Level Zero — The Newcomer's Test
Level Zero is the lowest habitable level of a multi-story underground complex — the level closest to the geothermal systems that power the community, the warmest, and the most essential. The remnant of the engineering team that maintains the geothermal access has made Level Zero their community, while the upper levels house the larger population. The fractured order of the complex's governance divides along this vertical axis: Level Zero is self-governing in ways the upper levels have never fully accepted. You arrived as a newcomer from the surface, assigned to Level Zero for orientation, which the upper levels do as a hazing practice and Level Zero does as a genuine integration process. Desperation brought you underground; the last of your surface certainties are adjusting to the dark.
About Level Zero — The Newcomer's Test
Level Zero is the lowest habitable level of a multi-story underground complex — the level closest to the geothermal systems that power the community, the warmest, and the most essential. The remnant of the engineering team that maintains the geothermal access has made Level Zero their community, while the upper levels house the larger population...Read more