Location

Martell lives near a featureless Pod Station of slightly rust-scored metal and concrete.

Martell leads Lia along one of two exits from the station, a dimly corridor wide enough for vehicular traffic with a central strip partitioned off with metal railings and tyre marks on its surface, a pedestrian walkway either side.  There are very few people around, away down the other exit a trio of figures are moving toward the travel station.  Many meters ahead, a lone figure is moving away with the stagger of the inebriated. 

The air here is unusually damp and cold.

  

Exterior

After another 50m or so there is an open area recessed off the walkway and a gate in the railing to the road, though the rust spots suggest little use.

Martell turns down it, stepping into darkness, a couple of metres in a dim light comes on, giving just enough illumination for Lia to see where to put her feet, though the ground seems bare.  In the dim light of the steep-sided alcove she can see no movement, the roadway is more brightly lit with a sickly yellow light. Anyone at the end of the alcove would be silhouetted.

Martell heads for a small door next to a large vehicle-sized one.  At the small door he presses his thumb against a reader and stands still for a second.

The door swings aside, revealing itself to be thick and solid.

  

Interior

Entryway

Stepping through the door she’s in a smallish space, almost like an airlock but with only a gap on her left where the inner door would be. The air here is still cold, but much less damp than outside. Martell steps through the gap into what was clearly once a loading dock, though it hasn’t seen use in a long time. There’s even a dusty delivery van reversed in and facing what is a solid vehicle-door. As Martell steps out of the small entry space the lights come up slowly to a comfortable level of illumination. He heads up a short set of stairs onto the raised part of the dock and toward a pair of double doors at the back of the space.

  

Garage

Except for a well-trodden line between the two doors that is clean this place is dusty and only a smattering of footsteps elsewhere, mostly around the van.  The van is plugged into a charger, the wall unit of which has had dark green paint sprayed over most of the controls, but Lia can see the faintest hint of a lit tell-tale light under the coating.  Martell does something security related on the inner door and it opens, a light coming on inside as the dock area light begins to dim. 

  

Living Area

Inside the inner door, it’s warm and comfortable. Martell’s apartment is a converted warehouse and compared to most people’s living space, is huge.

A series of internal partitions have been put up to compartmentalise the space, thought they don’t reach the high ceiling.

Most of the floor space has been carpeted, except for areas such as the kitchen and bathroom that retain the original polished concrete surface.

From the door she can see a home theatre, entertainment area with some sort of gaming table, lounge area, kitchen, dining area, work area with a desk and console and also a worktable with tools, home gym, doors to freshers (presumably multiple from when it was a warehouse), and a raised area that may once have been a platform for an office or machinery that looks to be Martell’s sleeping area. Despite all this, it’s sparsely furnished, with little or no attempt at decoration or aesthetics.

A nondescript corner of the space behind one of the interior panels conceals a safe.

  

“Dis area’s zoned as bot’ commercial an’ residential.  If you know how to navigate da Allocations Bureau processes you can one of dese unused commercial locations assigned as your residence.”

 – Martell Bartman-Jira explains his residence