The vendor won't look at you. He recoils slightly as you step closer.

The vendor won't look at you. He recoils slightly as you step closer.

He needs time. And space.

"Welcome back, my good replayer."

Alternative wording

"Ah, my format-sensitive friend. How goes it?"

"A colleague of mine got into some trouble. I think he came through here."

The vendor's eyes narrow behind his orange lenses.

"This is a media stall, not the missing persons division. Bother one of the GMs with questions like that."

He pruned the conversation forcefully, artificially. There is more.

"You seem like a man who remembers his customers."

"I try, though most of humanity fades into an indistinguishable morass of banality..." His expression softens.

"This colleague. What does he look like?"

"He would've been new in town. From the Superbloc."

"Ah, the sock boy?" He smiles, despite himself. "Dialectical-looking glasses, air of advanced virginity?"

Back in Foto 24, your would-be double gurgles his assent.

"That's him. Sock specialist."

"Yes, he came by here. Little communist lost, adrift among the many wonders of the free market."

"You seem like a people person. Was he 'with it', in your estimation?"

"'With it' might be a stretch. Let's just say the man was definitely 'mobile'."

"Your dialectical friend mistook himself for some sort of big money business man. He wanted the Bazaar to import Superbloc hosiery. Socks to start with, but there was talk of cotton tights, even stockings if the venture took off."

Making inroads with his persona. Competent in-theatre, at least for this period of play.

He needed you.

"Did he buy anything?"

"No. And to be honest, I wouldn't have wasted the stock. He seemed immune to music."

"Did you two talk formats?"

"You're joking, of course. He didn't even know what a Velodisk was, let alone an Einzeltone. At a certain point, I'm just debasing myself."

Velodisk! A modern laser-hybrid format, played using a heated stylus unit. Astounding sonic fidelity. Cause of thousands of home fires.

"No joy on this sock scheme of his, I take it?"

"Of course not. I don't sell socks." His eyebrows twitch as he glances down at the rows of tapes and discs that surround him.

A consecrated ground of tiny, crooked monuments.

"So is he alright, your man, or what?"

"He's just someone I work with."

"Ah, so you're also a communist. But you're not that little. Or particularly lost, I'd say."

The vendor gauges you behind his coloured lenses, tongue skimming teeth.

All across the city of Petre there is silence. People peer out fearfully from the slivers between curtains.

"I'll be blunt. Are you with the Weeping Eye?"

A fresh injection of fear, primal grade.

SUCH INSULT! THE DEPRESSED REACTIONARY IS MISTAKING YOU FOR YOUR DIRECT OPPOSITE, YOUR SWORN ENEMY.

"As I said, I'm here for socks."

He shakes his head, clicks his tongue.

"Apologies if my presence here brings you further heat."

"Keep them. If things get too hot, I can always slit my wrists with a shard of Velodisk before they take me down."

Oddly specific.

"My point is, your colleague was asking questions. Now something's obviously happened, and here you are, also asking questions. Given the current climate, no one wants to answer these questions, least of all me."

"What if my questions were exclusively about formats?"

"Then I would attempt to educate, obviously. I'm not some kind of street hustler, friend. My merchandise is mega premium, the best this side of the big blockers."

Now speaking proudly of the stock he earlier disparaged.

"I'll tell you what I told your sock friend. Speak to the Boatman, down by the west docks."

"He's the one who knows the underground goings-on around here. We're just the vendors."

"Which boatman?"

"The 'cool' one." Sardonically.

In his baroque hierarchy of shame, 'cool' falls just under 'replayer', the cardinal sin.

"Excessive sunglasses. Relaxed aura. Likely on a boat. No way of confusing him."

In his baroque hierarchy of shame, being 'cool' falls just under being a 'replayer', whatever that is.

"I already spoke to him, he said he hasn't seen anyone."

"Like I said, no one is going to take kindly to being interrogated these days."

"But your friend was there, I guarantee it. Talked to the Boatman a good half hour. After that..." His hands go up. "I know nothing."

"This has been helpful." (Conclude.)

"Wonderful. Now, for all our sakes, please say no more."

"If you want to talk media formats, I'm your man. This other stuff..." He shakes his head, looking uneasy.

"Then point me to someone who does."

"You sound paranoid, Petre. Don't worry, I have tendencies too."

"This isn't paranoia at work, friend, it's terminal realism."

"I gouge eyes. Especially weeping ones."

"If you ever expand to ears, let me know."

"The eyes may see you, but they cannot know you."

