“Solar power”, Petrisen said as the cabin perceptibly tilted downwards. “There is a system here like you would not believe. It powers everything from the lights to the train to the Garden. We barely touch its reserves”. “Garden?” Felicia asked. Gartan laughed. “You’ll see”. The train began to accelerate. Hausen gripped his armrests, eyes wide. “Don’t worry”, Alfren reassured him. “It gets everyone the first time. From here we go underground”. “Fantastic” Hausen gasped. “The tunnel is completely sealed. Well, apart from some cracks here and there. Nothing major though”. “Awesome” Hausen replied squeezing his eyes tightly closed. “Traveling within the tunnel enables us to move unseen”, Alfren continued as if the other man had never spoken. “If we have to move around we keep to the buildings on the train route and only use spaces that cannot be seen by anyone outside. We rarely go outside at all actually. The power generators are also underground and the solar panels are non-reflective with heat damps around them. These,” he gestured to the tunnel outside, “absorb any noise, heat or energy passing through. When anyone looks here all they see is a deserted ruin of a city”. “You say ’we’ ”, Felicia said. “How many of you are here?” “About 50 to 60” Garten replied. “75 actually”, Alfren corrected. “Remember the Massy twins and Rasko’s kid born last year?” Garten bobbed his head and smiled. “That Rasko kid is going to be a bruiser!” “75!” Felicia exclaimed. “How do you feed that many? How do you keep everyone safe?” They all felt the train suddenly decelerate. “We’ll show you”, Petrisen replied. A loud snapping sound burst out of small speakers in the walls around them. “Garden coming up” a monotone male voice said through a veil of heavy static. The train slid to a smooth stop and the doors once again peeled apart to reveal a small polished dark stone platform stretching to a rough wall of the same material. ‘Eden XXV’ was painted on the wall immediately before the open train doors in dull green lettering. Mattaus looked around him as he exited the train. They were in a small underground chamber lit by dull yellow orbs set above the platform. A soft hum filled the air and it was noticeably cooler than it had been where they had boarded. Garten walked ahead and led the group through an archway away from the train and into a long tunnel as dimly lit as the space they had just left, its end barely visible in the gloom. Sand crunched underfoot as they walked and Mattaus could see the imprints of many shoes in the thicker piles. Slowly the end of the corridor neared and as it did it revealed itself to be a large doorway, semi-circular doors stretching the entire width of the tunnel and up to the ceiling. ‘Eden XXV Entrance 54J’ was blazoned in white across both door surfaces and above two very large handles. Garten pulled one of the handles downwards and pushed the door open, the huge door swinging without a sound. “This is one of the smaller entrances”, he said as he led them through. The doors opened into a large room with thin metal piping covering the walls from floor to ceiling. A pair of dirty boots stood in one corner together with a broken wooden pole. A single door was set into the far wall with a small black shiny glass square in its centre. “Place is full of these smaller entrances. We have barricaded a lot of them, this one is useful though being close to the city – we use it fairly often”. ‘Entrance to what?” Felicia asked. Garten smiled as he pulled a card from under his shirt. It was looped around his neck by string passing through a small hole in one side. He pressed it against the black square set into the door and a loud ‘snap’ echoed around the room. The large man pushed the door open and bright light spilled into the room. “Welcome to the Garden”, he announced as he stepped through. Felicia was momentarily blinded by the sudden bright light and threw her arm over her eyes to shield herself. She heard gasps from the others and Mattaus swore loudly, so she quickly dropped her hands and forced her eyes open. The rest of the group had walked through and were spread-out on what appeared to be a large metal platform circled by high metal rails. “What the f…” The young woman quickly joined them as Hausen pointed at something below them. Her jaw dropped and her breath caught as she came to the railing. Stretching away before them and to either side of them were thick trees and lush bushes lining square areas filled with either crops or livestock. Cows and pigs stood lazily chewing or even more lazily stretching on the ground. The sounds of chickens came from a smaller fenced area filled with dozens of the white and brown birds. A stream wound its way around them all, circling what looked like a small thick woodland area and ending in a sizeable lake laying further within the cavern, sparkling as if its surface was studded with crystal. Felicia looked upwards to find huge racks of glowing lights suspended from a stone ceiling and stretching the full length of what was obviously a huge cavern. Its walls were a dusty white and between the trees and animals she could see what appeared to be archway openings at regular intervals along its length. Hausen gestured at everything. “How?” “From what we have gathered there were many of these sites before The Traveller came”, Petrisen replied. The survivors were trapped in conflict between looking at him and staring at a vista that they had only dreamed about. He gestured at the lights above. “Grow lights mimicking the sun”. He swept his arms around. “Hydroponics, aeroponics and air-dynaponics systems. Temperature systems producing multiple climate zones, waste recyclers. Look, its old tech, but…” “But it’s bloody amazing!” Garten laughed. “Look at it all!” Alfren nodded. “No way we would have survived without it”. Hausen just shook his head incredulously. “How?” he repeated. “They forgot about it!” They all turned to look at Garten. “Yeah, they left it! No idea why. No idea what happened. Maybe with everything that happened with The Traveller everyone got excited and forgot about it. Who knows. Who cares! Look at it all!” Petrisen chuckled. “It’s true. We found this place years ago. We were like you, running and hiding. Scavenging. Hunted. Little more than animals. We found the mine site first, then we found the train and it took us here”. “Herds of cattle, overflowing crops. Can you imagine?” “I’m having a hard time” Hausen muttered to Garten inciting raucous laughter from the big man. ‘It was on auto-pilot,” Garten explained. “All of this has hundreds, thousands of supporting systems and automated processes that keep it going. Waste extraction and recycling, plantation, harvesting and storage. There are sensors everywhere monitoring and reacting to the slightest imbalance, triggering routines and subroutines to put things right again. Trees grow too tall? Automated cutting tools bring them back to a manageable size and recycle the wood back into the eco-system. A plant or an animal dies? It’s automatically removed by mechanical walkers and hovers with sensors sensitive to the smallest hints of decay, all recycled back into the eco-system. Fish farm over-populates? Automatically farmed and stored with abundance recycled back into the eco-system. And everything powered by the sun”. “You have fish?” Felicia blurted. Garten grinned at her. “We believe this site was designed to supply food to the city, it being so remote and that. The mine would have been what brought people out here, big mineral deposits”. “And that’s what we want to show you”, Petrisen added sombrely.