T CITY VIGNETTES

Vignette #1 — Butcher’s Row & Kilart Road

In Butcher’s Row, a gang of hoodlums chased a panicked straggler. They dragged him up the stairs in an abandoned block and threw him off the roof. He screamed all the way up and all the way down, staying for a whole hour adorning the Butcher’s Row palisade before police came and scraped him up. In other places he would’ve been gone sooner, but Butcher’s Row is a place where dirt piles up and the people there don’t seem to mind. My first job was given to me by a friend’s friend who lived in one of the newer blocks. He’d buzz us up, and three metal detectors later I had a view of the entirety of Butcher’s Row and part of Kilart Road. It was a dreadful sight.

Vignette #2 — Lark Bay

Down by Lark Bay there are loungers, men who haven’t worked an honest day’s work in their lives. Their faces split open like coin purses, reflecting metal in the sun—cold silver and copper. One wrong step and they cut arteries in your legs and let you bleed out there, so that’s why it’s important to always come with a clear idea of what you want from the interaction.

Vignette #3 — Windon Affair Room

Dusty shoes lined up against the wall, a pair for each member—thirty-three pairs in total. Every piece of legislation pertaining to the Windon Affair had been written in this room, and for the concluding stretch of work, the members of the Windon Foundation had gathered one last time. Final, not because the legal matters were comprehensively concluded, but because armed men would come in and execute them one by one.

Vignette #4 — Langour’s Distillery

On the front-facing outer wall of Langour’s Distillery, there was an aged mural depicting the rise of the man himself in the world of brewing technology, the focal point being two women caressing a barrel with the patented Langourimeter sticking out from the top. Langour’s office could be seen from the street, a blue light emanating from a window on the second floor. While it had been used as a space for actual work at some point, it was now the place for drug-fueled orgies orchestrated by the younger cohorts of the Langour family.

Vignette #5 — Sluice Booths

City council has installed sluice booths for firefighting purposes to great effect. Vertical pillars the size of street lights can now rise from the street and instantly put out any fire in its vicinity. Fires inside houses are more difficult to extinguish, but the ability to douse burning cars and to drench protestors has proven invaluable.

Vignette #6 — Prox in Logport

Following the tumultuous post-war years, many different actors tried to take the stage in Logport. Pimps, pushers, gun runners, guns for hire—even cults and spiritual figures. What eventually reshaped the district wasn’t any of them. It was Prox. A highly designed amphetamine with singular psychoactive effects. It turned people into machines. They stayed up for weeks, crunching numbers, reading charts, finding patterns. The entire street became infested with speculators and investors. Prox built the financial district of Logport. There’s still not much talk about the neurological damage it left behind. Most of the first generation of investors turned mute and deaf. The silent men of Logport.

Vignette #7 — Dunley’s Legacy

In spite of his mother’s best efforts, Dunley insisted on keeping to the path he had chosen early in life. His teacher would empty his backpack and a half-alive rat would fall out, stapled circuitry pinned to its body. He was reprimanded, but no one ever found out what he was doing—software side. At the age of twenty-three, he flew a remote-controlled butterfly into the chest of Freecore’s mayoral candidate and detonated it before a shocked audience in the Pavilion of Dreams. He’s been firmly in the care of Pushton Penitentiary for the last twenty years. But the circuit-bound pigeons that still appear around the city remain a stark reminder of Dunley’s legacy.

Vignette #8 — Mucca Detritus in Overpass Canal

Floating in the overpass canal, an elongated figure rolls and curls on itself in the rusty brown water. From the sterile basins in the Mucca Cyberkinetics underground facility for the production of synergistic anatomatas comes waterlogged designer detritus. A silicone skin, stretched to twice its normal length and full of tiny transparent shrimp, gets stuck to a ladder and is pulled from the water by a couple of kids who start poking it with sticks. The aquatic animals pour out, along with some white liquid. The patented Mucca bio-solution, while harmless to shrimp, does have an effect on creatures with sufficiently large alveoli. The poking children would later be found by some poor garbage collector.

Vignette #9 — Retro Home Collapse

Tracing the cold metal of the railing as he walked the bridge, never losing sight of the brilliant lights shooting out from the top of the Faraday building. Now he could smell it all. The fumes, the wet asphalt, the trash and the fried food—the city ran through him like a marathon runner, carrying the odours of the city on its sweat-soaked body. He reached into his pocket, grabbed the note, unfolded it, and read it again.

"Repurposed houses. A new style, a new life. Visit us today."

And then the address.

He let the note fly from his hand and climbed over the railing.

He had wanted that retro home, like in the old movies. The big TVs. The real fish. The marble-top counter. Real leather.

Couldn’t they have known? That it was too heavy. Too much weight for this brittle new world.

He saw her face in that moment—before the floor caved in, before the dust and the madness. It was a surprised expression.

He let go of the railing.

For a new style, a new life.

Vignette #10 — Lovezen Dream-Dats (Emotional Control Product)

Stacking the red plastic shells in one corner and the blue ones in another made the picture much clearer for Lenosov. What initially had seemed like a packaging error now looked to him like an act of sabotage. The shipment of the latest models of the Lovezen dream-dat line had arrived a week ago and the earlier versions had been the one item he could never keep enough stock of, the demand for this particular solution was insane. Halfway between an instructional video and an amygdala agitator, the Lovezen dream-dats were at the cutting-edge of couples' technology, promising renewed ties and soul-bonding on a level far beyond anything made by Trust Corp or NewMate. And now someone had screwed up his order, half of the tapes for the men were missing.

