Harvel Gillis stared at the bottom of Lindons bunk, counting the spots of rust that were working their way through the thin sheet steel. Everything rusted down here. He suspected it had something to do with the air, and the millions of gallons of raw sewage flowing around them as they slept.

Even the hinges of his glasses were starting to rust. He gave up on the spots for now. They'd have to wait until he could get some sort of chart going.

He turned his head to stare out of one of the numerous tiny portholes that dotted the sides of the submerged pod. He didn't know why he bothered. All you could ever see was a mixture of brown and green, with maybe a dash of yellow here and there. He'd have to chalk it up to boredom, with maybe a hint of escapism.

He often imagined he was on board one of the many capital ships that lazily floated above the massive city of Boris-Valka. He'd never been aboard an airship of any kind so he wasn't quite sure what he'd be looking at. The important bit was that he wouldn't be three miles away from the stars in a ten by fifteen metal box.

As on many occasions his imagination stopped there, a crumpled diaper bumping up against the plexiglass, throwing him back into sober reality. He shot a glance at Dibbuk sleeping in her oversized steel cot. She was listening to rain sounds so loudly that he could actually make out each time the simulated thunder broke out.

He could never understand how she could sleep that much. Somehow, he could spend fourteen hours slogging through shit, and still only catch five hours or so of real sleep. Bukky on the other hand, could get 8 hours of solid rest, wake up for 20 minutes and like clockwork get in another 8, no problem.

He was nearly as green as the sewage around them with envy. Nearly being the operative word here. He couldn't imagine anything quite that green.

If sleep were a commodity, Dibbuk would have been a millionaire. Meanwhile Harvel was nearly bankrupt. He often justified said poverty by blaming it on the quality of the air. By the time it was pumped down from the surface it was nearly as greasy and thick as good soup. He liked to imagine it would be served as a bisque, or maybe a chowder.

Truth be told, he was shit at the whole sleeping thing to begin with. He had started having the horrifying nightmares when he was about seven. Once he'd started getting used to them, he'd never quite gone back to normal.

They weren't the clearest nightmares. Mostly shifting lights and glimpses of unfamiliar flesh. If he got far enough into them, he would occasionally see a great monolith made up of some substance he couldn't quite place. Honestly, they had stopped terrifying him years ago. Now, he just got annoyed whenever he sweat through his sheets.

He shifted his gaze over to the trio in the corner. He watched as Lindon, Merel, and Wicksomme passed around a bottle of Bullrutters Thiskey, a type of thickened whiskey primarily drank by waste-walkers. He'd never been much of a fan himself. It reminded him of the cough syrup his dad made him take when he was a kid. In a rather odd turn of events, he'd heard that it was popular among the wealthy elite of central, as a sort of novelty. He couldn't quite put his finger on it but something about that bothered him a little.

A little too late, he realized he'd been staring for just a bit too long. He turned over and tried to make himself comfortable. They must have realized it too as he felt a slight nudge on the back of his shoulder. He turned over again to see Lindon holding out the bottle as an offer for him to take a drink himself.

"Figured you might want a swig of the old bullfuckers Harv." Don Lindon said, jovially unscrewing the top of the bottle.

Don Lindon was a stocky, older man with a short gray beard, stained yellow around his mouth from decades of chain smoking. Harvel suspected he might have been in his late fifties, but with the stress of this job he could've easily been in his early forties. He had a face like an aging alcoholic horse, with the personality of a negligent landlord.

Harvel palmed the little glass container and turned it over to read the paper label. He could just make out the word 'Bulfuchers' with little umlauts above both u's. Somebody had wanted to sound fancy.

'Oh, what the hell.' He thought as he tipped a bit of the syrup into his mouth. It tasted like cinnamon mixed with vinegar and burned like battery acid. Suppressing a wretch, he quickly transferred the concoction away from his tongue and down his throat. That was a mistake.

