Statehood

"As I suspected, my sources were very pleased with your work. Well done, Hershel. It's an honour to work with you again."

The machine is still soured by the smell of urine. Beverages glow on the inside.

"Fuck off, Tigerpussy."

The glimmering purple keyboard is just as you left it.

Look, around your feet.

The ladder beckons.

"Wow... an actual liquidity mage..."

"I'm good, Hersh... I'll live."

"Goodbye."

"Here again."

You have already engaged in model train repair and improvised weapon manufacture here. There is nothing else to do at the workbench.

"It's cold out here." The girl rolls her shoulders and lightly stamps a foot.

"Didn't work, did it?"

"Hello, lapinette."

"Hi again. Still not leaving yet, sorry." She puffs on her pipe.

"..." His idiotic expression remains unchanged.

You loom once more over the shrine and its congregation of frames.

"CASCADE." The barest of nods. "I've been playing 'I Spy' relentlessly with myself to pass the time. Pretty even as things stand, but I'm…

"My agent of fortune returns. Happy Dante."

Tiny figures jog across the screen, lobbing the hard pelota ball back and forth.

"Dull the blade, and unsteady the hand. The great CASCADE makes her appearance at last."

The chair waits before you, sagging and forlorn.

"Anything interesting in the shack back there?" He smiles at you.

"You should move, CASCADE."

Whatever light that's slipped in from above has nearly drained away.

You crawl back into the tunnel, as far in as you were before, where it starts to shrink.

As you press down on the intercom button, a little light comes on.

The fire door stands between you and the roof. Unfortunately, someone removed the pelota ball that was wedging it open.

PSEUDOPOD shifts from foot to foot, glancing at the boatman.

You return to the lone payphone.

The stereo is right where you left it.

A shade in a leather jacket thrusts a decapitated head towards the reader -- its lolling tongue and dripping viscera a promise of what's…

The weight of the thesis threatens to strain your hand muscles.

You pick up the payphone's handset. A dolphin emblem smiles at you, its eyes wide.

"Hello again."

"Back again, are we?"

"How goes it, H?"

The satchel by the door is empty, but the rain boots haven't moved.

Looking out over the main hall, you try to imagine what it would have looked like thirty-six years ago.

"Long time, no speaky, nameless one."

The intercom gleams in the daylight, fully exposed.

One more phone, one more voice.

Light refracts within your cornea; you are someone else, somewhere else.

"Operant."

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

"Go on, Hersh. You'll give us away."

"Spare me the bleating you call an accent and listen up: metoprolol, you eunuch-diddling Azzurri. That's what I paid for -- not atenolol!"…

You return to the faded billboard.

"Back again."

"I believe... this is where I'm supposed to offer you a deal."