"No flyers, no pamphlets, no gum!"

"No flyers, no pamphlets, no gum!"

"You know, Tonio... I'm something of a diplomat myself."

"'Something of' ? What does that mean? And what are you doing here?"

For a moment, hope flashes in his eyes. The possibility that, maybe, maybe, this is still the kind of place that diplomats frequent.

No point in lying. Just play it Way Above His Station. Which it is.

"I'm from the Mircean consulate. I'm paying a visit to my local counterpart."

"Foreign consulate... counterpart..."

The words alone have struck awe into his heart.

DO NOT TREMBLE, CLASS COMRADE. THE WORDS ARE DESIGNED TO INTIMIDATE. THERE IS NOTHING BEHIND THEM.

"Who... oh. Mrs. Eszti?"

"Yes. 'Mrs.' Eszti."

"I'm so sorry! I thought -- Well, I'm trying to look after our residents. Especially such important people as Mrs Eszti..."

Here it is -- the best feeling in the world. The moment before you steal a secret.

"Apartment #4. Up the stairs, through the door, up the stairs again. Four's on the right."

"Thank you, Tonio."

"Yes. Yes. Thank you. I mean, you're welcome." He stammers, taken aback by the unexpected proximity of the elite.

At the very least, you've added a few weeks to his lifespan.

"I'm sure Eszti will think very well of you for this."

"Good. And next time a diplomat asks you something, you answer."

"Of course. Immediately. Official business."

That's right, building keeper. Official, vague business.

"I only know her as my opposite number."

"Who are you looking for? Not my son, I hope..."

"I need Eszti Newitz."

"Ah, Mrs. Eszti. Of course. Of course. I knew she was very highly educated and well-mannered... knows how to respect a floor... I just never knew..."

"The EMTERR Head of Human Capital lives here. I have business with her."

"EMTERR? ... Human Capital..."

"I've been shot at, Tonio. The consulate's been informed. This is very international."

Alternative wording

"I've been shot, Tonio. This is very international. The consulate's been informed, I need to speak to my counterpart."

"I see. Things are moving quickly. As expected in the diplomatic world."

"I think I spoke to your son, Kurt."

He opens his mouth as though about to say something, then shuts it in silence.

"Yes?" His brow furrows.

You can almost hear the emotional blast doors slamming shut.

"He's really your son? He looks about the same age as you, Tonio."

"That's what bad living does to you."

The son, prematurely aged. The father, embalmed in ageless maturity.

"I bet he asked you for money."

"Not exactly, but... He does seem to need some."

"Unsurprising. In any case... He wont get a sol from me."

"Why?"

"He's had every opportunity to make honest money. I'll give him work as a junior concierge any day he wants. But he won't."

"The basic concept of money is an enigma to his generation. The idea that what you trade for money is your time, your work, and not... something else -- 'coolness', or something -- it's baffling to them."

There are other currencies. Sex. Death. Information.

THESE -- THE WRETCHES BORN SO CLOSE TO THE DEATHBED OF CAPITALISM THAT THEY HAVE COME FULL CIRCLE AND BECOME NUMB TO ITS DECAY -- THESE WE CAN SAVE.

"I'm going to at least try and help him."

"I can't stop you, but you shouldn't. It's not real help."

"Tell him, if he's ever interested in working honestly... His old man is here."

A little sadness alights on his face for the briefest moment.

"And what if he does manage to trade social currency for money?"

A shudder passes through him. It's like you proposed something indecent.

The world in which his son can succeed is a world not worth living in. Their existences are fundamentally at odds.

"Whatever. I just thought you might like to know."

"I'm afraid I already know. I've heard it all before."

"He's not asking you."

"Matter of time."

"No, he asked other people for money and can't pay them back, that's the problem."

"Seems like a stylish guy."

"'Stylish'. Yes. Part of the scene, as he puts it. Enamoured with every stupid fad that trudges past him."

"He's run into some money trouble, apparently"

"About your son..."

"Yes?" His brow furrows.

"I'm looking for a fancy building... supposedly there's a cosy little penthouse there..."

"You mean Mr. Reno's place? Terribly gaudy. Rich people today, they don't build the way that they used to -- no classical sensibility."

"Not sure that I would go comparing, given how this place looks..."

"Cleanliness is class. The Housing Campaign may not be flashy, but you could eat off that railing back there." He glances over his shoulder at the second floor railing.

