Miles Below The Surface
The Grand Ballroom of the deep-crust bunker was a haze of aged scotch, string quartets, and untouched privilege. Arthur Vance adjusted the cuffs of his midnight-blue tuxedo, maintaining a polite, indifferent calm as an aristocrat from the London-Eden block laid out his theories on post-collapse resource management.
Vance listened with the practiced patience of a man who had spent three decades learning how to blend in. He hadn't been born into this air-scrubbed, velvet-draped world. Thirty years ago, he was fetching coffee as an unpaid intern for men exactly like the one currently lecturing him. He had learned their cadence, their tells, and the exact angle to tilt his head to make them feel heard. He wasn't one of them. He was simply the one balancing their ledger.
Vance smoothly excused himself from the conversation and stepped out of the golden light of the ballroom.