It moved like molasses, leaving a trail of anus withering fire all the way down his esophagus. He tried to sit up in case he felt it come back up, but before he could finish that thought, he slammed his head into Lindon's bunk. Lindon reflexively snatched the bottle before he could spill any of his precious Bulfuchers. He began chuckling maniacally as he watched Harvel sputter and cough.

"Christ, Don... Where do you... get this shit?" Harvel asked between coughs and labored breaths. Without a missed beat, Don gave him a rather forceful slap to the chest and continued chuckling.

"Oh, you know me Harvey! I've always got a guy." He said after a bit of his mirth had subsided.

'And he always does somehow.' Harvel thought, watching the man take a few large swigs of the foul Bulfuchers. Rumor was that Don had been kicked out of every bar and home brewery from the wall to Central, but he always had a bottle on him somewhere.

After he'd managed to locate the air his torso had misplaced Harvel asked, "Who even sells shit like that Don? Mahone himself?"

Don raised an eyebrow. "Oh, I wouldn't drink anything sold by that bastard. It's only Doc Parsons for me eh!" He bellowed, knocking back a few more shots worth of the bastardized whiskey.

Harvel had to assume he meant water as well. He'd never seen Don actually touch any that wasn't piss yellow and running around his boots. He was pretty sure Don would actually drink anything besides water. It was to the point where Harvel had started to wonder if he was internally hydrophobic.

Don rolled his chair the measly six feet back over to the two sitting in the corner. Merel gave Don his own customary punch in the chest. "Don't go getting our seeing eye dog sick on that shit. You okay there Harvey?" She asked, still giving Don a sour look while he rubbed his chest seemingly crestfallen.

"Yeah, no problems here Mary." Harvel replied, still letting out a few coughs.

"Good." She stated, her eyes never leaving Don.

Philmina Merel could have been referred to as the squads mother. An older woman in her late fourties, she was the senior engineer on the team. She really only out ranked Don by about a year but she never let him forget it.

She had a face like a gravel road and a voice to match. Together they were quite the pair. Quite the pair in this case meaning that everyone suspected they had an 'agreement' regarding sleeping situations outside of work.

Not that it mattered really, they were both quite competent at their jobs either way. Admittedly, they were both only competent while at least one sheet to the wind. They seemed to have lost the other two, but you know how people are about keeping the last piece of a set.

Most engineers were like that though. Anybody in the position that lasted more than a few seasons understood the glorious purpose of alcohol. They tended to outlive any other members of their teams tenfold.

Engineers were the designated survivors. If things went truly south they were ordered to leg it back to base and leave the rest of the team to fend for themselves. Cruel some might say, but seeing as their skills were rare and specialized it made them the hardest to replace. Any engineer with the skills and intelligence to do the job right wasn't nearly as likely to screw up enough to end up down here.

He'd never bothered to ask Don or Mary about their fuck ups, or their previous teams. It just wasn't something you did. You didn't really ask anybody what they had done to end up in this job. Some were ex-cons, some were homeless, and some, like Dibbuk and himself, were just absolute fuck ups.

'Speaking of Dibbuk' Harvel thought, looking over at her. Expecting her to still be dead asleep, he was surprised to see one of her greenish yellow eyes cracked open. She seemed to be actively attempting to ignore them and failing. He shot her a covert smile and thumbs up before stretching his arms. Receiving the signal she turned over and reciprocated the gesture using a claw to scratch the rough scales on the back of her head.

Wicksomme, the freshest of the faces in the room, decided to add to the conversation. "She gonna stay asleep like that all day? Don't mean to sound critical but what if we get a call?" He asked, pointing a halfhearted finger Dibbuks way. Instead of giving him a direct response, Harvel went ahead and let the penny drop.

"Well? Are you?" He asked, standing up and leaning on Lindons bunk. Dibbuk let out a long, low sigh, as she often did, vibrating the floor of the pod through her bunk.

Shooting him a sleepy yet no less annoyed look, she heaved her legs off the cot. "No, apparently not." She murmured, seemingly disappointed at having to answer at all. At this point it should be noted that Dibbuk was a Tar-Khal. A sentient reptile race native to Liberum, and somewhat massive in size.

