Pita ducked behind one of the supporting pillars and kept it between herself and the two uniformed men until they had passed. These were the "security guards" who served as the semi-official police force for the Underground. They were little more than goons who shook down the inhabitants of the Underground for protection fees. They were also the reason why Pita and her street chummers never ventured into the Underground much. If you couldn’t pay the fee for the "protection" offered by the uniformed guards, you could always work off your fee as a press-ganged member of one of the maintenance crews who did all of the hard, dirty, and dangerous work of expanding and repairing the Underground’s ever-growing maze of tunnels. It didn’t sound like much fun.