The door clicked shut.

Then clicked again.

Then stopped clicking.

Gogo stared at it.

Dee stared at it.

The door stared back.

“Locked out?” said Dee.

“I appear to be,” said Gogo.

“You got your keys?”

Gogo patted every pocket with great ceremony.

“No.”

“Phone?”

“No.”

“Wallet?”

“No.”

“You leave the flat carrying absolutely nothing?”

“I had a biscuit.”

Dee looked at him.

“Where’s the biscuit?”

“I ate it.”

They considered this.

Below them, Zereth City glowed against the darkness. Trains crossed the sky between towers. Giant holographic saints rotated above the skyline. A surveillance moon drifted silently between clouds.

Dee unlocked his own door.

“Come on.”

“Very kind.”

“I know.”

A few minutes later, they sat on Dee’s balcony overlooking the city.

Two mugs of tea.

One broken table.

Several million people being harvested by systems they didn’t understand.

A pleasant evening.

Far away, something exploded.

Neither man looked up.

“That’s Voragon,” said Dee.

“I dunno about that.”

“It’s always Voragon.”

Another explosion.

“I still dunno.”

They drank.

The city hummed.

An advertisement the size of a cathedral appeared above the skyline.

LOVE IS PRODUCTIVITY.

PRODUCTIVITY IS FREEDOM.

FREEDOM IS MANDATORY.

Gogo squinted.

“They change those every week.”

“Progress.”

“I liked the old one.”

“What was that?”

“CONSUME RESPONSIBLY OR ELSE.”

“Classic.”

A pause.

“More honest,” said Gogo.

Another pause.

A drone passed overhead.

A second drone followed it.

A third drone followed the second.

Then a fourth drone followed the third.

The fourth was being followed by a fifth drone, monitoring whether the fourth drone was following correctly.

“Efficiency,” said Dee.

“I dunno about that.”

The city hummed louder.

The tea cooled.

The stars were hidden behind infrastructure.

Eventually Dee said:

“Do you ever think it’s all nonsense?”

Gogo considered.

“Specific nonsense or general nonsense?”

“General.”

“Oh.”

They watched a transport carrier crawl across the horizon.

The thing was so large it had weather.

Clouds formed around it.

Rain fell from one side.

Lightning struck another.

It continued on its route without apparent concern.

“That’s impressive,” said Gogo.

“It’s ridiculous.”

“Same thing sometimes.”

Dee sighed.

“I mean all of it.”

“The carrier?”

“Everything.”

“The city?”

“Everything.”

“The universe?”

“Especially that.”

Gogo nodded.

The carrier disappeared into haze.

Far away, cathedral sirens began singing the evening algorithm.

Thousands of windows lit simultaneously.

Thousands more went dark.

The city breathed like a machine pretending to be alive.

Or perhaps the other way around.

Dee leaned forward.

“We spend our lives chasing things.”

“Sometimes.”

“We get jobs.”

“Sometimes.”

“We buy things.”

“Sometimes.”

“We fall in love.”

Gogo smiled.

“Sometimes.”

“We lose people.”

Gogo stopped smiling.

Only for a moment.

“Definitely.”

Dee looked down into his mug.

“There was a cup like this in Mara’s flat.”

Gogo said nothing.

“Blue one. Crack near the handle.”

The city went on humming.

“She kept saying she’d throw it away.”

“Did she?”

“No.”

Gogo nodded.

“Good mug, then.”

“No,” said Dee.

A train crossed the sky.

“It leaked.”

Gogo considered this.

“Still.”

Dee laughed once.

Not much.

Then not again.

“We tell stories about why any of it matters.”

“Yes.”

“And eventually we die.”

“That too.”

The city continued existing.

A train crossed the sky.

Another followed.

Another followed that.

Infinite movement.

Infinite purpose.

Infinite justification.

Dee shook his head.

“Maybe there isn’t any point.”

Gogo sipped his tea.

“No point to what?”

“Any of it.”

The old man looked out over Zereth.

The towers.

The lights.

The endless machinery.

The impossible city.

A child laughed somewhere below.

Someone argued from a distant balcony.

Music drifted through an open window.

A cat sat on a rooftop antenna, entirely unconcerned with metaphysics.

Gogo pointed.

“Look.”

“What?”

“The cat.”

“I see the cat.”

“Looks happy.”

“It’s a cat.”

“Exactly.”

Dee groaned.

“That’s not an argument.”

“No.”

“It’s not even philosophy.”

“No.”

“So, what are you saying?”

Gogo thought about it.

A long time.

Perhaps several centuries.

Then he shrugged.

“I dunno.”

Dee laughed despite himself.

“Of course you don’t.”

“No.”

They sat in silence.

The city glittered beneath them.

A trillion lights.

A trillion stories.

A trillion reasons.

Or none.

Dee touched the side of his mug with one finger.

“The crack was here,” he said.

Gogo looked.

“There?”

“No. Other side.”

Gogo looked at the other side.

“There?”

“No.”

Gogo stopped looking.

“Right.”

At last Dee finished his tea.

Set the mug down.

Looked out over the vast machinery of Zereth.

The engines.

The towers.

The advertisements.

The drones.

The endless, hungry systems.

And after exhausting every explanation he had ever found, every story, every philosophy, every rebellion, every god and anti-god, every conspiracy and every hope, he finally arrived at the only conclusion he had left.

“Maybe nothing matters.”

Gogo sat very still.

The city hummed.

A train crossed the stars.

A distant explosion rolled across the horizon.

Finally, the old man shook his head.

“Mara kept the mug.”

Dee looked at him.

“What?”

“The leaking one.”

“Yes.”

“She liked it.”

“Yes.”

“Then I dunno about that.”

The lights of Zereth City continued burning.

As if disagreeing.