Could. Shouldn't.

An oddly specific example...

A belt hangs off the railing, the area is cordoned off.

"If you're looking for Mr. Reno's place, you already passed it on your way in here. Head back outside, it's the door opposite the bridge, the one with the callbox -- can't miss it."

Again with the railing.

Again. The railing. It is imbued with some exceptional significance, a symbol whose meaning you cannot parse yet.

"So which building is his?"

"You've already passed it on your way in here. Head back outside, it's the door opposite the bridge, the one with the callbox -- can't miss it."

"Not technically a part of the Campaign, actually. Zoned differently, I suspect so that he can get around various regulations." Mouth downturned. "My responsibility ends where the alley starts, as far as the city's concerned."

He still sweeps up there, though.

"You manage this whole building, right?"

"You noticed my badge." He brushes imaginary dust from his name.

"It's actually not just a building, I manage the entire Housing Campaign."

"So... you're not actually a building manager?"

"I considered having it altered to 'Complex Manager' but my old mum thought that had an odd sound to it. 'Campaign Manager'... too political."

"Might not look like much now, but you should have seen what this place was like when Nestor put it up. Real class. Real... majesty."

The buildings are old, decaying, but clean. This man is fighting the final battles in a lost war -- polishing broken handrails, painting splintered wood.

"What was it like, back then?"

"A palace for the people," he recites.

Clearly some kind of a slogan from the days when this was built.

"During the Nestorismo years, when the city was developing, some families needed to relocate so that we could have infrastructure, and this place was built to house them."

"Hard to imagine this place was ever a 'palace for the people'."

"It was a visionary project, built in accordance with modern ideas. Cleanliness, efficiency, order..."

'Modern' in this context doesn't mean 'new'. It refers to an old future, as obsolete as the buildings that represent it.

"Sounds like a euphemism for forced displacement."

"Oh, no, no, this wasn't like that at all. It was a privilege to come here back then."

"Big Nestor guy, aren't you, Tonio?"

"Not in the slightest." He shakes his head firmly. "I respect the work that was done during the Nestorismo years, but Nestor and Nestorismo are two completely different things."

"In fact, in the end, Sweet Nestor was a traitor to Nestorismo."

"That makes no sense."

"I can see why it would sound confusing to a foreigner, but believe me -- the names are the only thing they've got in common."

"A traitor to himself. Makes sense."

"So what happened to it?"

Alternative wording

"So what happened to this place, where did all that 'majesty' go?"

"A different class of people moved in."

"Or, I don't know... maybe the children of the people that were here in the first place were born a different class of people than their parents..."

First and foremost -- his own.

"What kind of people used to live here?"

"Important people. Artists, diplomats..."

He's never met a diplomat in his life. Probably doesn't even know what they are, except they sound important.

.... 'Diplomats', he said? An official route to Eszti's door has just cracked open.

"Not like the vandals that infest it now."

"You mean like... racially? Because of inter-breeding?"

"Spiritually. No respect for the doors, the walls, or themselves. Or me, of course. Sometimes I think they vandalise that railing just to spite me." He looks forlornly over his shoulder at the second floor railing.

The state of the Housing Campaign and the state of his life are one and the same.

Man-alley symbiosis, neither doing great.

"My stuff is always falling into disrepair as well."

"I think it's happening to everything. At least you're aware of it."

He is trying to fend off entropy with a dustpan and brush.

"It's good that some people remember what we were capable of, back when we had a sense of decency and cleanliness. Much too late now. All too late."

"You've lived too long. The world has no place for you anymore."

"I think everybody's lived too long." He shrugs you off. "At least I'm aware of it."

"If you indulge nostalgia like that, the present will always disappoint you."

"Of course it disappoints me... How could it not?" He looks around. "I don't think that's a bad thing at all."

Nod.

Again with the railing.

Again. The railing. It is imbued with some exceptional significance, a symbol whose meaning you cannot parse yet.

"And you've been here since the beginning?"

"First job I ever took... and the last, probably. Hopefully."

"I wasn't even out of school when I started cleaning the Housing Campaign. Sixteen years old... worked all the way up to the big keys..."

"This is about Kurt, isn't it?"

"No. Not really, but... He is typical of his generation." A deep bitterness rises in his voice.

"Spiritually. No respect for the doors, the walls, or themselves. Or me, of course. Sometimes I think they vandalise that railing just to spite me." He looks forlornly over his shoulder at the second floor railing.

