PORTOFIRO

Wires travel from your ear to a million possibilities -- across Portofiro, further. A skein of electric devout in its connectivity.

"I understand it's standard issue. These people fund all sorts of projects -- and in locales considerably more dubious than Portofiro."

"Are there really that many avid poetry readers in Portofiro?"

"Ah, !Viva Quisach! Pelota is Portofiro, through and through. Nice to see, but not exactly fashion." He winks.

"A good number of my clients don't live in Portofiro. Some pass through for work. Others make an appointment with me the sole reason for their visit." He smiles proudly.

"Nestorismo brought pants, and with them, the mediocritisation of men's fashion. The skirt is the perfect utility garment, and my inspiration for this evocation of Portofiro's past -- an ensemble for a star-worshipping priest."

"If you move in certain circles, you may have heard a certain type of man say such things as, 'I have a guy in Portofiro, but you wouldn't have heard of him.'"

"Their subsidiary is right here, in Portofiro. The customer signs an application, which I send to my creditors. I am paid shortly after. Life goes on -- we all smile."

"I can be, provided they want the finest tailoring in all of Portofiro."

"The main source of the garbage just happens to be invading Portofiro from beyond its borders."

"Seems the Luzians are making a play for Portofiro, with EMTERR backing. We're getting in the way."

It's Reno. The richest man in Portofiro here, in this dilapidated houseboat.

"Old friends. Rustamian couple I met when I landed in Portofiro. I've been meaning to reach out... for a while."

"That was Reno? Owner of the phone lines and richest man in Portofiro?"

"The People's Republics could roll out the war ships. Maybe claim Portofiro -- blood, ruins and all. But what's the point? You can't carpet-bomb want." His face sours. "Thing is, what the Luzians are peddling, it's not real."

"Yeah. In some ways, La Luz already owns Portofiro."

"I've been in Portofiro long enough, I've got the accents down. But more than that there's the whole, fucking..." He makes a swirling gesture in front of his person, indicating the entire thing.

You turn away from each other. The night air cools your face as you step forward, Portofiro's lights pulling you back into their orbit.

The end of Project AUTONOMÍA engulfing, with it, Portofiro's dreams of stars.

Even in this spectral form you recognise him -- Sweet Nestor, Portofiro's supreme leader from the years 28 to 80.

Even in this spectral form you recognise him -- Sweet Nestor, Portofiro's supreme leader.

"Neither of which are crimes, even in Portofiro. Still, best for her to recede into the background."

The flight path from Luz's costal airfields to Portofiro is approximately 60 kilometres, or 3 minutes at supersonic speed.

"I think it's just a Portofiro thing."

"The first reports made it to Novessa 20 minutes ago -- some very... spooky stuff appears to be going down in Portofiro."

"The first reports made it to Novessa 20 minutes ago -- some dramatic shit appears to be going down in Portofiro."

"By that same token, Portofiro was a Luzian penal colony for a long while. Some people think the Weeping Eye are lurking around every corner."

"There was a time when someone believed you might, seeing as they trusted you to set up the Opera's last Portofiro network. Didn't turn out so hot, if reports are accurate."

"In Portofiro, only the Azzurris touch hot guns. Speak with one of their dealers -- usually just need to find the most cocksure idiot in the vicinity."

"Our temporary office. Long as we're both in Portofiro, of course."

A desolate spit of land on the edge of the city-state. Formerly the site of Portofiro's doomed space program.

"As it happens, I misjudge my man's tolerance. Next I know I'm dragging him out of a hookah parlour at 3am. I lay him out in a vacant lot, smack him around a bit. He's lolling up at the stars, babbling about Portofiro, 77 and 'Project AUTONOMÍA'."

Reno. One of Portofiro's most successful vulture capitalists. Major beneficiary of EMTERR's privatisation schemes.

"No, I meant what are you doing in Portofiro?"

"Portofiro in the early 80s was a different animal. Between Nestor's final exeunt and the economic meltdown, lots of things were simply lost or forgotten -- a sizable portion of Portofiro's foreign currency reserves, dozens of tonnes of highly caustic chemicals..."

"Still, could be real blood in the offing -- EMTERR strong arming its member-states into smothering the spread of Luzian mass culture, meanwhile the Illuminated Empire keeps massing its carrier groups around its former territories -- Portofiro included. 'Reunión', they call it. I hear whispers about getting the mill of History turning again."

"Might want to take a proper whiff -- you're not in Portofiro for leisure, are you?"

"But then how did one of these discs make its way across the wide and teeming Noscorrentes Sea to Portofiro, and into the stereo of your unfortunate double?"

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

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.

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.

90, Portofiro. Spring dawn filtered through the windows, promising the year's first clear day. You drew the curtains, turned on the TV. Your task: educate your young asset in the history of martial arts movies.

She's dressed just like you when you first came to Portofiro.

"The world's full of horrible bastards. I can't unknow that. There's nothing I can do about them in Portofiro. Fighting them is... the only reason to be alive."

"All your assets in Portofiro must have wanted to come, and I can't be the best... so why me?"

Coincides with the information on file: the Azzurri mob has recently become the regional power on all things illegal in Portofiro.

It begins with a proclamation: 'BEHOLD! HERE STANDS THE FUTURE OF PORTOFIRO!'

Had the launch been an official success, Portofiro would've become one of the big boys of the Developed World.

You have stumbled upon a relic of Project AUTONOMÍA, Portofiro's defunct space program.

Sweet Nestor, Portofiro's supreme leader from the years 28 to 80.