About three times the size of a human, but pacifist in nature, the Tar-Khal looked somewhat like bipedal Komodo dragons. Dibbuk herself was a little small for a female Tar-Khal, only about 9 feet tall, and with blueish green skin that almost looked like scales. Even so, she was rather timid around humans, always believing she put them on edge.

She was right. Harvel didn't really like it, but she was right. As they came into work, he would often hear whispers of "Dino" or "Croc" as they passed. These being the general derogatory terms for the Tar-Khal in the city. As far as he was concerned, they all deserved a good working over.

For one, the Tar-Khal were vegetarian, and the only recorded "attacks" had been the result of over enthusiastic high fives. Second, they all kept to themselves for the most part. People barely ever even saw them around the more human parts of the city anymore.

Early on during the first settlement period, the Tar-Khal had found that it was easier to get along if they just did their own thing. They owned businesses, they built apartments, paid their taxes, and he could never really remember meeting one that he hadn't liked. Dibbuk, her little brother Yiddek, and he hadn't grown up in that part of town. They'd grown up in the Wharf.

"Oh, c'mon Bukky. Don't be too put out. You only got, what? Thirteen hours of sleep?" He said yawning.

"As opposed to what? Two at most like yourself?" She grumbled massaging some feeling back into her legs.

Wicksomme was shuffling over with the look of a man who's poked a bear and was now wishing he was born without fingers. "Uh, sorry Dibbuk. Didn't mean to sound overly critical." He said, seemingly attempting to rub the back of his head hard enough to summon a genie.

"Oh, it's fine. I know you didn't mean anything by it." She said shooting him a reassuring smile. He didn't seem very reassured.

Wicksomme was the newest member of the team and had only been with them for about a month. A young man of only 22, he was tall and lanky, with a personality akin to wet bread. Harvel had always equated him to an apologetic hat rack. He tended to stand in corners and stare at people.

This being his first pod week he was especially on edge. In the training academy they drill it into you that anything can happen in a pod week, and that you were to stay on your toes from the moment you arrived to the second you left. This wasn't entirely untrue, though most of the calls they were sent out on were recovery only.

As ninety percent of all the teams had bio-monitors installed in their suits you knew ahead of time whether you were searching for warm or cold bodies. From experience in his training team Harvel knew that if the bugs got the upper hand they didn't take prisoners. When you got the call they either said medical or body, in reference to which bag you should bring. Harvel still always brought both, in case a monitor was faulty.

Getting a medical call was such a rare occurrence that the betting pool on the wall hadn't changed since early last year. They kept track with a board covered in tallies. Medical had about four in total, the body section ran off the board. Only twice in the two and a half years he'd been on team 5 had they needed to leave the pod for a medical emergency. They'd made it a point to always check Lindons backpack for cans of beans after the second one.

The word cunning wasn't a word you could use to describe Lombard Wicksomme. The word stupid didn't quite work either, because he'd seen Wicksomme do some very intelligent things in the time he'd spent with him. He just did smart things for stupid reasons when nobody was looking.

It was like the moment he thought nobody was watching he could relax, and his brain would resume after he'd had it on pause for hours at a time. Of course, this meant that this last pod week, and probably every pod week he participated in afterwards, his brain was practically frozen solid. This generally meant less than stimulating conversations and therefore compounded their boredom.

As Wicksomme stuttered and rubbed his sweaty hands, his apologies started to run together. Both Dibbuk and Harvel's eyes quickly developed a film of indifference. After a minute or two Wicksomme's voice ticked up as if he'd asked a question. Quickly regaining his comprehension Harvel considered answering without really listening but decided otherwise.

"Hmm? What was that bud?" He asked rubbing his eyes back into focus.

"Oh, I was just wondering if we ever get out of here early? I've got a date back up top that I'd like a little time to get ready for." Wicksomme trailed off, becoming even more embarrassed at the mere idea of human interaction.