He spun a box around and dialed the number printed in the corner. After establishing his role as a distributor to the robo-voice on the other end, he finally got through to someone who was willing to talk.

"Where's the rest of the tapes? The man gets a tape, the woman gets a tape, that's how it works. I only have half of the blue tapes."

"That's no mistake, sir. The new dream-dats are slightly different from the old ones, the procedure is different. Lovezen's R&D department tried an asymmetrical approach to dream-dat usage and found it more effective when the men weren't using the tapes."

"But it's for couples, that's how it always worked. The man uses his tape, the woman uses hers, and they are both brought closer. What about my male customers?"

"It's quite alright, sir. They don't need the tapes. The bonding has proven to be more effective when only the woman uses the tape. We've changed the content of the red tapes—it's a much different experience now."

"Different?"

"Oh yes, very different. A woman who uses the tape will bond the man to her for an indefinite time, he won't be able to get enough of her."

"I see."

"It's brand new tech, sir. Remote agitation, or 'remotitation.' It's very exciting!"

"And the blue tapes?"

"They're for termination, sir. It's the only way to quit the bonding experience. It's all quite intuitive. We're very proud of the new dream-dats, sir."

Vignette #11 — Mitch & the Projector

Driving through places he had only seen on screens and in pictures gave him a strange sense of vertigo. Like some faraway dam in his mind cracking open, the floodgates letting out a faint murmur at first, then a roaring surge that drowned every other thought. He was walking in the footsteps of the man he was hunting, and as he started to recognize the houses and streets, it began to feel like they were connected—an invisible string pulling them closer by the moment.

No longer an active crime scene, the house on Alroyo Lane stood dark and abandoned. He parked in the driveway and stepped out, kicking a child’s tricycle aside as he approached the door. He tried the handle. Unlocked, just as he expected.

Through the pitch black, he saw little blue angels dancing somewhere deep inside. Moving carefully, he followed the faint hum toward the blue light. A projector whirred softly, casting the image of two girls in blue dresses onto the wall. The Friedman girls—though not quite as he remembered them. He cursed Bierman's name under his breath and shut the projector off.

"Aren't they pretty?"

The voice creaked from behind him. He spun around. He couldn’t see the man’s face, just a silhouette—but he didn’t need to. He knew it was him.

"Don't do anything stupid or I'll have to shoot ya. I thought we could watch some more movies. I've got something I think you'll like. Turn it on."

Mitch had already seen the gun. He didn’t doubt the man's willingness to use it. Slowly, he turned back around and switched the projector on again, letting the girls reappear on the wall. A small disc slid across the floor, landing at his feet—black, unmarked.

"A world premiere, if you will. Hope you're excited."

There was no escape. No clever moves. No cards up his sleeve. He picked up the disc, his hand moving on its own, mechanical and limp, and loaded it into the projector.

First nothing. Then a flicker. Then large white letters:

A HARD-BOILED SCOTCH FOR A HARD-BOILED DETECTIVE. MCLOUGHLIN'S SINGLE MALT WHISKY.

Darkness again. More flickering. Then another message:

DO YOU WANT TO DEFEAT BIERMAN HERE OR CHASE AFTER HIM IN A CAR? PICK OPTION 1 OR 2.

He froze, staring, unable to process what he was seeing. Then something cold pressed into his palm—his Colt. His body moved faster than his mind could catch up. He dropped to one knee, spun, and fired twice. Bierman yelped, slumping to the floor.

Silence followed. Mitch kicked the body, breath coming hard, heart pounding like a drum in his chest. His mouth was bone-dry.

He needed a drink.

Tiled City Vignette #12 — Loop Mole Traffic Cable

Beneath the pavement there’s a cable as thick as a cat’s tail. A hidden vein tracing the same path taken by every car, omni-taxi, and flycycle in the bi-state area. You’d be forgiven for thinking it was part of some snow melt system, or a piece of a greater initiative to monitor traffic or help drivers avoid busy streets—but you’d be sorely mistaken.

Officially, it’s for measuring soil water retention. And great efforts have been made to ensure everyone agrees on that point: pamphlets, slogans, TV commercials, journalists found floating in the Nando Inlet with their hands and feet tied.

If you were to open the cable up—and risk the very actionable punishment—you’d find none of the usual stuff. No metal, no wires, no fiber optic strands, no plastic. Instead, there’s a pleasantly smelling bright blue jelly. And that’s all.

While not quite the lifeblood of the city, the crushed and processed spinal fluid of loop moles has indeed revolutionized the traffic situation in the bi-state area. It’s like a topical telepathy—allowing drivers to conceive of themselves as units in a larger context. Just like the humble loop mole, the driver can access places in his mind where the existence of other loop moles isn’t just a factual reality—it’s a blessing. Tunnels intertwining, going deeper, spiraling around, forever connecting, forever giving way, forever going ahead.

This is naturally all very subtle. But the results have been remarkable. A city-wide decrease in fatal accidents, hit-and-runs, and speeding ticket citations.

Every road, now in a way, a tunnel.

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Pub: 12 Jul 2025 02:10 UTC

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