Kambuja

Kambuja is the name of an unfinished government building in Chicago, Illinois. The project was abandoned during the Fall when immigrants were being detained under suspicion of both the Fall and the Ashwater Disaster. It was originally intended to be an office building that had been scrapped during construction in the midst of the Long Winter. It is twenty-stories tall, though the top four floors are run down and uninhabitable.

The name Kambuja is the official title of the building, having been affectionately christened after the ancient Cambodian city - the word is also Sanskrit for "crooked", which accurately describes the building's rundown state. It was dubbed by some of the Persian American occupants.

For others, the safe house is simply known as the Hideaway, but that one is usually kept under wraps.

Since 2110, Kambuja has housed approximately two-hundred people (over 20,000 have lived there over the course of nearly forty years), ranging from foreigners to locals who are unable to find work, lost their homes, escaped from the law or abusive situations, fuse jackers, alcoholics, and then some.

The city of Chicago did not take to the homeless very well, and had shelters shut down six years after the Schism. Kambuja became not just a sanctuary for immigrants, but a home for those who didn't have one. The building is kept safe with constant "security guards" (men and women with previous history in combat and self-defense training, whether they be martial arts experts, former military, bouncers, boxers, what have yous) patrolling the lower levels. Kambuja is kept running under a local parish called the Cinctus Church, organized by Reverend Powell, who frequents the safe house with other churchgoers to provide clothing, food, gasoline for generators, and other miscellaneous items donated from their charity campaigns.
 * Currently the safe house is under the supervision of two elderly Polish immigrants, Roch and Lucyna.
 * Ito is in charge of the cafeteria.
 * Erika runs the maintenance with David Wednesday (who is known as Xaden Wynn by the Kambuja inhabitants).
 * Other notable residents are Sheela and her son Ravi, who are currently being targeted by the Bark of Ash cult.

It is also under scrutiny of housing some members of the Bark of Ash, using it as a halfway point to get new members over to Valhalla in Ashwater.