"Wh- how- " He stutters, catches himself.

You can almost hear the emotional blast doors slamming shut.

"So you know my son... No, it's not about him. But he is typical of his generation."

Degeneracy everywhere. Thinning bloodstream. Weakness upon weakness.

"It's kind of depressing."

"I do what I can -- more than most managers would. But there's only so much you can accomplish with a paintbrush and a broom."

"You should have seen what this place was like when Nestor put it up. Real class. Real... majesty."

"Alright, explain this whole 'Nestorismo without Nestor' thing to me."

"Nestorismo... how would I put it? Nestorismo is the name for the Portofiran national spirit."

"It's got nothing to do with one man. It's just named after him because of the timing -- when he was in power, Portofirans were recognising themselves, aspiring to something more..."

A value at least as abstract as his son's social currency.

"Sounds like that was your Scene, Tonio. You're just sad cause it's over."

"That's not it at all." He looks disgusted.

"Nestor didn't believe in anything. He was one of those men..." He waves a hand. "Say anything to stay in power."

"Between his first and second exile, every idea that was popular with the people got put into law, even the ones that were fiscally suicidal. That was the time of consolidation for Nestorismo."

An insanely subsidised economy of illusions.

"So the Portofiran national spirit is built on a lie?"

"He lied. Not us. What we discovered was real. For a couple generations, at least."

"Eventually, Nestor figured out that the Portofiran citizens weren't the ones keeping him in power. After that..."

"He kept saying whatever he thought people wanted to hear, just not our people. And look..." He casts a slow hand around. "We're still cleaning up his mess."

"And what happened?"

Cities made of playing cards.

"How can it have nothing to do with the person it's named after?"

"Boooring."

"I don't know why I bother." He gazes down at his broom.

The broom does not gaze back.

"You say things have gone to shit... how does it compare?"

"There have always been problems, if that's what you mean. But the general trajectory is going one way."

"Situations like the one my son is in would have been inconceivable to another generation. A young man, in the prime of his life, crippled, actually crippled, by his devotion to..."

"I don't even know what to call it. Some intangible social currency that exists only in his mind and in those of his idiot friends."

"He did seem pretty crippled, yeah."

"It's somehow worse than crime or drugs... at least with them there is the possibility of rehabilitation..." He shakes his head, between pity and disgust.

"My point is, stories like his are a sign of the times. I liked it a lot better when people just did their work."

He sweeps his broom a couple times. A tic that sets the world back in order.

"But along the way from there to here... we lost something."

"This sounds like fascist talk."

"I don't have any political inclinations. I just wish people would do their jobs. Is that really so radical?"

"Not radical at all."

"Thank you."

"Of course, 'fascism' is a dirty word nowadays... But despite what people say about La Luz, the Reunión wouldn't be the worst thing that could happen to Portofiro. Would put some order into this place."

The Reunión: La Luz's grand annexation campaign -- slow, legal, often bloody. A creeping tide reclaiming, every few years, one more of their old colonies.

"Time moves forward, not back. All that yearning for the past is inherently fascist."

"Time doesn't move forward, it moves down. Into the dirt."

"Wait, you're pro-Reunión?"

"I told you, I have no political inclinations."

"All I want is for someone to show people the proper way of doing things. Clearly, I'm not getting through to anyone, so someone with more power should step in."

"We all feel that way sometimes."

"I don't know much about other places, but from what they tell me, everyone in La Luz has a purpose. The shoeshiner shines shoes, the building manager manages buildings..."

"You know that apparently they have some kinds of factories where singers have to make pop hits for eight hours a day, just like the rest of us?" He smiles, satisfied.

Everyone occupying one fixed and immovable place on the pyramid of life.

"It really does work like that -- I have it on good authority that they exploit their pop stars."

"I heard they pick them when they're still kids." He nods eagerly. "You show some promise, it's off to the starlet factory."

"I do my part. They do theirs. If all society worked like this.... well, that would be it."

"The world would work."

No dreams of peace, justice or equality -- only those of a well-oiled machine.

"You do not write hit songs for eight hours a day, Tonio."

"And is that the ideal society for you?"

"It is a society. This here is just... a bunch of people living together."

"Look at me, here I am, doing my job. If everyone did the same... well, that would be it."

"And how do you know that 'someone with power' will agree to your way?"

