Tarsonis Slums

"I don't like it here. It reminds me of the time when I lived here as a hoodlum running errands for the mob—my brothers and I, who were either orphans or suffering from domestic violence, were like a bunch of rats in a stinking ditch, our fur wet with dirty water, covered in oil stains reflecting colorful light under the neon lights."

Before joining several search teams from Tarsonis police to enter Tarsonis City's largest slum, Zander Max, a Tarsonis -born Confederate Marine Corps and active-duty grenadier of the Heaven's Devils, who had lived in the slum for eighteen years, told his superior, Augustus.

Tarsonis City is the most magnificent and expansive city in the entire Terran Confederacy. It sits on a vast plain between the continuous mountain ranges of Tarsonis's only main continental plate and its largest inland sea. The city's hexagonal outer walls are clearly visible even from near-Earth orbit. Beyond the city center lie massive industrial zones and countless other cities covering the planet's surface.

Within the territory of the Terran Confederacy, Tarsonis City is a place where ambitious individuals and darlings of the era gain fame and fortune, and future politicians, intergalactic merchants, and technological geniuses can all find a place in this prosperous world. In contrast, the population living in its vast slums is even greater than the number of immigrants in the Sara System.

Augustus been unfamiliar with slums. In Sterling, slums were areas not included in the city's development plan. The dilapidated areas there were a product of rapid urban development and a widening gap between the rich and the poor. They resembled a large expanse of low-rise old buildings and illegal structures amidst magnificent glass buildings, like an ugly scar on mercury.

Korhal IV Sterling is home to the poorest people in all of Korhal, but the slums of Tarsonis City are located "underground" in the entire city.

The Sky Tower complex of the Old Families is located in the heart of Tarsonis City, the city's most prosperous area and the starting and ending point of the entire continent's transportation network. Beyond the city center and into the suburbs lie countless towering skyscrapers, and beneath this seemingly prosperous landscape lie dark alleyways known as "Stinky Ditch."

The skyscrapers stand on a foundation reinforced with reinforced concrete and steel frames, with only a few dense and winding alleyways for pedestrians to pass between them, while the highways are thousands of feet in the air.

These alleyways were flanked by seemingly endless steel walls, with locked steel doors and windows sealed shut with floodwater. Only the gleaming glass windows overhead, shrouded in rising mist, indicated that Augustus and his dozens of TSF (Tarsonis Police Force) officers armed with electromagnetic pistols and shotguns were in the heart of the city.

The towering, invisible floors block the sunlight that should be falling on the ground, so these lowest alleyways are perpetually dark.

The persistent rainwater, terrible ventilation, and underground sewers made the place as humid as a tropical rainforest, filled with the stench of urine and an indescribable foulness. Rodents and giant native slugs crawled in the dark corners, and the creaking of rusty metal signs rattled in the air conditioning fans on the upper floors.

At the end of the alleyway lies another passage, some narrower, some much wider, but no matter which direction you go, you cannot escape this labyrinthine world beneath countless tall buildings.

No one has ever counted exactly how many alleyways there are, but it is certain that Tarsonis City has at least thousands upon thousands of dark and damp black alleyways. It is probably the worst and most unbearable environment in all the cities of the entire Terran Confederacy. Viruses breed in the damp, warm darkness, and plague and death lurk in the shadows.

However, countless poor people, driven out of their homes, homeless vagrants, jobless vagrants, desperate gamblers, aimless drug addicts, and the poor who do what is considered the lowest of jobs live in the wider alleys in sloping-roofed houses built against vertical steel walls.

People in the slums have no balconies and can only use microwaves to dry their clothes, but even these clothes quickly become soaked with moisture.

Lacking natural light, the slum dwellers use cheaper but glaringly bright neon lights to illuminate their dim world. These neon lights, along with the lights in their homes, are powered by illegally installed cables exposed along the edges of the alleyway walls, with the crackling of electrical sparks often visible in the darkness.

"Mr. Augustus, we have an hour left before we go off duty, and the search may have to wait until tomorrow." A Tarsonis police chief standing next to Augustus said, "I'm really worried for Finley. In the darkness of the slums, crime, chaos, and violence seem to come from another backward and barbaric world, not Tarsonis, which is known for its technology and progress."

"You need to understand, tracking down the thugs in the slums is almost impossible. There's no one managing it; even the police only send out reconnaissance boats for regular patrols."

"I'll add money," Augustus.

"This isn't about the money," the sheriff said, adjusting his askew hat brim and slowly lighting a cigarette.

"Double that number, and have your chief send out even better officers and detectives from the upper-class residential areas." Augustus looked through the purple-red neon lights in the alleyway at the colorful graffiti on the walls. An officer told him that a large residential community was just ahead when he walked through this alley.

Augustus well that the Tarsonis Police Force had long been corrupted, like a rotten plank of wood, crawling with vermin and bedbugs. There were certainly many capable police officers, but those who were honest and did not accept bribes, protection money, or extort civilians were extremely rare.

Most police officers are paid enough to live on in this bustling metropolis, but in this materialistic, fame-seeking, and superficial prosperity, even the police want to gain more benefits.

The police in the downtown area are left to idle thugs due to a lack of manpower, while the excellent police in the wealthy districts only care about the interests of the wealthy patrons who pay them extra salaries.

In a system where cases are dismissed without bribes and favors, most cases involving middle-class and ordinary Confederacy citizens are often delayed for months due to lack of attention, ultimately ending inconclusively. Trivial matters such as robbery, theft, and malicious assault are even less worthy of intervention by officers whose time is precious.

Unless the victim is a powerful nobleman, even a wealthy merchant can't hire these big shots if they don't want to pay.

"We're working overtime today, Mr. Augustus." The sheriff took a deep drag on his cigarette. "My detectives have just found some clues. Someone can confirm that Tychus Finley —the big guy in the photo—stepped into Daddy Rhett's Bar at 7:52 last night and then rushed out of the bar completely naked this afternoon."

"He was completely naked and took down two burly gangsters with just a few punches and kicks," the sheriff said.

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