# The Break

*130 years after a cataclysmic event struck the world within the remains of a crumbling estuary city. Society appears to be emerging from the subsistence and survival grind of the last century, it but faces ever present challenges from ever shifting superstitions sweeping through the people. Worse, factions have begun to draw power from the vacuum and life seems strangely bleaker than it did when all we had to worry about was our next meal.*

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## Prologue

Marcus stood on the crumbling overpass, watching the Iron Market below. The district had been his entire world, but lately the stories from travelers spoke of places beyond the city limits - places that might hold answers to questions he'd never dared ask. His mother's illness worsened, and the debt to the iron market trader grew heavier each day. He needed a way out, but the walls of the Crown District seemed to close in a little more each year.

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## Act I

The morning had started well enough. Marcus had found a section of intact roofing tin behind the old processing plant-enough to patch the leak in his mother's ceiling before the next rain came. He'd rolled it carefully, tied it with salvaged wire, and was carrying it back through the Crown District's maze of repurposed scaffolding and collapsed concrete when he saw Piper waiting by the junction box.

She'd been back three weeks now. The expedition had changed her in ways he couldn't quite name. She stood differently, like she was carrying something she hadn't figured out how to put down.

"You're up early."

"Mum's ceiling. Got ahead of it this time."

She nodded at the bundled tin. "That'll hold."

"For a bit."

They walked together through the narrow passages between structures-walkways rigged from old railway sleepers, walls patched with traffic barriers and salvaged doors. The Crown District had grown organically out of necessity, a cluster of survival around the old Thames corridor. Nobody had planned it. Nobody much maintained it either.

Piper's family had gone north two years ago, chasing rumours of established trade routes and something better. They'd come back with one less brother and whatever they'd been able to carry. Marcus hadn't asked about the details. She hadn't offered.

"You hear about Geely?"

"What about it?"

"Gangs moving in proper. Fourteen incidents in the last month alone. Caravan that came through yesterday said they lost two people on the rail approach."

Marcus adjusted his grip on the roofing. The rail corridors were the only safe passage through forested areas. If those were becoming unreliable...

"We get most of our medical supplies through that route."

"Yeah."

The word sat between them. His mother's illness had no name anyone could agree on. The healers in the Warrens called it one thing, the traders at Iron Market called it another. All anyone knew for certain was that it was getting worse, and the medicine that helped came through Geely.

"I'll talk to Gary. See if he knows anything."

"You owe him?"

"Not yet."

They reached the junction where their paths split-his toward the collapsed high-rise where his mother waited in their communal living space, hers toward wherever her family had settled since returning. The morning light caught the dust between them.

"Marcus."

He stopped.

"There's talk of another caravan forming. Proper protection this time. Going all the way to the coast."

The coast. Saltglass. Foreign boats. Things that came from beyond the city's broken borders.

"When?"

"Week. Maybe two." She paused. "Could be a chance to get clear of this. All of it."

He thought of his mother's ceiling, the debt he still owed the iron trader, the endless cycle of patch-and-survive that everyone around him accepted as the only way to live. He thought about what lay beyond the city, about which he knew nothing at all.

"I'll think about it."

"Do that."

She turned and walked away. He watched her go, then shifted the roofing tin higher on his shoulder and headed home.

The tin would patch the ceiling. The medicine would run out in three weeks. The debt would need paying soon.

One problem at a time. That was how you survived.

But the coast. Foreign boats. A way out.

He let himself imagine it for exactly four steps, then stopped.

The collapsed high-rise loomed ahead, its upper floors a jagged silhouette against the grey morning. The lower levels had been reinforced years ago-someone with actual engineering knowledge, long dead or moved on. Marcus navigated the makeshift entrance, a gap in the foundation where a basement door had once been, and descended into the communal warren.

His mother was awake. She sat on her cot near the ventilation shaft, the one spot where natural light reached, sorting through a pile of salvaged buttons. She did piecework for a trader in the Iron Market when her hands were steady enough. The buttons didn't pay much, but it was something.

