Zax hadn’t considered the one-horned Resident could be accompanied too, so he nearly missed her amid the group that arrived from the other side of the room.

He messaged his own group and examined the newcomers; two unknown men, and Loozy’s colourful mane was nowhere in sight.

The man on the left would probably be tall if he wasn’t slouching so much. It didn’t seem to be his natural posture, just weariness. More interestingly, his whole body was covered in thick scales. Average built, albeit with a bit of a belly. No footwear or accessories. The only clothing he wore was a loincloth, with a sash across his chest holding a pouch on the side. The Circle’s answer to a dearth of pockets.

No hair anywhere, of course. Human face, including the eyes, nose, ears and lips, showing how tiny and thin his scales could be. Human hands and feet, no paws. No claws or tail either. Maybe fangs, but if his nanites were right about the scales matching an alligator’s, some would probably jut out from his lips if they were mutated.

Zax caught a glimpse of the ridges along the man’s back when the group turned to the side, following Bathor’s finger. It matched too well with their natural counterpart, especially the natural irregularities, so the hobbyist tentatively upped his classification a notch above swallow/skin-deep, until further notice.

The other man was a bit on the small side and didn’t have obvious mutations. His clothes bore decorative holes to reveal markings on his body, leaving his back fully exposed and boasting a painted pattern sprouting from his spine. A few elegant openings adorned his forearms and calves too. The back markings had a symmetrical wavy pattern, in hazy bands the colour of a fresh bruise, while the face and limbs had clean, straight lines in a brighter green, with no pattern Zax or his nanites could discern.

The hobbyist had never heard of such configuration before. The parts didn’t match any creature in his database, but that didn’t mean much. The way they were drawn was the intriguing part.

Body markings were usually one single colour, until the full primary pattern was set or close to; this one wasn’t and had two radically different colours. Having several types of bands –waves and straight lines – was not unheard of, but they usually fit together to make a different whole, or one could grow into the other; his were not even in the same area. Gradual colouration or clean lines were common, but not the two on the same individual; his two patterns each had a different type.

The imperfect symmetry was the only part that didn’t go against the widely acknowledged trends. Could he have independent mutations at different parts of his body but on the same organ? That would explain why both sets of markings were so different, but it could only mean one of those mutations was necessary for his survival. In a way that didn’t fit the rest of his life, or that mutation would have grown since. In a way that wasn’t incompatible with his lifestyle either, or it would have been undone at the following activations.

On the other hand, none of those markings seemed related to a life-saving mutation. Were they a side effect of something deeper? But then the marks would be everywhere…

He was making a lot of assumptions too, on how old those mutations were, or how many activations the man had had since, or anything about his lifestyle.

Zax was incredibly curious, but the Residents noticed him starring, so it would have to wait. He waved his hand, but didn’t stand up.

“Hello, Zax.” Bathor greeted when they reached him. “Here are my colleagues, Gatoro, representative of the Libero Family” The man on her right grunted. “And Suisen, representative of the Yokai Clan.”

“Hi hi.” The representative in question waved eagerly. “Ready for the biggest day of your life?”

“Hello. Er, not really?” Zax leaned his head to the side, uncertain. “I thought it was only two meetings, with an activation coach and with your team? I mean, yes, that Garuza person is bound to be interesting, but still…”

His answer drew a complicated expression from Bathor, Gatoro didn’t react, but Suisen found it amusing:

“Haha, that’s the spirit! Don’t let anything daunt you! C’mon, let’s go.” He motioned with his head. “Stem’s sprouting.”

“Wait, didn’t you send a message about two friends with you?” The horned woman reminded. “Did they change their mind?”

“No, they just went for a little walk.” Zax rose from the seat. “Waiting here was too boring for them. They’re right here.” He pointed behind them with his eyes.

The welcome party glanced back, startled by the young woman waiting behind them. Her tail was softly swaying behind her. She put on a slightly too large, too sweet smile and waved innocently:

“Greetings, Residents. My name is Aran. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“Hello. You seem familiar. Have we already met?” Bathor tried to answer casually.

“Maybe when you visited the shop? I go there quite often. I played with Loozy too, when you visited together. She needed to let off some steam.”

“Behind her is my apprentice, SG.” Zax continued the introductions.

The socially adept gamer didn’t move, letting her shy friend reveal herself at her own pace.

“Hello.” She kept her wings folded, hiding her upper body like a cloak, but she managed a small nod to accompany her small voice.

Bathor and Suisen nodded back, but Gatoro didn’t react beyond a glance. If his hands weren’t flabbily hanging at his sides and his back was straighter, he could have passed for the strong silent type. As was, he only seemed too tired to care.

Short pleasantries later and they were on the move. Everyone was eager, either to get started or to be done.

