[b]The Twilight Market![/b]

The Annunaki don't believe in idle hands. All must labour to strengthen the Great Chain. Idleness is freedom, and freedom is an abomination, so purpose will be found for all - even if it is as one of the multitudes kneeling for ten hours a day in the great cathedrals to the Gods. During the day the streets are clean, wide and open - the luxury of space and solitude afforded to those atop the Chain. It is only when the sun rests that the teeming mass of humanity is hurled out onto the streets en-masse. During this liminal moment of contact and transition the Twilight Market forms - slow-moving street stalls run by vendors on their ways back to their homes. Only a scarce few hours exist for this trade before the streets empty out again - this time because of crime rather than the whip. In between has to fit the entire human cultural experience. People make do.

There are the Scrapmongers, those rickshaws heavy and laden with kitchen scraps left over from the Annunaki's feasts - sugars and berries and tarts turned stale or over-ripe but still desperately sought by those who can't stand another day of the gruel. There are the Sharpeners, those fleeting shadows who offer broken weaponry to those terrified for their safety or plotting doomed rebellion. There are the Gossip-Shouters, carried atop the shoulders of their fellows, calling out the news of the day, reading lists of births, deaths and missing persons. There are the Chainsmiths, who have enough connections with the authorities to arrange for a soul to be moved to a different place on the Great Chain. New times call for new occupations and the market has a way of adapting.

There are old occupations too. Canada rides her bicycle rickshaw, pulling along her mobile workshop with its sides plastered with photographs. Smiling faces, pictures of cats or beautiful places or angles of the landscape and sky that are not yet filled with the grandeur of Annunaki architecture. Bicycles are more in demand - a customer will take over pedaling her rickshaw while she takes their bike up into the workshop in the back to work on - but that is only because pictures are so expensive. The chemicals she requires to develop them are irreplaceable, and besides, few even have access to a camera. But it, too, is known that she makes exceptions for the needy and there's oftentimes a small cluster of children following her cart and speculating loudly about the people and places in the coveted photographs. They do their best to come up with heartrending explanations for what those wonderful photographs mean to them - [i]"that bowl of soup was made out of my best friend, Ricksty the Dinosaur, oh I wish someone would give me that picture so I could remember him,"[/i] - but playful imaginations and unpracticed deceptions made the attempts at begging more comedic than sad much of the time.

Today there are no freebies. Today is a time for bargains of her own. She's not looking to just get by this time - she's looking to acquire, and a photograph goes a long way in the modern economy. Her eyes gleam with feline hunger as she haggles with the Chainsmith, stepping to the offense with uncharacteristic intensity. The picture of the smiling Ugandian man isn't [i]his[/i] beloved, but he looks close enough to make it too precious to pass up. Hands are shaken and promises are exchanged and a little scrap of chemically treated paper changes hands in a strange echo of how commerce used to function. For a strange echo of how love used to function.

Of how it would function again.

She felt bad for playing on his emotions. She felt bad about the moment when she'd hinted that the picture might wind up with one of the children - a particularly loud and obnoxious one - if it didn't get sold soon. She'd talked about his beloved in the past tense. She hadn't warned him that she intended to use this connection for rebellion and that it might get traced back to him. She'd built a false sense of urgency and then gouged the man for everything she could get and it felt [i]cruel[/i]. 

But that was the cost of wishes. 

She had to change the world. She [i]had[/i] to. [i]Whatever it takes[/i], the Cat had said. Everything she had broken needed to be put right and it started here, with the access a bribed Chainsmith could get her and the Phantom Thieves.

She just needed to make sure she was too tired to dream. If she trained hard enough she could outrun even the nightmares. If she ran just fast enough she might outrun the person she was afraid she might be becoming.