"Gotta take one flight anyway, though, lift doesn't come down to the maintenance level..."  There's another concrete wall ahead with substantially less obvious structural damage.  A door covered in yellow signs has been propped open with a largish chunk of rock.

Anything written up in the signs? This place sure has a kind of decayed aesthetic. 

"Authorized Personnel Only Beyond This Point" and "Do Not Block Door" and "No Open Flames".

The stairs are... not rusty?  Much?

Thomas tells Felix about the "No Open Flames" sign.

"You can probably ignore that one at this point, oxygen level hasn't gone above green in years.  Honestly don't know if it ever could have, might just be some lawyer thing."

"Wow, and that applies to everywhere on the planet?"

"Oh, nah, just this section, I have no idea about anywhere else.  But the hab levels aren't going to catch fire, and I'm assuming you're not about to go off on an algae tank adventure on your lonesome anytime soon.

...at least not until you've got translation working for all three of you, so maybe pay more attention at that point, till you can tell what signs are safe to ignore."

"That's less bad. But still."

"Yeah.  Supposedly it's within tolerances still, but... I know everyone says this, but I swear the air was better when I was a kid."

"Oh dear. Huh... we can probably do something for air quality even if it is just make algae crops... is it called crops? whatever, even if it is just to make algae more efficient."

"Heh, yeah.  Algae crops, algae farmers, we're real pastoral down here."  And another door, with similar signs!  This one has tape over what's probably the lock plate.  "Dunno how much more efficient it can get, the corp engineered the crap out of it back when people first started settling the Under."

Shrug. "Your futuristic algae might not benefit as much, but I am sure somethings like speeding up growth can be done. And some other things that normally require very controlled infra-structure to give them an ideal environment."

"Huh. 

...not that I'm saying no, mind, but that sounds like it's getting into the kind of stuff managers definitely notice.  Mind your eyes now-"

The algae farms are big, and bright, and much busier than the lower level.  Building-sized cylindrical tanks are stacked well over a hundred meters up under full-spectrum floodlights.  (Evidently they're the source of the plastic in Peg's fish farm.)  Catwalks wrap around and between the tanks, people in waders and coveralls hurrying along them, and some sort of vehicle on the other side of the nearest row is rumbling along emitting the occasional beep.

Thomas shrugs. "We will cross that bridge when we get to it, I suppose." The triplets follow her, pretending that they belong there. Thomas will update his brothers on everything.

The cargo lift turns out to be a large platform with fencing around three sides, slowly descending as they approach it.  A couple of small ragged children hop off when it's a few feet above floor level.

Felix dashes off (fast, but a plausible deniability sort of fast) and the stops when it's obvious that the children were unhurt.

"Chill, dude."

The slightly larger child doesn't notice Felix, too busy checking nothing has fallen out of their bag; the slightly smaller one does and makes a squeaking noise, which makes the larger one jump and look around, automatically grabbing onto them protectively.

"Sorry, my brother though you jumped from too high and reacted before thinking."

Apologetic smile.

"S'fine, mister, uh- thanks?"  The older child is still wary but lets go of their... sibling?  Probably sibling, they look similar enough.

Said sibling, on the other hand, is indignant.  "I'm not a baby!"

"Nobody said you were, Kiri, c'mon-"

"Hey, old people can get hurt from falls too. In fact, you could argue that since they are more likely to get hurt from falls this means my brother doesn't think you are baby."

Smaller child contemplates this, looking a bit dubious, as the lift finally settles down to floor level with a drawn-out bump.

Older child is not buying this for a second but is also much less invested in the relative baby-ness of Kiri.  "Um- good point?  We gotta go, Kiri."

"Tell your friends to stay away from C47, it's been having electrical problems," Peg adds.

"Bye." Thomas says and hops in the cargo lift.

To Peg he whispers. "Orphans or just suspicious of strangers?"