"Brought the tin."

She looked up. Her face had that grey undertone again, the one the medicine pushed back for a few days before it returned. "Good. Rain's coming Thursday, they say."

"I'll get it done today."

He leaned the tin against the wall and crouched beside her. The button pile was mostly plastic, a few metal ones mixed in. She separated them by size, her fingers moving slowly but accurately.

"Heard about the caravan."

Marcus went still. "From who?"

"People talk." She picked up a button, examined it, placed it in the smaller pile. "You thinking about it?"

"There's things to sort first."

"Mm." She didn't look at him. "Your father talked about the coast once. Before you were born. Said there were boats that went places maps don't show anymore."

The ventilation shaft cast a thin blade of light across her hands. He watched her work for a moment.

"I'll get the ceiling sorted. Then I'll figure the rest."

She nodded, but her hands had stopped moving. "Don't wait too long on my account."

The words landed like a stone in still water. He didn't have a response that wouldn't make things worse.

A voice called from the corridor outside-someone looking for him. A kid, maybe twelve, one of the runners who carried messages between the districts.

"Gary wants to see you. Iron Market. Said you'd know where."

Marcus left his mother sorting buttons and made his way up through the collapsed high-rise. The runner kid had already gone, back to whatever errand came next. They always moved fast when they weren't waiting to be paid.

The Iron Market Concourse sprawled beneath a patchwork roof of corrugated iron and salvaged plastic sheets, half of it stolen from construction sites decades ago and nobody had bothered to reclaim it since. Stalls lined the central walkway-traders selling scrap metal, preserved food, salvaged electronics that might work if you knew how to wire them. The crowd moved with the particular rhythm of people who had nowhere else to be but couldn't afford to look like it.

Gary stood near the eastern entrance, beside a stack of piping that hadn't moved in years. He had his back to the wall and his eyes on the flow of people. Two men stood further back, near the stall behind him-Finn and someone Marcus didn't recognise. Gary's enforcers didn't need to do anything. Their presence did the work.

Marcus approached. Gary didn't turn his head until Marcus was close enough to speak without raising his voice.

"You're quick."

"You sent for me."

Gary's mouth twitched-not quite a smile. "Heard you've been asking about the coast caravan."

The observation landed without accusation, which made it worse. Marcus hadn't told anyone except Piper.

"Thinking about it."

"Thinking." Gary looked past him at the market crowd. "Your mother's sick. You owe Kerr three weeks' labour for medicine. And you're thinking about leaving."

The words sat between them. Gary wasn't asking.

"I've got obligations."

"You do." Gary finally turned to face him directly. The man's face was lined, weather-beaten, unreadable. "Caravan's not leaving for two weeks. Maybe three. The route through Geely's getting worse-fourteen incidents since spring. Gangs are organised now, not just scavengers taking chances. They're taking whole caravans."

Marcus waited.

"I need someone who knows the tunnels. Someone to guide a supply run through the Warrens, bypass the main routes. Medical supplies. The kind your mother needs."

The implication hung in the air. Gary was offering a way to clear the debt. But the Warrens had a reputation-unstable tunnels, hostile clans, and darkness that swallowed people who didn't know the way back.

"Do this, you're clear with Kerr. You want to leave after that, that's your business."

"sounds good"

"Caravan leaves in nine days. You're either on it or you're not. Make your mind up."

"It's dangerous?"

"Caravan’s a risk. Fourteen gone missing in Geely last month alone. You think it’s worth it?"

"Do you?"

"Caravans don’t come back. You know that. What’s out there that’s worth leaving what you’ve got here? Coast isn't Crown. Out there, you're nobody. No debts, no name, no protection. You step wrong, you vanish. That's what I mean."

Marcus let the offer settle. Three weeks of labour erased. Medical supplies through a route nobody else would take. The arithmetic was simple enough.

"What's the load?"

"Two crates. Portable enough."

"How far in?"

