent static, which lead into a much needed moment of silent as the camera seemed to power down for a moment.

  "Like I said, it's best to get this sorta context organically. Ye' kno'?" The scrapper offhandedly commented,

  "Yeah, I see what was meant by 'leadership struggles'. Looks like two dickheads playin' tug'o'war." I state,

  The camera popped up again with newfound energy, and darted around in a much less suspicious fashion toward us. Before flinging backward to the point it almost smacked the gate.

  "Howdy, welcome back scrapper, and I see you brought back some friends!" The camera gleefully commented in an oddly familiar voice,

  "Aye Cherry, mind lettin' us through before one of those two asshats either lecture me or insult me for an extended period of my day." The scrapper politely asked,

  "Yup, yup! No issues there scrappy. Oh, but what do we have here? A handful of podlings and what's lookin' like a lost collector. Well then!" The camera erratically said,

  The camera then abruptly lost power again, and multiple loud crashing noises were heard from the gate, which I assume is the gate unlockin'.

  The gate swung open to quite a sudden flash of lights, and fuckin' thankfully cold air.

  "Welcome to Pipetown!" A familiar face gleefully announced,

  The scrapper instantaneously walked past the woman in an indignant fashion, and I was left staring at her for a moment. I've certainly seen her before.

  "Hurry the introductions, while those assholes are still squabblin'. Follow us once you're done, it'll probably take that long to move this thing across." The scrapper lazily commented,

  The scrapper waved the three podlings along with the wagon. I nodded to them to comply and they moved along with haste, leaving only me and this extremely friendly woman.

  "Who are you?" I asked,

  "Just an ol' bud sweetheart, hope ye' can understand, but you wouldn't remember me." She admitted with a wink,

  "Were you one of Sami's friends?" I ignorantly questioned,

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  "Yup yup, now do ye' business, we can talk later on! Besides, you don't want to be in the fallout of Jazz and Thomas." She hurriedly said,

  I looked at her fairly confused, and I didn't have much time to digest anything around me for a good moment with all the lights around. It's hard to adjust from staring in the dark for a long time.

  "Trust me, they'll forget you're here very quickly." She playfully whispered, she then hurried me along by putting her arm over my shoulder,

  She pushed me along to follow the scrapper. I look back to her waving, her hands were wrapped in leather, but they moved mechanically enough to give away her profession.

  Pipetown is certainly a strange place, it's original purpose makes no sense to me. I just don't know.

  But, in the centre is a massive pipe which stretches up from top to bottom of the entire area, with multiple medium sized pipes segmentin' the ground which lead and connect to this massive pipe. The entire building is vast and tall enough to force you to stretch your neck to see the roof.

  There are three floors, which are interconnected by bridges which skirt just around the central massive pipe, and accessible by staircases and elevators. The ground floor has multiple stands, cornered off areas, and doors which lead into abandoned rooms.

  The first floor seems to be the housing level, it has multiple clothes hanging off the railings, with clear individual developments to each of the rooms. In total, I see around 30 rooms going around the entire building, a pattern which repeats to the next two floors.

  The second floor was strangely sterile, lacking any sort of personality or seemingly any purpose, the only particularly catching feature were the more advanced ventilation systems which went around to each room. So supposedly, it seems to be the reason this place has breathable air.

  The third floor was quite reinforced, along with the roof itself, which immediately makes me assume it's some sort of armoury or storage area. It's fairly common in dens to have a dedicated area which is heavily secure, sorta like a bank for the 'community'.

  It's too bad most are less used for security and more for holdin' valuables ransom.

  On the first floor there were two pairs of people who were talkin' up a storm, along with a dude who seemed to be chewing on some typa' chemical concoction; seemed like a habit around here.

  We drag the wagon over one of the floor pipes, which had a convenient set of ramps to make transport easier over them, so at least someone had a conscience in this place.

  "Where are we headin' to?" I ask the scrapper,

  "I got a room we can head into down 'ere." He bluntly replied, and then pointed to a door riddled with scratches.

  Looked almost like a person tried to get in from the outside. I'm not familiar with this places history, but it does have a strange air about it, though homely if that makes sense.

  "What's with the scratches?" I decidedly asked,

  "Beats me. But, you can assume some little quirks 'bout this place." He mused,

  The scrapper looks over at one of the vacant stands, which at closer inspection, most of the stands seemed to be empty; besides one.

  "These small folks can take your crap into that stand, it'll probably be fine, I've only gotten somethin' nicked from me four or five times." He suggested,

  "Alright go on, and try not to break anythin', kill yourselves, or steal anythin'. Got it?" I lazily ordered,

  The three little shits nodded and dragged the wagon along in a mix of glee and excitement, which means they probably plan to do the complete opposite of what I just told them.

  The scrapper punched a combination into the door and it instantly opened up.

