I'm far underground in a huge, chill, dim cavern full of glass and steel skyscrapers. Built above ground, at some point they were either dropped somehow into this underworld or that arched ceiling was built far above.

Once down here, where the windows became useless for light, they got covered in reddish opaque slabs "for security". Red slates, or rusty steel plates? Some towers are hundreds of meters high; a few hit the cave ceiling. I hope the tallest penetrates aboveground--I want to return to the surface, and an express elevator in a ceiling-scraper might take me there. Even a stair would help. Exhausting, a half-mile climb, but at least a clear path out.

I'm ready to go. Memorable scene, but just gloom and businessmen down here, heading for work in their armored rusting towers. Businessmen with horns, fangs and barbed tails.

But they wear suits and Homburg hats, so we have to call them businessmen. Wouldn't want to look prejudiced, would we?

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• Gloomy cave-city: the underside of Detroit in Rachel Aaron's Nice Dragons Finish Last. Dragons, in her fantasy, gutted their world and fled to ours. They can take human form, but they don't automatically acquire empathy or ethics. But they can build wealth and look out for #1! It's a perfect parody of late capitalism. Our dragon-hero just wants to live quietly and avoid his quarrelsome relatives--who call him a loser.
• Monstrous underground structures, rusty steel plates: In the news, aviation fuel's detected in Oahu's water system. The source: inside Red Hill above Honolulu, three huge tanks from WW2 never got maintained; their steel floors finally rusted through.
• Monsters in business suits: New Yorker article on Thom Browne's satirical fashion designs. Or, of course, just business as usual. Who cares if the tapwater's flammable? No profit in plugging those leaks!

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