undoubtedly one of those urban legends that appear whenever two or three houses agglomerate anywhere.
People say all kinds of things. They talk about a child gifted with paranormal powers, and sometimes about an old man, and sometimes even a young woman. They talk about some sort of secret army formed just before the fall of the Metastructure. They talk about an experimental laboratory that has a universal bionic antivirus. They talk about voodoo and magic orchestrated by mediums. They talk about an antimachine created by the Metastructure itself, before or after its death. They talk about an extraterrestrial artifact. They even talk about angels. They have seen it everywhere, in Heavy Metal Valley to begin with, but also in the rest of the territory. They talk of its presence, whatever that means, in Deadlink, Grand Junction, Monolith Hills, Omega Blocks, Junkville, of course, and also the deserted city of the old body tuners of Neon Park, or in some isolated township—Aircrash Circle, or X-15, or Surveyor Plateau, or Grand Funk Railroad …
It is just a rumor, but it might be his only chance. The rumor has crystallized during the past few months. There are more and more functioning electric machines in the Independent Territory. It is especially obvious that a surprising number of people whose vital systems were infected are being miraculously healed. And it isn’t a temporary remission, either. People are being immunized forever. The people themselves never talk about it. They all talk about some “inexplicable miracle” and other bullshit like that. In the best-case scenario they might slide you some tiny tidbit of information that gives credit to one or another variant of the rumor.
It has truly attained the status of a legend; soon people will be talking about millions of healings, even though half of the current population of the globe will have died.
Maybe there is another way.
There is his connection with that girl, that Irish-Haitian ex-whore he had had working on Monolith twelve or thirteen years ago, in Flesh Market. Ariane Gallagher. One of his former neighbors in Little Congo, now living in Clockwork Orange County a little to the north. She heard him talking about a guy who knew someone, a person who just arrived in the territory and who, they say, is one of the men who worked on the last version of the Metastructure.
One of his old friends says she knows someone who knows someone. A third-degree connection in the best light. The usual way of things in Junkville. But it might be a beginning, which is much better than nothing. And it is all he has. Where does she live again? Oh yes—in Vortex Townships, above Ultrabox, just before Autostrada. That’s northwest of the city. Ariane Gallagher has managed to avoid the downward spiral that generally awaits the old whores of Flesh Market; she could easily have ended up living in a Recyclo particleboard box in Toy Division or on New Arizona, where the refugees from the American Midwest huddle, where life is worth less than sand. She probably found some old guy to hustle, meeting his needs during his final days, and she came out of it pretty well. Vortex Townships isn’t so bad. It isn’t too far from Little Congo, in fact. Not too far from survival. He might be able to make it there in his old gasoline-powered Buick …
So this is Vortex Townships, the only area anywhere near as high-tech as Junkville. It consists of a long line of structures built of specialized technological junk, mostly or completely mechanical but from electronic systems, requiring some programming and thus no longer functioning anywhere in the world. These hills were settled at about the same time as the others, but Vortex Townships quickly found its niche, its unique specificity. Before the fall of the Metastructure and the death of the machines, Vortex Townships served as a hub for almost all the techno trafficking in the southern part of the Independent Territory.
There’s
People say all kinds of things. They talk about a child gifted with paranormal powers, and sometimes about an old man, and sometimes even a young woman. They talk about some sort of secret army formed just before the fall of the Metastructure. They talk about an experimental laboratory that has a universal bionic antivirus. They talk about voodoo and magic orchestrated by mediums. They talk about an antimachine created by the Metastructure itself, before or after its death. They talk about an extraterrestrial artifact. They even talk about angels. They have seen it everywhere, in Heavy Metal Valley to begin with, but also in the rest of the territory. They talk of its presence, whatever that means, in Deadlink, Grand Junction, Monolith Hills, Omega Blocks, Junkville, of course, and also the deserted city of the old body tuners of Neon Park, or in some isolated township—Aircrash Circle, or X-15, or Surveyor Plateau, or Grand Funk Railroad …
It is just a rumor, but it might be his only chance. The rumor has crystallized during the past few months. There are more and more functioning electric machines in the Independent Territory. It is especially obvious that a surprising number of people whose vital systems were infected are being miraculously healed. And it isn’t a temporary remission, either. People are being immunized forever. The people themselves never talk about it. They all talk about some “inexplicable miracle” and other bullshit like that. In the best-case scenario they might slide you some tiny tidbit of information that gives credit to one or another variant of the rumor.
It has truly attained the status of a legend; soon people will be talking about millions of healings, even though half of the current population of the globe will have died.
Maybe there is another way.
There is his connection with that girl, that Irish-Haitian ex-whore he had had working on Monolith twelve or thirteen years ago, in Flesh Market. Ariane Gallagher. One of his former neighbors in Little Congo, now living in Clockwork Orange County a little to the north. She heard him talking about a guy who knew someone, a person who just arrived in the territory and who, they say, is one of the men who worked on the last version of the Metastructure.
One of his old friends says she knows someone who knows someone. A third-degree connection in the best light. The usual way of things in Junkville. But it might be a beginning, which is much better than nothing. And it is all he has. Where does she live again? Oh yes—in Vortex Townships, above Ultrabox, just before Autostrada. That’s northwest of the city. Ariane Gallagher has managed to avoid the downward spiral that generally awaits the old whores of Flesh Market; she could easily have ended up living in a Recyclo particleboard box in Toy Division or on New Arizona, where the refugees from the American Midwest huddle, where life is worth less than sand. She probably found some old guy to hustle, meeting his needs during his final days, and she came out of it pretty well. Vortex Townships isn’t so bad. It isn’t too far from Little Congo, in fact. Not too far from survival. He might be able to make it there in his old gasoline-powered Buick …
So this is Vortex Townships, the only area anywhere near as high-tech as Junkville. It consists of a long line of structures built of specialized technological junk, mostly or completely mechanical but from electronic systems, requiring some programming and thus no longer functioning anywhere in the world. These hills were settled at about the same time as the others, but Vortex Townships quickly found its niche, its unique specificity. Before the fall of the Metastructure and the death of the machines, Vortex Townships served as a hub for almost all the techno trafficking in the southern part of the Independent Territory.
There’s
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