SCG

Gloria’s hand is warm in his, feeling alive and vibrant against the sharp cold gusts of wind that carry across the seafront. They stand side by side, looking out at the waves, which glisten and shine in dappled sunlight.

“It’s beautiful,” he says. He steals a glance sideways, drinking in her face in portrait, glowing radiant in the bright light. “You’re beautiful.”

She laughs, tilting her head back as he admires her. “Stan, you’re too pure for this world.”

“I prefer to think of myself as a dedicated observer of universal truths.”

In the town at the foot of the mountain, men descended on the ethnic group not like a marauding tribe of raiders and pillagers, nor like a conquering army. They did not even come at night like assassins.

They came openly, as if daylight made them innocent. They came with paperwork, and orders, and steely-faced men with rifles who stood behind them. They came with authority backed by violence.

They dragged into the street, through apologetic words or unapologetic force, all adult men of the ethnic group. These men, distant rulers had decreed, were traitors to the nation.

Kenji’s tshirt was displaying an infinitely looped three-second video of a cat misjudging a jump and falling, suddenly graceless, like a dropped log. It was mesmerising, holding the attention once captured: a meme in the viral sense, an eyeworm that would just not let go. Parvati felt she could have watched it a thousand times, and on the train she probably had.

Elsewhere the shirt might have seemed gaudy, but in the context of New Shinjuku it was a drop in the ocean of visual noise. Around them towers soared upward into a cool night mist. Every surface seemed plastered with at least one layer of screens, and every one blared advertisements forth, desperate to attract eyeballs. Night was transformed into neon day, the streets lit with artificial light of every conceivable colour.

On the largest screen Parvati could see, a truly vast display that stretched hundreds of metres away from her and Kenji, stylised human figures trudged along, and as they walked their backs straightened and smiles grew on their faces. The backdrop changed from dull and muted greys and browns into brighter and warmer tones as the cartoon walkers approached their destination: a shopping centre named ‘The Palace of Dreams’.

CANDIDATE AE67FE-001101: Male. 31.9 cycles. Region: ‘North America’ { 37.7749° N, 122.4194° W }. Tracked disciplines: folk audio, digital play, musician { strings, digital }. Status: monitoring.

CANDIDATE JD93UY-101000: Female. 11.2 cycles. Region: ‘East Asia’ { 37.8735° N, 112.5627° E }. Tracked disciplines: play, social observation. Status: monitoring; administering neural accelerators.

CANDIDATE BA89IV-011100: Male. 78 cycles. Region: ‘Australasia’ { 35.2809° S, 149.1300° E }. Tracked disciplines: none. Status: close monitoring, neural degeneration.

CANDIDATE UI59DE-111011: Male. 36.0 cycles. Region: ‘South Europe’ { 40.8518° N, 14.2681° E }. Tracked disciplines: social exploitation, trade interactions, domination. Monitoring: sociopathy. Addendum: active study { ‘Proximate Relationships and Social Hierarchies in Terran Economic Systems’ }.

CANDIDATE II49AH-011010: Transitional. 19.1 cycles. Region: ‘North America’ { 47.6062° N, 122.3321° W }. Tracked disciplines: electronics. Status: monitoring.

CANDIDATE UJ02XV-110011: Male. 26.4 cycles. Region: ‘Africa’’ { 26.2041° S, 28.0473° E }. Tracked disciplines: communication, information composition/dissemination. Status: monitoring. Addendum: active studies { ‘Hepatic Disease Rates in Cultural Producers’ ; ‘Non-Binary Theory and Obsessive-Compulsive Tendencies: Terrans’ }.

CANDIDATE Y6D8J1–110111: Female. 21.1 cycles. Region: ‘North Europe’ { 51.5073° N, 0.1273° W }. Tracked disciplines: none. Status: monitoring. Addendum: manual monitoring { station #6399 }.

{ BRK: INITIATE READER PROTOCOL Y/N ? }

Pieterlub shifts uncomfortably in the cold air of his cell, drawing his robes closer. His breath mists, lit flickering by the few candles that dot the shelves and bureau.

“Don’t delay!” squawks the pale yellow bird perched on Pieterlub’s left shoulder. “Nightmares sense fear!”

“Hush, Huginn,” he replies. He fishes a seed from the recesses of his robe and passes it up to the parrot. He passes another to the green parrot on his right shoulder, which ululates softly in his ear.

Pieterlub’s fingers tighten around the journal he clasps to his chest. The focus of his gaze remains, has always been, the watercolour before him. It has been painted onto a simple two by three foot canvas. It makes good use of colour and light; the techniques used are fashionable but executed with confidence.

Your hands ache and torn cuticles bleed. Callouses are beginning to develop on your fingers, but you still envy the English workers, who work with gloves. Your back also aches, and you wonder how many hours you have spent under the hot sun.

For a moment you pause and surreptitiously look around you, stretching out your spine. To your left and right are long lines of workers, backs stooped, reaching down to grasp cabbages and haul them from the earth. You see white workers, perhaps English, perhaps European. It is hard for you to tell, because you do not share any common language.

You turn your head further, glancing behind you, trying to spot the gangmaster. He is stood fifty yards back, mobile phone to his ear as usual, looking toward the other end of the line. His woman isn’t around - probably off having her hair done again in the town. You wonder if you’ll have the time to wash your hair in the river tonight, or if you’ll just be too tired to do more than eat and sleep after today’s shift.