Gary's gaze drifted toward the eastern stalls, where the light fell differently through a gap in the roofing. "Far enough. The Warrens connect under the old Northern line. There's a junction the Echo Kin use for trading. They've got what we need."

The Echo Kin. Marcus had heard the name. One of the scavenger clans that had made the tunnels their home generations ago. They didn't like outsiders.

"They'll deal with me?"

"They'll deal with anyone who brings something worth having." Gary's attention returned to Marcus. "You've got maps. Fragments. Enough to navigate."

It wasn't a question. Gary knew more than he should about what Marcus carried.

"And if I don't come back?"

The older man's expression didn't change. "Then Kerr writes off the debt anyway. Your mother gets looked after. That's the deal."

Something in the phrasing snagged. Not a threat-a fact, delivered the same way Gary delivered everything. But it carried weight. *Your mother gets looked after.* Meaning Gary had already thought about what happened if Marcus failed. Meaning Gary had already decided what that failure was worth to him.

"You've got until the caravan leaves. After that, the offer's gone."

Finn shifted behind him, a small movement that suggested their time was up.

Marcus stood at the edge of something. The Warrens were a death sentence for anyone who went in blind-but he wasn't blind. He'd spent years learning the tunnels, the structural logic, the way old infrastructure breathed. And his mother's ceiling still leaked. Her cough still worsened. The debt still mounted.

Gary waited. The market noise filled the silence between them.

"okay ill do it"

"Right. You'll want the details then. Meet me at the old ticket hall, midnight. Bring your gear."

"Ask Gary for details about the Warrens run"

"Right. Old station entrance, tomorrow, first light. You'll be with Tess. She knows the Warrens better than anyone left breathing.
Don't wander. Don't touch anything that isn't nailed down. And if you hear singing, walk away."

Marcus let out a slow breath. The arithmetic kept coming back the same.

"I'll do it."

Gary held his gaze. "Good."

That was it. No handshake, no contract, no ceremony. Just a single syllable that sealed something Marcus couldn't quite name.

"Finn'll take you to the access point. Northern line, south of here." Gary turned slightly, addressing someone behind Marcus's shoulder. "Show him the route."

Finn materialised at Marcus's side. The man moved like water through reeds-no wasted motion, no announcement. Up close, his face was older than his frame suggested, lined with the particular wear of someone who'd learned to watch before he learned to speak.

"This way."

Gary was already turning back to the market, his attention elsewhere. The audience was over. Marcus had what he needed-an opportunity, a route, a deadline-and now he was expected to use it.

He fell into step behind Finn, weaving through the morning crowd toward the market's eastern edge. The concourse thinned as they moved away from the central stalls, the stalls giving way to storage units and then to darker passages where the overhead scaffolding blocked most of the light.

"You know the Warrens?"

"Been close. Never in."

"Stay close, then." Finn glanced back, his expression unreadable. "People get lost down there."

The way he said it, Marcus couldn't tell if it was a warning or a statement of fact.

They moved through a section of the market Marcus had rarely visited. The stalls here dealt in things people needed when they'd given up on asking questions-salvaged pipe, stripped wire, water filters clogged beyond rescue. A woman watched them pass from behind a stack of dented cookpots, her eyes tracking Finn with the particular flatness of someone who knew better than to interfere.

The passage narrowed. Overhead, the scaffold lattice thickened, and what remained of the original ceiling became visible through gaps in the improvised structure-old concrete spalled and cracked, rebars exposed like ribs.

"Used to be a station entrance. Before they built over it."

Finn stopped at a service hatch set into the wall. The metal was orange with rust, but the hinges had been greased recently. He pulled it open without effort.

"Northern line platform's about sixty metres down. Access tunnel's stable-Gary had it checked last month." He paused. "After that, you're on your own."

The darkness beyond the hatch was absolute. No light, no sound, just the faint movement of air against Marcus's face-cool and damp, carrying the mineral tang of deep stone.

Finn produced a wrapped bundle from his coat and handed it over. Small, dense, heavier than it looked.

