>>6333813[2/4]
The ground floor was better taken care of than the basement level, although trash could still be seen and the subfloor was occasionally exposed, a fine red carpet was still visible in the hallways leading up towards the entrance. You wondered how it must have looked before the War. It was here that you saw the first examples of your fellow citizens, a pair of older-looking men sat on a bench by the entrance doorway, both wore the same jumpsuit as you, with one wearing a comfortable-looking wool beanie, under which flowed locks of gray hair. This one slowly gazed upon you as you emerged from the stairwell and spoke in a soft, Italian-accented voice as you passed.
<span class="mu-i">"They put you in one of the basement rooms, eh? Bad draw."</span>
The other man nodded, replying in your stead. <span class="mu-i">"Smells like shit down there."</span>
You nodded deferentially, continuing on your way. You noted a vending machine beside the bench where the old men sat, lit, and seemingly functional. Inside were colored aluminum cans in rows with subdued, minimalist labeling. All of them were uncarbonated water, but some of them promised a vague flavoring to differentiate them from their peers. The vending machine took <span class="mu-b">Credits</span>, a proprietary currency introduced by the Combine in order to facilitate a semblance of an economy inside their Cities.
Opening the door, you were finally greeted with the sight of City 11, or rather, this segregated block of City 11. You didn't know quite what you expected, you weren't naive enough to anticipate a postcard scene of the <span class="mu-i">Unter den Linden</span>, but this part of Berlin seemed particularly run-down and depressing. The apartment block you emerged from was the largest, most defining feature of the block, its' white brick facade cracking in places and with a great hole in the front aside a crater in the road, evidence of some significant explosion that collapsed the wall into two apartments. One of the apartments was seemingly repaired with a hasty wooden wall, while the other was open to the elements with some traces of repair work in progress. <span class="mu-b">Perhaps this explosion happened recently.</span>
The sun cast a sinking orange glow from above the dark blue alien walls that snaked across the city, soon it would be Shift Three, the night shift, and you would have to maintain your cover by working your assigned job. A pair of Combine structures lay inside the block, looking as if the ground sprung two bluish tumors in eldritch shapes upon the urban landscape. You have no reckoning of the smaller one's purpose, but the snaking line of chain-link fences and occasional sprinkle of Citizen foot traffic outside the larger one, situated in the parking lot of some office building ruined by the border wall, most likely made it the <span class="mu-b">Ration Distribution Terminal.</span>
