This Is Not A Nightmare: A welcome to The City

[Cain]

You're not sure how you came to be here, in this stinking port, putting in among the oil drums and dark containers, with shit and filth lying deep on the ground.  You don't remember who got you the ticket, or how he came to find or, the name of the captain who was sworn to secrecy or the members of the crew who bought you your meals.

Its hideously different, yet frighteningly familiar.  You're mouth is dry with an odd sense of fear as you wipe away the cold sweat at your brow, wishing the fog would clear.  There is no picturesque view here, nothing that is to be seen on the television screens or the travel guides.  This is not your home, yet it is so similar...as if a schizophrenic had taken a copy of the country you once knew, and laid it over the reality, a land ruled by shadows and steeped in secrecy, where unknown figures avoid the light and crawl through the mess.

Taking a step off of the boat, you take a deep breath, then choke on the smoky black air, hidden in the misty shroud of the fog.  There are men unloading crates of 'butter', dressed in black fatigues and watched over by men with rifles.  You look back to the sea for a moment, the ocean waves possible of hiding all sorts of monstrosity, both human and unnatural.  Boxes spill open on the port, spreading white powder, clinking bullets and other hideous items of death, destruction and addiction.

This is not your home, not the way you remember it.  It has a different economy, a different trade base.  Even a different government.  In the quiet clubs, Mafia Dons mix with P2 Masons, exiled generals and boardroom CEOs mix drinks and share jokes with rogue intelligence officers, while SS scientists and private bankers share a tale or two.  The shadow population is in control here.

You need a drink, badly.  You walk down streets paved in freshly laundered gold, taken from the private collections of despots and hidden in off-shore bank accounts, meanwhile live TV broadcasts and newspaper boys shout only Dada like gibberish, in a mockery of what would pass for information.  You stumble and nearly fall through a battered and beaten door, aged not by virtue of being around for a long time, but merely through damage, into a smoke filled and dusty bar.  Pulling yourself up, you walk towards the bar, steps unsteady.  The bartender notices you, his eyes picking you out of the gloom.  As you make your way to a seat, he stops trying to clean the dirty glass and instead turns to you, ready to speak.

,ÄúHey kid, welcome to the City.  Sit yourself down, you look like you could use a drink.,Äù

[LMNO]

Speaking of The City, how's the rest of that fiction coming?

[Cain]

Um....yeah.  I might get some done this weekend, actually.  I know what I want to write, its just a matter of working out the details, then actually, you know, writing it.

[LMNO]

That last part always hangs me up, too.


LMNO
-has at least 3 more chapters, plus the thrilling conclusion, in his head.