"Depends on how much torture they go in for." He pauses and drifts off. "Who am I kidding? I'd end it long before they took me alive. Be happy to, in fact... Shard of Velodisk kissing the wrists, one-way stroll into the canal..."

"Why would you think I'm with the Weeping Eye?"

"Because they've been especially active here recently. Usually they just let things slide, all the Luzian merchandise, good for everyone... But these days, they're staring right at us. Unblinking."

"Do I look Luzian to you?"

"Not immediately... Could be a cheap knock off, though. The Weeping Eye sheds many tears, as they say..."

The techno-fascist secret police of La Luz -- dark subconscious of the state, specialising in old school, ugly methods.

Your natural enemies. The ones who took you all apart five years ago. Hackles rise.

"He's my perpetual comrade in hosiery."

"I'm doing my best get him some help."

"Yes, yes, we're all so well-intended."

"I don't know yet. That's why I'm asking around."

"He's probably neck deep in drug-lathered prostitutes, lobotomised by the latest in electro-pop dreck. Wonders of the Developed World."

Overplaying his persona, classic misstep. Baby's first time in-theatre.

"So you wouldn't have called him 'lead material'. Good to know."

"A little too... soft-hearted to be a leader. My estimation."

"What did he want?"

You see him now -- eyes wide, reward circuit shorted out by the cut and thrust of commerce.

"He was just doing his job as best he could. No need to be cruel."

"I can't speak to his general aura, I've never seen him conscious."

"I said nothing about conscious. I encounter two, maybe three sentient beings per day. But yes..."

"Big on socks... less fond of trousers."

"He definitely had some on when he darkened my stall. Small mercies..."

Sock merchant for the Im-Ex Bureau. One of the Opera's most battle-tested covers.

"Average height, bald spot, brown jacket... honestly, someone you might easily forget."

The Guardia Municipal. Street cops.

"What is left of the culture?"

"Culture, Portofiran? Scraps. This new Luzian mania is all-consuming. Nobody wants anything that isn't technofascist trash, including, apparently, their own souls."

OBSESSION WITH FOREIGN IMPORTS. SUFFERERS OF SO-CALLED 'LUZIAN MANIA' WILL CONSULT THE WALL.

"I see. Seems I'm surrounded by techno-fascists."

"That would be preferable to the truth of things. There is no politics to it that they can see -- they just want something they can idiotise themselves with."

"You'd think we had run out of brick walls."

"I take it this means Luz hasn't managed to make it into... wherever you're from." He sniffs, as if the matter of being from somewhere were distasteful. "Good for you."

ANOTHER VICTORY FOR OUR GREAT AND ANONYMOUS CENSORS.

"What's this Luzian media like?

"Repulsively catchy techno-fascist pop and alarming footwear. Not to mention thinly-disguised propaganda for children." He gesture with his chin.

Natural blink reflexes suppressed, the two children you spoke to earlier stare at the TV in the adjacent stall.

"Those kid sit at that TV watching Luzian cartoons all day, every day -- it's only a matter of time before they start rounding us up for the camps."

"The cartoon with the wolves?"

"I know the whole miserable plot. I'm like one of those prisoners they torture with music, blasting it on repeat all day until they go insane."

"The question, for me, is how are they getting past the signal blockers? It's obvious that someone is operating repeaters in the city, and it's not the little jackboots."

The signal blockers: wiry battlements like the skeletons of titanic insects face out across the strait on Portofiro's most desolate shore, snagging Luzian radiowaves as they enter.

"No need to diss 'Sixty-Six Wolves'. It's good for them." (Shake your head.)

"There is every need. I'll be cursing your media every day until your little fascists finally decide to take me out back and shoot me."

"You, too? Shame, I took you for a woman of culture. I suppose everyone's getting sucked into it. Come for the wolves, stay for the fascism."

"Why do they like it so much?"

"Because they're techno-fascists. The love of sleek, flashy oppression has been inculcated in them from birth."

NOTHING THE FIRM, LOVING HAND OF A RE-EDUCATION CENTRE CAN'T FIX.

"We could easily overpower fascist children. Might even be fun."

"I'm not so sure. One of them has a sword."

"The child has been disarmed." (Flash the 'Sixty-Six Wolves' toy.)

"That's... embarrassing" He shakes his head. "And of course it's from that cartoon."

Natural blink reflexes suppressed, the two children stare at the TV in the adjacent stall.

"What was Portofiro's culture like before the Luzian mania?"

