Sunken City

Jack Ryans was woken by the bleeping of his comunit

"Sergeant Ryans? Sergeant Ryans?" came a voice out of the speaker

Ryans hit the talk button, "Ryans here, what's the problem?"

"Sergeant, the RCET squads are needed urgently, there's a food riot on level 191 that's turning violent"

Ryans groaned, not another riot! Couldn't the council keep any order these days? "I'm coming control, get my squad ready" he said into the comunit

"Rodger that Sergeant, control out"

About time, thought Sergeant Jack Ryans as he got out of his bed and put on his arm, grimacing as he remembered how he lost it, in a riot when a rioter had got a hold of his riot stick and had activated the blade, taking of Jack's left arm. The rioter paid for it with his own life, the same diamond edged, vibrating blade ended the man's life by separating his head from his body. Jack now had to live with a girder like, hydrogen powered, mechanical facsimile that wasn't as unwieldy as it looked and was actually stronger than his remaining arm.

He donned his protective gear, grabbed his equipment, popped in a new power cartridge in his arm and took a spare just encase. Dashing out of his house he locked it and leapt into the nearest emergency tram and sped of to the rallying point on this level, level 150, the centre of Central Sub- City. The rest of his team was already waiting, one of the best RCET (Riot Control Emergency Taskforce) teams around, 'One Arm's Hell Hounds', 'One Arm' being Sergeant Jack Ryans. The team got to the pod line in the centre of the rally point and took the RCET line down to level 191, where the rioting was taking place.

"OK, what sector of the disk is the rioting in and what stage of force are we at?" Ryans asked his men

"Rioting is in sector 3, third ring from the pods, and we're at stage 4, first RCET team deployed down there called for backup, that's us Sir," reported Ozzy Grimshaw, another one with augmentations, his legs were lost when rioters got their hands on some fuel and handmade grenades started flying about, ironically Ozzy had been the slowest that day but was the fastest of them now, with two mechanical legs.

"Thanks Ozzy, OK people, ready your things, we disembark in T-.30 seconds" Jack said to his team, checking his riot stick, shield and priming the combat functions on his arm.

30 seconds passed and the pods reached their destination, the door opening and the team spilling out, running east towards ring three of sector three. They got there as the RCET team faltered and fell back, giving rioters the chance to push forward, but they only got as far as the 'Hell Hounds' before they stopped, recognising the famous team by seeing Jack, his arm emitting steam-like, water vapour from the 'shoulder' as a by product of the fusion powering it. Then the 'Hounds' dashed forward with their octagonal shields infront of them, slamming into the mass of bodies that drove the riotous feeling onwards, stopping their anarchistic rampage from going any further.

Jack pulled out a megaphone "All of you, stop this now, you will return to your homes and cease rioting or you will be met with greater force than we are using now" he told them, counting down from 60

By 20 most had gone but about 30 stayed, anger blazing in their eyes

"We are doing this for a just cause, you shall not stop us" one of them said

"What just cause? You think the council just randomly decided that level 191 should not have as much food as the others? You think you're the only ones short of food? Even we are on the same rations as you!" Jack yelled at them through his megaphone, it was true, he did tend to have more than others in his cupboard, but that was because he didn't have lunch and rarely had breakfast. Their time ran to 0 and Jack threw away his megaphone, bringing out his riot stick.

The two factions charged at each other, one side trained, professionals with proper equipment, the other an angry rabble with sticks and bars and numbers on their side. Jack had his shield on his left arm, sweeping left and right, throwing people away with the power of his arm, smashing down with the stick, the blade sheathed, still and dull inside the handle. It was all over in a matter of minutes, the remaining rioters all out cold and scattered around the ring and the RCET team was grateful to the 'Hounds' who had had only one casualty, a shattered arm that would need to be taken to level 150's medical centre for treatment.

Jack sat at home afterwards, reading the news on his vidscreen, apparently the Undead on the surface were restless, no wonder, they were supposed to be dead yet still trudged around the lands of the living, no wonder they were restless. He thought about the riot. There had been more and more food riots nowadays, that probably showed the supplies were running dangerously low, the cities hadn't been designed to accommodate this amount of people, there was almost 10 times more people living in Central than it was designed to take.

The Sub-Cities, Subterranean Cities were designed to provide the overcrowded earth more room, even though giant engines had been used to create a super continent, New Pangia, the Sub-City was built deep into the earth's crust to provide the space needed, 300 levels down, 249 habitable levels of the city. Central was the first city built, a pioneering achievement that began filling up quickly. North and South Sub-Cities were built next with resources extracted during the building of Central, by now so many diamonds had been found that they became as cheap as glass and all cutting tools were now diamond edged at a cheaper cost. East city was constructed next and West city was under construction when the Great Catastrophe happened.

On the part of the continent that used to be North America subterranean silos were discovered, and the hidden arsenal of Nuclear weapons they contained. This was not the catastrophe, the catastrophe was that a giant meteor came Earth's way and that Nuclear Arsenal was fired at it, the nukes imbedded themselves in the meteor and it came crashing down on the edge of the continent that was Old Australia, destroying that chunk and scattering nuclear, alien dust over the continent. Only those in the four cities survived, and no one knew if West city survived, as it wasn't complete at the time. All those on the surface who didn't get into the cities in time died from the potent Nuclear fallout, but the strange alien dust prevented them from dying completely, severing all but the essential ties in the brain, the Undead were reduced from humans to snarling beasts, hungry for flesh.

That had been 18 years ago, and the cities were now overcrowded, low on food and unable to reclaim the planet above, no wonder there were riots.