The entire city is situated in a massive crater on a planet far from Earth. Its artificial atmosphere is contained within a series of interlocking domes dubbed "The Mosquito Net". Following the ravages of a terrible epidemic known as the Melding plague, which causes the very buildings to warp and disfigure, poisonous gases begin to seep into the city's center, forming a cauldron of lethal density and temperature. As the once so prosperous city falls, the rich flee into the soaring Canopy in their nimble cable cars, leaving the poor to fend for themselves down in the Mulch.