  The room was a collection of scattered boxes, all of which were heavily armoured and clearly locked. I've seen a collector use these sort of boxes to store the more volatile of their equipment before, which isn't too typical for a scrapper if you as me.

  In the right corner of the room was an attached table which sat exactly opposite to a hole in the wall which seemed to function as some sort of bed. The walls of the room were kept extremely pristine, but there was dust and dirt building between the corners and panel separations.

  There were three lights in the room, one above the door, one on the ceiling, and one which sat just above the bed-hole. The one above the door was clearly broken- looks to have been shot at- the one on the ceiling was extremely dim, and the one above the bed was flickering.

  There was a box at the centre of the room which seemed to make a substitute table, as nearby there was a chair and on its lid was a lamp and some sorta strange display device. I stare at it for a few seconds as we walk in, I feel like I've seen something like it, but I can't put my finger on it.

  The scrapper lazily walked in and sat upon the chair in front of the box.

  "Come on, make yer'self comfortable, girly; It ain't much of a room but it does its job." The scrapper commented,

  "The fuck is that thing?" I immediately ask, pointing at the gadget on his temporary table,

  "Oh, just an old gift from a friend of mine, it annoys me a lot so I took its battery out. It's some sorta encyclopaedia for a rust-bucket, too bad it prefers garglin' over givin' info." He briefly explained,

  A handheld rust-bucket that works? Those things are rarer to find than a working uranium battery, how the fuck did a random scrapper give another random scrapper something like that?

  "How much for it?" I greedily ask, moving over a wobbly stool from nearby the door to sit on opposite to the scrapper,

  "Nothin'." He simply replied,

  I guess that's his way of saying 'not for sale', sentimental prick.

  "So then, what's this situation that needs so much privacy?" I decidedly question,

  The scrapper groans, before getting up and throwing off his pack, then pulled out some water from it. His pack seemed shockingly light, as if he hadn't even tried to pick up any scrap.

  "It's a damn shame the main mechanic kicked the bucket, 'specially so early in my time 'ere, so now I'm stuck in the middle of two sides of 15 babblin' at each-other." He instantaneously complained,

  He rubbed his hand against his goggles as if to compose himself, and I had little understanding to reply with. In the space he drank his water with a strange urgency.

  "Jazz and Thomas, the two fucks, they've been spittin' at each other for what feels like a decade over who really leads this shithole. Pipetown was a den of over 150 people, now it's barely 60, most of which are from subsidiary trade. When they're gone it'll be barely 30." He rambled,

  Pipetown used to have 150 people? I understand people can circulate but that is a lot of damn people, especially for the outskirts- talk about a fall from grace.

  "Those were the two at the gate if I recall? But, I don't see the problem, one will win business as usual, no?" I logically presume,

  "Nah, there's a fuckin' ton of problems on top of that as well. Besides for myself, all the other scrappers are MI fuckin' A. I'm the only one bringin' in shit, on top of that both believe I want the other to have this, fuckin' dumbass leadership- I don't fuckin' care." He erratically proclaimed,

  He let himself breathe for a second, which I happily allowed, because he was clearly getting withdrawal from whatever he's been shoving down his lungs.

  "My mistake. I got better things to worry 'bout." He breathily admitted, rubbing against his chest with the water capsule,

  "You're the only scrapper? What the hell happened to the others? A den of 150 people should have up to 20 scrappers." I sympathetically say,

  "I am. I don't know. Probably. But, once the slips are down, once the scrap starts chokin' both Jazz and Thomas, all it takes is one takin' the low road and this den comes crashin' down." He bluntly answered,

  "Wouldn't it be best if they just fuckin' worked together?" I suggested,

  He chuckled at my admittedly na?ve suggestion, but appearances are everything I suppose.

  "Jazz and Thomas have hated each other since I've gotten 'ere. Both of 'em are incompetent, ignorant, fuckers. Thomas is a collector and Jazz is a mechanist, I'd be happier if they were both dead." He gruffly explained,

  He looked to the dimming ceiling light for a few moments, before he decided to take in a huff of the strange chemical he had strapped to his side.

  "It's strange y'know, dens are all about courtesy and principle, rules to be followed. But, for some reason the lawless, ravenous, and those who lack all the above seem to always come out on top in dens. Makes you wonder how they're created." He lazily mused,

  "What are you tryin' to say exactly?" I asked, I was already fairly confused,

  "I just need someone neutral to sell too, girly, so I don't have to deal with either of 'em. Less headache for me, business for you. Call it a partnership if you want, just try not to talk to anyone, don't make me regret not killin' you." He humorously commented,

  "Well what can I say, I am a woman of principle I'd say, as are you no doubt. Since you didn't kill me, right?" I mused, matching his tone,

  "Trust me girly, if either of us were, we wouldn't be alive." He stated, in an almost eerie tone,

  It had me wondering if he was being sarcastic or not, but before I could figure it out,

  "You'll be just fine round here, girly." He reassured,

  Could I trust this man? Nah, probably not.