There are twenty seats in the elevator, each welded from a buffed matte metal,arranged in a circle around a central control panel. The panel is much simpler than that of the Main Reactor - its functions are primarily “go up”, “go down”, and not much else.
Eleven of the seats are occupied by an assortment of people in different coloured clothing.
The Megalomaniacs are adorned in lavish scarlet robes that once emanated authority - now, they seem ragged and forlorn. They could be regretted three centuries of manipulation and brainwashing of their people, they could agree that they deserved the revolution, but no - the one principle they do stick to is their narcissism. They think only of how they survived, they are victorious.
The Engineers are clad in faux-leather jackets of a deep royal blue. One still wears a set of tools on his hip, and his fingers play with the equipment nervously. His eye flicks around the room, examining. This place has more metal in it than the Main Reactor, there’s not an inch of concrete in sight. He raises his head, looks around, and makes eye contact with someone he used to hate.
The Sanitation Worker nods, acknowledging the Engineer. Though they were enemies once, the Engineers had to rely on Sanitation when times were tough. A bond such as that doesn’t break easily.
The Hunters seem to be the only ones with a twinge of regret for leaving. They have just abandoned their people. Thousands will die in the next few weeks, or maybe days, if someone doesn’t organise them into fixing the pipes. The only people with any experience in doing that are right here in this room. The Hunters finally got what they wanted - peace - but at the cost of countless lives… but even they must admit that there wasn’t really an option.
The Wraiths seem to have drawn the speech from the room - or rather, the lack of them. The Megalomaniacs, Engineers, Sanitation Workers and Hunters were all so afraid of a common enemy that they all sent out Spies to investigate. Those who came back empty-handed were punished for ineptitude, so the next batch had to be a little more intelligent. The Wraiths were an illusion created by fear: though quite real, they never truly existed.
The Main Reactor hums noisily, nobody watching the External Communications console as new lines of text flicker up under the name “EXT”. Instructions, to be followed immediately. Recognising its true master, that Main Reactor obeys.
Inside the elevator, the giant metal doors slam shut. Some of the leaders rise to their feet at the sudden movement. but they’re pushed straight back down as the elevator lurches upwards. The movement comes to a halt just as quickly.
Before anyone has had a chance to get up, they are thrown back to the floor as the elevator begins to accelerate. Ancient gears spin into life and circuits light up. They have finally found a way out. After about twenty minutes it grinds to a halt.
One of the metal doors opens slowly. A bright white light pours in through the widening slit between the two haulks of metal. A light that burns. The leaders scuttle into the shadows as best they can as the door opens.
Then, to top it all off, three aliens walk in.
They look like a poor imitation of humanity. All the parts are in the right places but they’re all wrong. They each have two arms, two legs and a head but that’s where the similarities end.
They wear clothes of mixed colours - if they have an allegiance to a faction, it’s impossible to determine. Nonallegiance is treason.
They are all different colours. The one on the left is a sort of beige-pink colour. The one on the right is a dark brown. The one in the middle is something between the two. Normal humans are as perfectly white as the lights in the Pipeworks themselves, or as grey as the concrete.
Their faces are wrong. They have one bottom lip, which is fine - but they only have one more. Instead of having two lips run from the corners of the mouth up to the nose, they have a single upper lip that connects the two sides of the mouth directly. How do they eat?
Their eyes are brightly coloured - green, blue and brown. Eyes should be grey.
They speak in their alien language. Sensing that they’re not being understood, they sigh, and walk out of the elevator into the surface world, beckoning for the Pipeworkers to follow. With no other choice, you step out of the elevator into their world.