"Provincial, but honest."

"Silk, sad national poetry. Music, the same kinds they play in the so-called developed world, except a couple decades late and desperately effortful."

Incapable of competing with Luzian media on the most basic neurological level.

Fuck this. You want blood. Dopamine. Wolves.

"That sounds... nice?"

"Yes, exactly. Nice."

"That's why I'll be here -- enjoying the front-row seat to the downfall of culture. That is my punishment."

"Punishment for what?"

"Taste."

"I've also got a front-row seat to the end of history."

"Wonderful. We can share snacks."

"I really want to want that, but the Luzian stuff is more seductive."

"Yes, exactly."

"Even hearing that made me want to go and watch fascist cartoons."

"You could at the very least consume the propaganda they produce for adults, you know?"

"This place looks pretty cultural to me."

"Well, it isn't. Anything we once had has been consumed, overwritten, digested and shat out by Luz. And the worst thing is we know it, we just don't care."

"The Culture Blockade was designed to prevent this, but now anyone with the wits to create anything new just spends their time devising ways to get past the signal blockers and access Luzian drivel."

"Whole thing's a myth anyway. Failed project. Most of the crates I get from Luz come stamped by the Ministry of Mass Culture. They want it all out there."

This merchandise isn't 'smuggled' at all -- they're government-sanctioned from the Luzian Cultural Ministry.

INSIDIOUS IMPERIALISM. TODAY, THE SOFT POWER -- TOMORROW, THE HARD.

"Yes, well, I'm sure it must seem that way to someone from the jungles of... wherever you're from." He sniffs, as if the matter of being from somewhere were distasteful.

"Anything we once had has been consumed, overwritten, digested and shat out by Luz. And the worst thing is we know it, we just don't care".

"I care, Petre."

"You're selling this stuff, man..."

"So... business is good?"

"Interminable. Every day there's new formats, categories, each one more depraved than the last."

"Of course, I can't say that out loud. Customers, you know."

He says it to everyone.

"Business not great then, I take it."

"Financially tolerable, morally abhorrent. Every day there's new formats, categories, each one more depraved than the last."

"Alright, enough about all this." (Go back.)

"Yes, it's not like talking about it will make any difference."

La Luz. Once a powerful empire, now reconstituted as a modern techno-fascist state, the rising military and cultural power of the day.

"I'd like to discuss the downfall of culture again."

"That's what I'm here for." He says, without a trace of irony.

"You mentioned 'signal blockers'..."

"Well, there was a certain period, in the early years of Portofiran independence, when everybody on this cursed island was holding their breath waiting for La Luz to invade. But nothing happened."

"Instead, after a few years the radio signals began coming in... pop music, radio operas... later, television shows." He shudders.

The most important history is the one that never makes it into the books, but defines how those books are written -- or aren't.

"Information warfare. Smart."

"And here we are on the front line, spreading our ears and legs wide open."

"I can't be sure, but... I have reason to believe the media they let reach us isn't even the same one they broadcast to their own people. It's made for us."

EXPORT-ONLY PROPAGANDA. IMAGINE WHAT THEY RESERVE FOR DOMESTIC CONSUMPTION.

"When the city caught on they put up the signal blockers, but it was too late."

"The children were already hooked?"

"Hopelessly. Like heroin addicts, but with no chance of rehabilitation."

"Big talk from a guy who works at a market entirely dedicated to Luzian contraband."

"Oh, rub it in. The great irony of my existence."

"I've manned this stall my entire adult life, but the fates would have it that before I could retire I would suffer the humiliation of having to sell trash to morons."

"Disappointing. If you're going to invade, do it properly. Storm the beaches, raze the city."

"At least the music would have been better." He growls.

"You can accidentally pick up your neighbour's radio signal, so what?"

"Accidentally? Oh, no, no, no. Those signals are pointed directly at us."

"What's a 'replayer'?"

Alternative wording

"You keep saying that word, 'Replayer', what do you mean by that?"

"Picture a dog that shits, then eats it, then shits again. That should give you some idea."

"Excuse me?"

"People are what they consume. I'll say no more."

It's less an opinion, more a criminal sentence.

"Petre, I completely agree."

"I thought you might, my friend. Sick fucking world."

"Still, we persevere. Or at least, we persevere to persevere." He casts a slow gaze across his wares.

"I haven't met a customer in a very long time who even knows what an Einzeltone XR is, let alone appreciates the format. Tells you all you need to know about the current state of the home media world."

Which raises an intimidating question...