"Lantern. Oil's good for six hours. Don't waste it."

Marcus took it. The metal was cold through the cloth.

"Echo Kin trade at a junction about a kilometre in. Follow the main tunnel, second left after the collapsed section." Finn's eyes held on Marcus for a moment. "Gary said you know tunnels."

"I know enough."

Finn's expression didn't change. "Good."

He stepped back. The hatch waited.

Marcus lit the lantern. The flame caught and steadied, throwing a small sphere of yellow against the dark. He stepped through the hatch.

The access tunnel was narrow enough that his shoulders brushed both walls. The air moved past him, slow and constant, drawn by pressure differentials he couldn't map. His boots found metal rungs set into the wall-a maintenance ladder, descending. He climbed down.

The rungs were cold. Condensation slicked the metal, and twice his foot slipped before he learned to test each step before committing his weight. The lantern threw shadows that shifted with every movement, making the walls seem closer than they were.

He counted rungs. Lost count somewhere around forty. Kept climbing.

The descent felt longer than sixty metres. The silence pressed in, broken only by his breathing and the soft clang of his boots on metal. At some point the ladder ended, and his foot found solid ground-uneven, debris-scattered. The platform.

He raised the lantern. The light caught cracked tiles, the remnants of a station name too faded to read. Two tunnel mouths gaped opposite each other. One was partially blocked by a collapse-rubble and twisted rebar forming an artificial horizon where the ceiling had given way. The other stretched into darkness.

Gary's directions: follow the main tunnel, second left after the collapsed section.

Marcus stood still for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to what little light there was. Somewhere in the dark ahead, the Echo Kin waited. Medical supplies. A debt cleared. A way out.

He moved forward into the tunnel.

The going was slow. The floor was uneven-old track bed, he realised, the rails long since stripped. The walls showed reinforcement work at intervals, wooden beams braced against the ceiling, some newer than others. The air grew cooler as he walked.

After perhaps two hundred metres, he reached the collapsed section. It was larger than he'd expected-a ridge of concrete and earth that forced him to crouch and pick his way through a narrow gap. On the other side, the tunnel opened up again.

He counted passages. One on the left, narrow, half-blocked. Another on the right, sealed with corrugated metal.

The second left came into view. Wider than the others. A faint draft moved from it, carrying something that might have been smoke.

Marcus paused at the entrance. The lantern flame flickered.

The passage opened into a wider space where two tunnels converged beneath a ceiling that had been shored up with railway sleepers and salvaged iron. Someone had built this place with intention. Lanterns hung from hooks driven into mortar joints, their flames steady behind soot-streaked glass. The light revealed a small trading post - a wooden counter set across packing crates, shelves bolted into the curved walls holding jars and bundled cloth and the dull gleam of metal tools.

A figure stood behind the counter, watching Marcus's approach without moving. Older, face lined from years in the tunnels, wearing layers of stained fabric that had probably been repaired more times than they'd been washed. The trader's eyes tracked the lantern in Marcus's hand, then his face, then back down to the flame.

"You're the one Gary sent."

Not a question. Marcus set his lantern on the counter between them.

"Two crates. Medical supplies."

The trader studied him for a long moment. Somewhere deeper in the junction, voices murmured - other Echo Kin, going about their business behind a curtain of heavy fabric.

"You came through the Northern Line alone." The trader's tone carried something that might have been respect or might have been assessment. "Gary's getting confident. Or desperate."

The trader reached beneath the counter and produced a ledger, opening it to a marked page.

"We have what he asked for. Antibiotics, bandages, some surgical tools. Payment was arranged through his people last week." A pause. "The question is whether you're carrying it back the way you came, or if you want to wait for our next supply run to the surface. Three days."

The crates sat against the far wall, already packed and waiting.

Three days was too long. Marcus's mother needed supplies now, and Gary's patience had limits that probably didn't stretch to a week-long errand.

"I'll take them now."

The trader closed the ledger with a soft thump. "Both crates?"

