Conversation · Joyce Messier

"Many of the RCM's fashions, even weapon preferences, borrow heavily from classic Vespertine cop shows. My precinct alone has three officers who go by the name Ace..."

"But please -- do continue this reality-exploration. I was just remarking."

"Yes, let's..." She settles down -- still a quivering smile on her face.

"What's so funny about that?"

"Nothing, nothing, it's just..." She wipes a tear from her eye. "True, that's all. The uniforms, the language... Let's have another question about reality, shall we?"

"I don't know, I just feel it."

"Ah, yes. That is what counts, I suppose. For my part, I was more of a New girl."

"Okay, now explain the same thing -- but to a child."

"Young people who dye their hair funny colours and wear old people's clothes are stupid and their little rebellion is self-defeating..."

"No, no, I meant something basic about reality."

"Ah, yes. There's something very satisfying about discussing the fundamental facts of reality. Go ahead."

"Where are we?"

"We're in Martinaise, baby."

"Baby?"

"A casual term of endearment popular among the 50+ crowd. It's a disco holdover, pay it no heed."

"I'm a disco holdover myself."

"Ha!" She smiles. "Aren't we all?"

She refers to your corresponding ages.

"Mhm. And what is Martinaise?"

"Martinaise is a district of Revachol." She looks around, her green raincoat flapping in the wind. "A very small district tucked away near the Industrial Harbour. North of the 8/81 and Jamrock."

"You would be excused for not knowing about it. Unimportant, they say. Forgotten even -- shelled to smithereens during the Revolution." She shrugs. "It has its charms, just not this time of year."

"What's the name of this island?"

"Caillou." She looks to the waters. "Imagine a pebble, a smoothed over pebble amidst a great blue sea. Mis-shapen, cracked. The cracks are the River Esperance. We're in the delta of this river, on the sixth branch -- the Martinaise distributary."

It is clear this pebble is of enormous value to her...

...and to Humanity at large.

"You mentioned a sea. What sea is this?"

"It's not really a sea. It's the Bay of Revachol. And the bay feeds into the ocean."

"Are we near the ocean?"

"Yes. We are on an island in an ocean. The world's largest body of water -- the Insulindic."

Known to the early Revacholians as les Immensités Bleues -- The Blue Immensities.

Vast, lukewarm and unknowable. Flowing in and out of sight.

"Okay, that's Martinaise. What's Revachol?" (Continue.)

"Revachol -- Revachol is what you call a city."

"What kind of city is Revachol?"

"The Great kind."

As if it's self-explanatory, beyond patriotism. A fact.

"What makes Revachol great?"

"History, detective. They built this city to resolve History -- our part in it at least, our centuries."

"Okay. Who built this city?"

"The nations of the Occident. Or migrant workers from Semenine and Iilmaraa, depending on your creed."

"When was Revachol built?"

"In the Dolorian century, 380 years ago."

"And why will it resolve History?" (Continue.)

"They say it's where the terrible questions of our time will be answered -- the tensions are highest, the faultlines deepest."

"By that I mean conflicts. Ideological conflicts. The stuff of men."

"Why here?"

"We are standing on a fertile, self-sufficient island able to sustain up to 200 million people; in the middle of the Insulindic ocean -- the world's connective tissue..." She smiles. "It's where the money is."

"So, we're in an unimportant part of an important place?"

"I think it's fair to say so. Martinaise is about..." She points across the water, where the skyscrapers rise...

A sparkle of lights on the night-time horizon, reflected in the dark sea.

"Twenty-two kilometres from the centre of the world. That soldering iron is the Bank of the World building. The bottom floors are INSURCOM -- Coalition Government Insulindian Mission Command."

Look to the sea...

Silence. She lowers her hand.

The water, the light... It's as though you're seeing it for the first time.

There is no recognition. Only the immensity of the sea, and the cold radiating from it.

"I don't know any of this..."

"We are where we are. I have no truer answer to give, unfortunately." She watches you closely as you scan the horizon.

This is one thought you need to complete. Where are you?

"Was there something else you wanted to know? I remember something about a low-down..."

"This has been informative, thank you ma'am. I'm sure my memory-impaired partner has many more questions to ask..." He turns to you. "...about even more fundamental aspects of reality..."