~Bartender another Irish Whisky please
So my last post was a rant. I want to do something different now. I have a book I have been writing for a while - finished an act of it and I am realising just how much I have left to learn. I thought "Hey, why not share it with you all"
So sit back and enjoy :)
Welcome…
To the man who will read this and not remember writing it: My name is Bram. Your name is Bram.
I am on the afternoon train to the Banks of the Isles to withdraw the rest of our life savings, because I reached the 10,000 token cap this morning buying this notebook. Holding it in my hand, feeling the grain of it under my thumb, one would think I'm a king. Of course, Greymarket has no kings anymore, or so White-Town likes to say. I got it from Lou's Antiques on Barb Street. Lou is a cheery sort of guy, plump like a freshly baked pie - he sure smells like one. He always likes it when I come to his store. I like asking him about all the stuff he has in there.
This one time, I walk in there after work and see this black thing standing in the middle of the wood scented room. The colour and shine of the main body jut out from the woody, rusted background. It’s a massive, cylindrical object with wheels and one open end. It looks heavy as hell. I asked him what it was. He said, “Bram my boy, that right there is something most of us have never even heard of, but ought to have. It’s called a Qannon or sometimes a Kaan. Rare piece of machinery. I got it for this guy from the Boulevard. He’s paying me quite a sum for this. Given he lives so close to the bank I expect the money pretty soon huh?” He starts guffawing, his meaty stomach heaving like giant bellows and thunderous sounds coming out his mouth. I like Lou, he tells me all sorts of interesting stuff and is always happy to have me over in case I want to figure something out. Remember Lou.
The notebook itself. It's this textured, fragrant thing. I keep bringing it to my nose without meaning to — it smells of something old and warm. Lou told me it was made of paper, which is apparently made from wood, which explains the cost I suppose. On the inside it's just empty. Page after page of nothing, waiting for me to fill it. The spine creaks when I open it wide, which doesn’t sound right so I shall avoid doing that.
(By the way, random tangent, ForBram is my name but everyone just calls me Bram for some reason. I’m tired of explaining this to people. So what if it is weird, it’s 42% of my name you’re ignoring)
Anyway. The route of the afternoon train takes me from the Residential Sector through the Lower Crafting Sector. Right now we're travelling along the border of the Business Zone, which from here looks like a vast orange maze of banners and carts and streets. Doesn't smell nearly as bad from the train. The train itself does everything it can to not match that colour scheme. Vibrant bluish-green on the outside, polished like hell to reflect the places it passed by. On the inside it smells of berries. I can look at the floor and see myself, in my autumn-themed scarf and jacket and boots, writing in a notebook. I am probably the only person outside of White-Town with one. I am certainly getting stares. This one lady sitting across from me, and an old man in the corner of the car. The lady, I think, works the evening shift at the Banks, she wears that fruity perfume they all wear. It's become so associated with the Banks that nobody else uses it. The old man I can't place.
I will approach the immigration check for the Uppe Crafting sector from where I can go to the Banks on the outskirts of White-Town. I have roughly 2 hours.
While I wait, I’ll just write down all the context that I have swirling around in my head so that whatever knowledge pushed me on this path keeps me on this path post-wipe.
Context
Everyone in Greymarket - and some say Blackmarket too - has been having their memories wiped. Every seven days, like clockwork. Clean. Total. Pristine. No one remembers why it happens, but everyone just goes along with it. Every time it happens, people treat it like a change in weather and move on. It boggles my mind. Every time I bring it up, people tell me to "let go of it" and "stop asking stupid questions."
We’ve created a lot of ways to bypass this recurrent amnesia. Usually, we each have tokens for all the things we need to remember in life - managed by the Banking Isles. They have the largest repository of Remnant Technology and use it to monitor and manage money and tokens. Gods know where we got them from or who taught us to use them, but the system works. I have already ruled out the fact that the amnesia was a one time thing. I found a hyper-personal token that described some form of figuring this out. So it must be recurring. Seems logical.
The plan is… well, previous me didn’t get that far. All I know is, I needed to get a notebook, which I did earlier this morning. It hurt me to see a third of my money go, but it needed to be done. Next, I get the rest of my money and then start digging for information.
