Excerpt: Lady of the Oceans

They built their buildings outward until they ran out of places to go and every inch of the land was covered. And then they built upwards, until the ground was invisible from the roofs and the sunlight - what of it there was through the smog - couldn't even reach the streets below.

But eventually, even this wasn't enough, and they figured out a way to dig down beneath the buildings that were already there. They employed crystal-driven technology to power their new machines, and just dug lower and lower. The homes themselves had special coolant systems, to counteract the proximity to the Earth's core, but the prisoners who built them had no such things.

It was rumored that once you served your time in the core, you got to go free, but no felon ever lived long enough to cash in on his reward. Well, no felon but one.

Captain Horatio Saint Clauve was rumored to be the only man to have ever served his time in the core and lived to tell the tale, though he rarely told it. He had told Valencia though, and she believed, and that was enough. Not that she was a blabbermouth, but if Valencia said something, you listened up sharply or you got popped on the head with whatever she had handy. And usually her hand strayed to the counter with the heavy pots and pans on it.