It was the seventh day of their stay down in pod 6, and while everyone was antsy to get out and back to the surface, they all knew there was no hope of an early escape. They had to wait for the next team to come down and relieve them of duty first, and unlike team 5, all the other teams tended to take their sweet time making the ride down.

"Sorry bud, 'prolly gonna be a while still. Team 6 is on their way down, but we got at least another 4 hours before we get back up to the fresh air." He explained, putting on a sad little smile. Harvel attempted to look apologetic as he shook his head and patted Wicksomme on the shoulder.

He'd have liked to have given the poor man some hope, but they'd never once gotten out early in the last two years. Harvel wasn't particularly broken up about this fact. He had plenty of his own reasons to stay down here as long as possible. Though the name Posthumous Lier was at the top of his list.

While Harvel was good at his job, he wasn't so good about things like books. Particularly in the area of doing things by them. Captain Posthumous Lier was about as flexible as a pane glass window, with bars on it. Harvel was just as high on his list as he was on Harvels.

Harvel dreaded every debrief he went through with the captain. It wasn't that he yelled, or screamed, or threw things at him. It was that he knew exactly what Harvel had done, and why he had done it. This made a little sense, as Lier had been one of the best scouts in department history, but he always knew, even if Harvel didn't.

There had been a time when Harvel had seen him a lot like an older version of himself. He was a dedicated and truthful man, with no patience for mistakes. Lier didn't seem to share his opinion. He made that very clear nowadays. Usually in writing.

Dibbuk interrupted his thoughts, snapping her claws in front of his face. "C'mon space-cadet, we've got to start packing up. We've only really got an hour until we start for the surface. You can ruminate on what kind of emails you're going to get on the way." She said sliding on her oversized uniform overalls.

"You've got a point." Harvel grumbled, pulling on an identical, but much smaller pair of his own.

Strapping on their boots and getting their undercoats ready, they shifted around each other in unison like a well choreographed dance. They both packed their bags with an efficiency that would have made warehousing companies salivate. Within the hour they were both ready to exit the pod, their uniforms as clean as they had been when they had entered seven days prior.

After about a thirty minute longer wait than they had hoped, a knock rapped on the outside of the pod hatch. Harvel spun the wheel that sealed the door from the inside. He knocked on the hatch once and it was pulled open from above. To his dismay the first voice he heard was that of his least favorite person in the world.

"Hiya Harvey!" exclaimed Selby Klagbender, his voice dripping with enthusiasm. "You had enough time in the can? Or should I just seal you back up and go get a drink?" He continued, his dashing good looks and roguish personality emanating from him in waves. Selby extended a hand down to him as an invitation of help. With some reluctance, Harvel took it and hauled himself up out of the hatch.

With Selby beaming in that incessantly heroic way he always did, it was almost hard to notice the rest of team 6. Sure, being the most celebrated of the teams, they all had a bit of a glow to them but none so much as Selby Klagbender. With his bright blonde hair, quaffed to perfection, and his can do attitude that made Harvel look like a depressed sloth, he outshone nearly everybody he came into contact with.

It pained him to admit it, but Selby was the real deal when it came down to it. A hero of the wastewalkers, through and through. Even when they were alone in a room the worst thing Selby had ever said to him was that his fly was undone. He'd even been telling the truth.

He'd actually been bunk mates with Selby during training. Getting their coats mixed up had probably been the one mistake Harvel had ever seen him make. It had been a rather big mistake in the end but he couldn't hold it against him.

Selby helped the rest of team 5 out of the hatch and dropped his own pack down the hole. "How was the ride down?" Harvel asked, genuinely curious. Selby stretched his back, a couple of muffled pops between his grunts.

"Uh, bumpy honestly. The tracks in level 2 are starting to rust at the joints, so you get that grinding sound for about 35 minutes, halfway through the trip. Bring headphones is my only suggestion." He said positioning himself on the ladder.

"Damn, and we'll probably be the ones replacing those in a week or two." Said Dibbuk, stretching to her full height of nine feet. The members of both teams murmured in reluctant agreement. All the other teams knew team five got stuck with all the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs.