"Unless there's another way."

The trader's mouth twitched - not quite a smile. "There's always another way. Question is whether it's worth the cost." He gestured toward the crates against the wall. "Each one weighs about fifteen kilos. You can manage that, maybe, if you rig a strap. Both at once, you'll be slow and loud coming back through tunnels that don't forgive either."

He stepped out from behind the counter, moving with the careful economy of someone who'd learned to navigate tight spaces long ago.

"You could make two trips. Leave one here, come back for it. That's more time in the dark, more chances for something to find you." He paused near the crates, looking back at Marcus. "Or you could take the eastern passage. Comes up near the old depot, maybe two kilometres from the Northern Line entrance. Longer walk, but you'd avoid the collapsed section. Less traffic that way. Less competition."

He didn't explain what he meant by competition. He didn't need to.

"Your choice." He crossed his arms. "Gary said you knew these tunnels."

The lanterns hissed softly in their hooks. Behind the curtain, the voices had gone quiet.

"i can manage"

"Right. Three days or now-your call. But if you’re taking them out today, best check your route twice."

Marcus looked at the crates. Fifteen kilos each. The trader watched him from behind the counter, waiting.

"I'll manage."

He crouched beside the nearest crate and tested the weight. Heavy, but the handles were solid enough. He'd carried worse. The second crate he lashed to the first with a length of frayed rope from his pack, creating a makeshift harness that distributed the load across his shoulders. Not elegant. Functional.

The trader said nothing. He'd already returned to his ledger, the conversation over as far as he was concerned. Marcus didn't need anything else from him anyway.

The junction fell away behind him as he moved into the tunnel, the glow of oil lanterns fading to a dim amber smear against the darkness. The crates pulled at his shoulders with each step. His lantern swung from his belt, casting shadows that jumped and folded against the damp walls.

The eastern passage. Two kilometres, the trader had said. Less traffic. Less competition.

He'd gone perhaps four hundred metres when the ceiling changed. The rough-hewn stone gave way to older brickwork, Victorian, arching overhead in a curve that spoke of original infrastructure rather than scavenger excavation. The air grew cooler. The sound of his footsteps echoed differently here-sharper, more contained.

The passage split ahead. He paused, letting the lantern's light catch the walls.

Someone had scratched a symbol into the brick on the left-hand tunnel. Fresh marks, the pale clay beneath the dark grime still visible. A circle with a line through it. He didn't recognise the sign, but the scrapes looked recent. Hours old, maybe less.

He stood there, breathing steadily against the weight on his shoulders. The right-hand passage continued straight, disappearing into darkness. The left curved downward, following the gradient of the old drainage system.

His map fragment was in his pack, but he'd studied it enough to know it didn't cover this section. The trader's directions had been simple: follow the eastern passage until it opened.

Neither direction looked particularly open.

He crouched, setting the crates down with care, and brought the lantern close to the symbol. The scratches were deep, deliberate. Someone had used a blade or a chisel. The circle wasn't perfectly round-the mark of haste or a shaking hand.

The left tunnel. Downward slope. Drainage systems always ran downhill, which meant they eventually hit the old Thames flood barriers or the deeper aquifer pumps that hadn't functioned in decades. Either way, water. And water meant instability.

He stood and looked at the right-hand passage. Straight. No visible markers. No recent scratches in the brickwork. The darkness there felt different-heavier, perhaps, but undisturbed.

The symbol could be a warning. Could be a claim marker, some territorial tag from a clan he hadn't encountered. Could be nothing at all, some tunnel-dweller's idle scratching.

He thought about the weight on his shoulders, the six hours of oil in his lantern, the medical supplies his mother needed. Thought about the fourteen incidents in Geely, the gangs taking whole caravans. Up there, people were dying for less than what he carried.

He picked up the crates and took the right-hand passage.

