[Sunday July 5th, 2076; Nightside Market, London Below]
Nightside is a sort of madcap version of the Seattle Crime Mall, with anything and everything for sale or barter. You thread your way through the crowds avoiding the more obvious cons and pick pockets. You are aware of the vaunted security but they seem content to leave you alone and it is only the hawkers that try and engage you in any real conversation…
As you are making your way down to where, reportedly, Nightside dips underneath the Underplex, you pass through a triple height space that is alive with music and applause. Above you, vaulting impossibly across the eight meter void, you catch a fleeting glimpse of the Harlequinade as they perform one of their vaguely comprehensible sagas to the denizens of Below.
With a twisting leap one of them detaches herself from the dance and springs down to land on one foot balanced on the balustrade on the edge of the drop, the other leg tucked up like some demented stork. The masked figure cocks her head and sketches you all a mocking bow before stepping down gently in front of Halfpint’s drone tank…
Expressive gestures trace glowing AROs in the air before you
<Welcome travellers, Hecate has requested that you join your music with our own above>
and she nods at the floor above you where the show is proceeding more and more frenetically…
***
#14