The truth wasn't that team 5 was bad at what they did, in fact it was quite the opposite. The only other team that held a candle to them in skill was team 6, but team 5 was well known to be the expendable one. Good enough to get anything done that team 6 could, but not quite good enough to not get killed doing it. Therefore team 5 was made up of a lot of 2nd bests. He was the second best scout, Dibbuk the second best tank bearer, Don and Mary the second best engineers, so on and so forth.

Even with their bad reputation among most of the administration, Team 5 was at least respected among the rest of the fatburg teams. Even team six knew that while they were busy making promotional videos with huge, but benign, fatburgs in level 2, team 5 was on level 3, right underneath them, exterminating hundreds of davy ants as a distraction. It was a broken system, but it worked.

The less people knew about how many people died down here the better. As it was recruitment had dropped nearly thirty five percent in the last few years. Captain Lier had made a point of not letting them, or any of the other teams for that matter, forget that.

As Harvel and the rest of the team began readying and loading their weapons he overheard a voice from the other team he was unfamiliar with. New members joined and dropped out regularly on most teams but team 6 was generally made up of static members. They didn't get new faces often.

"Is it going to fucking stink in there? They have a fucking dino on their team." The voice said from behind a much older, wiser member. Before Harvel could move Dibbuk placed her claw around his free arm. Selby, still on the ladder, gawped a bit before scrambling to get between Harvel and the man.

"Harvel, no need to be rash. He's new." Selby explained, turning Harvel around by the shoulder.

"Oh, that's very nice Selby. Does he know about the tradition where new recruits get their teeth knocked out?" Harvel asked, never taking his eyes off of the newbie.

"Don't." Dibbuk insisted, knocking on the top of Harvels helmet. She put her claw in front of his chest for good measure.

Selby walked over to the more senior member and leaned in. "Get Sternum in the pod before Harvel knocks his, um, Bloch off would you? And, tell him to keep his mouth shut." He whispered, intentionally keeping his eyes off of the newbie Sternum.

As the veteran member hurriedly shoved Sternum towards the hatch, Selby turned back to Harvel and Dibbuk. "He'll be re-trained concerning his unprofessional language. Sorry about that." He apologized, shooting Dibbuk a sad smile.

"I'm sure he will. Now, Harvel. Anything you want to say?" Dibbuk said, prodding Harvel in the back a few times.

"I'm not sorry." Harvel said, watching as Sternums head dipped below the rim of the hatch.

"Not that. Try again." Dibbuk said sternly.

"Fine, it won't happen again. Just keep him out of earshot of me will you?" Harvel said, sighing and sucking on his teeth. He truly would have liked to knock the mans head off, but that would have only meant an extended sentence. He'd really just wanted to scare the man.

"Will do. Been getting a lot of ex rich kids coming down the pipe. Can't see what Lier finds useful about them, but right now I guess we have to take who we can get. With a sense of self preservation that skewed I doubt he'll last long down here." Selby said, shaking his head in disapproval.

"Eh, he'll learn hopefully. If not I'd be glad to teach him." Harvel said, ducking to avoid the inevitable flick Dibbuk aimed at the back of his head. He listened to the tell tale swish of her claw missing and wondered why she still did it. He'd dodged the last five times she'd tried.

"You guys take care. I've got some training to see to." Selby said, whipping himself onto the ladder again. Before he'd even gotten all the way down they could hear the beginning of an argument erupt from the hatch.

As the rest of team 6 disappeared down into the hatch they exchanged assorted versions of "good luck" and "stay safe". As far as they were concerned it might be the last time they saw each other. Harvel lowered the hatch back down onto the opening and rapped on it twice. He heard a short two knocks back and then the wheel spinning into place to seal it up.

Harnessing his pack to his body and zipping up the rest of his environment suit, Harvel directed the rest of the team to an immense steel staircase reaching up into the darkness. He racked his shotgun and clicked the safety into place, the former echoing around the blackness. It was going to be a long climb. It was going to be a long ride. It was going to be a long day. Hopefully he'd get some sleep on their way back up top.