The Annex
Boomtown’s outermost wall is incomplete, and the gap is surrounded by the Annex, a large and dense shantytown that acts as a buffer between the Wilderness and the city proper. It bleeds into a small locality of Lowtown and is recognized by the government, receiving some policing and benefits.
According to Ricky, the Annex is populated by…
“Outsiders who can’t get in, Towners who have gotten out, and locals from birth - all refugees, fugitives, and survivors of both worlds.”
He also alludes to the threat of violent interactions with Outsiders.
Especially in the outskirts near the frontier, this is a place of poverty. Tents and huts have been cobbled together from random materials that have made it this far out from the city. They cluster together and grow denser as they approach the wall.
Nearer to the wall, the neighborhoods appear to have the infrastructure of a small but complete town - there are multi-level buildings, businesses, abundant electricity, and even Institutional buildings - but the people are dirty, the building materials on the storefronts are mismatched and heavily weathered, and the electricity is being carried across wires haphazardly crisscrossing above the trash-strewn streets.
Other, smaller slums and frontier settlements appear near various gates around the wall. Though the Black Pyramid can be seen towering over the city from every frontier vantage, the lack of services and protection offered to these additional slums by the Institution is apparent when Hank and the Hangman’s Horde burn down the smaller settlement where Ricky lives.
PERCEPTION OF SLUMMERS
Through Ricky’s experience, we see what life is like for a “slummer.” He gives an oath and presents his papers at multiple gates between localities; he must receive his food at the back door of a cafe rather than walking in the front; he is threatened with a baton by a Keeper when he crosses their path; he witnesses a “Towner” spitting at a worker from the Annex as he performs hard labor.
Not only is it true that those in the Annex are starving - it seems well-known and even joked about within the walls: when Meyer threatens to beat Ricky so that he won’t eat right for a week, the Gruff Man calls out “And from what I hear of slummers, that’s a death sentence!”
Ricky is critical of the slumlords and the power they wield over him and his neighbors, yet Holman (an Institutional Officer) advises that the slumlords are not the threat Ricky perceives them to be, and that he may even be best off finding work for them.