Ok the bit about the old man is bugging me now, I can’t leave it unresolved. I’ll just go over and ask him…
I went up to him. "Excuse me, sir. I was wondering, I saw you from over there and I'm just curious. Where are you headed?"
First he told me to ‘bugger off’. On further cajoling, he softened. He was a craftsman who, along with his wife, used to make chess pieces for the tourneys. "Forty years we made them, me wife an' I," he said. "That is un'ill she had to go and get herself killed. Now I donne even remember what she looked like, or smelled like, or sounded like."
He paused. He was looking at the floor of the train, at his own reflection in the silver, his eyes glazed over. He looked back up..
"Now I need to go and make chess pieces alone."
I opened my mouth. I was gonna say something.. Something about how sorry I was, or how unfair it seemed, or how I understood. But I didn't understand. And this whole thing made me deeply restless and uncomfortable. So I closed my mouth and told him I was extremely sorry and went back to my seat
The thought wouldn't leave me. After a while, I tried to see his situation. I tried to picture it. Someone important enough to shape your whole life, and then just… poof. I don’t think I got very far. I looked out the window instead.
Right, we’re pulling into immigration check and this small, all black, neatly dressed little man with shoes that make these weird clackety noises as he walks is clacking down the train checking tokens. I have mine and it still works… I hope. Oh wait he’s coming to me.
As hoped my token worked. Now we just wait for another half hour for the inspection to be done and then we get to move on. I’m going to take a nap.
Banks of the Isles
I was woken up by the kind bank lady who was sitting next to me. The train station is split in two - one side goes toward the White-Town Imports section and the other goes towards the Banks of the Isle. The station itself looks magnificent Marble - I recognise from Lou’s - with a bit of gold along the edges. The marble was stained with all sorts of hues and tints - light pinks and greens, mesmerising turquoises and violets, deep scarlets running through it all.
I took the path to the Banks. It led me through a tunnel, lit with gas lamps and that smelled dank and mossy at the beginning but turned into the fruity Banks smell as I neared the end. There was so much crowd I felt like a drop in a river, thankfully the lanes for going and coming are separated, though a great many pickpocketings happened at the fence separating the two. I exited the tunnel through some stairs and was greeted by the brightest sunshine I’d seen in a while.
Everything looked… clean, crisp and airy is the best I can describe it. Completely unlike Greymarket that always had this thickness in the air that wore you down just that tiny bit and that seemed to dull your senses. It was this big open plaza with gardens and footpaths and in front of me I could see the three towering Banks of the Isles buildings, tapering away into the distant sky like glass shards that went to the clouds.
The teller was this twig of a man who somehow had the twirliest bush of a moustache you'd ever see, and he had me hop through a million hoops to get my account emptied. Apparently it's for "safety" but I suspect it's because they don't know any other way, given how unknowable these remnant computing systems tend to be. An hour later I walked out of the bank with 20,000 bucks in gold. I felt like a burglar.
I found a cafe where they were brewing coffee. I'd always wanted to taste one. It's good - this smooth, bitter thing with a hint of sourness. The colour was deep and captivating and the smell was something to die for. I've heard from Nan that they used to have coffee in the Banks that would keep you up all night. "Now," she says, "all they have is brown sock juice." I still think it tasted quite nice.
I sat there with my hands around the warm cup and my notebook open beside me and watched the people of the Banking Isles pass. They say you can see anyone and everyone here. The average craftsman, with their heavy hammer or their thin satchel of scalpels, coming to deposit their allowance before they forgot. The high-born White-Towner who's come to transfer money to another White-Towner in exchange for some luxury we'd never see in the light of day. If you're keen enough, you can catch the glint of a Blackmarket goon's eye - it often has a slight bluish quality. I didn't find one. I finished the coffee, and for a moment I was simply sitting there in clean air, in warm light, writing in a notebook that smelled like old wood.
I didn't want to leave. I left.
On the train home, I planned.
I need muscle. I have no idea how deep this goes but I want someone scary-looking beside me. I look like a wire. Second, I want a butter-fingers - someone light-handed. It seems handy to have one, and every team in Lou's historical stories has a thief. Once I get those, I'll make my way to White-Town. Someone there is bound to be interested in the same thing I am, and even if they're not, they're likely to have some strange artefact or piece of knowledge that helps.
Next steps: set up a stall in the Business Sector. Get my team.