Beneath the streets of Melbourne, Rebecca the rat scurried through the sewer pipes. She had heard rumours of a major leak, and as a photographer, it was her job to document the goings-on of the sewers. If by the time she arrived, the leak had already been fixed and cleaned up, then she would miss her chance of getting a good enough shot to help her win the best photograph of the year competition.
Now that Melbourne had employed Remy and his network of rat plumbers, there weren’t many leaking or blocked drains. Melbourne sewers had become so efficient, in fact, that the rat traffic had decreased by nearly two hundred percent since Remy was first employed. Rebecca thought the guy deserved a raise, but she supposed he wouldn’t be too bothered either way. It seemed like he was currently too busy campaigning for his royal coup to care about the salary that was given to him by the Australian rat government.
Finally, Rebecca turned a corner into the main sewer network and stumbled across the blocked and leaking drain. A small crowd of about two dozen rats were grouped around the leak. It wasn’t gushing water, but it was trickling quite forcefully due to what appeared to be a blockage that had been building up for some time, causing so much pressure that the pipe eventually sprung a leak.
A group of commercial plumbers were already on the scene. They had been called almost immediately, and to Rebecca’s complete lack of surprise, Remy was among them. He had both commercial and domestic divisions within his plumbing service, which basically gave him a monopoly on all the plumbing needs in the Melbourne sewers. The rat government employed him every time there was a problem, because he had beaten out all the other smaller plumbers to become the only plumbing company in all of the Melbourne sewers. Rebecca had to admire his grit, although from afar. She had never met the rat in person before. She might get to do that today.