Tau is a city kid. He lives on the 15th level, one of the lowest and darkest levels of Hubris. Since the collapse a year ago, when an unexploded bomb finally detonated and brought down a quarter mile of ceiling, Tau has had a harder time living. He ran with a small gang, but most of them left after the collapse. The food dispensaries are unreliable, and Tau is sometimes roughed up by packs of the city's dogs who force him to feed them.
Before the fighting stopped, a group of soldiers had used construction foam to set up a temporary barricade on the 15th level. Tau calls it home. Right next door, there's a hole in the wall of the supplies building that the construction clouds haven't fixed. Tau learned the incantation to keep them from closing it off, so he's able to bypass the building security and get directly at the nanofactory inside.
Tau has thought about going to the surface. One of these days, he tells himself, he's going to plot a course to level 1. If he survives, he'll go into space. One of these days.
