“And the Capital?” she prompted
“It’s huge, deceptively so. You look at a map of the place and think it’s not so big. But then when you get there…” he paused.
“Yes?” she nudged him from his reverie
“Well it’s not really one place. It’s like several places all occupying the same space. What you see depends a lot on what you expect to see and what you’re looking for. So there’s everything you see at street view. But then there’s this whole underground Labyrinthe beneath it all. You hear strange stories from there.” He smiled “I used to think they made them up to keep people away, but nowadays I’m not so sure any more. Then there’s the Above. Years ago people started experimenting with climbing up buildings without ropes; a lot of it was inspired by kung-fu movies and old ninja legends. But people discovered there was a surprising amount you could actually do.”
“Climbing buildings? For real?” Amber looked at him incredulously.
“Climbing them, jumping off them, rooftop to rooftop, classic movie stuff. Indeed quite a few movies ended up adding it in. I remember the French government got in quite a state about the whole thing. Anyway in the Capital, they first worked out ways of climbing everything and getting around way up in the rooftops. And then it occurred to someone who’s going to notice if you carve the odd handhold 13 stories up? Or build in a small ledge. And so gradually the Above grew. Some people have gotten quite inventive, in some places you need an electronic key to cause something to temporarily move so you can either use it to keep going, or stop it from blocking you. And then there’s the Dead Ends. They’re real trouble.”
“Literally?” she asked.
“Can be. They’re routes that take to a place where you realised too late you can’t get back from, usually due to gravity. Then you need to get someone to come and get you before you get too tired to hang on.”
“Oh.”
“Yup, some people object to them climbing all over the place, even 13 stories up. There’s a constant battle going on over the routes in some places. In some parts they’re in constant flux. In others nobody cares and they stay the same. A lot of people have no idea they’re even there. Like I said, what you see depends a lot on what you expect to see.” He paused “Although people refer to it as one place, in a lot of ways it’s like a lot of little places stuck together. Most wouldn’t admit it, but it’s pretty tribal. Course some of those tribes wear suits and ties.”
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