They went to the corridors on the back of the access point, the dotters following the Residents, the scaled man closing the march. Zax expected them to go through the maze of meeting rooms, but a wide, straight hallway on the side allowed them to bypass it.

Aran seemed disappointed.

“It feels like skipping a dungeon, and I don’t like speedruns.” She pouted when asked about it.

“Try to imagine the encounters it would have.” Zax advised.

She did so. The dotters chuckled; the Residents up front were confused but only exchanged glances.

Before they reached the other end, something changed in the air. It was subtle, hard to pinpoint, but it became glaring as they stepped further. Was it lighter? It wasn’t noisier. A slight fragrance maybe? The air couldn’t be as sanitised as the dot’s, so it was a possibility.

Regardless, there was no mistaking it: they were not in the dot anymore.

The corridor led not to a room or a hub like the one they had left, but to a crossroad, mirroring the one in front of the access point. The most striking part was just how high the sky was. It was still as opaque, sturdy and uniform as normal, but at least twice as high. High enough light-sources were mounted on the ground instead. There was… so much space!

Even the nanite factory, in the Core, hadn’t felt that casually cavernous. The size there was calculated, purposeful, like in the dot. Here, it felt natural, a side effect no one had bothered doing anything about.

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There were green splotches here and there. Vegetation, to help renew the air, so it was probably not as airtight as the dot.

The thought sent a shiver down the dotters’ spines. Two of them had grew up learning about the lethal world outside the Shelter, and one had seen firsthand the damage it could do. She had mentioned it when learning about pre-shelter history. The Circles had reliable protections against it, but it didn’t make the idea any less chilling.

Lowering his eyes from the ceiling, the second thing Zax noticed was the lack of freight on their right. It explained why the sounds of activity were so muted; their tunnel probably opened elsewhere, further away.

Looking sideways, it was revealed the corridor they had entered in became a pipe, extruding from the dot’s wall. On both sides of the pipe, Enforcers were patrolling. Standard weapons but average mutations. Dotter average.

Curious.

The guides let the dotters gawk before continuing:

“Transports are not allowed that close to the entrance. And for six people, they’d be too expensive in this bubble. Sorry, but we already exploded our budget. We’ll have to walk for a bit.” Bathor stated. “Normal vehicles are for three people at most – including the driver – but same issue. We can’t afford three of them.”

“No problem.” Zax shrugged. “You brought me here to see how’s life in the Circle, didn’t you? That means all the bubbles and not just seeing it from afar.”

“Bubble?” Aran queried.

“It’s how the Circles are built. Construction starts at the previous level’s entry point and expand from there. It naturally forms a circle around that point, so it was named a bubble.” Zax explained, to the surprise of the locals. “Once they are stable enough and reach a critical size – related to many factors, including afflux of new blood, surrounding resources, and specific mutations – they replace their growth with durability, making more lasting structures and so on, and they help expand new bubbles around them. Rinse and repeat. A Circle is complete when the bubbles join. Preferably at the opposite of the entry point.”

“That… doesn’t sound like it would make a circle.” Aran bore a complicated expression.

“It’s easier to build along the lower level, so they don’t stray much. After that, they can fill the blanks to make a cleaner circle. Right?” Zax directed at their guides.

“That’s what we were taught, but the First Circle has been completed for a while now.” Suisen nodded. “The few remaining bubble marks – what’s left of the old borders – are kept for historical reasons, but that’s it. We’re as round as it gets. Pretty sure in practice, it wasn’t as easy as it sounds, though.”

“Oh? Then what did you call a ‘bubble’ earlier?”

“Well, the bubbles still exist.” He amended. “The borders are mostly administrative now, is all. Each are managed by their own governor, with their own politics. Same laws tho. They can share parts of their territories too, so it’s a bit hazy at times. I heard of mergers, splits, overlaps, and even small ones being integrated to another, but that one was long ago.”

“Ah. Oh. Ooooh.” Aran vocalised a realisation she shared with her feathery friend.

“What?”

“That’s what it was about! In the movies. The ones set in the Circles. It was a common worldbuilding point, but I didn’t know it was a real thing.” Aran explained.

“Makes more sense.” SG nodded enthusiastically.

“But I don’t think they call it ‘bubbles’?” The tailed girl added uncertainly.

“It’s just the common name. You’ll also hear them called ‘Sectors’, ‘Districts’ or ‘Areas’. I’m not even sure there’s an official name.” Bathor elaborated.

Seems like a severe oversight and a legal nightmare.

“If it’s a different management but the same laws, what’s the difference between them?” Zax was curious despite himself.

He wasn’t aware of such minutia either, and their guides had been surprisingly pleasant so far. Neutral at worst.

“They have different missions, different ways of doing things, they prioritise different things. Some can work together too. Like, a bubble focuses on production, another on logistics, and together they make an awesome delivery service for everyone.”