He looks at you, attempting to comprehend your question. After a long moment, he decides he can't.

This is only a philosophical conversation for one of you.

"All I'm hearing is 'oppress me, daddy, I've been bad'."

"I never oppressed my son." He shakes his head. "In retrospect, maybe I should have."

Aren't Nestoristas supposed to hate La Luz?

"I told you, I have no political inclinations. Nestoristas are for the good of Portofiro, that's all."

"So you think your son is a downgrade on you?"

"His whole generation... I worry, you know, genuinely, about what will happen once mine is too old to work."

"Will they be able to keep the trams running? The plumbing, the electricity? Will the railing go unpainted until one day it crumbles and falls off?" He looks back at the second floor railing.

An oddly specific example of societal decay...

"They might do it better than you."

"How? They'd have to learn everything from scratch. They were supposed to do that as children, but instead they learned... these abstract things."

"I'm not exaggerating when I say he and his idiot friends are fully capable of starving to death without realising it whilst evaluating each others' transparent jock-straps. Or whatever the latest scene trend is."

A race of primitive sophisticates wanders through the vine-covered ruins of Portofiro. Impeccably dressed in fabrics the secrets of whose production has been lost, they skulk around judging each other's fashion while the day's strip of rat meat dries on the line.

Interesting chimeras do proliferate after the End of History.

"Yeah, it's all probably going to go to shit."

"Come on, Tonio, the trams are not going to stop running."

"And if the trams still ran, then would you respect your son?"

"I suppose I would." He shifts his broom to the other hand and sighs. "I mean, yes, of course. I just don't see how. It's all so ethereal."

Again he returns to that railing, symbol of civilisational continuity.

Again. The railing. It is imbued with some exceptional significance, a symbol with meaning you cannot parse yet.

"Alright, I've heard enough." (Go back.)

He nods and sweeps his broom.

"It's called The Scene, and clearly you're not part of it."

"Please, spare me. I've been on the receiving end of the pitch more times than I care to remember." He shakes his head, between pity and disgust.

"Isn't that how currency always works?"

"Is it? Can you trade it for food? Tram tickets? Anything at all?" He shakes his head in disgust.

"This is Kurt we're talking about?"

"Ah. I see you're part of the scene, too, then." He says bitterly. "Yes. Kurt is my son."

"Wait, explain your son's situation to me."

"I can't explain what I can't understand. And that's the point -- can you imagine my father saying this about me? About anyone from my generation?"

"Stories like his are a sign of the times. I liked it a lot better when people just did their work."

"Sounds like a bleak state of existence.... anything I can do to help?"

"Not really. I mean -- you could help me sweep, if you wanted to, but..."

"Seriously?"

"Look around. You think one person alone can clean all this...?" He gestures around. "We used to have one manager and three concierges... now it's just me..."

"I'll pay you twenty sol, if you're interested."

A palliative measure at best, but then again...

You could use the liquidity.

"I feel the building needs me. The workers need me."

"You asked." He shrugs.

"I think the more we all dedicate ourselves to our own tasks, just the punctual tasks... the better it will be for everyone."

'Their own' tasks, which is your case are the diametric opposite of sweeping, operant.

"Side hustles make the world go round."

"This is far beneath my station."

"I'll think about it."

Life is a palliative measure.

"I don't really think that's the root of your problem, Tonio."

"No, of course not, but... I like to think that if I can keep this place clean, I can keep my head above water."

"Which is apartment number four?"

He sighs deeply. "Up the stairs, first door on the right, keep going to the top."

"Hmm. Take the first door to the right up the stairs, then keep going up to the top. No flyers, mind!"

"I'm looking for a resident here."

"I said, 'no soliciting'. Very clearly, in fact."

He knows every face and name that has moved in or out of this alleyway. It's just a question of loosening him up.

"A Mrs. Kavanaugh. Know her?"

"I am a building manager not a building snooper. I mind my residents' business. Or my non-residents' business as the case may be."

"Do you know Eszti Newitz? She lives here somewhere."

"No Newitzes here."

Too quick on the denial. That's a big, flashing 'yes.'

Oskar told you about her wedding -- that's the grease that will soften him up.

"Just 'Eszti', then."

"No Newitzes."

"I said Eszti. Older lady... very bossy... mean."

"If she's bossing you then perhaps you should be paying a little more respect to your elders. Think of that?"

Confirming that he does, in fact, know her. This man would be a terrible operant.