User:Najawin/Sandbox 4

Note
A note is found for Laura Tobin on Resurrection Day from a friend who claims to have reconstituted her entire body, mind and soul, down to its finest details. It suggests to her that she pursue a new career in the City of the Saved, as a private investigator.

Voces Populi
A variety of comments are made, snippets of conversation are heard, some people talking about how they miss the stars and how the city exists in a massive dome, others how the architecture is hopelessly derivative of the prior universe, another talking about the note he found when he was resurrected, various religious ideas, racism is not extinguished in this new world, lectures in a university, and the idea that there are one hundred undecillion stories in the city, if each person only has one.

Book One
A parade of Romans proceeds through the Romuline District, past the Uptime Gate leading back from the city into the universe before, visitors stopping to watch as they honor Civitata, the goddess of the city, and the guests of honor, Scipio Africanus and Gaius Ignotus, the grandson of Cassius. A horse gets loose, and takes its rider, a small child, under the hoof of a rhinoceros like creature before someone pulls them out from under its hooves, unharmed. Moving into the arena, Urbanus Ignotus and his great grandfather, Lucius Cassius Ignotus watch a fight below between cloned humans and constructs, as Cassius remarks to Urbanus, one of his many relatives, that since he's heard that Urbanus has some skill at business, he's being sent to Kempes District to represent the interests of the Ignotian family in a business development taking place there.

Laura Tobin sulked around her Paynesdown office as Rick Kithred enters, telling her that someone is out back, suggesting it might be the antichrist. Rick rambles about how he's been getting information from the creator of the universe they inhabit, and how they created an entity identical to itself in every way, but now they're at war, and have taken incarnate forms, though things have become messy in the communication. As he says this, half listening, Tobin yanks the door open to find a figure in a dark cloak, a tricorn hat and antlers. Rick immediately identifies him as Godfather Avatar, and while Tobin orders him out, he offers her a job, telling her about a citizen of the City who has died within it, Councillor Ved Mostyn. He leaves his number, in case she changes her mind.

Julian White Mammoth Tusk, shaking off a hangover, begins to pull himself together, getting ready for his work for Councillor Mesh Cos, when members of the Great Detective Agency called him, stating they had a sighting of Councillor Cos' daughter, Lon Shel. However, also noting that Julian and Lon used to be romantically involved, they declined to provide further comment without payment from the Councillor, believing Julian to be acting alone. Julian traipsed over to the council house to find quite a commotion, before running into Mesh Cos, who informs him that, yes, Lon Shel has been sighted in the Hensile District, but she has to let him go as her researcher, before telling him that there's something else he can do for her.

Urbanus, as a young scion of house Ignotus, was a priest of Neptunus and Dis Pater, and so gave a brief prayer to each, before traveling to the temple of Civitata and asking the priests for a sacrifice for his journey. After the pig finished squealing, his old tutor, the hermaphrodite slave Tiresias caught up with him, and informed him that he would be accompanying him on his journey.

Tobin rode a tube out of Paynesdown, on her way to her cover story as Councillor Mesh's new researcher, having bought a datafetch with her first payment for the job. The fetch quickly brought her up to speed on the case, such as the biodata analysis showing that it's most definitely a real person dead, and the Councillor was a pseudo masochist, enjoying faking pain being inflicted on himself.

Notes for pages
Julian White Mammoth Tusk is a Neanderthal who used to date Lon Shel and hired the GDA under false pretenses to find her.

The Romuline District is an area of the city run by the Romans, specifically the Ignotian family and Cassius Ignotus. As nobody can be harmed in the city, they sell violence, through spectator sports, veerees, XP simulations, and even cloned bodies which they will pilot to dismember other cloned bodies.

Mesh Cos is a Councillor, described as heartmurmuringly beautiful, a member of the last human species.

Hensile District is where Lon Shel is spotted.

Neptune and Dis Pater have been removed from the main Roman pantheon and made minor gods. Neptune for the seas in the city being effectively ornamental lakes, so much smaller than the rest of the city and not bordering the Romuline, and Dis Pater for the afterlife being different than expected. They've been replaced with Romulus and Civitata, though there was a failed attempt to make Dis Pater the patron god of the Tube system.

Romulus was an Etruscan migrant who founded Rome, later deified, though his mortal self worked as a bouncer in the Namura District.

Vulcanus has been promoted to the Roman god of manufacturing and technology, and Minerva (god) to IT and communications.

Jupiter (god) divorced Juno (god) and married Roma (god), the mother goddess of Rome.

Ved Mostyn was a city Councillor killed by a potent weapon. He was also a member of the Rump Parliament and had (insert proclivities here, can't remember if he was a sadist or masochist).