Little Sydney

10. Little Sydney

Welcome! Moo!

As you rumble along in your shuttle, you’re hit with an unfamiliar smell. Ah, right; according to some, that’s what the countryside is supposed to smell like. Well, it all smells like freshly-cut grass and crap. What a scent. Welcome to Little Sydney!

You arrive in a quaint little station that seems to be fashioned out of logs. Looking closely, you realize they’re well-made replicas. Right. It seems wasting anything in this sector is a terrible offense, judging by the carts of manure you see through the window, being carted from barns into crop fields. If you cared to ask, the friendly, toothless old man sitting in the only chair in the station would happily answer. To be honest, it seems like he’ll answer any question you could ever have. Even with his smile, he seems lonely.

That’s the vibe you seem to get from a lot of the Sydney citizens, but to varying degrees. As you exit the station, at least a dozen more men, women, and children will stop their work to turn and greet you. If you give the slightest hint of wanting to converse, they’ll take you up on it. And unlike many other sectors...the warm friendliness here feels truly genuine. There’s a tight bond between all these people, and they easily fold newcomers and visitors into that network. But even as they talk, you’ll have to follow them. They really never stop working! Whether they’re pulling up weeds and tending soil, picking from the fields, or tending to the animals or the plant life, they’re not stopping for much. If you’re lucky, you might catch someone on a short break as they sip lazily from a glass of water or lemonade. But even when they’re speaking to you, or singing to themselves, they can multitask really well. It’s like they’ve been doing the same job all their life!

Their clothing choices are pretty antique, too. Most wear denim overalls that are baggy and rolled-up wherever they can be, and underneath they don either nothing, or dirty button-ups. Everyone wears a large hat of some kind, be in a straw hat, a wide-brimmed hat, or something large, colorful, and extravagant. There’s one lady you might hurry by you donning a hat made of various plastic fruits.

The atmosphere feels pretty different from any other sector. It’s quite warm, and oddly humid. The weather seems to hang on your skin; it’s a bit uncomfortable, but you get used to it after a short while. While you wonder how each fruit or vegetable grows healthily in this environment, it seems that the more sensitive ones are covered by odd foil tents with various accessories attached to them.

The area itself is certainly unique. There’s a large network of big trees with wide splayed branches. These trees have had houses built around them, which can be reached by attached ladders. Most houses are also interconnected by rope bridges between them, for neighborly ease. Every inch of the ground is filled with lush grass, but to some, it looks a little too lime-green. It also feels tough and spiked beneath your feet; you might briefly wonder how the citizens get away with walking around bare-footed. The trees have good-sized fields between them, which makes going house-to-house a chore, but the space is used for various bushes, trees, and personal flower gardens. If you walk up to any of them, you can pick any fruit they grow off, but don’t take too many. Hospitality still has the word “hospital” in it! Just kidding--these people don’t seem like they’re the type to get mad easily, or at all. There are also huge sections away from the houses used for giant corn fields that obscure anything within them, large barns of various faded colors, and fenced-off sections of carefully protected and grown vegetables.

If you decide to enter the barns, you’ll find many animals. Many of them you won’t have seen in-person before, or even at all! There are cows, chickens, goats, alpacas, cats, dogs, small rodents, large rodents, exotic animals...man, you hope most of these animals aren’t used for food. They’re given free reign to roam the fields and the sector itself, so it seems like a nice life for them. You may try to ignore the various tools and sharp objects in the back of each barn, plopped onto a table right next to a large pneumatic tube.

Well, welcome to Sector X: Little Sydney! Try the veal when you get back home--you might’ve just met it!