The stall tender, as well as many others now that Simon was looking, had yellow complexions and hues to their skin.
They all looked sickly, their skin dry and papery with a jaundice to them that gave a yellow hue.
The whites of their eyes were also stained yellow, as though they were sick or...
"Malnourished..." Simon whispered.
Even in the complex, the employs of each caste had a quota for food, electricity, water, everything. Higher caste meant more quota.
But to be actually starving... no they weren't too thin.
"Why are they... yellow? They don't look starving just... sick. But not the ill kind of sick?"
"They don't have enough nutrients. Fruits, vegetables, non-toxic and edible, are rare and easily expire and rot. Scurvy is common, as is jaundice, one of its symptoms."
"Oh."
Simon then tilted his head. "You never answered."
"Huh?"
"How did there end up being so many ravines right in the arms of this mountain?"
"Cracks left from tectonic shifts during the Extinction. The complex was already dug out, we don't know when exactly, but the shifts in the earth and the underground system caused..." he gestured to the tiered town of scaffolding going into the ground and up the cliffs of the mountain. "This shit."
"...but wasn't the complex made BY Tesling Corporate? Why wouldn't we know when it was built?"
Ben rolled his eye and shrugged, his other eye paralyzed by his old wound(scar) and was unmoved. "Historical records of the Old World are not a simple matter."
He turned to look at Simon. "If you really want to know... The People are a group you should try and find I suppose. Most of the vids and data the company got its hands on to a company the basic textbooks we had kept were actually gained in a trade with them after all."
"The People? What kind of name for a group is that? And how could they possibly have more complete records than us, people who have databases from the Old World itself?"
Ben laughed. "The complex was not originally designed as a shelter for human culture and civilization boy. The data we had was more about how to grow crops and the scientific principles than actual history, beyond just a few textbooks and basic facts without any pictures or evidence at all."
Simon blinked. "So... the complex was set up by people who messed up their priorities?"
"No, not at all! If they hadn't focused on preserving scientific knowledge over historical, we would not have our current productive capabilities! We would not have survived nearly as well as we do, especially seeing as, without that knowledge, we could never have made wheat edible again!"
Simon quieted down, chastised.
However he had caught on to the implications in what Ben had been saying without directly stating.
"A group you should try to find."
It implied he'd go out. And people who got to journey the New World, to hunt in ruins and to trade... in the company, only one kind of such person existed.
'I'm...'
'...going to be an Apocalypse Explorer.'
Simon got a chill down his spine, yet he put it aside easily, for he could barely understand what that's even supposed to mean.
How can you even process the possibilities of what you could see or do when you've never left your home beneath the ground?
Simon glanced around nervously as he pushed the thoughts down. "So... I'm surprised I guess."
"Huh?" Ben half-turned his head before rapidly looking forward again with a quick "No don't tell me."
Simon's expression twitched. 'Do you have to be so against me talking? It's not my fault my trains of thought are a bit... zap-dap like a lightning trap.'
Simon nodded to himself, completely ignoring the strange words of his own internal monologue.
'Wait what was I trying to say? Oh yeah.'
"You'd think I'd be uncomfortable with this wide open... sky... with how I've lived my whole life underground huh?"
Ben shut his eyes and sighed. "No, that was part of the preparations with Emily's fear aura and the darkroom training."
"...Emily's what?"
"She's a changed, chosen, whatever you choose to call them. She can make things scare and unnerve you that normally shouldn't. The longer you spend in her grasp, the more terrified you are of everything. It's a good way to expose you to fear and help you get used to overcoming it."
He shrugged. "Course that would be bullshit, if it weren't for your subconscious being manipulated to take in information differently. The dream-version of reality combined with fear aura in a pitch-black room is what makes it work."
Simon nodded. "Ahhh... cause things in dreams can be symbolic, right?"
"What?"
"Symbolic. Like, cause it's a weird dream version of reality to warp my perception, the darkness becomes representative to my mind of all fears, the wide open spaces, the actual dark, nerves in a fight, etc. Probably whatever I'm set to connect it to." He pointed a finger at his head while saying the last sentence.
"That plus this fear-power thing means that constant exposure to the dark room is the same to my subconscious as constant exposure to the actual fears, right?"
Ben stayed silent, looking ahead.
'I have no idea! I'm not chosen, I don't get how the powers of gods work! What the hell are you asking me for?!'
Simon felt like he had probably come upon the correct assumption seeing how Ben didn't bother to respond.
They began to go out away from the mountain, towards the slightly higher walls connecting the two "arms" the valley lay between, creating a half-natural and half-artificial barrier against the rest of the world.
Simon could see buildings of steel, dark and rusty with years, built into the wall.
"That's where the explorers are?"
"It's where most of our defenses are." Ben angled himself now that the path opened up, no longer stuck between stairs and metal platforms constantly all around them like a jungle-gym.
Simon realized he was heading to a multi-story building that went down into yet another crevice, and up a few floors as well, standing out a bit. It was near the wall, but not built into it.
'Wall has our defenses, this is probably like the space that explorers have to plan and store gear since they need to be close by to go out easily, but far enough to not be wiped out in a sudden raid.' Simon nodded to himself as his brain got to work, thinking up possible reasons.
'Remember what Ben said earlier though, my assumptions could be wrong... I should ask just in case.'