There were barricades behind each door, and wire mesh strung up the staircase...concertina wire looped through diamond cables, set vibrating by the wind...and the whole place stunk of breath and panic and sweat and excrement. It was a thin plassteel spire, little more than a doorway and a spiral stair, punctuated by windows and external platforms, fourteen stories tall. At the top, it stretched outward, making room for a single penthouse suite.
Three children huddled on the bed in the center of the spire, shivering, as the echos of the doors being battered down belched from the stairs.