The city is a strange place. While there is clearly a path leading into and out of the city, the only path is just a hole in the wall, like an errant truck drove through the layers of steel reinforced concrete.

The signs of this were bars of steel that had simply torn out of the concrete around it, bringing down several rooms worth of space. If anything, it had saved them the construction of the south gate. A curved road was created to join up with the previously planned out road which was positioned a couple of dozen meters away.

Another checkpoint was established at the gate on the outside, but was sparsely attended to. Due to the fact that all trade with other cities was conducted through this gate, however, there were plenty of men guarding the surrounding area, just not the checkpoint. If they did ever look at the checkpoint they’d have to clean it, which after decades of neglect, no one wanted to.

That wasn’t the only oddity though. The next was that although the majority of manpower was concentrated within the slums, they were entirely self sufficient. It was as if the concrete walls hosted the true city while the centers were sufficiently connected with centers from other cities. Yet despite their connection, they despised one another, the differences in culture were slight, but the slightest difference became an issue to declare war over like how many prongs the fork you ate with had.

----

David trudged along the side of a hill in a line along with his team members, second to last amongst other six members. They all stood six feet from each other to prevent a simple explosion from engulfing them at the same time. They walked parallel to the road, watching as the convoys rolled by off in the distance. Their shadows traced their every action like specters waiting to pounce upon them.

A group typically consisted of six men at a minimum, and that’s how it was, except he was assigned at the last moment and shoved in. Placing him near the end of the line was the best way to prevent him from being a disruption, yet he couldn’t be last since he might simply stop walking and let the others walk away without a sound.

They walked as the sun fell to their left and their long shadows formed to the right.

A dormant pile of plastic erupted on the peak of the hill, sending shards everywhere and a fog of a myriad of colors covered everyone. From within the center of this cover came a small explosion. Everything seemed to slow down and clarify itself. All around were small shards of plastic, seeming all pointed at him.

The man that was the cause of this storm stood at the center of the fog, pointing a worn and scratched rifle at the sixth man in the line. A circle defined itself, a bullet, as it traveled towards its target. The source of this, the man, was fully enclosed in black clothing that seemed to suck in all the light. The rest of the men in the line were still facing forwards, but that bullet slowly moved, hiding the black hole from which it came.

Slowly the bullet grew larger and larger until it occupied the entire view.

At the very last second, a shard of black occupied the top half of his vision. Whatever came next was all black as David rolled violently down the hill.

----

The thick pungent smell swept across the room. An utterly revolting smell in a small room with no windows or ventilation. The jar on the table was left open as cloths dipped into it, spreading the smell further as it pervaded under every bed and into each corner of the room. The liquid was then spread over the smooth barrel, exposing the room even further to the smell as it got stronger and denser. The liquid was rubbed deep onto the cool shiny surface as it cleansed off the grime from the almost complete ignition.

The door swung open with a bang, revealing the captain with a scrunched up face standing there.

“What is that smell! It’s horrendous! What are you doing!”

“Ma’am. It’s the thing we clean our rifles with.”

“Well don’t clean it then! What’s up with you all! Do you have anything to do besides cleaning your gun?”

“Yes Maa’m we’ve got some cards.”

“Well get to it!”

The door slammed shut once more.

“Well ain’t that something!”

“My only love is Charlene!” Exclaimed a man as he stroked the barrel of his rifle. “Man what swines you all are!”

“Heh, spoken like a true jarhead. Which hole did you crawl out of?”

“She can’t compete with my Charlotte hehehe” giggled the third. “Don’t lie to us now, what’s your wife’s, wait no I mean rifle’s name?”

“You’re touching your rifles like you ain’t touch them in years, scared to bring mine out for you perverts to see.”

The door banged open once again.

“Are you guys done yet!?”

Staring at the man stroking his rifle she yelled even more.

“What are you doing! Why are you stroking your gun! I expect you to take a shower and change your clothes after you clean up your gun and rags on the table!”

She took in a breath.

“Hurry up! The smell is unbearable!”

The door slammed shut once more.

“Huh? Stroking our guns? Man, who’s doing that here?”

“Heh, our hands are above the table holding onto our rifles. Well who do you think the one holding his gun is?”

“What? I ain’t doing a thing here! That’s discriminatory! Just because I don’t show my rifle to everyone like a trophy wife doesn’t mean I’m a lonely man that pleasures himself!”

“Man what are we gonna do now? Stroke our guns instead of our rifles?”

“Heh you guys wanna do it together?”

“What if she barges in again? That ain’t gonna be fun…”

“Man aren’t we supposed to clean up first? Gotta at least keep up that act.”

“Heh life’s going to change quite a bit now don’t you think?”

“Say, how about we move to the room furthest away from hers?”

“Nah man, ain’t possible. When she checks in on us, no one’s gonna be here.”

“Heh whatever, still gonna be with beautiful here.”

“Man, what a creep, stop stroking your rifle already and clean up.”

“Ah but that’s like only taking half a bath! How could you tempt her with cleanliness but take it away once she’s enjoyed it!”

“Ain’t it possible to just go outside to clean it?”

“You wouldn’t wash a girl outside all naked now would you? Heh, but imagine the thought though.”

“Man, the rifle’s naked whenever you use it… Wait no, that sounds wrong…”

“Heh what’s wrong huh? Ashamed to show your girl in public?”

“Well would you have sex in public?”

“With my rifle? Of course!”

“...”

“...”

----

Condensing a core was an accident. The past liquid, now a slime, abandoned the shell it made and weaved through the rubble in an instant, peering through the edges at the men slowly filling in the hole with plastic. As plastic was shoveled down to fill the crater, the slime finally had a chance to climb up and crawl along the surface in the night.

----

The system of cities is a strange thing. Each city is linked up, but at the same time is not. While each city is deeply interlinked with its surrounding neighbors through trade, they are just equally happy to steal from one another. Of course, this can’t be done so easily from just the sheer number of men hiding in craters and monitoring outposts camouflaged in the surrounding junk.

The roads linking the various cities are all often shelled and left with craters, thus a bulldozer often drove ahead of the convoy along chains attached to its shovels to detonate planted explosives. This often left the roads full of craters which had just been filled in with plastic and through the years, compressed and relayered with plastic often.