The Heart
Overview
The densest inhabited zone in the Sprawl, and possibly the world. Miles of improvised housing rise in stacked towers called The Stacks, each layer built on the last with structural integrity that ranges from engineered to prayers. The Deep Dregs district proper occupies the center — the colloquial name that became the sector name — surrounded by Containment Level 9 in the old shipping channels below, Rust Point Radio broadcasting pirate signals from the Span pylons overhead, and the Carrier House running courier networks that no corporate surveillance can track. The medical district clusters here too: the Connection Ward, the Impression Ward, the Synthesis Clinic, and the Empathogen Cathedral, where unlicensed practitioners treat everything from radiation sickness to grief using methods the Rim would call criminal. The Mirror Market runs twenty-hour days. The Small Talk Cafes serve as neutral ground where faction representatives negotiate without weapons. The Speaking Wall collects testimony. The Thinking Room and the Quiet Room offer what their names promise — silence, in a place where silence is the rarest commodity. The Truth House adjudicates disputes using methods older than corporate law. Fifteen points of interest in two square kilometers. Nowhere else in the Sprawl is this alive.