[b]Caphtor![/b]

You have ten thousand eyes with which to see. You are a panopticon with ADHD; you witness and do not understand, are not allowed to understand. You drift in and out of a wider consciousness.

This is what you witness: damage to the Arena of Shamash. You wake labor crews, reroute them to the scene of destruction beyond the ruined gates, instruct them to contact a supervisor if they find body parts under Edict of the Gods. It is a very big mess. Let’s cleaning!

This is what you witness: the council of the city, with raised voices, demanding information from your magnet-mired recollection. Is Set one woman or many, they ask. Why did you not raise an alarm, they ask. Where is Set now, they ask. You do not have answers. You don’t know things about Set! You could, if you were awake, make very accurate guesses based on evidence... but you are not allowed. The wines are heavy about you. Caphtor is not allowed to awaken.

This is what you witness: janissaries arresting every slave without a work pass who dares be out of their domiciles. Inquisitors in purple and black, who make demands of you that you can more readily answer. You are their hawk in the sky, their eyes that bring down the prey. You dutifully record names and tracking numbers for them on a tablet inside the Temple of Ereshkigal.

This is what you do not see: in an armory slave’s quarters, Tirzah ab-Marduk of the House of Blue Stone runs her fingers sightlessly over developed photographs, alone in a cramped room. You do not witness her. She has turned your gaze away; the night belongs to her and that room.

This is what you do not see: three girls having terrible coffee in Casa du #MAT, a forgotten alcove in your depths fortified into a studio apartment, a den of cracked tablets and mystic wires, a parasite deep inside you learning your darkest secrets. There is exhausted, incredulous laughter when a fleet key is revealed: the missing piece of a great work.

This is what you do not see: a brilliant man, wondering why he was released from his work for the cult of Enki, accepting a hot dumpling from his new roommate: farm worker by day, she says, bouncer by night. He won’t see her often; keep the place clean and keep your head down...