It started with the water pumps. Despite perfect maintenance, pollution levels near the river spiked every Tuesday at 3 AM. Then the power plants—nuclear, squeaky clean—began reporting “phantom load.” Someone was drawing electricity from the grid without a meter.
She dug through the city’s archived save files. There it was: a hidden “unofficial” zone, not listed in any report. A self-contained colony of Sims who had never received mail, never paid taxes, never appeared on a single graph. They had built their own micro-dam in the sewer outflow. They farmed algae in the runoff. They had no school, no clinic, no police—and yet their happiness bar was full. SimCity 3000
But lately, something was wrong.
Just in case.