Chapter 1: Tourist in Hell

Fed Lang had seen poverty before—curated poverty, the kind they pipe into Spire schools during "Empathy Enhancement" modules. Clean dirt. Artful desperation. Suffering with its serial numbers filed off.

This wasn't that.

The elevator plunged through the Ring's superstructure like a knife through meat, each level darker than the last. His stomach tried to crawl up his throat as they descended past the twilight zones where the Spire's ambient light gave way to the industrial glow of the Hollow. The Executive PR team flanking him looked bored. They'd made this trip before.

"First time in the real world, Junior Executive Lang?" Director Moss asked, her smile sharp enough to shave with. She'd been assigned as his handler for this publicity stunt—sorry, "constituency engagement initiative"—and she wore her contempt like designer perfume.

"First time this deep," Fed admitted, watching through the elevator's transparent walls as they passed a processing plant that belched orange flames. Workers in heat suits swarmed across catwalks like ants on a burning log. "The orientation vids didn't quite capture the... ambiance."

"They never do." Moss tapped her temple, activating her NeuroNet implant. Her eyes went glassy for a moment as she accessed something. "We'll be at Sublevel 47 in three minutes. Remember, you're here to show the Executive Council's commitment to worker welfare. Smile. Wave. Don't touch anything. Don't promise anything. Don't—"

"Don't think too hard?" Fed suggested.

Her smile tightened. "Exactly."

The elevator shuddered to a stop. The doors opened onto a wave of heat, noise, and a smell that punched Fed in the face like a drunk uncle at a wedding. Metal and sweat and something else—desperation, maybe, if desperation had a chemical signature.

Sublevel 47 stretched out before them, a cavern carved from the Ring's inner structure. Massive fusion furnaces lined the walls, their mouths glowing like the eyes of angry gods. Between them, thousands of workers moved in practiced patterns, hauling materials, adjusting controls, feeding the machines that kept the Spires floating in their atmosphere-scraping glory.

"Jesus," Fed breathed.

"Wrong deity," Moss said. "Down here they pray to the Echo."

A reception committee waited for them—plant supervisors in slightly cleaner coveralls, their faces scrubbed raw for the occasion. Fed shook hands, smiled, nodded at the productivity statistics they rattled off. All the while, his eyes drifted to the workers beyond the safety barriers.

They moved wrong. That was the first thing he noticed. Not like people going about their jobs, but like components in a machine, each motion calculated for maximum efficiency. No wasted movements. No casual conversations. Just work.

"The Memory Tithe ensures optimal performance," one supervisor explained, following Fed's gaze. "Monthly donations keep the NeuroNet updated with their motor patterns. We can predict maintenance needs before they arise, prevent accidents before they happen."

"And the workers agree to this?" Fed asked.

The supervisor's smile flickered. "It's part of their contract, Junior Executive. Standard terms."

Standard. Right. Fed had signed plenty of contracts in his twenty-seven years. None of them had included handing over pieces of his mind.

The tour continued—past the rendering vats where recycled proteins were processed into worker rations, through the cooling stations where heat-struck laborers were revived just enough to return to their shifts, around the Memory Tithe extraction center where workers queued with the same enthusiasm most people reserved for dental surgery.

Fed was watching the extraction process—neural crowns flickering as they pulled memories from glassy-eyed workers—when the alarms started.

Not the polite chimes of a Spire emergency. These were Hollow alarms—grinding klaxons that seemed designed to hurt. The workers didn't run. They couldn't. The same neural conditioning that made them efficient made them slow to react to anything outside their programming.

The supervisors, though—they moved fast.

"Riot in Sector 7," Moss announced, her hand going to the pulse pistol at her hip. "Standard suppression protocols in effect."

Through the transparent aluminum barriers, Fed saw them coming. A tide of workers, but these ones moved like humans—angry, chaotic, alive. They carried improvised weapons—cutting torches, maintenance tools, lengths of pipe that glowed cherry-red from the furnaces.

"We should go," Moss said, already herding the PR team toward the elevator.

Fed didn't move. He watched as Executive Security forces deployed from hidden bunkers, their crowd-suppression weapons charging with a whine that made his teeth ache. The rioters kept coming. They had to know what was about to happen.

The security forces fired. Not bullets—something worse. Waves of neural disruption that dropped rioters like God's own delete key. They convulsed, screamed, went still. The ones behind them kept pushing forward, climbing over the bodies of their friends.

"Lang!" Moss grabbed his arm. "Move your ass!"

He let her drag him away, but the image stayed: workers climbing over the fallen, reaching toward something he couldn't see, their faces twisted with a desperation that had nothing to do with better working conditions or higher protein rations.

They wanted their memories back.

The elevator doors closed just as the second wave of security forces arrived. Fed caught a glimpse of them setting up the neural scrubbers—devices that would wipe the last hour from every mind in the sector. Can't have a riot if nobody remembers why they were angry.

"Unfortunate timing," Moss said as they rocketed back toward the Spires. "But you see why the Memory Tithe is necessary. Without it, they'd tear each other apart."

Fed nodded, not trusting his voice. He thought about the workers climbing over bodies, the extraction center's queues, the perfect mechanical movements of the laborers. He thought about his father, Executive Council Member Hadrian Lang, signing off on expansion of the Tithe program last quarter.

He thought about a lot of things.

When they reached the Spires, Fed excused himself from the debrief. He had reports to file, hands to shake, lies to tell. But first, he needed a drink. Maybe several.

He made it three blocks from the Executive Tower before deciding he needed something stronger than alcohol. He needed to understand what he'd just seen. The orientation vids, the Empathy Enhancement modules, even his father's carefully sanitized explanations—none of it had prepared him for the reality of the Hollow.

Fed turned away from the transit station that would take him home. His security detail would notice soon, raise alarms, scramble to find the Executive's wayward son. But for now, he had a head start.

He pulled up his NeuroNet interface, searching for public elevators with maintenance access to the lower levels. If the riot had been suppressed, security would be focused on Sector 7. Other areas might be less watched.

Might be a terrible idea. Probably was. But Fed had spent twenty-seven years being smart, and all it had gotten him was a front-row seat to someone else's hell.

Time to try something stupid.

The maintenance elevator was older, slower, and smelled like someone had died in it recently. Fed liked it better than the executive transport. At least it was honest about what it was.

He descended back into the Hollow, this time without handlers or guards or comfortable lies. Just him and the growing certainty that everything he'd believed about his world was wrong.

The elevator groaned to a stop at Sublevel 43. The doors opened onto industrial twilight and the distant sound of machinery that never stopped. Fed stepped out, letting the doors close behind him.

Somewhere down here, people were trying to remember who they were.

Maybe it was time he did the same.