Labyrinth
Borough: Brisby Flats
Sub-District: #27
Population: Estimated at 800,000 – there could be 10-40% more or fewer people than estimated, nobody knows for sure.
Land Use: Residential, Industrial, Commercial
Urbanization: Extreme
Wealth: Impoverished
Crime: Extreme
Overview: The Labyrinth. No single subdistrict in the entire city evokes such a strong image of urban decay, social anarchy, wanton lawlessness and crime than this place. It is a massive, doughnut-shaped industrial arcology that was originally built to house Project Daedalus and many of the scientific firms that piggybacked on Daedalus’ technological developments and the science community at large. When The Project died prematurely and everybody pulled out, the site lay fallow. Over the ensuing years, it was “colonized” by criminals and street people looking for a free place to stay. Now it is a virtual city within a city, as the arcology has become sectioned off by those who have taken and turned old production facilities and labs into hastily converted living spaces and the sites of criminal strong holds. Much of the arcology has no electricity or running water, so those living here either pirate utilities from neighboring communities, or they bring in their own generators for power and pumps to tap the local water table.
Crime has a stranglehold on the Labyrinth – the rotten core of the big and once wondrous city. Violence and strife is constant here. The police refuse to patrol its streets because when they have tried to enter the area they always suffered for it in shootouts, injuries and casualties. Better to just let the place rot and the miscreants who have it, keep it. Things are so bad that they say the local government has actually considered bombing the place to kingdom come. A less violent demolition program is impossible as the “residents” of the Labyrinth – including scores (if not hundreds) of mutants, evil superbeings and god knows how many street punks, color gangs, and criminal strong holds (from secret hideouts and drug labs to actual armored fortresses) – take deadly action to prevent it. Ever-present crime, inhumanity and poverty make the Labyrinth the equivalent of some of the worst third world countries on the planet. Supervillains and crime lords operate here with complete impunity, knowing that CHIMERA will never come in after them for fear of the deadly consequences that will follow. Not only the casualties that would be incurred by any siege, but also the terrible retribution the rest of Century Station would suffer for months afterward.
The inside of this harsh and forbidding environment is like a dark reflection of the Silver City arcology. People are crammed in like sardines amid unspeakable squalor. Gunshots, shootouts, drive-bys, superbrawls and all types of violence are daily occurrences somewhere in the subdistrict. Despite the constant killings and other deaths from malnutrition, accidents and fires, the population always creeps upward as more and more of the city’s disenfranchised find themselves coming here in need of a place to stay. The interior of the arcology is honeycombed with a mind-numbing array of homemade apartments and hallways, making any sort of wide-scale navigation of the place difficult at best and impossible at worst. Indeed, there have been people who have entered the Labyrinth and have lost themselves so hopelessly in its contorted innards that they have been unable to find their way out for days or even weeks.
Various color gangs rule large parts of the Labyrinth, but new guns and old rivals frequently fight over the borders of their “turf” and clash over the simplest disagreements. Elsewhere, superpowered villains, mutants, freaks and crime lords rule like feudal kings and warlords over their henchmen and peasants. These “Lords of The Labyrinth” kill anyone who opposes them and require everybody else to work for them in their illegal drug factories, auto-chop shops, factories producing illegal guns or bionics, and any number of other criminal enterprises. The most fortunate work to maintain the crumbling infrastructure, working at power plants, garages, food stores, shops and other facilities in the criminal kingdoms with in the Labyrinth. Folks accept the work because they will die if they don’t, but also because the criminal overlords will give them enough to survive, and in this terrible place, that is all that matters. As this suggests, not everybody in this hell-hole is evil. In fact, roughly 40% are professional criminals, willing henchmen and fugitives. The rest are the outcasts of society, and while they may not be criminals, many are mentally or emotionally disturbed and violent. Approxi mately 30% are street people with problems ranging from addiction to depression, schizophrenia, anxiety disorders and a host of others. 45% are poverty stricken folks with few options and the sad fate of having fallen into the nightmare that is The Labyrinth. Another 22% are inhuman looking mutants, experiments, freaks and outcasts who have either abandoned society or been abandoned by society because of the way they look, their uncontrollable abilities, or prejudice. The rest are a mix of those with super abilities and their own reasons for living in shame or hiding.
Notable Locations:
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