Sensors

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

"I'm here to support you, trade agent. What do you need?"

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?"

Three posters stare back at you from the wall. A watchful triad, ready to creep into your midnight's hour.

The cat lounges.

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

The door looms before you once more.

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.

There they all are, just as you left them.

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."

The mould's tendrils rise gently as you approach.

"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."

A metal number is nailed on the door, reading #2.

Old metal groans into the void. Acoustics suggest a fifty metre drop.

A saucepan half full of black cigarette butts.

'VISITORS. PLEASE USE INTERCOM.'

A weak AC fan struggles overhead.

Looks dirty, but the seams are spotless. That suit's inspected regularly.

Phosphor etched across the screen: a spectral rocket, all systems clear.

The surface of the window bends light oddly.

A hypersensitive security system. Hopefully nobody can afford it.

A cluster of torn blister packs for a gore-slick card game.

A flash of yellow catches your eye.

Think, operant. If you were you, what would you get up to?

This place is not as you left it. The world moved on behind your back.

Murmurs drift from the apartment balcony above.

Faint smell of coffee.

The remnants of industry.

Fragments of an enraged female voice escape from the receiver.

A swarm of tiny, nearly invisible crabs skitter over rebar and concrete.

Sunlight never reaches these apartments.

Shrimp noodles.

The unnatural and somehow high-pitched smell of burnt plastic.

Still smells like fire.