"Of course. The replayer falls in line, unable to think for itself." He stares at you and shakes his head. "You don't even know what you're agreeing to."

"Do you insult all your customers like that?"

"On the contrary, it's my customers who seem intent on insulting me."

"For more discerning ones such as yourself, I think you'll find me very agreeable."

"I think that makes you a shit-merchant."

"The world is what it is, my good replayer. We all have to adapt to its realities."

Alternative wording

"The world it is what is, my friend. I think you understand that very well."

"Do you hate everyone who likes to enjoy something more than once?"

"There's no sense in hating baser lifeforms. They know not what they do, I'm a man of peace."

The vendor sighs and seems to deflate ever so slightly before your eyes.

"Honestly, what's so bad about playing something more than once?"

"What's so bad? I thought you understood this... I thought we were of each other's kind..."

Tarred, somewhat inevitably you feel, with the replayer brush.

"That people pay for it... That I have to make a living pushing replayable narcotics to so-called customers, read addicts."

"What's so bad?"

Nostrils flare like hairy little cannons.

"Interesting."

"What is 'Einzeltone'?'

"Einzeltone XR, to give it its proper title. The One True Format." He savours the words.

"The apex of auditory technology. A high-fidelity yet dynamic sonic experience that self-effaces after a single play."

Behold! The paladin who stands before Absurdity and declares 'Well, technically...'

"You can only play these things once?"

"Correct. It erases as it plays. The inherent idea being, of course, that you never play an Einzeltone, and have a more profound experience because of it."

"Some say that was the intention behind the red colour scheme. A warning, so you could never misplay it. I think it was an aesthetic choice, personally."

Did he say... red?

"With Einzeltone XR, the first time is the only time."

That's the brand slogan.

"How does it erase itself?"

"A magnet embedded in the disc erases its contents as it's being listened to."

A technological muscle flex. Reproduction and erasure just millimetres away in space, milliseconds in time.

Crucially, such a process would result in an empty disc... like the one you found on PSEUDOPOD's body.

"As in life, everything happens only once. Replayability is oblivion. The end."

"What happens to the Einzeltone disc once its contents are erased?"

"It loses its resale value, and the uninspired replayer who listened to it loses a piece of their soul."

"How big of a piece? Enough to efface their personality?"

"Oh, yes. Completely. Though they'd have to have been pretty soulless to play it in the first place."

Fanatical, biased, not to be taken literally.

Mystery solved. PSEUDOPOD listened to a priceless tape and lost his soul.

"Would trying to re-listen to an empty disc cause excruciating psychic damage?"

"Would propping your dead grandmother up and trying to have a conversation with her corpse cause psychic damage?"

"Of course it would, unless you were a monster. Irreparable."

"I see..."

"I doubt it."

"What does the 'XR' stand for?"

"'Ex-Remanenz'. Zero remanence."

Remanence: the charge that remains after the removal of a magnetic field. The ghost of magnetic possession.

"The Einzeltone magnets are so potent that the erasure is absolute. The 'X' is meant to represent the negative, the complete absence of sound or vision. This was a very conceptual time for storage media, you understand."

Portofiro at the break of the 60s. A teenage boy sits on his bed and gazes at a full-page magazine ad for a brand new single-play format. The crimson of the disc spellbinds him. Excited thumbs leave sweat prints on the page.

Below the spotlit red disc, in boldface text: 'With Einzeltone XR, the first time is the only time'. The boy's lips trace the words in awe.

"It was a very beautiful time, too."

Pretty esoteric term we've got here... Just roll with it.

"'Remanence'?"

"The aftermath of a magnetic charge once you take the field away."

"Cool."

"Extremely."

"What's the point if you can only listen to it once?"

"You can imagine the use-cases yourself. Rental markets, promotional copies, that sort of thing. The technical origins are trite." He waves a hand dismissively.

Espionage potential -- immense. The burn-after-reading function built into the medium itself.

For one, it would spare you from having to eat all those documents.

"Its deeper purpose is simply to exist -- to remain in a rarified realm of pure potentiality and infinite beauty."

"Don't forget, we too, are single play only. Erasing ourselves moment by moment."

It would spare many an operant the stomach pains associated with having to devour documents to dispose of them.

"So, uh... have you ever actually listened to one of those discs?"

"What do I look like to you, a common Replayer?"

There's that word again...

"Isn't the point of these discs that you... can't replay them? So you'd just be a common... Player."

"Oh, so you're a semiotician now?"