I never know what time it is down here.. yes my watch says 22:28 but I don’t feel the time, or the part of the day or night.
All I know is pipes, tunnels and drains.

I’m a “Biggencere” or operator if you will, I operate and tend to a complex system that lies under the cobbled streets of Ludenwic, the veins and nerves of the ancient city or a hidden cancer as some would call it.

Built atop and wrapped around the old sewer pipes, the old underground tunnels, electrical wirings and just anything that resembles a tube is here, connected in this a tight web all serving a function or two.

Sometimes I swear there are more pipes and tunnels under Ludenwic then there are stars in the night sky, but must carry on and keep calm, I have my duty.

That’s what I tell myself anyway, makes it easier when I return from the surface world, as I descend back into this world of tight spaces, ashen tunnels.

The worst assignment is repairing the steam pipes, very hot.

As much as I moan about the toiling of my work, it is quite a remarkable mechanism, only achievable my the Mass Mobilisation of 20** heralded by the state as a great re-awakening of the “English-Germanic Spirit”, or something like that, I can’t remember school all that well.

Sarcasm aside it is quite wonderful, It is much like a computer network or a forest.
A woodland of metal and concrete deep under the earth.

I’m not the only one down here, we around 1000 or more workers so I’m told. I only know my specific work platoon, Good guys, tough as nails but mostly keep to themselves.

Sometimes it feels like we are ants in a great ant nest.

Sometimes the tunnels will open up to the Great Shafts, huge open caverns that possibly dwarf some of the skyscrapers on the surface, eerily quiet , a great yawning is the only sound you’ll hear other than the deafening silence.

Sometimes I wonder how any of this was built.

A lot of the early things around us in Ingland is quite mysterious…