By Renna Hallings, Feature Contributor – Epoch Society Weekly
They arrived in Halcyon late last autumn, just after the leaf simulators had finished turning digital gold and red. The Winslow family — August, Celeste, and their two children, Theo (9) and Isla (6) — had visited the underground districts several times before, but something shifted that year. A hesitance in Celeste’s voice. A tiredness behind August’s laugh. A kind of itch they couldn’t scratch up top.
They sold their Lake Tahoe estate in November.
Now, six months later, they sip morning coffee beneath engineered skylights in Sector H3 — a luxury residence carved into an ancient limestone vein. The ceilings are curved and high, resembling the vaulted arches of an old church. Sunlight pours in on a timer, filtered through solar tubes from the surface and digitally tinted to match the seasons.
"It's strange," Celeste tells me, sitting barefoot on a heat-warmed stone floor, her voice echoing gently through the space. "It doesn't feel like we're underground. It feels like we've left the noise behind.”
Why Go Underground?
The Winslows aren't alone. Over 400 families have taken up permanent residence in Halcyon over the past five years — most of them affluent, most citing the same reasons: safety, sustainability, and peace. August, a biotech investor, points to the rising climate instability, surface-level politics, and social volatility.
“We just got tired of watching everything burn — literally and metaphorically. And this place… it doesn’t react to panic. It was built to stay calm.”
Their unit spans over 5,000 square feet, with smart stone walls that regulate temperature and humidity, and a private biodome where Isla is learning to cultivate strawberries. “They're pinker down here,” she tells me, grinning, “but they taste better.”
Theo, her older brother, spends his days attending school in Learning Quadrant B, where he studies under a hybrid AI-human faculty. He’s picked up the local dialect — a soft-spoken blend of English, tech jargon, and Deepfolk shorthand. It flows like poetry and sounds, oddly, like something between Morse code and jazz.
Celeste admits it took her longer to adapt.
“I missed the sky. Missed the birds. But then I realized… I had never really seen the stars up there. Not without light pollution, not without satellites streaking past. But here? We have our own constellations — projected, yes, but curated. Intentional. It’s like someone put thought into wonder again.”
A New Kind of Community
Unlike gated communities or sprawling mansions on the surface, Halcyon’s residents live close. Not cramped — the architecture is spacious and thoughtful — but connected. Children share gardens and educational modules. Adults take part in community governance, or what Celeste describes as “an HOA for the soul.”
“We vote on everything — light cycle adjustments, public music rotations, even scent profiles in the shared corridors,” she explains. “It forces you to pay attention to how you live with others.”
The Winslows take turns with other families staffing the communal observatory, where kids are taught to read atmospheric sensors, rock moisture levels, and the soft seismic shifts that ripple beneath the bedrock. It’s part science class, part civic duty.
What’s Lost
But even paradise has trade-offs.
Celeste hasn’t seen her mother in nearly seven months. She refuses to come down — says it feels like a coffin. August had to resign from two corporate boards because “deepnet” access is heavily filtered for security. And Theo once cried for a full day after watching a video of birds migrating — something he’s never seen in real life.
Still, they don’t regret it.
“If we hadn’t made the leap,” August says, “we’d still be aboveground watching things unravel. Here, we’re building something. Something that could outlast whatever’s coming next.”
A Quiet Revolution
There’s a saying among the Deepfolk: “Above remembers forward. Below remembers deeper.” It’s painted in muted tones along a communal hallway in Halcyon’s civic center, flanked by portraits of the first generation to be born underground.
The Winslows are not pioneers. But they are a signal. That what once began as an emergency plan has become, for some, a preferred reality.
As I leave their unit — escorted back to the surface via the low-hum elevator pod — I glance back one last time. Isla is pressing her face to the window of their hydroponic dome, watching pink strawberries glow softly in the artificial dusk. It’s a sunset crafted by engineers, timed to last only nine minutes. But to her, it’s home.