The darkness swallowed the junction behind him within a dozen steps. His lantern threw a tight circle of light against the brick, the beam catching condensation that glistened on the walls like sweat on cold skin. The passage narrowed slightly, then widened again. The ceiling dropped, forcing him to hunch beneath a section of collapsed masonry that someone had propped with salvaged iron bars.

Then he heard it.

Voices. Faint. Ahead and to the left, somewhere past the edge of his light.

He stopped. Stood still. Listened.

Two people, maybe three. The words themselves were indistinct, but the rhythm of the speech carried-that particular cadence of negotiation, of trade. Or argument.

The passage branched again up ahead. A faint glow leaked from the left fork, warmer than lantern light. Fire.

Someone had set up camp down here.

He set the crates down against the wall, slowly, without sound. The lantern he kept.

The voices resolved as he moved closer, pressing himself against the damp brick. Three people. A woman's voice, sharp. A man answering, low and deliberate. A third voice-another man-laughing at something, the kind of laugh that expected agreement.

The passage opened into a wider space. A chamber, maybe, or a junction where several tunnels converged. The fire burned in an oil drum at the centre, throwing long shadows across makeshift bedding and stacked containers. He counted four figures, not three. The fourth was slumped against the far wall, hood up, face hidden.

One of the men noticed him first.

The man didn't shout. He simply turned his head, looked directly at the edge of Marcus's lantern light, and said nothing. The silence spread through the group like water finding its level.

The woman turned next. Younger than her voice had suggested. She had the look of someone who had learned to stop flinching.

"You're not Echo Kin."

Statement, not question. Marcus stayed where he was, crates behind him, lantern steady.

"Carrying medical supplies through. Paid passage."

The laughing man-thick shoulders, hands that had seen work-shifted his weight. He looked at the crates, then back at Marcus.

"Paid to who?"

"Echo Kin. Trading junction."

The woman's eyes moved to the symbol scratched into the passage wall behind Marcus. He hadn't noticed it from this angle, but he recognised the shape. Circle with a line through it.

"You came through the eastern passage."

"Right-hand fork at the junction."

The thick-shouldered man stood up. Not quickly. Just stood.

"That's our route."

The fire crackled. The fourth figure against the wall hadn't moved. Marcus kept his breathing steady, his weight balanced. Six hours of oil in the lantern. Two crates of medical supplies. His mother's name on a debt ledger somewhere up above.

"Just passing through. Don't want trouble."

"Depends." She tilted her head toward the crates. "What's in those?"

Marcus kept his face still. The crates were unmarked, plain wood, but medical supplies had a certain weight to them. Anyone who'd spent time in the tunnels knew it.

"Medical. For the surface."

The thick-shouldered man took a step forward. The woman raised a hand-not toward Marcus, but toward the man. A signal. He stopped.

"Gary's name on it?"

The question hung there. Marcus felt the calculation behind it. These people knew the network above, knew the arrangements that moved goods through the dark.

"Cleared through him, yeah."

The woman's eyes stayed on him. She had the look of someone running numbers, weighing odds. The fire threw shifting light across her face.

"We had an agreement with the Echo Kin. Eastern passage stays clear. Nobody comes through without we hear about it first." She paused. "Nobody came to us."

The laughing man had stopped laughing. He stood slightly behind the thick-shouldered one, watching. The fourth figure against the wall still hadn't moved-sleeping, unconscious, or something else.

"Wasn't told about any agreement. Trader at the junction said eastern passage was clear."

"Trader at the junction." She said it flatly. "Which trader?"

The thick-shouldered man shifted again. His hands hung loose at his sides, but his weight had settled forward.

"Don't know his name. Echo Kin. Older. Had the supplies waiting."

The woman glanced at the man beside her. Something passed between them-a look that had meaning Marcus couldn't read. When she turned back, her expression had changed. Not softer. Just clearer.

"You're carrying two crates. Medical. Gary's name. Through our passage." She let each phrase land separately. "And you don't know who gave them to you."

The fire popped. Somewhere deeper in the tunnels, water dripped in a steady rhythm.

"Put the lantern down. Slow."

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