Story Seed - Outside

Image Source: http://3dlandscapeartist.deviantart.com/art/Inhabited-Walls-Conected-490836696

"Ever wonder what's down there?"

"You mean the lower levels? Slums and machinery from what I hear."

"No, I mean all the way down." Farl pressed his face awkwardly against the curved wall of the skywalk, trying to peer down. There was only a blurring of other such bridges between the massive arcologies, and a hint of foggy white mist far below.

"Not this again," exasperation tinged Morh's voice, he was irritated that he hadn't seen through the prior question. He stopped walking, "The surface is nothing but wastelands and death, everyone knows that."

"That's what everybody says, but nobody actually knows," Farl insisted. "Nobody knows because nobody has been down there. We don't even know what the air out there smells like!"

"Come on, people are starting to stare," Morh said, tugging on his friend's arm.

"Yeah, yeah. Really though, you never think about it? You never wonder what exists outside of these artificial worlds?"

"No, and neither should you. We're safe in here. We have everything we need, and good comfortable lives."

"Boring is more like it," Farl paused as a group of Auditors passed them. "Those that came before didn't always live inside. The world was-"

"The world wasn't polluted and dangerous back then."

"And for all you know it isn't now either. You shouldn't trust the Hierarchy blindly. I don't, and I want to find out what the outside is like. I want to know what the lowest levels of the world are."

"You're crazy. You'll get yourself killed."

"Perhaps, but if I am going to die, I want to die outside."