The Tunnels

Chapter 1

"Wake up, we're burning daylight" dad says closing the panel to my room. My name is Jonathan Tombly. The year is 4058 and today I start work. I slide out of bed and my bare feet hit the brutal cold floor and I move senselessly to change my clothes. I slide my panel aside in a half daze and enter what is called a kitchen but is merely a larder containing this week's rations. The larder is full of shelves and on the left are the rations for Firstday Middleday and Lastday. On the right are rations labelled Secondday Thuday and Sittingday. I don't know where those names came from but during our video education time as kids, it was mentioned that this was how Ancient people kept track of their days. I reach into Firstday and pull out a 20% energy bar and then stash away a 25% energy bar for lunch. All we eat now are energy bars. The richer people get the higher percentages and the poor get the low. There isn't really a middle, but if there was I imagine we would be there somewhere, but for now we are a part of the poor. I shove the bars into my bag and head out the main panel.

When I step outside the city is buzzing with life. Everyone doing everything and only having 6 hours to do it. I make my way down a series of ladders until I hit the concrete ground. I begin walking down the side tunnels in order to avoid crowds. The city is like one big maze, there used to be signs up but over the years some were stolen and others just wasted away on the walls leaving behind a clean spot where they shielded the wall from dirt for years. I don't need the signs anyways, it is too dark down the side tunnels to read them. The main tunnels have bright luminescent lights hanging high above the city. They seem impossible to reach but some electricians go up there every 5 years in order to change out the energy bugs and replace them with new ones. Every time one of them isn't strapped in properly and they fall with no hope of surviving the fall. The city council meets up saying something must be done, but nothing ever is.

As I twist and turn through the tunnels making my way to the engineering headquarters I pass a tunnel that is blocked off by tape with the word caution written on it. I always wonder what is down that tunnel but have never built up enough nerve to actually check. Soon enough I make it to the headquarters where I am greeted at the door by a man who seems to have been wearing the same uniform for way too long, his uniform is obviously too small and the name has worn off so you can only see a vague outline of the name that used to be there but not actually enough to make it out. The man has a big mustache concealing the bottom most part of his nose.

"Tombly?" he says with a grunt.