We Call Ourselves Anima...

Like any rare creature, we tend to survive longer in captivity. In a cage. Hidden. Sealed off from the world and the dangers among it. However, we aren't displayed and admired. What are we? Scientifically, I am a specie named Homo animus. Commonly, we are filth, rejects, outcasts. The black sheep. Untouchable and worthless. I am different and unknown. I am hated.
We call ourselves Anima, and it appropriately means life force, or soul. The nature found in a man. You've seen us everywhere. Anima have always existed, and been the inspiration for many gods and legends. Even mythical creatures. We harness the only known magic in our universe - demons. We become them, live along side them, speak to them. People don't understand. Our existence became public knowledge in the mid 21st century. I was a child then. Science discovered us. Religion battled us. Politics used us. In the end, the world rejected us. It matters not that we look like them or have always lived along side them. We inspire them, protect them, we even mate with them, but in the end what man does not understand, he will fear, and seek to destroy.
Seventy years later, millions of us had already been persecuted and killed. Even more innocent people were killed out of suspicion. Small populations of us have came together and went into hiding everywhere, in every environment imaginable, struggling to escape the notice of people and blend in again. I think most of us are waiting to be forgotten. The greatest concentration of us, as I know, live here - in Grand Tesla. The biggest city in North America, built on top of an old plain in the midwest. No earthquakes, no droughts, no hurricanes, and safely tucked far away from any of the rising oceans. It's kind of ironic really, that we live right under the nose of the most technologically advanced civilization in the world. The upper level of the city is over two thousand square miles, and the ground level slums stretch even wider. It rises nearly a mile into the sky, and extends two miles below the ground.Needless to say, no one has ever seen the stars here.
In the heart of the city, there is a monumental train station called the Centrifuge that rises like a column of churning gears. Each story accommodates a method of transportation, the subways below ground, the freight locomotives at the slums level, the road ways just above it at the base of the city, the bullet and magnet trains stand even higher, their tracks like bridges webbed across the city. Dozens of stories sit for many other purposes between the roads and the platform at the top that towers higher than the rest of the city. The airport runs from here. Even more fantastic, each level spins, changing courses, opening and closing certain destinations, and earning the attraction it's famous name.
Every race, class, and profession can earn a living within Grand Tesla's walls. I couldn't tell you how many millions of people call it home. I wouldn't call it a bad place to live, as the people here are more intelligent and mindful than most, foregoing ignorance and adopting ways to work together - ways to increase their chances of survival. I think there's almost an acceptance of us and our demons in the slums and underground, so the few people that glimpse us in the city don't speak up. It's never been home to me, though. Beyond the city to the north and east there are forests and lakes everywhere. Most of the year, this is where I run. Wild, one with my demon for weeks at a time, and forget this machine-driven artificial hell. Yet every year, something, usually malignant and cruel, always demands my attention and calls me back to the city. This year, however, I have work to do, a score to settle, and questions to be answered.