Chapter 17: The Mid-Hive Meat Grinder
The next morning, Lieutenant Rudolphson informed Kian that he had duties on the perimeter. He instructed Kian to find a sentry named Joel at the camp gates, who would facilitate his passage to the Grand Lift.
Kian grunted a response, busy roasting four tubers on the electric heater for breakfast.
PDF discipline really is a joke, Kian thought. Rudolphson lets a civilian stay in the command tent just because I brought him some shiny tin tags. If I were a rebel saboteur, his head would be on a pike by now.
After finishing the potatoes, Kian naturally unplugged the electric heater and stuffed it into his backpack. It was a tight fit, making the pack bulge, but in the "Extraction" mindset, if it wasn't bolted to the floor, it was loot.
He stepped out of the tent and spotted a young PDF regular leaning against a sandbag wall.
"You Joel?" Kian asked.
The young soldier snapped to attention, his lasgun clattering against his flak vest. "Yes, sir! Ready for escort duty, sir!"
Kian waved him down. "I'm not an officer, kid."
Joel, clearly a "green" neophyte, scratched his helmet in confusion. In his world, anyone walking out of the Company Commander's tent with a belly full of food was someone to be feared or respected.
Kian didn't bother explaining further. "Rudolphson spoke to you?"
"Yes, sir. I'm to ensure your passage into the Hive-Proper."
Joel led the way to a mag-rail station at the edge of the camp. Kian followed, hopping onto a transport filled with wounded soldiers and shell-shocked laborers. As the train accelerated toward the Hive City, Kian looked out the window.
The Hive was a mountain of steel that pierced the heavens, a colossal monument to human industrial might. No matter how many times he saw it, the scale was staggering. The Imperium could build structures fifty kilometers high, yet it couldn't stop a few heretics from hiding in the basement.
Ten minutes later, the train hissed to a halt. They had reached the Mid-Hive Transit Hub.
Accessing this area required passing through a Gene-Gate. For the citizens, it was a seamless process. For Kian, the gate immediately flashed a violent crimson and emitted a piercing shrieking sound. Two Enforcers in heavy carapace armor, brandishing electrified mauls, began to move in.
Joel stepped forward, flashing his PDF credentials and a digital bypass key Rudolphson had given him. "Auxiliary contractor on military business," Joel barked. The Enforcers grunted and stepped back, allowing them through.
Kian looked around the Mid-Hive and felt a pang of disappointment. He'd expected neon lights, high-tech shops, and maybe a few green trees. Instead, it was a landscape of drab, grey ceramite. The air was cleaner than the Sump, but the people—mostly factory clerks and overseers—looked like walking ghosts.
"Joel," Kian said, scanning the industrial skyline. "You live up here?"
Joel nodded. "In the Military Quarter. Families of PDF regulars get a standardized housing block. Praise the Governor for his mercy."
"Can you actually afford to live here?"
Joel's expression clouded with anxiety. "My pay is 1,000 Agri-Scrips a month. My father works in the Alchem-refinery for 2,100. My mother does piece-work weaving for another 120. There's four of us, including my little brother."
He sighed. "Between food, air-taxes, and the Tithe-levy, we spend 2,500 a month. We save maybe 200... but my brother is almost of age. We're saving every scrip for his 'Primary Education Fee' so he can get a job at the refinery. If he doesn't get in, he'll be sent to the Labor Corps."
Kian let out a sharp breath. The Grimdark Reality.
To a farmer in the dirt, the Mid-Hive was paradise. To those living in it, it was a high-pressure trap. One injury, one tax hike, or one failed exam, and the whole family was stripped of their citizen-cogs and hurled into the Underhive. That was why the Sump was so crowded—it was the graveyard of the middle class.
They walked for twenty minutes toward the Grand Lift. Along the way, Kian spotted a shop with a peculiar sign: Two red serpents entwined around a crimson cross.
"What's that place?" Kian asked.
"That? That's the Order of the Twin Serpents," Joel said, his voice dropping an octave. "They're a medical guild. They say the Twin-Serpent doctors can cure anything from a stubber-wound to a warp-fever. You can buy any drug or medical tool in existence there."
He looked away, his eyes bitter. "But the prices... they're for the Spire-Lords. A single vial of their medicine costs more than my father earns in a year."
Kian's gaze lingered on the sign. He needed one last piece for his Level 2 Medicae Station: a Centrifugal Sedimentation Matrix (a high-end mixing machine).
If that shop is as high-end as Joel says, Kian thought, they've got exactly what I need. I just need to figure out how to 'acquire' it without having a hundred Enforcers hunt me down.
"The Lift is here, sir," Joel interrupted.
They had reached the Grand Sump-Lift. It was a massive industrial platform, currently surrounded by a crowd of over a thousand people. Some were laborers heading to the Sump for work, but most were the "Dispossessed."
Kian watched as a family—father, mother, and two children—were herded onto the platform in plasteel shackles. They were weeping, begging the Enforcers for mercy, claiming they only needed one more week to pay their arrears. The Enforcers responded with the crack of electric batons.
Every thousand debtors were packed like grox into the lift and sent down to the darkness.
"Praise the Emperor," Kian muttered sarcastically.
He took two roasted potatoes from his bag and pressed them into Joel's hand. "Thanks for the walk, kid. Go home and eat. Don't get shot."
With a wave, Kian stepped onto the descending platform, disappearing into the cold, industrial shadows of the Underhive.