“Some will push for new ideas in the population by organising events, others will take their time and use education and entertainment instead.”

“They can manage some of each other’s needs too. One will handle their neighbour’s building supplies while the neighbour will take care of the related manpower.”

“The governors regularly meet to coordinate each other, amend the global laws if needed, agree on which bubble will do what. That kind of thing. It’s called a council, though the true council, when all the bubbles are gathered, doesn’t happen that often.”

“When it does, it’s always because of something big. A major discovery or something.”

The horned woman and the painted man explained together.

“Neat.” Aran insightfully stated.

“Where do the Great Families play into this?” Zax continued.

“They support and advise the governors and the councils. Money, manpower, intelligence… They give what they can to who needs it.”

“They ‘give’ according to ‘need’, uh?” Zax pointed sceptically. “How are the governors decided?”

“They are elected by the citizens. Every five years, unless something happens to make them leave earlier.”

“Right. In that case, I guess at least some governors are neither part of a Family nor related to one? And none of the bubbles can seriously be called ‘this Great Family’s district’?”

The Residents had the decency to look embarrassed.

It was all the confirmation he needed. While the governors officially had top decision-making authority, in practice, the Great Families called the shots; they controlled the essential resources and talents.

Every system had its issues, but the only way the dotter would support this one was if the heads didn’t make the people suffer with their internal competition, and if it didn’t get in the way of the everyone’s prime directive: terraforming the planet so the Shelter can cease to be necessary one day.

Zax wasn’t convinced, but he didn’t have decisive proof of either way. He would give them the benefit of the doubt until something was proven.

They eventually reached… a public transport station? It was all it could be, but it was unlike anything in the dot. Sparsely more people had been walking around as they went further from the access point, but they all seemed collected in this one place.

The Residents, none with advanced mutations, were waiting on a huge dais, on one side of metal rails. There were quite a number of people, but they didn’t take half the available room. A far cry from the light road station, on ground level, that could be boarded individually anytime and didn’t have room for more than a handful of adults at a time. Another identical dais was on the other side of the rails, empty. Nobody reacted to the group of six discussing what had to be common knowledge for them.

For example, the fact this railroad was one of a kind, as it went all the way around the dot, but most public transportation didn’t go beyond their bubble. This train was the only one that could be allowed to go closer to the access point, in special cases, which were the only way to lower the barricade behind the dais – the train station.

Soon enough, a bell rang, announcing the arrival of the aforementioned train. One minute later, it was there. Not as loud as expected, and most of it was the brakes. Most wagons were long with wide empty openings serving as windows, but bulky ones made its head and its tail, from which tired strongmen exchanged places with fresh ones.

The guides had warned them that propulsion was powered by muscles, but it wasn’t what the dotters expected. “Muscle-men” was a fitting term, but they couldn’t be compared to the near-paragon of physical strength that was Officer Bor. Not because they were above his league, but because their mutations were so focused. One boasted wide, smooth, chiselled legs, each muscle’s individual twitch visible, each heartbeat shown by the throbbing veins along their surface, under an ordinary sized, pockmarked, skinny torso. The upper and lower parts could credibly belong to different people. Similarly, one had two enormous arms, while another had a single, even larger one. One had a more homogeneous musculature, but he was also the most exhausted of the lot, visibly sweating and panting.

The visitors could definitely picture such a group moving a huge mass of loaded, metal wagons for hours.

None of them seemed bothered by their own asymmetry. Neither were the other Residents, if the lack of reaction from other passengers, or the woman with two children running to their father, were any indication. The two-arms man picked one up in each hand with a smile, getting childish giggles for his efforts.

Definitely the results of work-related mutations, the human body wouldn’t allow such unbalance naturally. Analysing the pictures, Zax’s nanites pointed irregularities in the movements of some of them, compatible with changes in the structure itself; not merely in the size and performance of normal muscles, but in the number and layout of everything, bones, muscles, nerves, even joints.

It made it easy to spot the more recent hire, and those who used their muscles outside of this job. The hobbyist wanted to examine them from closer, but the train wouldn’t wait for them, and the motor-wagons weren’t open to the passengers.

The passenger wagons were a simple affair: empty boxes with leather loops – Zax was sure it was leather – hanging from the ceiling, sides and central poles; collapsible seat and bumps to lean against along the walls, below the eye-level windows. There couldn’t be standard seating when there wasn’t a standard sitting anatomy.

Which made the uniformity of the passenger’s anatomies all the more obvious. Only two tails among the dozens of people in their wagon, and one belonged to a dotter. Actually, everyone on this wagon could pass for a dotter with a simple change of wardrobe.

As the tourist was pondering the implications, the bell rang and the wagon started moving, going back where it came from; deeper in the First Circle.