The Cast

"Department of Network Casting maintains a file on every figure below. The files are complete. The Department notes that complete is not the same as candid."

Ten named figures work the Bazaar. Six sell you something, teach you something, or send you somewhere. Four will kill you, and one of those four smiles at you in the plaza first.

Guild Row

Mr. Albright — Faraday & Sons

Behind the pinstripe awning and the velvet rope, in the best-lit interior on the floor. Old-money tailor's voice, dignified, mildly disapproving of haste. He runs the only bespoke shelf in the run — seven pieces nobody else stocks — and the shelf opens by degrees as Faraday & Sons decides you're worth the risk.

His commission, A Measurement Requires Precision, wants two components and no substitutes. His Casting File notes that the Department has requested his ledger four times, and that Faraday & Sons has answered each request with a watch.

Dr. Synthesis — NeuroSync

The tent that asks how you really are. Warm, measured, faintly off — a sponsor product doing an excellent impression of a therapist. His shelf is short and his premium stim needs NeuroSync standing. Buy it and you build more.

His file records that sessions in the tent are confidential per NeuroSync policy, and also that they are transcribed, tagged and retained per NeuroSync policy.

Felicia Brand

The corner that sells nothing. Felicia was a Concourse Resident and is not one now; the Residency line on her file is struck through, not deleted, and the initials on the strike are illegible. She trades information for stories about other runners — bring her broadcast clips and she pays in the only currency she has left.

She is what you become if you win and then fall. Every warm thing on this floor is standing on top of that.

Captain Wray — the Town Watch

Broad, grey, cropped to regulation, an old scar she has never filed. She keeps the peace, remembers your name, and will deputize a capable runner for small civic tasks. The market is safe because of her.

Her file observes that the Watch's escort rotations and the conscription pens' supply schedule are the same document under two headers, that no one has asked her to reconcile them, and that she has not offered. The audience is shown the captain who keeps the town safe.

Her chain, Keeping the Peace, is the longest on the floor and it ends behind the muster door.

The Commons

Phil

The weather presenter, unassigned, in a small shack with a forecast board. He reads atmospheric conditions this floor does not have. Three of his last four forecasts matched the flicker log to the hour; Programming has been notified and Programming has not replied. His suit is pressed daily for a program that is not in the lineup.

Mr. Whiskerton

A children's-show mascot in a costume that doesn't fit, from a show the Network has scrubbed. He works the Commons and the market — wherever children would be, though there are none. The costume's maker's mark belongs to the Network costume shop. The costume shop denies the pattern.

He has asked the Department, in writing, after a colleague from the same program. The reply has been drafted for some time.

The Pinnacle duel attendant

Runs the ring on the Commons' outer edge. Chits on the line, nobody in a box. See The Duel Ring.

The Loading Docks

Karen — Pop-Up Personnel

Clipboard energy, a different sheet on it every time anyone looks. She hands out placements, pays in chits and vouchers, and never stops having openings. Her booth sits at the town's edge so that the stairs down are just past it.

The Department's copy of her ledger records placements as opened. It has no column for closed. Her own file notes that she has never used the stairs.

The four who aren't friendly

Stats, schedules and drops for all four are on What's Out There.

Next → Commerce & Standing — what everything costs, and who has to like you first.

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