Baltimore

Amos's drowned, stratified childhood city remains physically familiar even as he realizes he no longer belongs to it.

Story so far

Baltimore is the Earth city that formed Amos Burton before he escaped the gravity well. Its waterfront is partially drowned, its commercial towers bordered by basic housing and predatory street economies, and its decaying docks still hold the places where Amos and Erich once imagined leaving Earth.

On his return, Amos recognizes every threat and social rule, but also sees that he has changed into a ship mechanic who understands reactors and hulls rather than a boy defined by these blocks. The city is still home in memory, yet already feels foreign to him.

Appearance

A dense, partially drowned East Coast city of commercial towers, basic housing, rotting waterfront structures, humid streets, and old docks along murky water.

Role

Baltimore is Amos's formative place and the territory from which he measures what leaving the past has made possible.

Relationships

Amos Burton — Amos Burton returns to Baltimore to find Erich and confronts the gap between the boy shaped here and the man he has become.

Erich — Erich has transformed part of Baltimore's failing waterfront into a secure criminal power base.

Lydia — Lydia once helped Erich rise within Baltimore's underworld and remains Amos's deepest tie to the city.

Earlier in this series

Also appears in books you've already read — spoiler-safe to their endings:

Abaddon's GateBook 3

Sources — 1 recorded facts, by chapter

Chapter 11

Amos's drowned, stratified childhood city remains physically familiar even as he realizes he no longer belongs to it.